PM vs PO
Product Manager (PM) vs Product Owner (PO) · Aspect · Product Manager (PM) · Product Owner (PO) · Main focus · The "why" and "what": market, customers, product strategy · The "what" and "when" for th…
On this board
- Product Manager (PM) vs Product Owner (PO)
- Aspect
- Product Manager (PM)
- Product Owner (PO)
- Main focus
- The "why" and "what": market, customers, product strategy
- The "what" and "when" for the team: backlog and delivery
- Orientation
- Outward-facing: market, users, business
- Inward-facing: development team
- Time horizon
- Long-term: vision, roadmap (quarters to years)
- Short-term: sprints and releases (weeks)
- Key responsibilities
- Market research, customer discovery, product vision, pricing, go-to-market
- Write user stories, prioritize backlog, define acceptance criteria, accept work
- Key artifacts
- Product vision, strategy, roadmap, business case
- Product backlog, user stories, sprint goals
- Main stakeholders
- Customers, executives, sales, marketing
- Dev team, Scrum Master, PM / business stakeholders
- Framework
- Framework-agnostic job title
- A defined role in Scrum / Agile
- Success metrics
- Revenue, market share, retention, customer satisfaction
- Velocity, sprint goal completion, delivered value, quality
- Core skills
- Strategic thinking, market analysis, business acumen
- Prioritization, requirement writing, agile practices
- Key question
- "Are we building the right product?"
- "Are we building the product right, in the right order?"
- Note: in small companies, one person often plays both roles.