Product Owner vs Product Manager: Key Differences Explained

What is a Product Owner?

The product owner is an Agile and Scrum team member who is primarily responsible for optimizing the team's value by ensuring that the team backlog is aligned with the needs of customers and stakeholders. As part of the extended Product Management function, the PO serves as the team's main customer advocate and liaison to business and technology strategy. This enables the team to continuously improve the solution while balancing the demands of multiple stakeholders. Ultimately, by managing the product backlog, the product owner aims to optimize a product's value.

What is a Product Manager?

A product manager concentrates on product strategy to develop, market, and sell a certain good or service and agilely gather input regarding it. They monitor consumer behavior and business trends that either directly or indirectly affect the organization or product.

Product managers' responsibilities and obligations depend upon the performance of a product, service, or product line. They are responsible for connecting the business, technical, and design groups and leading the planning of a company's product or feature. They manage relationships, tasks, and resources in the overall process, from product strategy to launch and beyond.

Key Responsibilities of a Product Owner

The main responsibilities of a Product Owner are:

Overseeing The Backlog of Products

The product owner is mainly in charge of creating and communicating the product goal and organizing the backlog to optimize business value. Typically, a product owner collaborates with Scrum and Agile team members and other individuals familiar with customer demands. The product owner must guarantee continual alignment by making the backlog list public, clear, and accessible to all stakeholders.

Understanding The Value of the Product And The Needs of Consumers

Product owners must be aware of their customers and the market's needs. This frequently involves collaborating with product managers to understand the problems they hope to tackle with the product, how customer demands or wishes influenced their product strategy, and what the team considers product success.

Product owners can monitor, control, and enhance the value they obtain from their distribution by utilizing the Evidence-Based Management framework. Additionally, they can choose an incremental and iterative approach that reduces risk and helps them make informed judgments.

Effectively Communicating With The Product's Stakeholders

The product owner is the main liaison and communicates with teams and stakeholders. By clearly communicating, they ensure that all significant choices and strategies have the support of the stakeholders and that the development team has instructions and deliverables.

Key Responsibilities of a Product Manager

The main responsibilities of a Product Manager are:

Prioritizing Features

Product managers are responsible for specifying the ideal user experience and product needs. They must work closely with the engineering teams to ensure that cross-functional teams are sufficiently informed of the required knowledge to launch a finished product successfully into the marketplace. Even as product managers deliberate on difficult trade-offs, they must carefully weigh these features and the benefits the company and its customers will glean from them.

Formulating And Communicating Strategic Plans

As a product manager, one of the most effective communication tools is developing and revising your product roadmap. A product roadmap helps to stay on track by showing how the product will accomplish business goals. Executives typically want to know the high-level plans, whereas engineers and designers must grasp the precise scheduling and sequencing of critical tasks.

Collaborate With Product Marketing For Product Launches

Product or feature releases, particularly significant ones, are one area of the PM's job that calls for collaboration with the marketing team.

They assist with positioning and messaging during the pre-launch phase to best communicate the product's unique selling points to the intended audience. This includes customer segmentation and creating notes and marketing materials representing the brand image.

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Skills Required for a Product Owner

The skillset required to excel as a Product Manager is:

Communication Skills

Excellent communication skills are one of the most important things that product owners need to communicate effectively with stakeholders at all levels and other product owners.

Leadership

An outstanding product owner who possesses exceptional managerial skills. They can manage individuals and organizations, help and grow others, and accurately communicate visionary goals through narrative.

Presentation Ability

Presentation skills are essential for communicating product ideas to external stakeholders, such as investors or customers.

Analytical Skills

Prioritization is necessary for backlog control, and a product owner must approach this process analytically. The product owner must ascertain their importance, pertinence, and connection to other backlog items to prioritize devices.

Skills Required for a Product Manager

The skillset required to excel as a product manager is:

Thinking Strategically

By establishing attainable goals that align with more general corporate objectives, a product manager with strategic thinking skills may ensure that every feature created and updated advances the product's overall vision.

Market Knowledge

In addition to analyzing quantitative data, market sensitivity entails gaining a qualitative comprehension of user input and market narratives. A product manager may ensure that the product stays competitive and relevant by monitoring these changes and guiding it in ways that take advantage of market possibilities while avoiding potential hazards.

Data Analysis

Product managers must transform massive volumes of user interactions, performance indicators, and market data into valuable insights to make well-informed decisions.

UX/UI Design

Understanding UX/UI design principles guarantees that the user experience is considered when making product decisions. This results in products that are user-friendly, accessible, and intuitive.

Product Owner vs Product Manager: Key Differences

Identifying the difference between a product owner vs product manager is something many businesses and entrepreneurs have tackled. One source notes the ambiguity of the terms, seeing as an “owner” often outranks the “manager” in most businesses. In contrast, other sources acknowledge that the similarities between the two are so apparent that the terms are often used interchangeably.

The difference falls somewhere in the middle—the duties of the product owner and product manager overlap, but they each have their own distinctions and training. This is exactly where Scrum training becomes important.

Product Owners

“Product owner” as a term is derived from Scrum, a framework used for creating and supporting complex products. According to the official Scrum Guide, a product owner is someone who’s “responsible for maximizing the value of a product resulting from the work of the Development Team.”

The product owner role is part of the Scrum team itself and has a specific duty to carry out. As Scrum uses a framework to create and support complex products, it follows that it uses a system of tasks and keeps score using some form of product management software or tool. The product owner fits into the mix by prioritizing these tasks for the workers or engineers. To keep the ball rolling, the product owner needs to maintain a good list so that engineers have the right tasks to work on for the ultimate end product.

Product Owner Duties Include: 

• Convert the project manager’s vision into pragmatic tasks
• Convert these tasks into daily duties for workers
• Compose user stories for the development team
• Organize work in the backlog

Necessary Skills for Product Owners

To be a successful product owner, one has to hold and hone a number of skills. These skills will not only make operations run smoothly, but they’ll also help bring in more customers so that the business can grow. The Scrum Alliance notes that all great product owners should be the following:

Provider of Excellent Customer Service

Part of being a product owner vs product manager is knowing how to take care of customers. While a large part of the work is administrative, you also need to know what the customer needs before they do. This means thinking critically, coming up with solutions for modern problems, and being available at all times.

Strong Storyteller

Delighting the customer is a large part of a product owner’s job, and this can be done through great product storytelling. Product storytelling means thinking about the user stories sent to developers, and really fleshing them out. Don’t just think about the story – think about which aspects of the story will speak to and delight customers.

Information Liaison

The product owner is responsible for the product backlog and acts as the middleman between the development team and stakeholders. As a liaison, the product owner helps foster collaboration between the developers and the people they need to talk to (stakeholders, other developers, etc.) so that the final product is always correct. 

Problem Solver

Issues will arise in product development over everything from resources to politics. A good product owner must have the strength and wherewithal to engage with the development team and other parties when conflicts arise. Keeping the product moving forward is the top responsibility, and conflict resolution is useful.

Product Owner Career Paths 

The most straightforward career path for a product owner vs product manager in the Scrum framework is to go from owner to manager. However, there are other paths to take when paired with the right certification. These include: 

• Business Analyst
• Product Manager
• Project Manager
• Chief Executive Officer

Product Manager

The product manager determines and prioritizes what to build next. In other words, they keep things moving when one product is finished by moving on to the next. Overall, the product manager is a holistic role with high-level responsibilities that cover the entirety of the product life cycle, from customer awareness to product delivery. 

In addition to product management duties, a successful product manager is also a strong leader, customer spokesperson and liaison, product visionary, and team player.

Product Manager Duties Include: 

• Identify what users need through user research and share critical insights for next steps
• Unite the team around a comprehensive action plan
• Produce the complete vision for the product’s life cycle
• Choose which feature to begin building next
• Deliver a product that functions well and meets customer expectations
• Support the team, partners, and stakeholders to ensure the vision, plan, and strategy for the product run smoothly

Necessary Skills for Product Managers

To be a top product manager, there are certain skills (both soft and hard) needed for optimal success. Some skills are developed in school, others occur naturally from life experience, and still others that can be developed through certification programs and advanced learning. They include: 

Excellent Communication Skills

To successfully manage a product throughout its lifecycle, product managers must be able to relay directions, objectives, tasks, and priorities to their colleagues.

Business Experience

A basic understanding of business is necessary, such as how to handle profits, budgeting, cash-flow, and other components of product development. 

Technical Expertise

Many product managers have to work with software, apps, and other tech resources. Having a strong understanding of how to do this goes a long way. 

Prioritization Skills 

To complete tasks and move a product smoothly through its lifecycle, prioritization skills are a must. Knowing which goals and deadlines should come first, which can wait, and which are highly urgent ensures that all project requirements will be fulfilled on time.

Product Manager Career Paths

A product manager may find themselves in a few different roles throughout their career. The following are the most common next career steps for product managers:

• Associate Product Manager
• Senior Product Manager
• Director
• VP of Product
• Chief Product Officer

Is a Product Manager the Same Thing as a Product Owner?

Given that specific key differences exist between how different companies carry out these roles, it may be challenging to discern between a product owner and a product manager. The degree to which a product is mature, the scale of the organization, the departmental hierarchies, the adoption of Scrum and Agile methodologies, and the business philosophy are just a few examples.

The product manager and product owner share the objective of building and enhancing products that generate significant value for clients and other stakeholders within the business. This often occurs through the delivery and improvement of product features.

Can a Product Owner Also Be a Product Manager?

The product manager identifies user needs, decides what to build next based on priority, and unites the team around a product plan.

The product owner is in charge of building and overseeing the product backlog to maximize the product's value. This individual also contributes to the Scrum process by writing user stories for the development team and representing the client's viewpoint.

The roles and responsibilities of a product manager will vary depending on the situation and the stage of the product. A product owner is a Scrum team member. However, the position is product manager. As a result, one person might carry out both tasks at once.

What Does a Product Manager Focus on?

Product managers must analyze the market and competitors to develop a vision for a product that is distinct from the competition and provides consumers with value that satisfies their needs. The position involves strategic and tactical work and requires cross-functional leadership with groups from other departments, including the engineering team, marketing, customer support, and sales.

A product manager is required for the following actions:

• Investigating how customers use and appreciate a product
• Revealing insights into client feedback on what functions and what does not 
• Which features of a product are necessary and which are not
• Develop a plan of action based on a long-term goal
• Make a roadmap to ensure that the products team stays on the same page at all times
• Decide which features on current items should be added next
• Start developing and delivering the features that clients not only require but also desire
• To ensure that everyone is aligned on the strategy the product needs to be following for success, promote and coordinate with the product team, partners, and stakeholders

What Does a Product Owner Focus on?

It's possible to be misled by the term "product owner." It does not refer to a person who owns the finished product or the business that manufactures it. Instead, it's a word that comes from Scrum, a scaled agile paradigm for creating and maintaining complex products.

Product owners are in charge of maintaining the product backlog. This implies that they are in charge of a list of workable tasks for new features, modifications to current features, bug repairs, etc., to ensure that a team can produce a particular product outcome. The backlog covers all of the tasks an agile team will complete.

The only person in charge of backlog grooming is the product owner. The product owner also performs the following additions:

• Prioritizes the user stories and organizes them in the product backlog by converting client issues and pains into actionable user stories
• To make sure that the development team knows what to work on next, the team builds and prioritizes production processes
• Participates in all Scrum and Agile meetings to make sure that the development activity is in line with the roadmap established by the product manager
• Communicates to the development team the customer's voice
• Gives the product manager input on the validated roadmap

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Product Owner Vs. Product Manager: Do You Need Both?

Product owners and managers both have essential roles to perform within an organization. When the workflow between the two positions is aligned, the product manager and product owner may collaborate easily to create and improve client solutions.

A company developing a large, sophisticated product should ideally be able to hire both a product manager and a product owner who will play distinct but perfectly complementary responsibilities within the product team.

The product manager can keep an eye on the big picture while leading a group of competent employees and interacting with stakeholders outside the company. The product owner will simultaneously be able to handle the daily tasks and make sure you produce a fantastic product.

Product Owner Vs. Product Manager Salary

One aspect to consider when deciding whom a firm wants is salary. This can have potential effects on annual budgets and profit margins. For example, the average yearly salary for a product owner is USD 110,000, whereas the starting salary for a product manager is USD 112,000.

What is the Product Owner Career Path?

When you are a scrum product owner, you have decision-making authority. In addition, you fully own a product. Thus, the future career path will involve additional accountability and duties.

The following is a list of possible career pathways for product owners:

Senior Product Owner

A senior product owner is a product manager with substantial industry knowledge and specialization. To ensure that their ideas are implemented, they oversee the development of new goods and features. Frequently, they collaborate with cross-functional teams.

Senior product owners may also be responsible for maintaining current goods or services. Managing feature upgrades or resolving user-reported issues are two examples of what this may include.

Scrum Master

A product officer can further their career by becoming a scrum master. The scrum master is responsible for the efficiency of the scrum team, which is accomplished by assisting the scrum team in improving its procedures.

Three primary duties of a scrum master are as follows:

• Scrum team leadership
• serving as a mentor and advisor to the PO
• Direct organizational activities, including counseling and education for stakeholders.

Additionally, one of the primary duties of a scrum master is to assist the product owner in devising methods for managing the product backlog.

Portfolio Owner

A product portfolio manager, often known as a portfolio owner, is someone who manages a group of products. Large firms that work on numerous products, components, features, and platforms frequently have this role. A portfolio owner's responsibility is to maximize a product portfolio's value. This involves actively managing the portfolio, working with the product owners responsible for the portfolio's products, harmonizing individual product strategies and roadmaps, aligning major releases, managing dependencies, and assisting in developing a uniform user experience for all of the products. From entering the post, the person will often gain strong product management abilities and successfully manage specific products.

Product Manager

A product manager is a more important position or title than a product owner. A product manager isn't simply concerned with value maximization but also leads and oversees the long-term strategies of the products. A product manager (PM) is an expert in charge of all aspects of a product, software, or service, from conception and creation to its launch and maintenance. A smart product manager knows how to implement a product strategy to provide value to customers and communicate the vision of a product to staff members. The product manager role is more managerial in nature than the technical product officer function.

Product Director

The position that oversees and manages product managers in an organization is called a product director or director of product management. In small businesses, you can succeed as the product owner or senior product owner and immediately advance to the position of product director.

A senior management job known as "product director" is responsible for strategically overseeing all the goods that the company develops. Product directors who subsequently report to the head of the product receive reports from product managers. Because it is a leadership position, most of the time is spent leading, planning, and controlling.

Head of Product

What is the Product Manager Career Path?

The career path of the product manager is:

Associate Product Manager

Associate product managers perform all of the duties of a product manager, although on a lesser scale. While they might not present product plans to the entire organization, they will still be in charge of updating managers and peers.

Senior Product Manager

A senior product manager is a Scrum or Agile professional who can think quickly, take responsibility for their actions, and make data-driven judgments based on various intricate, interconnected issues.

Director of Product

The director of product serves as the company's head of product or the position with the most responsibility for product management. This is more common in startups or businesses that still need to add senior executive positions like CPOs and VPs of products.

Chief Product Officer

The Chief Product Officer (CPO) may oversee multiple VPs of Product and is responsible for the overall product strategy and leadership within larger organizations. Depending on the industry and size of the company, the professional experience requirements for this position can range from 10+ to 15+ or even 20+ years.

How to Become a Product Owner?

To become a Product Owner, start by gaining a strong understanding of Agile methodologies and Scrum frameworks, as the role is integral to managing product development in these environments. A business analysis, project management, or software development background can be beneficial. Obtain certifications like Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) or Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO) to validate your skills. Additionally, develop experience in managing product backlogs, working closely with stakeholders, and translating customer needs into actionable requirements. Networking and hands-on experience with Agile teams also help transition into this role.

How to become a Product Manager?

Pursue a Career as a Product Owner

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FAQs

1. Can one person fulfill both roles?

Completing both tasks might be common if you work for a startup or smaller organization. While the project manager typically supervises the project strategy, schedule, budget, and resources, the product owner is responsible for developing and maintaining the product vision.

2. Who gets paid more, the product manager or product owner?

In India, a product manager earns an average of ₹20.5 lakhs, while a product owner earns about ₹20 lakhs annually.

3. How do product owners and managers collaborate?

For the production process to function well, a product manager needs to establish trusting bonds with product owners and their development teams. This is accomplished by planning frequent check-ins, encouraging two-way communication, and fostering cross-collaboration.

4. How does company size affect these roles?

Product owners and managers can take a more interactive, comprehensive approach in smaller businesses. At the same time, they may play a more specialized role and have a more extensive support staff in larger organizations.

5. Is a product owner higher than a product manager?

Product owners are usually less experienced than product managers, who may supervise several product owners.

6. Can product owners become product managers?

With the right experience, a product owner can transition into a product manager role, as their responsibilities overlap in many areas.