Product Management Vs Project Management

It is very important to learn the difference between “Product Management” and “Project Management”, If you want to be a good product manager.

Despite the similar names, there is a huge difference between product management and project management. Confusing them is common, even among those experienced in product development.

Product Management
• Product managers are responsible for overall success of the product – life time endeavor throughout the life of the product

• Product managers remain to manager the product through the entire lifecycle

• Product manager maintains customer confidence by defining the project goals and guiding the team to accomplish the business objectives that have been defined

• Product managers add a lot of features to meet the observed customer needs

Project Management

• Project managers are responsible for the successful delivery of a project – a one time endeavor with a scope, deadline, budget and constraints

• Once the project to build is completed, project manager moves on

• Project managers usually undertake projects to build a product, to add new features to a product, or create new versions or extensions of a product.

• Project managers keel the scope as small as possible so that the project is delivered on time and under budget

Good product managers and good project managers are able to create a balance of these conflicts.

• Good project managers know that the true success of a project is not whether it is on time and within budget, but whether it meets the defined goals and objectives.

• Good product managers know that all the features in the world will not matter if the project is continually delayed and never makes it to market or if it is too over budget to be completed