So I will just get straight to the point.
The product manager is not necessarily
the Product Owner
I've been asked so many times about the
differences between product manager and
Product Owner. In the product management
community and in the agile community
this topic can be ...
Sacrilegious!
But in this video I will take courage to
explain why the product manager is not
necessarily the Product Owner. Now if you
want to hear my thoughts ... Stick around.
[Music]
To understand the differences between
the two, let's hear a story about Sheila.
Sheila is a successful restaurant owner.
Before owning a restaurant, she started
with running a food truck and had saved
up every single penny to build her own
restaurant for years. After she had
enough money, she finally opened up the
restaurant she had dreamed of. In the
beginning, she had to "manage" everything
on her own ... including managing the
relationship with the suppliers, managing
the community events held at her
restaurant, managing the budget and even
managing the social media accounts. Two
years later, her hard work as a
restaurant owner paid off. Her small
restaurant grew and so did her revenue.
She no longer had to manage everything
on her own. She hired Jane and John as
the first staff to help her with running
her restaurant. Fast forward 10 months
later, her restaurant grew even bigger.
She promoted Jane and John to be the
restaurant manager and hired more staff who
report to them. She delegated some
responsibilities to Jane and John so she
can focus on the strategy to scale her
restaurant even further. Even though she
delegated some responsibilities to Jane
and John, she is still the owner of the
restaurant and still accountable for the
success of her own restaurant. With her
leadership, she was able to open a few
more restaurants in another city several
years later.
Just like a restaurant owner is
accountable for the success of their
restaurant, the Product Owner is also
accountable for the value and the
performance of the product in the market.
A Product Owner may start with several
developers working with them and as time
progresses, more customers are paying for
the product, the product may scale and at
that point in time the Product Owner may
hire more people to help them manage the
technical and the tactical aspect of the
product delivery. The term product
manager already existed before scrum
entered the industry. However, as we can
see, there isn't any consistency on how
companies use the term product manager
hence confusing. If you look at the job
ads for product managers on the internet,
you will find there are varieties in how
it has been perceived.
Due to my curiosity, I sent an email to
Ken Schwaber and asked him why Scrum used
Product Owner and did not use the term
product manager instead. And his
mind-blowing answer was ... "because
ownership goes beyond simple management".
Now let's look at another case .. In this
case, Susan's case.
Susan works at a promising technology
startup company in Silicon Valley. Her
job title in the company is product
manager. Susan reports to Pradeep whose
job title in the company is Head of
Product. Pradeep defines the product
vision, the product goal and the product
roadmap for Susan. Susan only needs to
break down that product roadmap into
detailed Product Backlog items for the
developers. Pradeep is also the one who
manages the budget for the overall
product development and the one
presenting the product performance in
the market to the investors and also to
the stakeholders. Pradeep defines the
business strategy while Susan is only
focusing on the tactical aspects of the
product development. Pradeep often steps
in and over-ride Susan's decision over the
product.
In this case, the Product Owner is
actually Pradeep even though his job
title in the company is Head of Product.
A Product Owner is someone who defines
the product vision and the product goal,
makes strategic decisions for the
product, defines the roadmap, manages the
budget and even communicates to the
investors and the stakeholders about the
performance of the product in the market.
In some cases, the Product Owner may even
justify to the management or the
investors why they need more budget for
the product delivery. As I said earlier,
there isn't any consistency in how the
product manager job title is being used
in the industry. Some product managers
have access to these aspects I have
mentioned before and in that kind of
scenario the product manager is the
Product Owner. In many cases though, the
product manager,
like the title, just manages the product
requirement but does not really have
ownership over the product.
A manager is supposed to report to the
owner just like a store manager reports
to the store owner.
That makes sense.
So how did we end up having a product
manager managing the Product Owner again?
I don't know?
Beats me. I think we in the IT industry
just like messing around with English
semantics. No I think this is because of
SaFE. Yeah I agree with you. It's because
of SaFE. They just messed up with
English. Yeah I'm pretty sure it's
because of SaFE. Yes!
It is because of SaFE. In the context of
Scrum, the Product Owner is not meant to
be a job title. However, we can see many
companies in the industries have made
Product Owner as a job title. There is
nothing wrong with that. But it becomes
very confusing when people with the job
title Product Owner do not really have
ownership over the product.
So the next question you may have is ...
What should you do if you're in a
situation where your job title is
Product Owner but the person who
actually has ownership over the product
is someone else in the higher rank in
the company? Now I suggest that you have
a conversation with people who have
influence on naming job titles and
organiSation structure in your company
to avoid further confusion in your
company. Or even ask them to watch this
video. Product Owner in Scrum is not
just a cosmetic or even a label. It's an
accountability that cannot be taken
lightly. If you haven't watched my video
on Product Owner's accountability, click
the link up here to watch the video. So
that is all from me today folks. Thank
you for watching today's video. Those are
my explanations why i think product
manager is not necessarily the Product
Owner. As I mentioned earlier, this topic
can be ...
Sacrilegious. I can understand why some
people may disagree with me. As for me,
I'm looking at it from an English
semantics perspective not a framework
perspective. And also based on the intent
of the Scrum co-founders behind coming
up with the term Product Owner. Anyway
folks, if you haven't subscribed until
today ... go ahead and subscribe now, go
click that subscribe button down below. I
will see you in the next video. Until
then, don't forget to stay safe and stay
awesome.
Wait! Hang on a second ...
No no no not that safe.
Well you know what I mean right? All
right folks stay safe and stay awesome!