Product & Project Managers: Moving Closer Together?
Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.
A few years ago, I had quite a few people trying to convince me that agile product owners could perform the same job as product managers. They argued that as projects became more focused on enabling business results, so the traditionally technically focused product owner would have enough skills to perform the business-focused role of a product manager.
While I agree that the most business-savvy product owners have the skills and experience to be a product manager, I don’t agree that any individual could do both. Not at the same time. Certainly, if a product owner wanted to make the shift in their careers and become a product manager, many of them would succeed. Just as the more technically minded product managers could become effective product owners.
But for the roles to be combined, no. Not only would that result in an inability to do either role to the best of an individual’s ability (because it was simply too much work for one person), it also results in a potential conflict of interests. There isn’t always perfect alignment between the thinking and prioritization within the two roles.
More closely aligned product and project management
Now, we are seeing closer alignment occurring between project and product management—on all types of projects, not just those delivered using agile techniques. Project managers are becoming more aware of …
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