Blog | Project management versus Product management: what's the difference?
Organisations are increasingly starting with a product idea to structure work rather than a project-based approach. In his blog, Frank Meels shares his take on this based on his experience at several organisations in various project management-related roles. To start with, what are the definitions of project and product management?
Project management: efficiently managing projects
Project management is the term that deals with efficiently controlling projects. Managing projects in a smart way is important for any project-based organisation. The benefits of project management? Your organisation becomes more efficient and will therefore achieve its objectives faster and with higher quality.
Product management: product life cycle
Product management is the management of the total life cycle of a product, from the beginning to the end. It is the profession and responsibility of the product manager who thereby concretely translates the mission and vision of the organisation into business within a given product family.
A Product Owner who understands his trade understands the value of the project-based approach but prefers a product manager mindset and will bring in:
- Create and represent the product strategy and vision.
- Focus achieving value for the customer.
- Continuously balancing between priority, risk, value, learning opportunities and interdependencies to arrive at the next step building step.
- Create and maintain product roadmap with frequent version updates.
- Maximising revenue and Return on Investment.
- Building the right product.
Transforming from project-oriented to product-oriented
The challenge is to transform as an organisation from project-oriented to product-oriented. Because it is a big adjustment for people to start working in a different way, there will be resistance. For people used to working in a certain way for years, change can lead to uncertainty and thus resistance. By letting people decide from within how they want to work and guiding them in this, often the most can be achieved. Sending people on training alone will not achieve the goal quickly.
Although training is an important component, attention will also have to be paid to personal coaching, team building and providing room to experiment. One of the reasons to invest in learning Live Experiences in the initiation phase of a project with the Key Users. In these, the definition of the future way of working is jointly determined.
The greatest success will be achieved with a pragmatic approach. Small adjustments in the way of working rather than drastic changes. Once people see that something works, which is preferably their own input, it will be adopted faster.
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