439: Differences and similarities between product and project management – with Peter Monkhouse

Understanding the roles of product managers, project managers, and product owners

Today we are talking about a frequently asked question, which is how are product and project management related. We’ll discuss the differences and similarities between the two.

Joining us is Peter Monkhouse. He is a product owner and entrepreneur, with NewGenP being his latest company. Peter is an experienced speaker, educator, and consultant with over 40 years of experience leading teams and organizations to deliver value through projects. He has held several roles with the Project Management Institute, including Chair and Director of the Board. Peter’s latest book is Gen P: New Generation of Product Owners who Care about Customers. 

Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers

[2:09] Can you share an example of a project that resulted in a new product?

The definition of a project is a temporary endeavor to create a unique product, service, or result.

One project I worked on was the installation of telephone billing systems. A telephone billing system is a product that a telephone company uses to send you those awful monthly telephone bills. We had a project to customize a telephone billing system to meet a company’s unique needs for their customer and then to install it for them to create the telephone bills. That’s an example of a project being used to create and deliver a product. The telephone company used the telephone billing system to generate invoices to get revenue. That allows them to continue to provide telephone service and add new functions and features to their telephone company.

Every project we’ve worked on has delivered a product. And conversely, if we want to add a new feature to an existing product or create a new product, we’re going to do that through a project.

[5:05] What are the key roles involved in project and product management?

The project manager is the person who leads a team to deliver the product or service. Typically, the project manager is successful when they deliver the product on time, on budget, and within the scope and quality that’s expected by the client or the user.

A project manager typically will report to a project sponsor, someone who is accountable for having that project completed on time, obtains the benefits of the product, and funds the project. A project sponsor could be a product owner or a product manager who owns the product and is worrying about the full lifecycle of the product, continuing to add more features and functionality to it to extend the lifecycle of the product and deliver more value to customers.

A product owner could be the project sponsor or a business owner. They could also take the role of a customer—someone who makes sure the product meets the necessary criteria.

In the telephone billing system example, my customer was the IT department, which was the product owner for the billing system. I would deliver the product to my customer who would then test it to make sure it met the necessary criteria to go into production and start being used to generate telephone bills. They also had a product owner on the business side who involved people from the finance department, customer care, and new product development to make sure the billing system would function appropriately.

The product owner will be looking after the product from birth to death. They are trying to understand what value the customer is looking for from the product and what problem the customer has that the product is solving. Then they take that feedback from the customer to see how they’re going to enhance the product to better meet the customer needs and deliver more value to the customer with the objective of trying to make sure the product will stay current and relevant for as long as possible.

I see the terms product manager and product owner being used very interch...