Product Vs Program Vs Project Manager
The key differences in these roles can be best understood in terms of the contributions they make at various stages of the project and the best way to understand that is in terms of questions. Before digging deeper into the weeds, let’s start with a few definitions:
A Program Manager is responsible for planning and governance of the program. He/she oversees the successful delivery of the program’s deliverables while keeping the stakeholders in loop. More like an execution focussed super project manager.
A project is a series of activities that has a defined outcome and a fixed start and end date and a Program is a collection of projects.
At the very start of the project / more formally, Initiation phase:
Role of a Product manager role at the initiation phase
The product manager plays a very significant role here. They set a vision for the product (based on market research), then articulate that vision & research to the key stakeholders. Question they ask here is, What are we building? What is the problem that we are solving? and Who are we building it for?
Essentially, establishing a product viability, long term strategy, and then to articulate that vision & strategy to the team. The product manager attempts to persuade executives and other stakeholders to get their buy in about the planned product. Once funded, the product manager will develop a strategic execution action plan typically, a well-designed product roadmap. Ruthless prioritization at this stage will help with creating a sharper & more crisp strategy.
Role of a Project manager role at the Initiation stage
At this stage, the project manager (if involved in the work this early on) keeps the ears to the ground and gains the important perspective about the context, this context will come in handy when motivating the teams or when hiring for the team.
Role of a Program manager role at the Initiation stage
At such an early stage the Program manager role is pretty similar in nature to Project manager role. Getting the early context helps in being able to decide the future road map of the program. Getting the infrastructure setup and keeping the teams posted.
Planning phase
Product manager role:
The product manager continues to take part in the critical scoping discussions.
Project manager role at this stage
In this phase the Project manager, along with the team leads will begin breaking the strategic-level plans down into actionable tasks, goals and deadlines. The questions they ask at this are:
Do we have the right resources to build what we decided to build? Have we broken down each deliverable into concrete executable tasks? Do we have the time frame for each deliverable? These three axes, time, resources and Scope are the three levers which the Project managers have at their disposal to make the changes. These levers are also dependent on the budget as in some cases, more money could allow to hire more people. Do we have the budget? If not, get clever, can i beg / borrow resources ?
What are my top 5 risks going to be? And what is my plan B?
Program manager role at this stage
Making sure that what we are deciding to build is what the stakeholders are expecting as output. Keeping track of what teams will we need to work with ? Who will we keep updated ? This will come in handy when the time comes to execute on the program.
Key here is to not get too deep into each individual project (Notion we are using here is that a project is singular, and a program is a collection of projects and larger programs can even have sub-programs within them) but make sure that various moving pieces fit well with each other. Make sure that the high level directional decisions being taken align with the overall goals of the program.
Execution phase:
Product manager role during the execution phase
The product manager at this stage collaborates with broader cross functional teams like sales, Legal, HR, Engineering. Ensuring that the program & delivery is on track, teams are unblocked, and the leadership continues to provide the support needed for successful execution.
Project manager role during the execution phase
The project artifacts are a living document in most cases, and a good project manager keeps an eye on them to keep them updated. Using the three levers mentioned above, make sure that the actual work is getting delivered on time.
Program manager role at this stage
Program manager leads and drives the day to day program execution throughout the program life cycle. They define the program governance (controls) while keeping an eye on the budget.
Program Manager is aware of the risks, keeps an eye on them, and communicates upwards & sideways on their potential impact and mitigation’s. Proactively managing the risks and issues that might and do arise over the course of the program life cycle, is more important than reactively taking measures to correct them when they occur). Coordinating the projects inter-dependencies is a crucial part of Program manager responsibilities at this stage. Being able to work with people with different roles understand the program nuances.
Aligning the deliverables (outputs) to the program’s “outcome” with the aid of the business change manager; and
Closure phase:
In the closure phase, team provides the final deliverables and releases project resources. There is typically a post mortem done on the project. Just because the major project work is over, that doesn’t mean the project manager’s job or the product manager’s is done—there are still important things to do, including evaluating what did and did not work with the project, managing post ship support system, getting feedback from customers on delivery and such.
Product manager role:
The product manager has all along ensured successful execution, now is the time to evaluate what went well and what did not. How did the team do ? What can we learn from the project initiation, planning & execution. A good way to think about this: If i could start over, would i do anything differently ? if so what & why ? while we are at it, how about some swags for the team.
Project manager role at this stage
The Project manager documents the learnings. Conducts the feedback sessions. Manages communication with partner and cross functional teams. Does a deep dive on the budgeting? Did we use all the budget ? what’s left over?
Program manager role at this stage
Program manager leads the customer feedback sessions, delivery meetings and budget closures. She sends out the emails & workplace posts to the partners and defines the program success to the partners acknowledging the team contributions. Thanking the team members and making sure that their management knows the contributions of their team members. It is important because we want the teams to come back together for the next opportunity.
In a nutshell:
Product managers own:
- Product Vision & Strategy
- Product Release roadmap
- Product Ideation
- Feature sets.
- Go-to-Market identification
- Organizational training
- Profit and loss
Project managers own:
- Budget
- Delivery
- Resources
- Capacity
- Cross-team organization
- Problem resolution (Unblocking the teams)
- Status updates