Agile Product Owner vs. Product Manager – Resolving the Confusion

First, a few basics on roles. There are two key roles in the software product delivery continuum that must precede the first line of written code, regardless of development methodology.

1. The “what & why” role – responsible for determining “what” functionality should go into a product and “why” from a market and business perspective. The “what and why” role serves as the conduit for all inputs both internal and external. The end game of this role is to grow revenue by aligning product direction with market dynamics and customer needs.
   
   The “what & why” function is typically the responsibility of the product manager. Traditional or agile, it’s necessary regardless of who does it, their title or how it gets done.
2. The “how” role – responsible for determining “how” product features should work to support the things users do. In its most basic form, this role is a surrogate user responsible for explaining in verbal, written and illustrated forms and in excruciating detail, what users do, how they do it and how software must work “functionally” to support the users. They spend most of their time with developers and they test functionality to make sure it works functionally as designed, along with a host of other responsibilities. And yes, the best people for this role are former users or those who have worked intimately with a variety of users in multiple environments, i.e. implementation consultants.

The “how” function is typically the responsibility of a functional product designer (for lack of a better title). For the fraction of software companies that have them they go by such titles as Business Analyst, SME (subject matter expert) and Technical Product Manager. In an agile environment they’re called Product Owners.

Call them what you want, every company with high user interaction products needs them. They get much of the credit for things like iPhones and TiVo where the cool factor is the usability.

The confusion lies in two areas.

First, “product owner” couldn’t possibly be a worse title, given the responsibilities of this role. Furthermore, product managers have always been affectionately referred to as product owners since they “own” the ultimate success of a product.

Second, software companies have tried to combine the responsibilities of the product manager and the functional product designer for years and it’s a nightmare in every case. Plus it creates the same identity crisis as the product manager vs. the product owner in an agile world. They key difference is the agile methodology is more committed to the “product owner” and less so to the product manager versus the exact opposite in a traditional environment.

Regardless of development methodology, combining these roles is a recipe for failure because the skill sets and personality types required are distinctly different for each, not to mention the time commitment. When combined, the end result is either the right functionality with poor usability or highly usable features no one cares about. A dilemma on par with, “would you like to lose an arm or a leg today?” The bottom line - your products will eventually fail.

In summary, two distinct roles are necessary to feed requirements to software developers if you want marketable products with great usability, regardless of development methodology. The titles are immaterial as long as the responsibilities are clearly defined.

For more detail on the functional product designer, read Product Management & The Functional Designer - 3 Reasons it’s a “Must-Have” for Successful Products.

If the switch to agile development is stressing your organization, sign up for Product Management University where you’ll learn how to create successful products using the best of both agile and traditional methodologies.

WEBINAR:  Agile vs. Traditional Development - The Best of Both Worlds

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