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In many cases, the terms product owner and product manager are used interchangeably. However, there are key differences between the two careers.
Therefore, if you’re a current or prospective marketing worker looking to fill an advanced role, you might be curious about the difference between product owners and product managers. After all, even though the positions are similar, they have different requirements and daily tasks.
For example, while a product manager plays a strategic role in using the market and other team members to bring a company’s vision and objectives to life, a product owner will instead maximize the value of the product by communicating the voice of the customer.
Overall, to find out more about all of the important differences between product owners and product managers, this article will dive into everything you need to know.
What Is a Product Owner?
Product Owners are responsible for maximizing the value of a product through research that can be provided to a development team. Often, this involves working with Scrum to create a backlog of customer or user stories and opinions. This information can then be presented in meetings, allowing a team to implement a tactical approach to development.
Typically, this job requires skill and responsibility, as the product owner will be the sole employee responsible for backlog grooming. Additionally, these professionals will be expected to:
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Gather customer feedback and arrange it into user stories in the product backlog.
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Building a production process that gives the development team a clear outline of current and future work.
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Attending agile and scrum meetings to keep tabs on how development is aligning with the product manager’s roadmap.
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Effectively communicating the thoughts and opinions of customers to the development team.
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Providing feedback on the product manager’s current roadmap.
Overall, the role of a product owner is customer-centric and narrowly focused. In turn, the detailed analysis provided by a product manager is a highly useful tool for developing effective products.
What Requirements Do Product Owners Have?
A product owner serves a complex role that requires effective teamwork, independent work, and a comprehensive understanding of scum and agile. With that in mind, having the right education and skills is crucial for starting your career.
Typically, a product owner will need at least a Bachelor’s Degree to start their career. Common relevant degrees include Business, Computer Science, or Computer Engineering. Additionally, while 67% of product managers in the workforce have Bachelor’s Degrees, it’s worth noting that 23% need a Master’s Degree to start their career.
Many product owners also choose to take supplemental courses to bolster their understanding of certain tools. For example, the Professional Scrum Product Owner (PSPO) teaches participants about Scrum and provides two levels of certifications for completion. Likewise, the Certified SAFe Product Owner is also a Scrum training that takes place over the course of two days.
Overall, here are the main skills required to be a product owner:
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Scrum and Agile Software Development Methodology. Most of a product owner’s job will involve working with Scrum, as the framework allows professionals to develop, deliver and sustain products in complex environments.
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User Interface (UI). Understanding UI allows product owners to communicate information to customers and users effectively. This makes it a crucial area where product owners can bridge the communication gap between the company and the customer.
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Product Backlog. In many cases, product owners are solely responsible for the product backlog. That makes this skill especially important for finding and prioritizing customer stories.
What Is a Product Manager?
Project managers are professional overseers who use their skills and expertise to formulate a long-term vision for products through observing trends and opportunities in the marketplace. In turn, these observations can also help product managers determine what should be built in the future.
With that in mind, this role requires a great deal of knowledge and responsibility. In many ways, product managers are the leaders of the project and are entrusted with finding the right direction for the product being sold.
Overall, your success will be measured by how successful the product is over its lifecycle, which requires having a vision for the product, understanding your customers, and taking the helm as an effective team leader.
Here are some examples of a product manager’s tasks:
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Performing detailed research that uncovers user needs, as well as potential gaps in the market.
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Formulating a long-term strategy for products.
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Creating and effectively communicating roadmaps to the team.
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Deciding what the team should build next.
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Using customer feedback to implement new functional features.
What Requirements Do Product Managers Have?
The guidance provided by a product manager is crucial for the success of any team, and that guidance can’t be provided without the proper skills and education.
Usually, product managers will need at least a Bachelor’s level education to start their career. The most commonly pursued degrees are in Business, Marketing, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science. Around 17% of product managers have a Master’s degree, meaning that you should be able to land a job with only a Bachelor’s.
Additionally, there are specific product management certifications you can achieve that can give you an edge on the job market. Some of the most common of which include:
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Professional Certified Marketer (PCM)
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Project Management Professional (PMP)
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Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)
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Certified Product Manager (CPM)
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Certified Scrum Master (CSM)
In general, while both product owners and product managers need experience with scrum, here are some examples of skills that are unique to product managers:
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Product and Data Management: product managers have to know how to effectively develop, plan, price, forecast, launch, and market the product. This requires them to understand the product inside and out, as well as the tools needed to manage that product’s data.
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Market Research: Understanding the customer is a crucial part of product management and requires that managers know how to collect and analyze both qualitative and quantitative data about the market.
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Roadmapping: product managers must know how to take all of their research and create an effective game plan for the future of a product. Effective interpersonal skills are also required to communicate the roadmap to other team members.
What Are Some Differences Between Product Owners and Product Managers
There are a few crucial differences between product owners and product managers that can help you determine which career is right for you. Here are those differences outlined:
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Education Requirements
While both careers require you to have at least a Bachelor’s degree, the type of degree required to achieve a career varies. For example, 14% of employees currently working as product owners have a degree in computer science, compared to only 6% of product managers.
In general, product owners are much more likely to have a computer science or engineering background, while product managers are more likely to have a business or marketing background.
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Salary and Job Outlook
Product owners and product managers have different average salaries in the U.S., in part due to their skills and responsibilities. For example:
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Product Owner: The average product owner in the U.S. earns $104,000 per year ($50.32 per hour). Product owners in the 90th percentile can earn up to $133,000, while product owners in the 10th percentile might earn only $81,000. Between 2018 and 2028, this career is expected to grow 8% and produce 21,800 job opportunities nationwide.
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Product Manager: The average product manager in the U.S. earns $113,000 per year ($54.77 per hour). Product managers in the 90th percentile can earn up to $153,000, while product managers in the 10th percentile might earn only $84,000. Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow by 8% as well.
With this comparison in mind, it’s clear that a career as a product manager offers a slightly higher salary. The average product manager earns 8.65% more than the average product owner, while product managers within the top 90% of earners earn a considerable 15% more.
Growth-wise, both jobs are also very similar. Both are expected to experience 8% job growth within the next decade and also have over 150,000 jobs currently on the job market.
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Leadership
One of the biggest differences between product owners and product managers is the level of leadership required for each job. Despite being called an “owner,” product owners do not serve as much of a leadership role within the development process.
While the information they provide through backlogs and customer stories is vital for creating a roadmap, they don’t actually create the roadmaps themselves.
On the other hand, product managers are responsible for developing product roadmaps, as well as communicating them effectively to the team. This means that the role of a product manager is more focused on leadership than the role of a product owner.
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Responsibilities
On a basic level, product owners and product managers perform different tasks and have different responsibilities in the workplace. Product owners work independently to gather important customer feedback, which can then be compiled into useful information for the team, while product managers are responsible for using their knowledge of the market to formulate a long-term vision for the product.
More specifically, a product owner will use scrum to analyze customer data and then use that data to generate backlogs. These backlogs are essentially customer stories that can be used to determine the current successes and shortcomings of the product. Ultimately, the goal of a product owner’s task is to provide insightful information that can be used to better the product.
On the other hand, product managers work more broadly with the market and will analyze a variety of trends in order to discern the most effective roadmaps. Then, once a good roadmap is envisioned, product managers will need to communicate the plan with team members.
Without the guidance of product managers, planning and carrying-out future plans for a product is near impossible.
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Metrics of Success
A key difference between product owners and product managers is what defines a successful day of work. For a product owner, success is as simple as accurately completing customer stories and other performance metrics the company requires.
However, success is more complex for product managers. In a way, the success of the product is intrinsically linked to the success of the product manager. Overall, due to their leadership role, a product manager’s success is determined by the product’s NPS, conversions, revenue, and churn.
All of which can be risky and difficult to achieve, depending on the market, but also highly rewarding benchmarks of success.
Product Owner vs. Product Manager FAQ
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Are product owners higher than product managers?
Usually no, product owners are not higher than product managers. In fact, at larger companies, this is typically the opposite, with the product manager holding a higher position than the product owner.
Ultimately, this is because product owners will gather customer stories that can be reported to a product manager. In turn, the product manager will then use that information to develop a thoughtful roadmap for the product. Additionally, product managers will report important information to the team and do their best to keep the team on track.
Therefore, product managers are more of team leaders when compared to product owners.
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Do companies need a product manager and a product owner?
No, some companies choose not to have both a product manager and a product owner. Most commonly, a product manager can exist without a product owner, as product managers can assume the role of finding the customer’s “voice” on their own.
However, there are a few cases where companies choose to have a product owner instead of a product manager, but this is far less common. Overall, many companies choose to have both roles, where the product manager works in the front office while the product owner works in the back office.
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Do product owners report to product managers?
Yes, product owners often report to product managers. Product managers are responsible for the product roadmap, and a good roadmap cannot be produced without a plethora of information. With that in mind, product owners are responsible for gathering some of the most important information available to teams: customer feedback.
Though product owners may not always deliver information to product managers directly, it is routine for junior product managers to collect reports from product owners and deliver them to the product manager.
Final Thoughts
While product owners and product managers both play an important role in the success of a company’s product, they are also different professionals with different specialties.
In general, product owners are focused on using scrum to create a product backlog filled with valuable information about customer stories, while product managers research the market and work with their team to develop a vision that can be turned into an effective product roadmap.
In other words, product owners aim to provide the perspective of the customer, while product managers seek to plan the future of the product.
Overall, you can have a successful business, marketing, or IT career with a company whether you pursue a career as a product owner or a product manager. Just keep in mind that the salary, level of leadership, and daily tasks will be different depending on the career you choose.
Author
Jack Flynn is a writer for Zippia. In his professional career he’s written over 100 research papers, articles and blog posts. Some of his most popular published works include his writing about economic terms and research into job classifications. Jack received his BS from Hampshire College.
