Product Manager vs. Product Owner

As businesses find ways to spend less on payroll, while hoping to somehow maintain steady or increased levels of productivity, many have moved to consolidate the product manager and product owner roles. In speaking to many tech companies recently, this “strategic” transition is becoming more prevalent and more aggressive. And with the pandemic inducing widespread headcount reductions and deep disruption to revenue cycles, I see this pattern continuing to build steam.

While I understand there may be other arguments to support this (I’d love to chat about them), the main argument I’ve heard is something along the lines of the company in question not having enough budget to support two separate roles. If this is indeed the rationale, then the requisite counter-argument is one about money, not process; not what works, and what doesn’t. In other words, these companies are choosing this consolidated approach not because there is some process or organizational synergy, but because they can’t afford the alternative.

I hope to make a brief and concerted case against the consolidation of the product manager and product owner roles from a budgetary perspective.

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To begin, let’s make one thing clear: there’s what’s written in blogs and articles, and then there’s actual practice. I want to entertain the latter based on many conversations I’ve had lately with product leaders, as well as recent experiences I’ve had.

For the past year, I’ve spoken to many product leaders about their hiring problems. Without fail, they all - with the exception of one - wanted a product manager and product owner in one. The exception wanted a product manager, product owner, program manager, and portfolio manager all in one (they curiously ended up hiring someone with none of that experience). Just a few days ago, I saw a job posting that called for "70% product owner, 30% product manager" as if it was some baking recipe. The only recipe here is one that results in disaster. In these conversations, I’ve attempted to dispel ideas that superficially make sense, such as “We want to save money,” but do not work in practice or when challenged.

Fundamentally, here are the core differences between the product manager and product owner roles:

Undoubtedly, I could build out this list further. But what you may readily notice, especially if you have personally performed either of these roles for more than a few months, is that one role is enough to keep one person very busy. My own recent experience had my VP at the time telling me when to switch between the two. “This week, I need you to be a product owner. But in a few weeks, after we release feature X, I need you back to being a product manager.” That didn’t work.

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I’ve seen different flavors of this:

• The most successful implementation of these roles was a software company that had a product owner embedded with the engineering [scrum] team, as it should be. That person’s role was to ensure stories were prioritized, defined, and completed. The product manager was more market-facing, worked quite a bit with sales, marketing, and customer success to complement the market narratives they were collecting directly from customer feedback. The product manager then delivered projects to the product owner for execution. This worked beautifully.

• In another example, the product owner role shifted from sprint to sprint. This team was 10-strong, maybe only one or two of the ten had the chops to perform the job well. So while the PO role moved to different team members, the execution of that role, along with the concurrent sprint, lagged. This model doesn’t work because it creates significant performance deficits from sprint to sprint. Those deficits were a result of the rotational burden put upon whomever was unlucky any given week to have it. They were splitting their roles. I thought it was an interesting idea, but it didn’t work in practice. I’ve also seen a rotating scrum master role, but I’d argue the same challenges are at play with that approach as well.

• Then, of course, is the PM/PO combo that is highly-favored right now. In the cases I’ve observed, simply put, the poor sap they put into this position simply doesn’t have any time to focus on, well, anything. Product manager roles are known to be meeting-intensive. Product owner roles are mainly required to attend scrum ceremonies and devote much of their time to tactical activities. When the two are combined, you now have meeting fatigue. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. When the individual occupying these roles is tied up in meetings all day, they cannot do anything else, at least not during normal work hours. When the two are combined, the individual’s faculties are spread thin. In one recent conversation with a local startup that was looking for a product manager, the product VP laughed as he acknowledged that the candidate they wanted would be wearing several hats and that product management would only be one, albeit small hat. “This is just the nature of startups, you know that,” he said. The startup shield is a conversation for another day, but this is exactly what happens when two distinct, fully-loaded roles are consolidated into one: the individual occupying that role will not be able to give equal or appropriate attention to the core responsibilities. They will end up burnt out or under performing because they’re set up to do so. re: attrition = expensive

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So, high level, what is it that separates the two? Well, one is about strategy, the other is about execution. Let the product owner focus on tactical, day-to-day execution, and let the product manager focus on strategy.

The fix is already available and easy, you already have full control over it: it’s simply not consolidating the roles. And the litmus test is in you asking yourself when you want to hire a product person, “What problem will this role be solving for me?” Don’t look to the market to tell you what trend you should be following in hiring (see open office plans peddled by Google). All you need is to clearly articulate your problem and there will be an associated role that’s designed to solve that problem.

If you, for example, need someone to communicate or otherwise translate the corporate strategy and objectives into product work, then you need a product manager. If you need someone to ensure existing features are prioritized and completed at a regular cadence, that sounds a lot like a product owner.

I get that it’s attractive to want to get the biggest bang for your buck. But what this approach forsakes is the risk that comes with it. As with many organizational decisions, all too often organizations don’t entertain risk. It makes sense since the foundation of a startup is 100% risk. But that doesn’t mean decision-making should be fickle, rash, or undisciplined. You need discipline if you want to become a more mature startup. As you build your product organization, you are likely going to be confronted with the decision as to whether you should consolidate the PM and PO roles.

If you need help determining which of the two your organization might need, please reach out.