In today’s dog-eat-dog business world, two roles cannot be substituted or replaced. You guessed it right – product manager and project manager. And even though these two functions might overlap in terms of skill sets or professional educational requirements, they are, in fact, two sides of the same coin.
Speaking of professional educational requirements, you may want to consider pursuing credible business management online certification if you are looking to upskill or to stay relevant in this dynamic environment.
Moving on, let’s understand the difference between product and project management.
Products vs Projects
To clear the basics, let’s start with understanding the difference between the words product and project.
- Product
A product can range from between anything from a physical product to a service rendered. It goes through a life cycle, develops, and is then introduced to the market, until it matures, and is no longer needed.
- Project
A project, on the other hand, is a one-time endeavour that aims at creating a product or service. Usually, projects have a defined start date, end date, and an outcome. It’s usually completed in five stages – initiation, planning, implementing, monitoring & control, and closure.
Let’s move forward and understand how these differences play out when it comes to their meaning, roles and responsibilities.
An Introduction to Product Management and Project Management Meaning
- Product Management
Product management is a critical function of management that deals with planning, forecasting, production, and management of a single/multiple products at all stages of its life cycle.
- Project Management
On the other hand, project management encompasses the application of processes, methods, skills, knowledge, and most of all, experience to achieve the objectives of a specific project.
Responsibilities of a Product Manager
As mentioned above, product management is concerned with the overall responsibility and continuous success of a product throughout its lifecycle. A product manager is the one is who responsible for handling, overseeing, and managing everything that comes in between. A product manager focuses on the “what” more than the “how,” which means the job is to look at the long-term view of the product and decide what direction it should grow.
Main responsibilities of a product manager include:-
- Gathering and prioritising product and customer requirements
- Defining the long-term product vision
- Liaising with the sales and marketing departments to ensure revenue and customer satisfaction goals are met.
Responsibilities of a Project Manager
The duties of a project manager are endless, but in retrospect, he/she is responsible for delivering a project successfully within a stipulated time. Project managers oversee and manage everything ranging from the development of the product, aligning resources, managing issues, mitigating risks, and not to mention; all this is supposed to be done within a constricted budget.
Main responsibilities of a project manager include:-
- Building a product
- Adding a new definition to an existing product
- Creating unique and exciting versions or extensions of a product
- Managing and tracking a team of designers and developers
- Keeping the project on time within budget
How to Learn In-depth About Product and Project Management?
Even though these are similar concepts, there are different professional requirements for both. To learn more about product management, consider pursuing credible business management online certifications. These business management online certifications can equip you with the knowledge, training, and skills to oversee an entire product lifecycle.
To the contrary, if you aspire to go down the project management path, a project management certification course from IIM Raipur is the ideal choice. Offered on the reputed Edtech platform, Talentedge, the project management certification course from IIM Raipur helps you gain hands-on experience in this domain so you can apply concepts to practical scenarios. This course from Talentedge is ideal for managers responsible for managing diverse teams, analytics professionals, as well as the working executives who belong to marketing, operations, finance, supply chain, or even general management.
So what are you waiting for? You know which domain you belong to, and you know that you need to hone your skills. So, consider enrolling for credible business management online certification if you want to go down the product management path or the project management certification course from IIM Raipur if you aspire to become a project manager.