Product Development - Project Owner vs Project Manager (What's the difference?)

Any kind of project (Simple Project, Software, App, Entire Product) in terms of development has its own lifecycle.

• Idea and Product Concept Phase
• UI/UX Design
• Database Design
• Start Implementation
• Development
• Beta Testing
• Production Release
• Marketing and Promoting
• Sales

Each of those phase has its own Person responsible. It can be a developer, team leader, designer, tester, devops, sales person, digital marketer and any other person part of the project.

But the important persons are only two Project Owner and Project Manager.

-> Mostly of the tech people think that those two positions are the same, but they are not
-> They might have some similar specifics or responsibilities but in general these are two different position and occupy different aspect of the project/product.

Which are Project Owner Responsibilities?

🔘Project Owner is responsible for Project Lifecycle as all (so is responsible for the operation of all the components that i mentioned above)
🔘Is responsible for defining Project Requirements and the scope of the project.
🔘Knows about the Project Vision and knows when the Project will be in the future.
🔘Is responsible for those parts of the Project that will help that project thrive on the Market after its release
🔘Is responsible more about connecting sub-teams of the projects all together to achieve Project's Goals rather then focusing in each sub-team in details.
🔘In the Project Development Model of What? and When? Project Owner is responsible for What?

Which are Project Manager Responsibilities?

🔘Project Manager is focused more in the small picture of entire project Lifecycle not in its entire scope.
🔘Project Manager is focused in the development team progress
🔘Project Manager is focused in making sure the development team with meet all the requirements defined by Project Owner and also deadlines.
🔘In the Project Development Model of What? and When? Project Owner is responsible for When?

Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash

Both of them makes sure that the business goals are achieved and all Project Goals will be completed with success. So both of them add great value to the business and the team in their respective way.