🎯 Why the Product Owner is often misunderstood as a Project Manager? 🎯

The PO role is often mistaken for a PM, especially now that many organizations are making the transition to Agile. While PO and PM share common aspects, the two roles are separate and not understanding what these distinctions means can disrupt workflow processes and cause confusion in expectations. There was a reason for the mix-up, of course.

• Delivery: The Project Manager revolves around time, money, and deliverables. At the same time, the PO tries to maximize the value of the product, refine the backlog and ensure everything that is developed by the development team meets the peak of minimum value increment. These roles feel like they can be swapped one for the other because, you know, delivery feels… universal.
• Authority Over the Team: In traditional structures, a Project Manager usually gets authority over team direction. This is how many new Agile businesses come to see the role of Product Owner — build and manage a responsive team. But the Product Owner is not a manager; this role also should be separate from where the boss sits, tasked with articulating or managing tasks/ops, but rather responsible for representing the purchaser and their requirements to the team.
• Relatively new to Agile: Most companies are just beginning their Agile journey, and without the appropriate education they are still behaving with legacy consideration. Product Owners are seen as Project Managers but in a different hat rather than a new role designed to do everything possible for the team to deliver useful work through iterative, customer-focused development.

This inefficiency occurs when Product Owners are either confused or get intermingled into task-level activity rather than concentrating on the value proposition of their product.

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