Product Manager, Product Owner, or Business Analyst?

Do you have a title such as product manager, product owner, or business analyst?

We hear  these titles all the time. What does each do?

Here is how I have seen successful agile projects and programs use people in these positions. Note that I am discussing agile projects and programs.

The product manager creates the roadmap. She has the product vision over the entire life of the product. Typically, what's In the roadmap are larger than epics—they are themes or feature sets. 

Product management means thinking strategically about the product. You might require several projects or programs to achieve what the product manager wants as a strategic vision.

Product owners (PO) work with agile teams to translate the strategic vision into Minimum Viable Products. The PO decides when the team(s) have done enough to release. See the release frequency image to understand the cost and value of releasing.

The business analyst may do any of these things. In my experience, I have seen business analysts focus on “what does this requirement/feature/story really mean to the team and/or the product?” I have seen fewer BAs do the strategic visioning of the product over its lifetime. I have seen BAs work with POs when the PO was not available enough for the team. I have seen BAs do great work breaking stories into smaller components of value, not architectural components.

Your team might have different names for these positions. Each team needs the strategic lifetime-of-the-product view; the tactical view for the next iteration or so and the knowledge of how to re-rank the backlog; and the ability to translate stories into small valuable chunks. 

Can one person do each of these things? It depends on the person. I have found it difficult to move quickly from the tactical to strategic and back again (or vice versa). Maybe you know how. For me, that is a form of multitasking. 

The more important questions are: do you have the roles you need, at the time you need them on your team? If you are one of these people, do you know how to perform these roles? If you are outside the organization in some way, do you know what you need to do, to perform these roles?

If you don't know what to do to help your team, consider participating in Product Owner for Agencies training. Marcus Blankenship and I will help you learn what to do, and coach you in real time as to how to do it best for your team. I hope to see you there.