SCRUM
Soo… what’s the difference between a Product Manager & a Product Owner?
The great divide that separates us all
Alright, so we’ve all been there. You’re offered a position as a Product Owner at a big organization and you, with your 3 years of product management experience feel confused. You ask, why are they downgrading me?
Am I product manager or a product owner, you ask yourself…
Some of us open our dusty copy of the Scrum guide and look up the roles & responsibilities of a PO & a PM in Scrum.
[Side note: Someone should print the guide and convert it to a massive book, with all variations and interpretations, just to do the theatrics of slamming of book on the table. Is there a version we can buy? I’d love to stick random post-its and dog-ear some of them to seem wise and insightful]
Jokes aside, this is a serious issue. In this wonderful article, Maarten Dalmijn writes about the how Scrum is disconnecting from the PM function and letting in snake oil salesmen like SAFe capitalize on that gap: