20. How is product manager different from business analyst?

In an earlier post, there was a mention of business analyst, and it set me thinking how product managment differs from other similar roles e.g. business analysis, product marketing, project manager etc.

To be more specific, what are the job scope of a product mnager?

In a nutshell, product managers is the messenger of the market: it listens to the market, writes the problems that are in the market in form of market requirement (MRD). Product managers filter incoming requests from multiple customers and pass on release-sized detailed requirements (not technical specs) to engineering. They tell engineering what to build, not how to build! Product managers are a interface between product development and product marketing, and are the owners of the product. It is a product manager's responsibility to deliver right product release at the right time which the customers will love. Another task is to create long term strategy for the business and release product roadmap.

In a typical product based organization, a business analyst constantly monitors and analyzes the internal processes and functioning of organization, documents it, and suggests ways to improve the internal processes.

However, in some non-product based IT development company where role of a product manager is non-existent, a business analyst assumes the same responsibilites as that of a product manager. [source]. In most circumstances, these business analysts have a excellent potentional to become product managers.

Product marketing is a messenger of the product: it talks to the market, and brings the product to marketplace. It tells marketing communication how to market using go to market strategies, but is not involved in marketing execution (that's the job of marketing communication). Product management also serve as a one of the inputs of market requirements for the product manager.

All the above roles share both tactical and strategic responsibilites of running business to varied extent and with varied focus.

On the other side is project manager, a tactical role. Once product manager has identified the deliverables for upcoming release iteration, a project manager makes sure that the iteration fulfills the release criteria, on time and in budget.

18. Why product managers are important?

Excerpt from another blog

"Good business analysis helps you make sure you build the right thing, at the right time, for the right reasons. By focusing on an organization's business objectives, tracing those to a viable solution with the necessary set of features, and then tracing further to detailed requirements, Business Analysts ensure that the organization's efforts are focused on the right things (features and requirements) for the right reasons (business objectives). In this economy, no company has the luxury to "build one to throw away" or even "fix it in release two." We all have to get it right the first time, and that's exactly what business analysis lets you do."

Though what Mike states in above post is true that in hard economic times organization can't afford to build and ship the unwanted product, I could substitute the role of business analyst with a product manager in above excerpt . (Though, in a non-product based, custom IT department organization, business analysts do have to wear the hat of a product manager).

A skilled product manager is equipped with powers to filter incoming demands, translate them into detailed product requirements, prioritize them for upcoming releases, and align with organization's vision and objectives.

Additionally, this fuziness of roles between a product manager and business analysts in especially dominant in asian market even in product based companies.

From another post,

I’ll be brought into a company and they often don’t have product managers or user experience designers – they generally do have project managers, andmaybe some form of “business analyst,” and of course IT developers, and they all usually report into a CIO. Sometimes I even find that the company has been outsourcing “the website” to external agencies to design and run.

Compared to a inhouse/custom IT solution, a consumer product requires higher standard of user experience in terms of performance, availability and ressilience, and product management techniques need to be applied to make sure the software doesn't fail.