When someone asked me recently, "What's the difference between a Product Manager and a Project Manager?" it wasn't the first time that I heard this question. Through a series of events, it recently became apparent there is a huge gap in understanding of two completely different competencies. While the heart of the confusion stems from inexperience as well the similarity of titles (in fact, there is only two letters between pro(je)ct and pro(du)ct that separate the two titles), it has been perpetuated and extended over the past several years by the growth in technology and web sites.
Project Managers and Product Managers have similarities but are fundamentally two different skillsets. At the highest level, a project manager manages a project which has a fixed beginning and end while a product manager is tasked with managing a product which has a product lifecycle.
Project Managers are tasked with ensuring that projects come in 'on-time', 'on-budget', and they meet expectations. They are skilled with developing detailed project plans and documentation associated with delivery of the project. Additionally, they also utilize resources (also known as people) in the accomplishment of a given project. The primary focus of a project manager is to ensure that people execute effecively in a series of tasks to yield a deliverable. And, there are a lot of folks that are absolutely phenomenal at this. If you want to be the best project manager in the world, you can get cerfied by the good folks at PMI. Generally speaking and depending on the organization (my disclaimer as I have been both Product and Project Manager) while these folks are the experts in the short-term initiative, they are generally not as concerned with business strategy behind the product.
Comparatively, the traditional product manager's focus is to manage a 'product' through it's lifecycle with the goal of enhancing and growing it such that it continues to return results that meet the defined business objectives. Product managers not only focus on the business definition on the front end but operationally manage and measure the product after it is built to ensure it meets the stated goals. Product managers can be tasked with a variety of tasks including but not limited to: business modeling, user research, requirements definition, interface design, product support and sales support. With the introduction of websites to the technology mix over the last 15 years, it has provided a new challenge in defining roles and responsibilities.
As websites were generally new animals to the scene over the 15 years, most companies treated them as projects as they often lacked stated business objectives or returns for the initiative. As with many technology projects, small to medium sized organizations didn't have the requisite skills to build web sites and understandably hired consultants to build their websites for them. And, for traditional consultants, this fit their project model of a fixed beginning and a fixed end very nicely. Today, as websites have become increasingly important in business, they are, unfortunately, still being managed as projects.
This becomes a problem in meeting defined business objectives, prioritizing, having the right skills to manage what has now become a core business function. If the website has become or is a core business function there is a greater need than managing a project, it has become a product which will have a series of projects driven through business objectives.