Project vs. Product Mindset
During a leadership panel that I attended, one of the questions was about project vs. product mindset. After the event, I thought further about my experience, and decided to recap certain things in a video, and go deeper on a crucial difference.
When you compare working on projects to working on products, the obvious difference is the lifecycle. Projects (sometimes we call them initiatives, especially when they are internal projects) have a finite lifetime. Most of them start with a deadline. Most of them have already a budget or a cost associated with them. If the Project Manager is fortunate, he or she has the ability to form a team according to the scope and requirements of the project. I would guess, most of the time, even that is pretty limited.
The product management landscape is far from being perfect or ideal. Take a look at my summary of Marty Cagan’s book Inspired for a good way to manage products. Even though most companies are far from raising the bar that high, the main difference between the project and product approach is one of execution vs discovery.
(After I published my video, a friend commented that “for a project, you finance desired results. For a product, you finance the team.”)
You can watch the video here:
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