Program Managers vs. Product Managers

Say your company plans to relocate its headquarters to a new location in two years, add a new product to its most successful product line, and support local charities by donating money and products, as well as encouraging employees to volunteer some of their time. You need individuals to manage all these tasks, but do you require program managers, product managers, or a combination of both?

To help you decide, we out together an overview program manager vs. product managers, their responsibilities, the skills they need, what’s different, and where they overlap.

Program Managers vs. Product Managers

What They Have in Common

Both program and product managers are responsible for leading teams to produce outcomes that support company objectives.

They manage teams, budgets, strategies, goals, and the daily activities needed to accomplish it all. They collaborate and negotiate with other departments and outside resources, and they manage stakeholders’ and senior management’s expectations.

How the Roles Differ

Product managers focus on the products and services your company sells. They manage one product, or a line of products, from start to finish.

The program manager’s focus is a bit broader. Programs are long-term initiatives that support specific organizational goals, like adopting new technology that increases efficiency and saves money.

The program manager oversees the entire process, coordinating activities among teams, other departments, and outside resources. A product manager can play a role in a program.

What Do Program Managers Do?

Imagine this: Several years ago, a company changed its benefits package from the traditional standard set of benefits to a flexible benefits plan. For the first time, employees could choose the coverage they needed and wanted. But they needed to learn about this unfamiliar process.

The company appointed a program manager to educate the benefits administration and human resources staff, get input from legal and financial departments, rewrite the benefits handbook, create educational and marketing materials for employees, and build the enrollment system. During the first enrollment period, they even opened a temporary benefits hotline with trained staff to answer the many questions they anticipated from employees.

Basically, program managers take a company objective, like modernizing and upgrading a manufacturing plant or increasing and improving relationships with the surrounding community, and develop strategies and plans to realize those goals.

They sometimes assemble and manage cross-functional, cross-departmental teams, each of which completes its own subset of projects. Program managers also communicate, collaborate, and negotiate with various program stakeholders. If a program involves the company’s products or services, a product manager may be involved in some aspects of the program.

Program managers run the entire program, from strategy to successful outcomes. In sum, program managers:

Set program goals
Create strategies
Assemble project teams
Develop team goals
Manage the budget
Assess and address risks
Manage and track team progress
Ensure activities remain aligned with goals
Collaborate with all parties involved
Communicate with stakeholders
Manage daily activities

What Do Product Managers Do?

Let’s say a company is designing a line of “smart” clothing that will adjust its size to fit the wearer. Before they can reap the revenue they predict, the company needs to educate consumers about this new and exciting concept. The product manager creates a strategy, works with a development team, and collaborates with research, manufacturing, and marketing teams to tell the story of these products.

Product managers take a product or product line from concept to design, development, launch, and management. The extent of the project manager’s role varies by company. In major corporations, for example, the manager may be responsible for a single product or product line. In a smaller company, one manager may be responsible for all products.

Product managers:

Research customer opinions and buying habits
Create user stories
Develop a roadmap
Identify product features to emphasize
Develop marketing.
Collaborate with marketing, sales, finance, and other stakeholders
Launch products
Improve the product(s) and messaging as needed

What Skills Do Program and Product Managers Share?

Both program manager and product manager jobs require a lengthy list of management and project-specific skills. The latter are dependent on the nature of the product or program to be managed. A program or product involving introducing new technologies, for example, requires the appropriate technical knowledge and experience.

General Skills

Regardless of the type of program, product, or management role, all managers should possess skills, knowledge, and experience in:

Analytical thinking
Budget management
Collaboration
Communication
Conflict resolution
Creativity and flexibility
Decision making
Leadership
Negotiation and influence
Planning and organizing
Problem-solving
Risk and change management
Strategizing
Team management

Product vs. Program Manager: Which Do You Need?

What do you want to accomplish? If an objective is focused on a product or product line, the project manager may be the one to choose. If it’s focused on a broader initiative, consider putting a program manager in charge. If that broader initiative involves a product, you may need need both.

Whether you need to appoint product managers or program managers to carry out your objectives, Insight Global can help you hire the best people for the job.