One of the main misconceptions heard in many transformations is to argue about passing from doing projects to doing products. That makes no sense at all. It’s like having the dream to be the best football club without a plan to hire players.
Imagine that we want to help to create a lemonade stand. Product management is about focusing on creating a delicious lemonade recipe, designing the stand, selecting the vendors for ingredients, and determining the right pricing strategy. Project management, on the other hand, will cover the different stages and tasks needed to bring the lemonade stand to market, such as building the stand, creating the signage, hiring and training employees, and selecting and putting up decorations.
Projects are temporary endeavors that are designed to achieve a specific objective, while products are items that are created to be sold, distributed, or used by customers over a longer period of time. Products are often the result of multiple projects, as each project builds on the previous one to create the final product.
Both are two sides of the same coin. The rest is ideology and dogmatism.
What do you think? Will you have a great product without a plan to hire a team?
