Project Manager or Product Manager what’s the difference?

I sat down a few months ago with our HR recruitment officer – I began to sketch out the type of person we needed to fill the role of a Product Manager. The recruitment officer asked the question – what’s the difference between a Project Manager and a Product Manager?

He posed the question because he had just placed a Project Manager in another department and had a few CVs of people who had applied for the post of Project Manager and might fit the position of Product Manager.

I began to explain the difference and then thought ah a simple analogy will suffice.

A Project Manager is like a midwife – he/she will deliver the project and then moves onto the next one. The Project Manager cares for the product up until the point when the product is delivered – then hands the responsibility over to the mother - their job is done. Where as the Product Manager is akin to the mother he/she conceives the idea, runs with it for many months, through requirements gather, development, test and UAT, goes through the painful exercise of bringing that product to market and then supports it until it is made obsolete. The Product Managers job is never done!

Question: if the Project Manager is the midwife the baby the product and the Product Manager the mother then who is the Father?

Share your thoughts.