Versus Battle: Product Management vs. Program Management
Explained by Andrew Wang, Product Lead at Thrilling
Our JIRA workflow needs to be re-configured. Is that a responsibility of product management or program management?
We want to launch our product in a new country. How does product management or program management drive that forward?
This week, we dive into our next Versus battle: Product Management vs. Program Management. You’ll learn what’s similar and different about the two roles, so that you can decide what’s the best role for you and learn tips and tricks on how to successfully transition between roles.
Our guest expert for this battle is Andrew Wang. Andrew is a program manager turned product manager, focusing on retail and marketplaces. After starting his career as a software consultant, he was a technical program manager at Ticketmaster, StubHub, and Wikia, before transitioning to product management roles at Gap, Poshmark, and Guidewire. Currently, he is the Product Lead at Thrilling, a vintage fashion marketplace with an emphasis on sustainable shopping while supporting small businesses across the US.
Not only does Andrew have experience with both roles, but he’s worked on very similar international expansion projects at different companies - as a program manager at one and a product manager on the other. Let’s get his unique apples-to-apples view on the two roles.
What’s similar about the two roles? What’s different about the two roles?
What is the same about both the Product Management and Program Management roles is that both involve leading cross-functional teams to achieve an objective. Those teams do not report into you, so an important part of either role is understanding how to lead peers while managing their managers.
The difference between the two roles is the objective the team is attempting to accomplish. For a program manager, you're driving your team to execute and deliver a series of projects or a program, while managing risks, stakeholders, and dependencies. As a product manager, you're leading your team to add value to your organization by improving the experience of your customer. Simply put, I would say program managers are focused on tactical delivery and process improvement, whereas product managers are strategic and must be experts in the user, the competitive market, as well as the product itself.
My experience with international expansion illustrates this difference really well. While at StubHub, I was the program manager that led their expansion to the United Kingdom. On that project, most of the business decisions were already determined, and I was focused on execution and the launch. Years later at Poshmark, I was the product manager that led their expansion to Canada, and now I had the opportunity to pitch and implement some new features that were beneficial to the overall success of the launch.
What superpower do program managers bring to the product manager role?
As a program manager who transitioned to product management, the most important skill to leverage is how to work with different parts of the company, different roles, teams, and titles. I've found success in both roles by being able to understand technical concepts from engineers and translating them to business stakeholders and vice versa. I've been humble to ask for help if I need clarification and also confident in my decision-making to avoid being stagnant.
What type of program managers would be well suited to become a product manager?
The best program managers are great at working with others but also able to visualize outcomes. The latter is important to anticipate results. The same way a program manager may anticipate risks of a project timeline and dependencies, a product manager will anticipate the risks of a new feature or an A/B test.
Conversely, what makes product managers great program managers?
A solid business sense helps product managers be great program managers. Understanding the business drivers, the vision, and the metrics are all super helpful in getting your team to buy in on why they’re building these projects and programs. Oftentimes, the project team is going from project to project, from feature to feature. Helping them see the big picture and how their efforts will impact others will help unite and motivate the team. This will also help you manage and mitigate risks, which is also an important responsibility of a good program manager.
What advice do you have for program managers that want to become a product manager?
My first advice for aspiring product managers that are currently program managers is to carefully shadow your product manager counterpart if you have one. When I first joined Wikia, I hadn't thought of being a product manager. But my product manager was working part-time as she was just returning from maternity leave. And to make myself valuable to the company and our team, I observed and learned from her as much as possible so that she'd have confidence in me to make product decisions on her behalf if she wasn't available.
Another piece of advice I have is that when you do become a product manager, it'll be easy to fall back and do program management because it feels familiar and safe, but avoid doing so. When I first joined Poshmark, I was like "OMG, Jira needs to be configured a certain way, and teams need to be structured a certain way." But, my manager snapped me out of it and told me I need to focus on the product and the features I'm pitching because I won't have time to do both. My job is the product, not the process.
What did you do when you first moved into product management that helped you transition successfully?
I was fortunate enough to be able to do two things when I first transitioned to product management. The first was having a sponsor and a mentor to help guide me. Mine was helpful in many different ways. She helped me get assigned to some projects that would give me valuable experience. And in what little spare time she did have, she also gave me invaluable guidance on those projects. The second was being able to be a part of those projects. Just like everything else, experience counts for a ton. I needed to be on projects where I can be exposed to as many product management concepts as possible to get that experience. I realize that not everybody will have a mentor who can get them into high visibility projects. But, understand that being in a fast-paced product-driven environment so that you’ll gain experience quickly is the best way to transition into product management. I know product managers that have taken product management courses or product management bootcamp, but there are no shortcuts.
Key Takeaways
Product Managers and Program Managers both work through others, but Product Managers are more strategic whereas Program Managers are more execution and process focused. Staying business focused and always thinking about how you can add more value for the company and team can lead to win-win opportunities like shadowing that also help you learn more about a role that you’re interested in. Once you’ve made the transition, avoid falling back into what’s comfortable and prioritize spending time where you can make the biggest contribution. Finally, getting broad, hands-on experience is critical to level your skills.
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