Product Management vs. Product Development

Product management

Product management is a strategic role that takes in the entire product life cycle, from planning to producing to marketing. Product managers help lead the vision for their company’s offerings, ensuring that every product delivered meets the needs and wants of the customer.

To do this, they perform market and customer research, translate customer needs into requirements, and ensure those requirements are present in the final product. Their job is not to build the product itself but to maintain the high-level product roadmap.

Product management teams vary from organization to organization. Some companies may have a single product manager who guides the various teams involved in creating a product. Others may have a cross-functional product management team, which can include roles like product marketing, production, product design, product analytics, and quality control.

Product development

Product development, meanwhile, is the process of getting an idea from concept to market. Product development teams can consist of software developers, designers, engineers, quality assurance testers — anything it takes to bring the ideal product to life.

The product development team takes the requirements specified by the product manager and fashions them into a working product that meets the organization’s quality standards.

In short: product management is about the ‘what,’ while product development is more concerned with the ‘how.’ Working alongside each other, product managers and product development teams create the ideal product.

Anna Grigoryan

Anna is a Director of Product Management at Wrike and a seasoned product leader with over 15 years of experience in the tech industry. She has successfully led multiple engineering teams, ensuring the delivery of high-quality products featuring mobile and web experiences, seamless integrations with other platforms, and innovative white-labeled solutions.

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