Organizations define Product Manager and Product Owner roles differently. Company size, industry, and structure all play a role. Scrum makes the Product Owner accountable for maximizing value, but many companies add a Product Manager alongside—or instead of—a Product Owner. This creates variations in how the roles function.
The Strong Product Owner Model
Some companies align the Product Owner role with strategic responsibilities. These Product Owners engage with customers and stakeholders while also working closely with the team, ensuring a direct link between market needs and product development.
The more empowered a Product Owner is, the better they can make good decisions for the product. Empowerment comes from having clear decision-making authority, a well-defined product, and strong organizational support. A Product Owner can’t drive value without having the trust and backing to make trade-offs and prioritization calls.
Strong Product Owners require a clear product definition and should be supported by cross-functional teams with all the skills necessary to deliver value. For example, if the product is a website, perhaps the Developers include individuals with skills in back-end development, front-end design, content writing, search engine optimization, and more. The best teams are cross-functional. These teams reduce handoffs, shorten feedback loops, and take full ownership of outcomes.
Splitting up Responsibilities
Larger companies often separate the roles. The Product Manager handles market research, competitive analysis, and strategy. The Product Owner focuses on the development team, refining the backlog and ensuring work aligns with priorities. This can create clarity but also risks disconnecting customer needs from execution if collaboration is weak.
A common problem is introducing a Product Manager but limiting the Product Owner’s authority. When the Product Owner is treated as a backlog administrator rather than an accountable leader, decisions slow down, and teams lack clear direction. Teams may deliver features efficiently but miss the mark on outcomes.
Product Manager Who Manages People
When there are several Product Owners at an organization, sometimes a Product Manager is established who is responsible for human resources functions. This person might handle hiring, performance reviews, and career development, creating consistency across multiple Product Owners. This approach ensures that Product Owners are empowered but still receive the support and advice that they need from someone who understands the pressures facing a Product Owner. While this structure can help scale the function, care must be taken to ensure the Product Owners still maintain product accountability.
Scaling
When the product becomes large enough, the team may adopt a scaling framework such as Nexus to manage dependencies and communication across the team. The scaling approach should be lightweight. Heavy, process-driven scaling solutions can add unnecessary overhead and slow down decision-making. Regardless of the framework, preserving the Product Owner’s ability to make quick, informed decisions remains critical. Coordination mechanisms should support, not dilute, this role.
What Works Best?
Before deciding how to structure Product Owners, the organization should first define Products. Are teams aligned around a Product, or are they siloed by technology area and thereby creating unnecessary silos? Products should be defined in a way that allows a single team—or a small set of teams—to deliver end-to-end value. When structure follows this product definition, teams can take ownership of outcomes, and the Product Owner can truly lead.
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