I touch on this subject because of the work I am doing currently on AI transformations and, in this work, what so often comes up is the approach to take in managing activities. I have seen so many frameworks on this, some bad and some good. I think they are important and wrote about this before from a systems point of view. In this post I want to focus on the two approaches in the title.

First just to be clear, for the comparison table below between product and project management, I did the heavy lifting using Copilot.

	Product Management	Project Management
Focus	Product managers focus on the overall scope of a product, including establishing the product’s vision and ensuring it meets users’ needs. They are responsible for the product’s success throughout its lifecycle.	Project managers concentrate on logistical elements of a project, such as scheduling, budgeting, and resource management. Their primary goal is to shepherd projects to completion.
Strategic vs. Tactical	Product managers are strategic thinkers who set the long-term vision and business trajectory for the product. They define key metrics for product success and work with cross-functional teams to develop and pursue product strategy.	Project managers are more tactical and focused on execution. They plan projects, create teams, manage schedules, budgets, and communicate with stakeholders to achieve specific project goals.
Duration	Product management doesn’t have a clear beginning and end; it spans the entire lifecycle of the product.	Project management involves fulfilling short-term goals within specified timelines. Projects have a defined start and end.
Autonomy	Product teams, empowered by product managers, operate autonomously and make decisions independently.	Project managers work within externally determined specifications and timelines to achieve project goals.
Examples	Examples of products: software applications, physical goods, digital services, etc.	Examples of projects: constructing a building, rolling out a new tool, implementing a system upgrade, etc.

Clearly these roles are different and I am not proposing they get confused. What I am saying and often see with AI transformation efforts is that they are managed as if they were projects and I think the effort would be more successful if it was treated like a product.

I’ve listed why I think the product management approach is better below and taken from some of the points made in the table but also added my own.

Why I prefer the product management approach

Before I dive into my list, note these apply to AI transformations but could apply to any transformation. Except that I think AI transformations are one of those types that come around every so often that are truly disruptive. So these points apply even more so. And just to be clear, I define a transformation as follows:

A transformation is a major change or shift in strategy and operating model required to adapt to a changing environment or circumstances, where the failure to do so will doom your business to extinction at worst, or severely disadvantage you against competitors at best.

Stephen Danelutti

1. Iterative versus linear. This requires you to view the process and indeed the progress as cyclical and dynamic and ever changing. Projects often have a start and end and activities are managed sequentially and projects are often sporadic, carried out as the need arises. When the end is reached, the project is disbanded. When you manage a product, it is ever changing, it’s evergreen. You invest in products to meet user goals that are not fixed, sometimes even not fully known and so you have to be constantly iterating and adapting to them as you experiment and discover more, progressively improving.
2. Strategic versus tactical. You don’t just decide to launch a product on a whim and invest time, effort, money and resources on a short-term bet. While there is never a guarantee of success, products are a more strategic consideration over the long term, and you need to think differently. So too with transformations. Projects can be scoped and defined very narrowly and time bounded where risk is managed more strictly. Your tolerance for failure is higher with projects because you are not betting the farm on them, so you can think more tactically.
3. Long term versus short term. A transformation requires you to plan holistically for the longer term and involve more resources, maybe even the whole company, like you would do with a product. You are working to leverage an opportunity in the marketplace and creating a solution that fits, assuming you are not reacting to a crisis – innovating in other words, not being forced to change. Projects by their tactical nature, can be aligned against short term fixes or needs. You can create a project to course correct, but you build products and solutions because you are betting on a longer-term future outcome.

Design your systems and/or frameworks with these considerations in mind and I’d wager you’ll be more successful.