Shifting your mindset from working on Projects to Products
Project — temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. Main project constraints are: scope, time and budget. Project goal is usually well known. Successful project — it’s when goal is reached within given time and budget.
Product is a different thing. Product is not a temporary endeavor. Product is supposed to live long (ideally, forever). Also, success criteria are different. For product, it’s more important to conquer the market, than to fit into planned time and budget.
In project, main questions team members care about, are What [to do] and How [will we do it]? In product, main question team members should ask, is Why? (1). In other words, in product team should have broader vision and knowledge. They should understand that goal is not fixed, that it is changing over time, and then they will be not disappointed when you throw away some pieces.
You may need different people to build Projects & Products. For project, you need Producers and Administrators, but for product you need Entrepereneurs and Producers.
Links:
(1) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/project-versus-product-owner-manager-simon-powers