5 Product Team Roles Breakdown

PM, PO, Program, Project, PMM — what’s the real difference? Let’s make it clear.

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• LLM, ML, AI: What’s the Difference — and Why It Matters for Product Managers?

• What is Product Management all about?

• From Features to Problem-Solving. 4 Steps to Mature Product Work

• How to Turn Your Metrics into a Product Growth System

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When I first started working in product, I thought a Product Manager was just the person who decided which features to build next.
Pick the important stuff, hand it over to the dev team — done.

But then came the Product Owner. Then the Program Manager. Then Project. Then the Product Marketing Manager.

And suddenly you’re not sure anymore:
Are you still managing the product — or just running between meetings, taking stakeholder requests, and assigning tasks?

It’s funny, but even in 2025, people still confuse these roles — and it’s not just a terminology issue.
It’s about focus, ownership, and all the places where things can go wrong.

In one case, the backlog is empty because no one wrote the tasks.
In another, the roadmap is filled with features someone saw in a competitor’s LinkedIn post.
And in a third — the product is live, but no one knows how to sell it.

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This article is for anyone who wants to finally make sense of who’s responsible for what.
If you’re a new PM, prepping for interviews, building a team, or just trying to clear the fog in your head — welcome.

We’ll keep it simple:
Five roles. Five key questions they answer. And one table you’ll probably want to bookmark.