Product vs Project management - The Greek reality

Story time!

The other day I was chatting with some friends. Most of them graduated from Computer Science. Somewhere in the discussion, a misunderstanding came up around what a product manager / product owner does compared to a project manager.

That opened a can of questions.
Who is more important?
Why don’t we see many product roles advertised in Greek companies?
And honestly—yes, product jobs are not exactly flooding LinkedIn.

💣Cue a déjà vu moment. It felt exactly like explaining my job to my mum.

But it also triggered a realization: the Greek ecosystem is still not very familiar with the product role. Project management is the more traditional one. It’s been around for a long time, and for good reasons.

Fair enough—let’s take it step by step. I’ve been lucky enough to work in environments that clearly differentiate the two roles, so I’ll share how I personally see it.

Let’s cut to the chase, keeping things a bit abstract.

For me—trying not to be biased as a product person—the product manager is responsible for the WHY.

The product manager captures customer problems and tries to extract the biggest opportunities out of them. Constantly hunting for pain points. Talking to customers. Collecting feedback. Saying yes or no to feature ideas (and explaining why). Setting priorities.

The project manager, on the other hand, is responsible for the WHEN.
When will the team ship an increment?
How do we keep momentum?
Creating Gantt charts, offering timelines to management, and acting as the glue between product and the development team.

If we put it on a timeline:
Product identifies the opportunity and drafts the requirements.
Tech decides the HOW—how the idea comes to life.
Project tracks progress and upcoming releases.

👉So the real question is:
Do you need someone to help decide what to build—or someone to make sure it actually gets delivered?

My personal perspective is that—especially in Greece—there are environments where both roles are needed, and that’s the ideal setup.

In smaller, project-driven businesses (for example research projects, where the outcome is largely predefined), a project manager can be a perfect fit.

In startups or tech companies trying to bring a new idea to market, product can add the most value early on.

Different problems. Different tools.

Mum… guys… is it clearer now? 😆

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