Product managers envision new products, evaluate market needs and timing, find suitable customers, drive marketing activities, and are responsible for pricing. Program managers align different teams, create execution roadmaps, mitigate risks, and ensure on-time delivery meeting quality standards. Project managers execute the vision under guidance, work at the code level, and produce the working software product on time, with quality and customer satisfaction.

1. Difference between Product Manager, Program Manager and Project
Manager.
The PM terms are heavily mis-interpreted within the IT industry and tend to
take up different meanings with individuals and corporate. Specially
working with product or service based organization tend to blur their
meanings even more. I tried to take a novel approach of explaining the
work contribution and impact of these PM’s via comparing them via Indian
arranged marriage system.
Here we go. Consider for a moment Marriage as a product. (Two
individuals tying a knot).
The parent on both sides who has to find and finalize the perfect match for
their children, getting agreement from the to-be bride & groom and decide
on the marriage dates mostly based on some auspicious suitable day and
making all the arrangements to facilitate everybody can be considered as
Product Manager (in some cases product owner).
A product manager does similar kind of envisioning to bring a product to
market and commercialize it. He evaluates the market need and timing of
launching the product, finds suitable customers/users for it and drives
marketing activities around it, he/she is been consulted for every blocking
decision during the execution of the project and he has veto power towards
a go/no-go action for any open decision. He is also responsible for setting
right pricing for the product in consultation with sales/marketing teams.
Next comes the elder (in some cases younger) brother/sister along with
the cousins and friends who have to do all the running around getting
alignment and agreement across different cross functional stakeholders.
They might not possess very strong decision making powers but are
consulted for informed for different activities happening, They need to make
sure all the stakeholders work in tandem from the caterers to make-up man

2. to band wala to couriring invitations and very importantly helping the bride
& groom to dress up and reach different ceremonies on time.
A program manager is a similar cross functional role who aligns the
different tech and non-tech teams to bring alive the vision of the product to
life. He acts as a facilitator to create detailed execution roadmap,
identify/mitigate risks and ultimately ensure delivery of the product with the
required quality and meeting the target deadlines. He/she tracks progress
regularly and in the main point of contact for any execution escalations.
Now comes the bride and groom who actually have to execute every step
and make the marriage happen. They participate in every stage of
ceremony and their presence mark the completion of marriage, They are
regularly coached by parents and friends for emotional readiness and
making sure they celebrate all the occasions. If they fail in any way like not
reaching on time or not dressed properly or over stressed, it could
ultimately lead to failure of the process. Compare this with IT project
manager who works under the guidance of other PM’s and execute the
vision. They work at code level and ultimately produce the working software
as the final product. There active involvement ensures timing, quality,
usability and completion of the project with a satisfied customer.
I hope this unconvention analogy would prove helpful in understanding the
role and responsibilities of different PM teams within IT software projects.