Products and projects are related, although their management differs.

A product, for example, can contribute to the delivery of a service, such as a virtual wallet that provides functionalities in a specific currency, or an internet service company offering a maximum bandwidth to its customers.

On the other hand, projects are transversal to these products or services, represented by the red line in the PMBOK 6th Edition by the Project Management Institute. Each project will have its initiation, planning, objectives, and closure. When managed as a project, it will contribute, for instance, to expanding the service offerings related to the product in question.

In the example of the wallet, a project might aim to offer the service of operating with U.S. dollars. Meanwhile, in the case of the internet service company, a project could involve increasing the speed they can offer to customers. This could range from technological infrastructure to designing internal incident resolution channels and calibrating customer management services.

Similarly, a business objective can have multiple projects tied to it. Using the internet company example, blue projects might represent purely technological efforts, green ones those related to marketing, and yellow a customer study.

Example Projects:

• Project 1 (IT): Everything related to infrastructure.
• Project 2 (IT): All tasks concerning software installation and configuration.
• Project 3: The marketing campaign to attract potential customers.
• Project 4 (IT): Development of platforms for incident management, help desk, and internal/external customer support.
• Project 5: The marketing campaign to retain customers and improve the product.
• Project 6: A customer study to understand their preferences, motivations, attitudes, and behaviors.

Product management, on the other hand, involves a different type of approach. It starts at the organizational level, where decisions are made, such as expanding bandwidth in the case of the internet company or targeting a new customer market by offering dollar-denominated operations for the wallet.