https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqJ4So-JjLA&t=1s
The difference is simple. At the end of a week, feature team considers its job done when they ship working code to production, while the empowered team considers its job done when a problem they work with is solved.
From the outside, both the empowered and feature team looks similar. They have some form of product manager, a few engineers, designer or QA.
The difference is when you look from inside. Feature teams are basically given with roadmaps and features to build. They already have been given a solution that somebody thinks is right. They usually don’t even have a context what is underlaying problem is. So it’s about building things as fast as possible to serve stakeholders. It’s all about output and they aren’t accountable for results.
In empowered product teams, they are given a problem to solve and they are accountable for the result. It might be a customer problem or a business problem. They are given the ability to solve that problem, whatever it means.
They will build features too, but that’s not a goal - solving the problem is the goal. That makes them to be accountable for the result. It’s all about the outcome. They are here to serve the customer that works for
That also has fundamental implications on what their job is - to solve problems, not to build to please stakeholders. That’s why different roles are responsible for different activities:
Empowered team job is much broader.