How should product managers meet user needs?

Before product design, product managers have the most headaches of meeting requirements. How can they ensure that they can meet the current needs and adapt to the future scalability of products, product managers are often scratching their heads. This article first briefly introduces several frequently used demand analysis methods, and then discusses how to adopt the requirements.

 

I. Requirement analysis methods

 

1. Company-level service products

 

A company-level service product is a product launched by the company for the purpose of serving the masses and targeting the Internet masses. The final demand for such products is determined by the company. The target of the demand survey is the public, and there are many research methods, you can use surveys, face-to-face conversations, and establish basic requirements based on historical accumulation.

 

After investigating the requirements of various user roles, we usually sort the requirements of users by their priorities and group the needs of users at all levels to obtain the intersection of requirements of users at all levels, sort in the demand report as the first batch of requirements, and then put them into the demand report based on the user requirements with higher priority. Finally, combine the pre-predicted demand set of the design team to form a list of published requirements for the seminar, you can use brainstorming or delphi to determine the demand list of the intermediate edition. It is worth noting that the discussion method of the seminar is very labor-intensive, so the conference host should be very clear about the discussion content of this meeting, avoid too much deviation from problem expansion, resulting in the delay of the meeting. After discussing the demand list of the intermediate edition, a higher level meeting discussion is required. At least one product director or project executive is required to participate in the meeting, otherwise, all previous discussions are basically not counted, and there will be no reinforcements for the expected risks in the future.

 

2. Customer-level custom products

 

A customer-level custom product is a product initiated by a customer to facilitate the customer's use of products that solve a customer's existing problems and target the private customer group. The final demand for such products is determined by the proprietary customer group, which can be one or more people. The target of the survey is also the customer. There are also many research methods, such as holding a project kickoff meeting, ask customer representatives and product team representatives to discuss their needs, or use the prototype method to conduct multiple rounds of research to obtain the requirement list after the final finalized prototype. Note: The above is a general situation, and special processing is required in special cases. For example, a large product requires a spiral model, and the final product is obtained after multiple spiral operations, small projects can directly adopt Agile methods through the original method, and medium-sized projects can adopt waterfall and so on, according to the actual situation.

 

The author prefers to hold the project kickoff meeting, because this comparison is direct and most efficient. If one round is not enough, we can open two events until there is no objection, and then make a product prototype. When conditions permit, the product team members of the project kickoff meeting usually arrange the following roles: UI, development manager, and senior development engineer. Why are these roles assigned? Generally, such product teams do not have interaction designers. The UI and product manager assume this role. Why should I call a development manager another senior development engineer? From the perspective of experience, senior development engineers in the product team have long lived in the product team and have a good understanding of the product development details, so that they can easily make tough judgments on key requirements, you can give feedback to users in a timely manner to avoid the appearance of "float" and "cold market". Development managers may flow frequently, although they are familiar with most of the company's products, however, the product manager does not have a deep understanding of the details, but the product manager has a broad view of the overall product development framework, such as the hardware resources required for a requirement, you can quickly implement technical control in all aspects, so both roles are required. However, if there is an all-powerful development manager, you do not need to do this. Why didn't I see the project manager? This problem is amazing. Generally, in this type of product team, the product manager is the project manager, and the project manager is the product manager!

 

II. How to meet requirements

 

1. Company-level service products

 

After determining the final requirement list for a service-type product, the product manager can call the interaction designer and development manager to find a small meeting room, use the mind map tool to draw a list of product requirements with the product as the core and mark the priority of various requirements. The priority setting principle is mainly based on the general needs of most users, ensuring that the highest priority needs are the most basic requirements, that is, the most needed needs of users. For example, if you want to design an electric fan, level 1 requirements should include fan blades and power switches. With these two functions, the most basic operation of the fan can be ensured. Level 2 needs to consider designing wind speed control and exterior decoration. The same is true for our products. We set the general requirements most needed by most users as the first-level requirements. As the 1.0 release, the general requirements include basic requirements, and some personalized requirements or some highlight requirements can be gradually expanded, put it in 2.0 and 3.0, which can control the divergent thinking of the product manager, because when the product manager enters the stage of executing the development, there will always be some very strange ideas that can't wait to be raised at the morning meeting or group meeting. I hope the development manager will add them to the product functions and release them at 1.0, in this way, the product manager can put the creative ideas into the mind-pilot and mark the priority, which will be released as a 2.0 demand set.

 

2. Customer-level custom products

 

Maybe the product manager or project manager who has done such a project will have such experience. When the customer asks a lot, the demand is messy, although the final shot is fixed, however, after the initial project was created based on the contract quota, time, and labor cost of the product, we suddenly found that there was a lot of Expiration Time. At this time, we had to sacrifice our sword to cut down the demand, this "cut" is more difficult. If the product is too big to be accepted, the product cannot be accepted. If the cut is too short, the product still cannot be accepted. What should I do?

 

It is very important to keep calm thinking. Don't be impatient and make impulsive decisions. For example, if you are eager to join the company, developers can work overtime in a crazy way, these are irrational. The most rational thing is to repeat the demand list and meeting minutes of the seminar several times and carefully analyze the details. In fact, the requirements here are not all what the customers need most, during the project kickoff meeting, the customer put forward all of them in one breath. Most of them were guided by the product manager. When talking about a function, the customer followed the process and came up with more demands. Customers can also discuss the same with us. After carefully analyzing these requirements, find out some things that you think can be put on hold or even made later, you can find a representative of the customer who can set a picture and repeat it together. Most of the customers will agree as long as you have enough reasons. If you really don't agree, you can change it, another easy-to-implement method is used to satisfy users.

 

The above are some of the situations and solutions I have encountered in my actual operation. Some of them may not be clearly written after the time is relatively late. I will sort out some specific content and write it later, such as the details of demand Research and the areas to be aware of, risk prediction, and some tips for planning.