The first talent in short supply for Chinese IC companies

------- The bucket must first be able to hold water, and then how much water can it hold
Hu yunwang, general manager of KT talent Company
In my 8-year IC talent hunting service, I have reached out to thousands of friends in the IC industry. During the communication, I spoke about delay )! Some minor mistakes or even mistakes cannot be considered as a connection problem, resulting in the product's delay again and again. Icdesign delay, production and operation delay, system solution delay, marketing delay, and delay! Continuously
In delay, all kinds of resources are wasted, competitors are getting up, target customers are running away, and the market is lost! Finally, the company's money is gone, but the VC does not delay, but it disappears!
Why are there endless mistakes? Why are there so many delay phenomena?
In my opinion, most IC companies lack a leader! In the chip manufacturing industry, there are hundreds of different process procedures, so we have set up a "Serial Line engineer" position (also called Process Integration ). In an icdesign enterprise, we also need such a line-by-line person, called the product line owner (product line manager), responsible for starting from the IC market demand, to IC Product Definition, algorithm design, architecture design, front-end design, IC verification, simulation design, layout/back-end design, streaming, encapsulation, testing, solution hardware and system software design, marketing, sales, fae, it even includes coordination and management of the entire process of product exit from the market, that is, let the IC from 0
1 to 0. This coordinator must have the ability and authority to coordinate all relevant departments of the product line, such as manpower, progress, and production materials, to ensure smooth, timely and correct implementation of product plans.
The responsibilities of the product line owner are as follows:
1
Fully responsible for the entire process from product definition, business plan, upstream and downstream Department interface management, risk assessment and countermeasures to mass production and market import. That is, the person in charge of product line operation in the entire process from market, R & D, production to sales.
2. lead the team to make reasonable decisions on the control and product line R & D and marketing processes.
3
During project execution, find reasonable resources within or outside the company based on the budget to solve the obstacles to the project process node.
4. If the project plan is exceeded, make changes or workarounds in a timely manner. Assurance project.
5. During the product R & D period, the product cost, quality, and time processes during chip R & D to market launch are controlled.
6
Lead the team to properly adjust business strategies, optimize variable costs, reduce R & D costs, and increase profitability during the product production phase.
7
During the market import process, customer groups and suppliers should be well managed, and customer priorities should be evaluated comprehensively to ensure chip supply and preliminary technical services for important customers.
8. Actively participate in the formulation of the next-generation product road map during product sales.
What kind of talents are suitable for product line owners?
In general, this person should be a versatile person. He is an experienced, thoughtful, technical, and attractive person ".
1
This person must understand the system, define a reasonable architecture, make the design easier to implement, and make the system cost more competitive.
2
Understand the design. During product development, there will be coordination issues between different designers. Many people usually only consider their own modules in the design. Therefore, even if all modules in the design achieve the best performance, the products made are not necessarily the best. This requires mutual "compromise", which is called tradeoff in design. There is an old saying that "the right is the best". It is more important to design this sentence in ic2.
3
Understand the process and process. To plan the time when a product is pushed to the market, the product line owner must be precise to each stage and select the appropriate process and time required. In addition, if problems occur due to manufacturing, the product owner must coordinate with the producer. What should I do?
4
Understand the market and application, and set reasonable development time based on the market. The key to bringing a product to the market as soon as possible is to promptly solve problems encountered by customers during the promotion process.
5
The most important thing is good interpersonal relationships and personal charm. There are many problems encountered in the design process, which are often promoted by the product line owner. However, if the engineer is not managed by you, it is inevitable that the product line owner will encounter a problem of "three obstacles. Good interpersonal skills show importance.
This "stringline" product line manager is very important for IC companies. The reason can be explained by the barrel theory. As we all know, the "Barrel Principle" is about how much water can be loaded in a bucket is determined by the shortest plank. That's right! However, the ability to hold water in barrels is the first element! A bucket can hold water. Then, how much water can it hold! What makes it impossible to hold water in a bucket?
Gaps!
As long as there is a gap, the barrel cannot hold water at all, let alone how much water to hold. Different positions in different departments in an organization are like wooden boards in wooden barrels. It is easier to make the real bucket seamless. However, an organization is composed of living people in different departments and positions. It is too difficult to achieve "no gaps! Especially for icdesign companies, almost all of them are composed of highly educated and high-IQ talents, making it even more difficult to achieve seamless development!
From market research to successful market production, a single chip has to go through more than 10 processes starting from market demand research. If there is no person in charge of product line management for communication and coordination, there will inevitably be too many things and too many chaos, leading to problems everywhere and gaps everywhere! When there is a gap, we need manpower and time to make up for it, to continuously catch bugs and debug, and thus enter the constant
The vicious circle of delay again!
Product Line owners are so important, but why are too many Chinese IC companies not configured? I think the main reasons are as follows:
1
European and American companies did not cultivate such local Chinese IC talents. European and American companies almost do not recruit Chinese local talents for product line management, because the positions of European and American companies need to be linked up to coordinate overseas departments, too high requirements for English! Overseas students are also basically engaged in technical development, which can be a master or leader with a small board, but there is almost no chance to take charge of the management of the entire product line.
2
Product Line owners need a wide range of knowledge, from market opportunities, product definitions to icdesign, IC manufacturing, system solutions, and marketing. It has only been 10 years since the large-scale development of IC in China. It is difficult to cultivate such comprehensive talents in such a short period of time.
3
In terms of product line management, the requirements for the person in charge are very high, not only the communication and coordination capabilities are very strong, but also a very strong sense of responsibility, personality charm and principles. To put it bluntly, just like Premier Zhou's management of 20 ministries and commissions, how difficult is it!
4
Most engineers in China advocate technology and despise management. They are unwilling to accept coordination and management for those who are not as good as themselves, this also makes it impossible for product line managers with wide knowledge to smoothly carry out their work.
5
In China, due to the absence of professional ethics and spirit, such qualified product line owners are too easy to pull out a group of people and establish a new one because they know each "process, therefore, CEOs of many local Chinese IC companies do not dare to recruit or use it!
It can be seen that it is still difficult to find such a qualified product line owner in the market. I have met several people in eight years. The talent in this position is the most scarce talent in China. This may be an important reason why Chinese icdesign companies cannot configure such positions.
Therefore, in China's IC companies, especially small-sized companies, there is no specific product line owner, basically the CEO is responsible for the product line management. However, the CEO "Sun Li wanji" takes too much time and energy to deal with the company's strategic direction, upstream and downstream relations in the industrial chain, especially financing matters. product line management is a very daily task, it takes a considerable amount of time and energy to make up for numerous small gaps through continuous coordination and communication. How can CEOs do well! The consequence must be that you cannot manage your skills! Of course, Chinese CEOs have almost no complete product line management experience before, and their knowledge is not wide enough. This seriously affects the implementation of product line management, in this way, all departments of the company are constantly delay and then delay.
In view of this, I believe that Chinese icdesign companies should cultivate product line management talents and select project managers with strong communication skills, wide knowledge and rich experience. In addition, Chinese IC companies, especially small and medium-sized companies with weak anti-risk capabilities, must dare to reuse such talents, give enough rights, salaries and shares, and use them well and retain them, so that CEOs can focus on the future strategy and development of the company. Only after a qualified product line owner is trained will the delay of the product be reduced and the cask without gaps be integrated. In this way, the Chinese icdesign company is truly promising!