Bitterness Confessions of a woman PM

Editor: This article comes from a female PM's submission, the self-proclaimed Miss X in 08 began to go into the toss, so far all kinds of frustration makes her physically and mentally exhausted.

I am a product manager has not done a successful product, has been responsible for a number of projects, but is not aborted is already dying. I'm not Wang, not Zhangxiaolong, not old, not Steve Jobs. In the dead of night, I often sit on the toilet to reflect on the meaning of their existence, the boss of the money burned out?

When I'm dying of frustration, I'm going to give myself chicken blood in a variety of perverted ways-like writing this article. (The following is a personal point of view, welcome to refuse to throw bricks)

First of all, I want to talk about why products go to the "unreliable" step. This tragedy, like Love, is doomed from the very beginning. As for this "beginning", there are mainly the following situations:

1, the boss is not reliable. This is not serious, because no boss will admit that he is not reliable. And if the product manager is outside the job (that is, after the product was created), it is even less qualified to tell the boss that he is not reliable.

I have experienced a bad boss can be divided into 3 categories: too want to make money, too want to cheat, ABC.

Too want to make money: leading to ignore the user experience, even without providing users with a clear utility before, thinking that you TM should pay, or you do not pay the TM obediently watch ads, otherwise I how to survive. As a mature and emotionally experienced woman, I think it's like a man who hasn't asked you to have sex with you and wants to sleep with you, and it's the same reason you have to pay half the money to open a room.

Too want to cheat money: lead to blindly copy foreign profit/business model, spend a lot of time to hook up with investors, to all kinds of IT Salon roadshow to share the scene brush face. Do you think you're just wasting some time? You're pushing this product into hell when you talk about your product with these people. The so-called insiders simply give you these kinds of feedback:

A, "this thing who is doing yo!" (then Perak says how good a bunch of other people are doing, whether it's the right thing or not, that's a big blow to your enthusiasm, unless you think the person you're talking to is stupid, but the problem is you've been talking to him for so long that you're not stupid enough

B, "sounds good, do you need to invest?" (and then you spend at least a few hours, but everyone knows that the person who really makes the investment decision is not the one standing in front of you.) The 99% possibility is that you are obligated to help this VC student finish his industry research work this week.

C, "hehe" (then you can only hehe, right?)

I had a boss, and investing was his old job. He taught me a lot of ways to deal with VC, but inevitably destroyed his own products. This can not blame them, they make investment in the habit, think a product is a pig, raise strong can sell high price. You do not have feelings for a pig, there is no responsibility or obligation, so you'd better be able to raise a lot of different varieties of pigs, to observe which kind of long the fastest and most fat, and then the other pigs sold after the sale, and then raise a lot of heads grow fast and fat pigs. Unexpectedly, the reality is often a pig was left out after emotional frustration overwhelmed with avian virus attack, all the pigs are dead.

Finally said ABC, well, we still skip it, summed up a "can't spit more", you know. Usually I have a way to identify "ABC boss" and "very unreliable ABC boss", simply rough, is to ask him: do you know what cock silk is?

Well, spit out so many slots just finished the first tragedy, we do not throw bricks, you read here why no longer endure. I quickened my pace.

2, you are not reliable. Don't throw the bricks and hear me out. The so-called people in the river-Lake involuntarily, product Manager see this sentence must immediately laolei, choked but road days cool good autumn. Then let me help them talk about their journey.

There are about 3 kinds of reasons for the tragedy of "oneself is not reliable": too self-confident, too insecure, too cheap.

Given the reasons for space, there is no need to expand on the first two of these simple and concise words. My bitter experience is that if you do not have a stake in this project, please do not put the fart, you do not qualify, do not hate yourself to ruin your job. If you have an option to get involved in the project from scratch, and has established with the product and the team deep blood is thicker than blood, then you want to be like a man (or female men), for the product for a better future, including the idea of overthrowing the boss said you silly, but also to help the boss tea on the back of flattery, Give him a beautiful onion cake every day so he can give you more resources and more budget.

Now I'm going to focus on what a "cheap" product manager is. In fact, my own is, the perfect, if you also flashed a trace of uncertainty inside, then admit it, medicine can not stop.

A nasty symptom 1: Like asking the East ask west. Many product managers know a lot of truth, free time to read a variety of well-known predecessors experience to share, what jobs biography ah Quora Ah 36kr Ah Lao's speech video Ah are repeated worship of learning. I didn't say it was bad, I just wanted to state my own tragic experience, abound is, because of well-read and self-denial caused by other people's glorious greatness. From "is the business model of this product subversive enough?" to "This function is good, but there is no better way to achieve it, is there?" and then to the color of the button for the right? "then go back to the user Experience Design Law series, Pro, you are not tired of living?

Well, what I'm trying to say is, if you think you should do something, do it, and you'll never know it. Do not ask East ask west, if the answer is to ask out, all products are listed.

Here I am interrupting a "user focus research" slot. The user is not stupid but also absolutely not clever, you want to do the MVP trial and error, remember not to the paper prototype image equivalent to the MVP, throw to the user embarrass them. Users will not buy 64G of mobile phones like you do, and will not be able to pack hundreds of of apps like you, and not sit on the toilet like you do in the study of an unreliable application that is being brushed to the top of the social list today. User simple head really can't imagine how your product "should" interact, how to solve the problem, unless you do something pure copy weixin or ink weather. In addition, users do not really know what they want, only know they don't want anything. Just like the human, I do not know what kind of son, I only know that I am not a roadside bump garbage aunt, nor is next to her arms than 20 years old state-owned Bank of the old man's proud woman.

I believe that the essence of user research should be to control the topic in a range, while stimulating the exchange between users, even if the topic finally pulled to the "good want to find a man ah" is not too much relationship. All you have to do is watch what they're wearing, their conversation, their lifestyles, values, points of interest, engrave the information in their heads, like 3D printers, and back up the whole piece of your target user image, a vivid person! When your product can completely impress this person, will be able to launch the market. If you can become good friends with the members of the research team, and add Weixin God horse, the effect will be better. (Do you think this is a good idea?) It's because I hate analyzing data. Fear to see Excel forms, so use this perceptual method to opportunistic. Rational people spit it out. I don't mind. )

Nasty symptom 2: like to stick someone cold butt. Product Manager, we all know how hard it is for your product to finally come online, you must be with the boss countless times to the table arguing (quarrel), and designers countless times to roar your ya parknshop is how bad, and RD have countless times complained, "How have not finished how still have bug", then be sprayed a face " Who let you always change ", but only with their side midnight even with sleeping company." But! You really don't have to show off the product to people all over the world.

My own personal experience of the people to the cheap medicine can not stop, is to put a good product to the people who do not target users to see (including the family also left the Chairman Mao quotations in the state-owned enterprises), the results Shiri not say, more serious is their opinion, will seriously affect the follow-up development of products. This is like KFC's chicken nuggets of all kinds of classics, but after China began to sell porridge, so it is no longer the same old KFC. (OK, this example is not very appropriate, anyway, you know.) So how can you be so unreliable, Ernest people will save a bit of saliva why The, take back to a lot of trouble to do, abandoned and sorry for others ' chicken product recommendations.

Finally, a nasty symptom 3: Spend too much time complaining, spit out other product managers who are less reliable than themselves, spit the boss, slot colleagues, spit the world. Yes, I am now, you do not learn.

Above, I, for the time being finished.

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Present some words of wisdom, oh no, the most advanced version of the slot gold sentence, I hope you can realize that I laugh behind the dense cup mulberry.

If the boss asks you to want the next 3 years product roadmap, actually he just wants to ask, you TM when can make money!

Demand has been changed, there is a way to less dorado it? No, no! How can I keep up with the rapid development of the Internet business?

Come out and mix it up. Any product is likely to be played by a group of friends named "early adopter" in society. They never learn how to write loyalty two words, forever New, unless you are the electric dealers daily change to meet their needs for freshness, but if you are a real product, such as a well-known sound photo software and a well-known gun software ( In fact, I would like to call the name of a well-known geographical location of social software, although his social is never done well, early adopters if it is a taste of the family, it may not be good.

Data analysis, unavoidable wool. Don't you think for a couple of hours, Excel adjusts a variety of operational formulas finally summed up is the bottom can be thought of the conclusion, really very fucked up!? (OK, I simply refer to those very young products, and so the user accumulated a certain basis, the data becomes very important)

Content for the king. This is the most reasonable sentence I think. No matter how cool the product design is, users only care about what is available to help. Content reflects the overall ideological depth of the product, the content allows users to judge "it is not worth making friends."

To take up the point, the medium is the message this is very multimedia people know. It's the most straightforward translation: A man hooking you up with a Momo, or using LinkedIn to hook you up with a different purpose. (Of course the end result is probably all going to the hotel.) The point of product design is that you create a game rule and then you can manipulate people's behavior like God.

The product manager's own self-cultivation is very important. Many people are "get cock silk" This sentence than the Biblical believers more than the golden sentence misled, think product manager is from the lunch box to the corner of the nose to pull the nasal movements, all to be integrated into this temperament group cock silk. But my opinion is different. The development of the Internet has passed the era of purely technical barriers to pull the gap, the future competition lies in the deeper and the traditional industry intelligence docking, the request Product Manager learns more non-Internet domain thing, therefore oneself must have the tutelage consciousness, carries the curious heart, understands appreciates and pursues more has the force lattice the thing, like this can have the competitive strength.

RD usually does not like taking risks, fearing to be the scapegoat for project delays, which is why they always multiply by 2.5 times times in your estimated development time. If you feel angry, all I can say is anger and anger.

RD people are hard to find and difficult to stay in. The reason may be that the RD "earn more x early" reputation outside, usually organized a family earlier, by the road female men holding a house to buy a certificate also loans. Their favorite is usually money, you wear a low chest of milk to interview them is no use-this sentence is for those who have just come into thinking that there is a beauty of the small vase female PM to listen to.