Discussion needs analysis --- product manager perspective

"Y" is the visualization of the product demand process. The process of "demand analysis" is to go through the "1 -> 2 -> 3" in the diagram and convert "user needs" into "product features."

Needs analysis

Several explanations on the map:

The more "Y" above the more solution, the more the more behind the purpose. "1-user needs," is often not good, most of the performance of the user's solution. But good "3-product features" must be derived from user needs. Therefore, "Do not listen to the user," a more accurate understanding of "listening to the user, but do not do it"; the same time, do not be misunderstood "to create demand", you create a solution to meet the needs of users - product features, and Not user needs.

1-> 2, by asking "Why", and gradually summed up, 2-> 3, by asking "How", and gradually deduction. The process must use a variety of auxiliary information, such as data, competing products, industry.

The process of tracing the "2-product requirement" to the "4-Maslow demand" is optional and is plotted as a dotted line just for the sake of completeness of this theory. If interested, the total demand for each product can be dug into Maslow Level. The choice of "2-Product Requirements" as a product requirement depends on the positioning of the company and the product.

Such as the bad street, "buy jackhammer" example: Suppose you are a marriage agency product manager, you can find opportunities?

Xiao Ming said, "I want to buy a drill." This is the user needs, he thought the solution.

At this time, if he is faced with an ordinary sales staff, maybe put the drill sold to him, say 500 yuan. However, Xiao Ming met a product manager. Product manager will ask -

"why?"

"I want to make a hole in the wall."

Some product manager, this stopped, Xiao Ming said, then you do not have to buy electric drill, we provide on-site service, 50 yuan, suddenly save 90%. At this point, product demand is a hole, the function is to hole service. If your company is located in this position, then this is also very good. However, some companies do not provide such products, then will continue to ask.

"why?"

"I hang a picture on the wall."

Well, there are a number of product managers to find the product needs. He told Xiaoming that we are a group company, we also provide services for selling paintings, and we can buy paintings to be installed at your doorstep. You see, the 50s are also saved, and new opportunities are uncovered - the demand for painting. However, I was a manager of a wedding agency, ah, had to bite the bullet and continue to ask.

"why?"

"Because the room was too empty and looked uncomfortable."

Ok, the original product demand is home improvement services ah, then How to the specific product features, such as adding a warm color of the wall lamp, carpeted ... ... However, Xiao Ming frowned, I feel wrong, look at the home looks like Question, I feel wrong.

"why?"

"This is the case. I am a migrant worker from IT. I am too busy to find a girlfriend. I work overtime late at night to go home late. I feel so bleak against a large white wall that I feel uncomfortably homey.

"Bingo, ha ha ha ha, why?"

"You smile a hair ... ..."

Well, you found no, for a buy electric drill, marriage agency also have a chance. The user needs, why where to stop, as a product demand, is entirely up to your product positioning, and has nothing to do with the user. And if we dig deeper, we will find that Xiao Ming actually is the third layer of Maslow's hierarchy of needs - "social interaction (love, emotion, sense of belonging)."

In practice, for convenience, "Y" can be simplified to "V", in order to return to verify whether the product features to meet product demand, we can then why, repeated up to "V", that the process of image Into "W".

One of the day-to-day tasks of a product team is to gather product stakeholders, known as "broad users," mention the various needs and organize them into product requirements, the "demand conversions" in the figure, which are usually freer to use before mindmap The expression, after transforming becomes the function list in excel. Acquisition of this needs of the PD, you can first "determine the property", that this demand belongs to the product which module? Is the basic, extended, value-added features? Is the function, performance, user experience, etc.? According to the different products can be freely defined, the principle is to facilitate the management of demand.

So we get the feature list, it is necessary to accumulate a certain amount of time or new needs, or triggered by a special event, come out with everyone over, this is the most crucial, that is highlighted in red The "determine the commercial value (product PK)." Our experience, the business value of a single PD to determine the risk, so this step is the PD team to discuss, and then call on the necessary stakeholders, such as sales, service. For business value can be described from multiple dimensions, and weighted average to get comprehensive business value, a detailed description can be found in one-way demand card, but in most cases, we find only one value of high school low, or 5,4, 3,2,1 points to measure is enough. Specific discussion, we fully expressed their views, the final event is often the highest level of the venue after a comprehensive number, this is a reality, but also an efficient way, I thought of voting, group scoring methods, but the implementation costs Too high

Attention, at a meeting on business value, all functions whose status is "to be discussed" will be over and over again, their status must be changed, either into "demand" or "rejected "Or" hold on. " Denied demand is considered to have no value for the commercial purpose of the product, and the suspended demand is "valuable, but not now", usually to indicate the conditions for restart, such as "come out after three months to discuss" "Some related products to achieve a function and then come up to discuss" and so on.

The next step is the initial workload for a functional point where the status changes to "in demand," because the demand is not clear, so it is a simple assessment that the degree of matching with the real world is very much dependent on experience and repeated by constant practice Fixed. We generally experience the project, the three categories of human resources is the "product, development, testing," the bottleneck resources in the team to do assessment benchmarks, so we generally assess the development engineer workload for each function point, because in our team Usually products, test resources can be relatively deployment, we all think of their own team flexible application. The specific assessment is usually done in the same way as the technical manager's role. The assessor determines how much time it takes for itself to be multiplied by a factor that is typically greater than one.

Continue, since how many hours we have and how many people have known for each iteration cycle, then how many "people days" are available for the workload to be known. With each point of business value and workload, it is natural to be able to calculate the cost-effective, simple to say that "commercial value / development workload", we feature list in descending order according to price, and then examine each The amount of development effort assessed by the bank, included in the project from top to bottom, and how many functional points we can make available at a glance.

The above mentioned, that is, the process of determining step by step how much a project can do.

Finally, we put these functions to be done together, the "demand package", and then down to do the BRD of this project. BRD through, after the project, and then tracking the progress of a demand, the entire process is a step by step to determine the various attributes of a demand process, and a description of a demand, you can use the following table to indicate A name is called "a DNA of need"), the items indicated by the red asterisks in the table are the required items in my mind.

This process is completely quantitative and answers the question of how much to do. However, the real situation which will be so simple and clear, here to say a few things to note.

First, the demand for packaging is best to play a similar function point, whether it is similar to the demand-dependent attributes, "determine the attribute" to do this thing works, in general, the business needs of a logical relationship will contain a project , Otherwise it is a "minor needs item" which is purely tinkering.

Second, the demand dependence, functional points have a dependency relationship between each other, there is no way, only to do some of the features, it should be noted in the feature list; function points and human resource dependencies will often exist, Here to assess the workload of the time will not consider the "who do" issue, but in the follow-up projects, the formation of the team need to pay attention to, of course, in the long run, in order to avoid such risks, to enhance and balance the ability of team members is king .

Third, the function of the size of the particle size, high business value of the function, if subdivided, we will find the relatively low value of the part, so the functional point size should be as small as possible, provided that the refinement of the management Cost increases are within acceptable limits. Specific to how much, but also specific analysis of the specific circumstances, I think the minimum unit of work can not exceed the total "5 person day".

In short, standing in the product manager's point of view, product needs to pay attention to six principles:

Principle 1: Never look smarter than your customers

Understand the needs, not criticize the customers. You are familiar with the product and technology, and customer customers are more familiar with the business environment than you, customers always know where the problem is, your job is to make them willing to say it, but also to dig deeper to explore the nature of the problem and customers Potential needs. Product managers should gradually become aware of domain experts, and only in this way can business and product really match.

Principle 2: Respect the user's realistic choice

Customers are always right, and many of the requests made by their clients have been put on the mark of "unrealistic" or "impossible" after our artificial filtration. The idea must be objective. Because our products are objective, the use of users is objective, their ideas are objective, objective must exist, and there must be reasonable. We do not easily deny the needs of users, do not easily say to the user: your idea is wrong. According to the current situation, we need to provide the most suitable solution, rather than the best or most expensive programs. What we can do is not necessarily the best, and sometimes what we do not want to do is often what our customers need most, finding the most suitable customers, not the ones that are best for us. Do not treat customers as fools. There is no fool in this world. People who think they are fools are really dumbfounded. Do not fool customers. Do not cheat customers. If we want to add a deadline to this, I hope it will be "forever." D% * ^ yi8DGE

Principle 3: The person who retweets the needs is also the client

As long as it is our product and business demand, that is, our customers, should be treated equally. The referees generally think of themselves as designers, but they may be familiar with the product, but may not be familiar with the entire business, so they can not become designers. So take into account the third party may miss or supplement some additional needs. Everyone expects the product to be good, and this strong sense of success easily exposes people to the halo of mind, affecting our screening of needs.

Principle 4: Customers and users to be treated differently

Customers are customers, users are users, sometimes consistent, and sometimes separated, which we must first figure out. The product is designed for the end user and the functionality required is translated to the end user's requirements. Users decide on the product, we need to work based on the user, starting with the user, attributed to the user. Customers are diverse, value-oriented is diverse, whether our products can carry a variety of customer value determines the final exchange of products. So you need to think about the real customer value of the product. The final value of the product is reflected by the user, from the user's product, is "the skin does not exist, hair will attach."

Principle 5: Record requirements using the simplest type tool

Do not want to learn something, the most easy to make mistakes; Do not want customers to spend more time to understand the model after the demand conversion; To maintain smooth communication, is to understand the demand Protection.

Principle 6: There is no free lunch in the world

To be sure to pay, the amount paid is not necessarily equal to the amount obtained, as the product manager, is to allow customers to pay as little as possible, as much as possible, but will never be free. Customer needs are realistic, are reasonable, because these needs are objective, but we are usually used to look at the subjective objective. Customer requirements can be achieved, there is no unrealized demand, only we do not understand the in-depth needs. Cost first or demand first, the customer gave us the problem, we use our wisdom to solve this problem. We can do this - it's the cost.