Yammer Product Manager Talk about how enterprise-class products are "sexy"

Before Pingwest, Silicon Valley often used "not sexy" to describe companies that were enterprise-class products or start-ups. But there are some companies doing well in Silicon Valley, the enterprise-Class communications tool Yammer product Manager, acquired by Microsoft 1.2 billion dollars last summer, today in an event sharing the Yammer experience of designing and developing products for enterprise-class users.

In fact, to share experience, the first issue to discuss is still why the community generally believe that enterprise-class products are difficult and "easy to use", "easy to understand" to equate. In the event, Jason Shah analyzed some of the reasons:

First, enterprise-class products are diverse customers. In fact, for the end consumer products more diverse, this sentence better explanation should be that enterprise-class products buyers and users are different. In other words, the company is usually responsible for purchasing by the IT department, and it is actually used by staff within the company for specific positions. The technical background and usage habits of these two kinds of people are different.

Second, the product requirements are packaged and in accordance with the requirements of the contract. Jason Shah's exact words were bundled product needs and contract requirements. He analyzed that a company needs the basic performance of the product is OK, but the team each person's division of labor may want different things, but in order to cooperation between enterprises, in fact, the supplier to do things in accordance with the requirements of the contract, these several requirements mixed together will be more difficult to meet.

Third, the channels for growth are limited. If the consumer side of the product, it is obvious to promote more channels than the enterprise-side products. Enterprise-side products are more dependent on the work of the sales department.

Four, how to deal with the old information system and user expectations. When enterprise-class customers change their suppliers, they specify the requirements in their contracts, but they do not necessarily tell you how you should deal with the information they have left behind, and they usually expect the new product.

After analyzing these reasons, Jason Shah sums up Yammer's experience, in fact, the experience he shared about how to design and develop enterprise-class products is almost as much as telling you how to design a product for ordinary people: you need to know who your users are, what they're doing, Do user tests, watch their reactions, and then update iterations, except that the method may be different from a typical user test or product iteration.

First, multilayer ideas. Jason Shah said that in the Yammer, the beginning is that everyone together to develop products, no Web and mobile, we will do a lot of projects, so as to achieve "multi-layer concept", combined with user research. Here Jason Shah said the same thing I heard at the unsexy, "you have to remember that you are designing products for a living person, not a contract." "When he says he wants to communicate with the user, the word" Talk with "and emphasizes" notice that I'm using Talk with instead of Talk to. " ”

The difference between the two phrases is that the former is "dialogue", and the latter is "I say to You". What he wants to emphasize is to have users talk, and to consider the answer to the question setting, "If you ask him," Do you need a social product? ' That's a problem, he's sure to say, ' yes ', then there's no answer. But if you're asking, ' How are you doing today, are you having trouble using the product? ' He'll give you an open answer and you're really asking him. ”

In addition, after user testing and analysis, they recommend Google Analytics. At the same time monitoring the user's use, "and so you do the user's use of monitoring you will find that they will always behave differently than you think." ”

Second, product testing and experimentation. When it comes to this topic, whether it's Jason Shah or a later audience, and the developers I talk to, I talk about A/B testing. In layman's terms, this is in the process of users to use products, randomly to different users to show different products to test user behavior is more inclined to use which one, found that specific product features are popular with users test methods.

Jason Shah said Yammer's experience was to assume that users would have 1, 2, 3, and so on, to seek solutions for user testing, and then to iterate over the product. Here he talked about, in fact, what you focus on to do is to make their products better use, more functions equals better use. I have reservations about this view. But he said there is a problem with enterprise-class products, such as instant messaging tools that cover a single message and send a group of messages, and he wants to use this example to prove that "more functions = better use".

Finally, the customer is your partner, respect the user is the first step of any product. Jason Shah says asking users how to use your product is "tremendous important" (unusually important), and as you have said, keep asking questions and asking questions that are effective and have answers.

"The first Yammer to do small groups of user testing, will send a message to each user." And it's not that the user test is finished, you also have to keep in touch with the user, that is, building a community to maintain user relationships (most end-consumer products do this, or at least write blogs to let users know what they're doing every day), and the user's stickiness makes it possible for them to introduce your product to more people. ”

In some startups that I've interviewed, they have Yammer as a case of collaborative Office tools that are simple and easy to use in enterprise-class products, and Jason Shah said that the user at first even said that Yammer was like a toy. In addition to how to design products, Yammer by Microsoft acquisition a year after the change is also worth watching. Today, at Yammer's office in Harsh Street 1355th, San Francisco, it is still operating independently, with 500 people, 100 of whom are engineers.

After the event, Jason Shah introduced to me that Yammer's experience with enterprise-level products has even affected Microsoft. Since the takeover, Yammer's main role for Microsoft has been to bring more users to Microsoft's cloud services. Earlier this month they had just announced the opening of the SDK, allowing developers to add more features and services to the Yammer platform.

Source: http://www.pingwest.com/yammer-jason-shah-talk-about-how-to-make-enterprise-product-just-like-a-toy/