[8025] How should software developers transform to product management?

Let's start with welfare. The team went to Qingdao to play together last weekend. The previous figure showed no scenery.

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This article is excerpted from Revelation: Building users' favorite products.



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And published in programmer magazine 11
Year 05
By Marty Cagan
He is a product management expert with world reputation. He once served as vice president of Wangjing and eBay.
Senior Vice President of product management and design. TranslatedShiyin tribe
The original article is too long. I will repeat it several times. This time I will pick a topic that many developers are more interested in-how to transform software developers into product management.

Text/Marty Cagan
Translate/
Oukun and Sun Yang

I contacted developers and found that they were very concerned about the problem: how to transform from software development to product management?

Developers want to transform to product management. Sometimes, after they participate in the exploration (Definition) of products, they taste the sweetness that affects product decision-making and are no longer satisfied with programming. Sometimes it is because they are very disappointed with the existing products. They realize that if the product has no value, it will not help the development team to be excellent.

Many of the excellent product managers I know are developers. Next, I will discuss the problems and challenges that may arise from software development to product management.

Developers have unparalleled advantages in product management transformation --
A keen sense of product feasibility. If they perform in-depth analysis on user behavior and learn some skills related to product management, they can become excellent product managers to create users' favorite products.

The first step in the transformation is to clearly realize that you and the target customers are completely different.
It is easy to realize this when you spend some time interacting with real customers. Do not assume that as long as I like this product and know how to operate it, users will also like it and know how to operate it.

Second, learn"
Empathy"
(Empathy
)
You can think about problems from the perspective of users. In fact, users are not cainiao, but their work and expertise are different from those of you. The simplest way to think differently is to spend time communicating face-to-face with users. Note: This does not mean that users can propose real product requirements. Mining product requirements is a task of product management.

Third, change your mind.
As a development engineer, your task is to optimize the development process and efficiency. However, as a product manager, your job is to define products, optimize user experience, and create your favorite products. This seems easy. Only when you are faced with a dilemma, such as a conflict between the project release time and user experience can you understand the difficulties.

Fourth, maintain a humble character.
When presenting a product to a user, most people may respond in a different way than you expected, and humility is especially important. Listen carefully to the voice of users. Day after day, your understanding will be greatly improved. However, the premise is that you must have an open mind to face users' criticism.

Fifth, change the discussion style.
Very
In many Internet enterprises, engineers are eager to argue over certain decisions. In most cases, the technical decisions of these products have clear judgment criteria, such
It features faster running speed, more suitable scale, higher fault tolerance, and better scalability. There is no such standard in product definition and user experience decision-making. At this time, you need to change the previous discussion style and improve persuasion.
And debate skills to let others accept your point of view.

Finally, process the relationship with the original department.
Cheng
After you become a product manager, the relationship between you and the Development Department will become very difficult to handle. They will become extremely sensitive and hard to communicate. They will challenge you in a variety of ways, question your technical capabilities, and will not easily make a commitment.
You need to learn to let go, let the engineering team do their jobs well, and participate in the product development process. The work of product management is huge enough. Let them handle the technical decisions.

I strongly recommend that the company establish a smooth channel to facilitate the transformation of developers and cultivate many outstanding product managers. Even if the transformation fails, developers still decide to go back to programming, but the concept of product management also sets up"
Technology-oriented"
The idea is extremely beneficial to their future work.

 

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