Some pieces of the product manager's thinking

Posted on May 23, 2016 May 23, 2016 by administrator

powered:http://blog.memect.cn/?p=558

In the last six months of work, there are some ideas about product managers. Sporadic bar, also want to try to systematize, suppress a long time did not get a line to, temporarily first maintain the state of the Organization.

1. Product Manager is the physical carrier of the world view.

Product Manager is the carrier of the world view, the responsibility of product managers is to let the right things happen in a certain order, this order is the world view. No two people have the same view of the world, so different people must have different views on what is the right order. That's why we see so many quarrels about the work of the product manager internally and externally (such as on Weibo).

Good product managers have the right sense of order. Outstanding Product managers have the option of advancing when this order is not reached.

Excellent product managers have their own worldview. The outstanding Product Manager understands the compromise of the world view.

2. Product Manager and CEO

When the company was first established, I wanted to recruit a product manager. But a CEO friend said, "Can you make sure that the person you recruit is consistent with your product mentality?" If there is a conflict between the two, then there is no product manager. In the very early days of the company's development, if the founding team did not have a ready-made product manager, the CEO should be the product manager, which is the only way to keep the product moving forward quickly.

There are also jokes that if you hesitate to join two startups without knowing which one to add, you should join that Product manager for less. I think there's an organizational reason for that.

Many of the problems that product managers face are like CEOs, balancing technical goals, business goals, organizational goals, and many other conflicting issues. It can be said that the product manager position is the CEO's training camp. A good product manager, after a independently challenge, is capable of being the CEO of a start-up company.

But the product manager is not above the company's overall objectives, must understand the overall business objectives, and make the product goals subordinate to the overall business objectives.

The CEO should personally bring the first product and then isolate the role of the product in due course. It is important to grasp the timing. When you are 35 people, you should generally take it personally, and when you are twenty or thirty, you should not be in the hands of a pro. Of course, the process of different companies will be completely different.

3. The product manager should know the technical

An academic meeting, met a girl, said after graduation want to be a product manager. I asked her if she could program it? She said no. I said you should make up a program for a year or two before thinking about being a product manager.

The technician is very, very, very, very annoying a person who does not know the technology to tell the finger!

If you haven't done the technology, you won't know what a vicious nuisance it is.

If the bug has not been adjusted, the need to be changed, the code review scolded, mistakenly passed the dead line, data loss, coding failure, the machine slow turtle crawl ... You never understand the programmer's inner world. For those of you who do not understand, you will reap the 10,000 heads of grass mud horses in each other's hearts.

Understanding technology is not about becoming a technical expert. At least you should be familiar with a high-level language and basic database, network combat process, solve one or two medium-scale problems. You get mad first to understand why people are mad.

A product manager who does not program is not worthy of being a product manager.

4. The triple realm of product managers

The initial product manager is to draw prototypes, design user interactions, talk about "user experience", and stare at the data.

The Advanced Product Manager listens to the user's voice, filters out those "faster horses", manages conflicting needs, deeply understands the user portrait, and strives to do fewer things to achieve the goal.

Re-sublimation of the product manager has the industry's "insight" (Insights), not because the user's interview to determine the direction of the product, but a deep understanding of the industry trends, and understand the correct sequence of breakthroughs. The "logic" of the industry.

5. The daily work of the product manager is to resolve contradictions

Product managers want to solve things, such as the contradiction between different needs. It's easy to understand.

Product managers have to deal with human contradictions. Product Manager is doomed to be a role to be bullied, must have enough EQ to accept from all sides of the lack of understanding, pressure, blow. Product managers to coordinate the various stakeholders, to think more about the inner needs of each role, multi-position thinking.

Product managers are good at compromising. Things need to be compromised to advance. Things do not work, stand worthless.

6. Industry experts (general) is not a good product manager

General industry experts cannot substitute for product managers.

It is lazy to expect to introduce an industry expert to solve product design problems. On this issue, the detours are still going to go, the wall of the touch will still touch. The reinforcements won't come. The product manager's industry insight must be obtained by himself.

In general, products need to solve a common problem, and industry experts are familiar with a particular problem. Few industry experts can be familiar with a number of special issues in an industry. This kind of person generally will be in the profession 10 years above, the general start-up company cannot afford. An expert on a particular issue may have a more lethal product than none.

Of course, industry experts have a lot of other meanings, especially recruitment and business.

The best case scenario is that the founding team itself has a senior industry expert and can be a product manager. But this kind of luck is too rare.

7. Write more

The root of the product lies in logic. No one can have the right logic in a sudden. The logic must be in the repeated temper.

Writing is the most logical exercise. Writing will force yourself to collect materials, organize ideas, and choose reasonable expressions. Writing can provide more extensive and lasting feedback, which is more helpful to the formation of logic than verbal communication.

Not only to read more, you must write more. Product design methodology, the summary of resources, some and specific products unrelated to things, should be public, in the personal blog, Weibo, the public number to let others see. Internal product ideas, to regular (at least one months at a time) to write some of the written thinking of the record (not the kind of PPT to see above), often come back to see the previous records, control the change of logic.

If you hesitate between the two product managers, choose the one who writes more.

(In fact, the above for the selection of programmers also apply)

8. Do not seek perfection, gradual

Most of the good things in the world are summed up, not designed.

The previous mention of the product manager of the triple realm, the primary level is to do design, advanced State is to do a summary. Insight comes from the summary, not the design.

Large to the entire company, small to specific products, in fact, it may be so. Try to design a product from the beginning, rather than designing a framework that can evolve.

The worst products are those that have lost their evolutionary capabilities, or those that have evolved too slowly.

The composition of the team is the same. There is no need for a perfect composition at the beginning, and there is no need for insightful product managers. Must be a compromise with reality, gradual. A good team structure and products are all summed up and developed.

9. Based on existing resources, do what you could

For the start-up team, resources are always scarce, there will never be human, financial, time, ability, confidence .... When there is plenty of time.

Must be in the above conditions all scarce under the premise, find ways to do things out. It must be as simple as possible to reduce waste. There will be no way to simplify the product, must be able to think again and again found a shortage in the premise, can do a little bit of things.

The lag of a project cannot be solved by adding a hand, unless that kind of labor does not require a brain.

Product managers need to be in a situation of scarce resources, still feel comfortable, there is still a strong fight to think of ways to solve. It says that the product manager is the CEO's training camp. This mastery of scarcity is a basic skill.

10. The structure of the product is the mapping of the team structure

What kind of product to produce depends on what kind of team. The structure of the product is often a mapping of the team structure. Careful selection of the team began a few people, the general decision on the basic style of the product.

If the team is screwed, the product will be screwed. The team is hard to evolve and the product is difficult to evolve.

Perhaps the above is beyond the scope of the Product manager's responsibilities. But product managers should understand these things, thinking from the perspective of the person who produced the product, not just the product itself.

11. Do the hard core of carrying failure

The failure of the product experiment is not scary. For startups, a core team that can carry failures is the key. The most important initial product of a start-up company is not a product accepted by the market, but a learning engine, a hard core that can withstand the test of failure. Smooth sailing, hit in the long run is not necessarily a good thing.

More important than power is insight, which is more important than insight is the will.

Of course, it's not just a product manager to reach this level.

12. The above is not the truth

Product design is art is not science. It is natural for different people to think differently. No one's experience can be copied to another person.

Some shred of product manager's thinking