A difficult problem for many product managers

User needs have always been all kinds of strange, and a product to meet the needs of users, and then meet the needs of users, this is not by the product manager and the boss of the company to pat the forehead decision.

Let me come up with a question to test the product managers.

In 1998, QQ just started planning, and in 1999 February launched the BETA1 version, in May 1999 launched the BETA2, in August 1999 launched the BETA3.

Beta1 version can only achieve QQ 3 features, then priority push which three? Please tick the following options:

1, Cartoon head

2, not eavesdropping security communications

3. Chat Room

4, very small. exe file

5, Skin skin

6, speed super fast 0.5 seconds reaction

7, chat record manager

8, voice

9, video

10, to see who online

11, transfer documents

12, QQ expression

This problem actually baffled many product managers. And I am here to provide two solutions, one is based on Tencent's actual situation at the time of the answer (from the actual situation, the reality), the other is based on the smartphone pyramid solution (from the present point of view, more ideal).

Based on the solution of Tencent's actual situation

The author and Tencent company's first batch of product manager Hanyuzeu (Punk), Zeng Zhaolang (Paul) and Hu Junzhi (Kinzeer) discussed this issue, they gave the answer is 1, 3, 10, for the following reasons:

At that time, Tencent QQ competitor 13, each have some characteristics, from the simple function, QQ function is not outstanding. Really let users think QQ is very hi mainly has two characteristics:

The first is a cartoon head. It is not what function, but let the user alive, is the user's emotional needs of a very important export. QQ Avatar is the first batch of Disney cartoon characters, because at that time the core users are mostly whenever, the Smurfs and other classic portrait familiar, easy to take, have emotional cognition.

The second one is the chat room. QQ and other IM (instant chat tools) is not the same place, there is a chat room, but also the client-side form. All just launched IM to solve a problem: Where do users come from? QQ Chat room solves this problem. Because the early Internet users are accustomed to the web chat room, im not familiar with the habit, not to mention the relationship between acquaintances. Other IM user relationships, has always been relatively unfamiliar, and the QQ chain of relations from the chat room unfamiliar, into a more familiar, is a certain community relations, and then add to each other QQ, a good solution to the user QQ without any friends of the problem, because only have a friend, Users will have the power to continue to interact with friends QQ. And to find someone to chat, to know who is online, so 10 is the preferred feature.

QQ Chat Room is the client-side form, so the experience is much better than the web chat room at that time, powerful, but also introduced a social system and pyramid management system, a large number of users can enter the fixed chat room each day familiar with the girls. This group of users later became the core users of the QQ forum.

Some people may say that the first QQ security is very low, users QQ is often stolen, should be a priority to solve this problem. However, if the users are not accustomed to using QQ, security is done well again what? Moreover, early Internet users do not have security awareness at the time, the performance of the computer is relatively low, the software can not see the difference in how to optimize. And now QQ is very popular application: Audio video, at that time as a priority to meet the characteristics is not practical. At that time, only 56K speed, support audio and video applications, and the network love popular, text chat more imaginative space.

As Ma said: "The first version would be written as big as it is." In short, 10 seconds to find someone to chat, and the head is interesting is the most simple demand, there is a friend saved on the server side, change the computer can also be restored. ”

In short, at the time of the environment, cartoon avatar belongs to the user's excited demand, chat rooms belong to the user expectations of demand, to see who online belong to the user basic needs.

Products and operations are not separated, from this case can be seen, although the new product is not online, but because of the urgent need for operations, Tencent product personnel need to develop a part of the demand, manufacturing products, highlights and selling points in the market and competitors to form a differentiation.

Solution based on Demand pyramid model

From the current point of view to choose the first Test version of QQ three most important features, may not be 1, 3, 10 of the answer.

Using the Pyramid Hierarchy Model (map) to solve this problem, from the present point of view and the environment, the simple way is: cut off these needs, the product can still use?

Cut off the characteristics of 1 "cartoon head", ordinary Avatar QQ can also be used. Cut off the characteristics of "QQ expression", does not affect the use of products. No feature 7 "chat recorder", you can not use QQ chat? This also explains the MSN Chat record save function is not the default to help users check the situation.

Feature 4 "very small. exe files" is not a priority requirement? Many people say that the computer is dial-up Internet, the speed is very slow, "very small". exe file "should be one of the three selected features, is that so?" Imagine, a game, the file is very large (several g), although the speed is slow, but users do not go to download it? It is obvious that users will still download and use it. Think again, in fact, every new product just launched, are relatively bulky and coarse. The user experience in turn is useful, can use, usable, use well and brand, QQ file is too big, user gets a bit high cost, but still can use.

Feature 3 "chat room" is a number of people chat, one-on-one chat needs have not met, to meet the needs of many people chat, obviously unreasonable. Cut off the feature 11 "Transfer file" function, the product can be used, users can also send text information communication. Features 8 and 9 "video voice" are also the same. In this analysis, features 6, 2, and 10 are the most important three features, which also match the pyramid requirements model. If the reaction rate is too slow, the user crashes during use. If QQ1.0 version is very easy to be hacker attack, cause paralysis, still can not use, say again, QQ is own acquaintance relation, compare privacy, once QQ is stolen by person, the consequence is unimaginable.

From the QQ case can be seen, how to define the priority of the requirements can reflect the level of product managers. The product manager needs to assess what needs to be done, what needs to be done, what needs to be done (a lot), whether it is done now, or later, not all developed at the same time, priority needs to be developed, and low priority needs to be postponed. In practice, many product managers make decisions about what needs to be done first, what needs to be done, or how the company's boss decides the priority of the demand, which is a little trifling. In daily life, the priority of the task is as follows: important and urgent, important not urgent, urgent unimportant, not urgent unimportant, this is our principle of dealing with product requirement priority.

Demand Pyramid Model

New products are not online, there is no relevant operational data to support, so from the needs of the user's importance and urgency to judge the priority of the demand is a more reasonable way.

This is a reference to the demand Pyramid law: The bottom of the pyramid is the basic type of demand, upward is the desired demand, the top layer is the excited demand. Basic demand is necessary, otherwise users can not use the product, if it is cut off, the demand pyramid may collapse. Therefore, basic demand is of paramount importance. Expected demand is the desired demand, the more the better, if this layer is cut off, the demand pyramid will not be greatly affected, because the bottom of the demand is still. Therefore, the expected demand is less important than the basic demand. Excited demand is beyond the user's expected demand, there can be added to the product, there is no serious harm, if cut off this layer, the demand pyramid will not be affected.

The need to pay special attention to is that each user's heart of the basic needs, expectations and exciting requirements are very different, some users believe that the expected demand is the basic requirements, and some users believe that the demand for excitement is the basic requirements, which also changes with time. Product demand priority also depends on the actual situation.

It is not clear that the importance of the need to determine the priority of the needs of the need to add a factor, that is, urgency. Basic requirements are the most important and urgent, so it is the default highest priority requirement.

Generally, the product manager must first meet the basic requirements, sometimes because of the urgent need of operation, marketing, sales and so on, will develop a part of the expected demand (important not urgent) and exciting demand (urgent unimportant), mainly manufacturing products and selling points, in the market and competitors to form differentiation or brand partition, Also conducive to the early product line with the expected demand or exciting demand to win the user a good reputation.

Formula for calculating the importance of demand

Free products have been online referring to all free products (all features free) or some free products (some features for free, some feature fees) from the process to excellent (tuning). At this time because of the support of operational data, can cluster analysis of user behavior, even to the user portrait.

Criteria for determining the importance of user requirements: User base, number of usage, and category importance. Category importance is divided into three categories, the basic type, the expected type and the excited type requirement.

For basic types of requirements, such as product performance, security, browser compatibility and so on, once there are problems, users can not access the use of products, the product should immediately put down the work at hand, using all available resources to solve this problem as soon as possible. This is known in some companies as "911bug", the highest level of bugs, such as the web is hacked, or the browsing is very slow, the user quickly crashes.

For the expected demand and excited demand, you can analyze the operational data, use formula calculation: User demand importance = function Use percentage of users (user usage) * Function usage percent (function or content usage) * Category importance percentage (expected demand, excited type demand). Note: The underlying basic requirement is not in the calculation range because the default is the highest level. This requirement level formula takes into account the number of user needs, user needs or occasional needs, the user is important or not important three factors. For example, the importance of some functional categories is higher, but the number of users and users of this feature is relatively small, and some functional categories of importance, although less important, but the number of users and users to use this feature is more, then based on the above formula calculated results, It is possible that the overall importance of a feature with a lower class importance is higher than that of a class of more important functions.

For example: A function belongs to the expected demand, in a certain period of time, assuming total number of users have 100 people, of which 50 people have used a function, then a function to use the percentage of users is 50/100=50%, in these 50 people use the process, altogether used 10,000 times, Then the percentage of usage is 10000/50=200, the category importance percentage, assuming the expected demand is 50%, then a function importance level value: 50%x200x50%=50.

b function is an exciting demand, in a certain period of time, assuming total number of users have 100 people, of which 30 people have used B function, then B function to use the percentage of users is 30/100=30%, in these 30 people use the process, used 90,000 times, then use the percentage is 90000 30=3000, category importance percentage, assuming the excited demand is 25%, then B function importance level value: 30%x3000x25%=225.

You can see that the B functional level value 225 is greater than the a functional level value 50, the overall importance of the B function is higher than the a function.

Make a lot of money on the product function first

Toll-type products refers to the online or not on the line of all the functions of the toll-type products or part of the charge-type products. In this particular note, the demand for fee-based products is mainly expected demand and exciting demand.

Toll-type products are the source of the company's income, if no special circumstances, the same conditions, the general charging type of function priority is higher than the free type of function priority. Economic gains (which also return strategic gains to relief, including tangible and intangible benefits) high and urgent functional requirements to do first, high economic returns and not urgent functional requirements to do after the emergency and low economic benefits of functional requirements to do, not emergency and low economic benefits of the functional needs of the last.

In addition, also note that there is sometimes a need to complete the a function to do the B function, from the point of view of the requirements, the priority of a function is definitely higher than the priority of B function. This is called the precondition of the predecessor.

In any case, the priority of the base type requirement is always the highest, and the expected demand and the excited demand are analyzed according to the situation.

In addition, after all, product demand satisfaction is to be achieved through the research and development staff, so product managers have to consider research and development resources to determine the development priorities. Priority of research and development = business value/workload. Some of the requirements or bugs are very simple, research and development work is very small, basically a little bit of work, according to the formula, in the case of molecules, the lower the denominator, the overall ratio will be relatively large. This also explains why sometimes small requirements are also done in an iterative version of a product. Of course, the product manager takes into account the risks involved while considering the return on investment (business value/workload).

NET name Krrishyan, graduated from Bupt English Department, former tourism network product manager, Oak Interactive product director, each product director, 7 years of experience in Internet product managers, 3 years experience in product team management, with personalized recommendations, portals, SNS, electric business, reading products, there are web, WAP, mobile phone clients , ipad products, open platform (microblogging open platform and q+ platform) app product experience, with the "God-like Product Manager: Mobile and Internet product practice," a total of more than 300,000 characters, involving products and requirements, user experience, project management, product operations and product team management, etc. In addition, the Product Manager training document "Product manager of those things".

(published in the May 2012 issue of the entrepreneur magazine)