How to discover user problems outside of a product

If you only care about your product, congratulations you will become a member of the dereliction of duty product manager. As a product manager, you just need to focus on your product. Throw your company's other products aside and ignore other products that users might use. Do not waste time on the needs of users who are not directly connected to your product. All the energy is put into your product management and product new function planning.

However, if you want to be an excellent product manager, you must study the problems that exist outside your product. Pay more attention to problems outside your product, not just focus on managing your product, but can bring you the following benefits:

1. You can find ways to improve your product. You know, few products are independent. Your product is only one of the many products that have been used by users in one day. Your product is always surrounded by other companies or products created by your company. Despise user needs and user habits, easy to ignore the user's life or other aspects of the activity (A myopic view of the customer needs and usage behavior ignores these other aspects of Customers ' lives and activities. Other products can seriously affect how your product is perceived and used by the user. Being aware of the links between products can help you identify problems and opportunities.

2. More focus on user needs and user issues. Product managers always want to periodically identify changes and new features, compose requirements, and then implement requirements in the product. Unfortunately, this will put the product manager in the loop of adding new functionality to add new functionality. Because product managers always want to keep themselves busy, and even use a new function of limited ("quota") to fill their working hours, not because the requirements can really solve the user's problems and to achieve it. In Adele Revella's blog (Buyer Persona blog), Rimola the story of a product director: The product manager told his product managers that their job was managing the problem, not managing the product. His view is simple--if the product manager manages the product, they can discover the functionality and add new functionality to the product, but not consider whether the market needs it. Adele Rimola (Adele Revella) added:

"How many times, when the product manager was in favor of investing in new features of the product, he did not consider and relate to what the new features were capable of solving the user's problems, and how much time and money was wasted in the first market entry process (Go-to-market initiative), Just because there is no positioning to the buyer the most concerned about the problem, and understand what is the attitude that prevents them from doing business with us. ”

3. You can find new product opportunities. When a new idea emerges, you simply ignore it as opposed to directly incorporating it into the existing product, because it seems less important. You can definitely see if they have the possibility of becoming a new product alone. This will provide a higher likelihood of entry into a new market and create new sources of revenue, not just the strengthening of existing products.

It is not possible to turn people on the "product manager" title immediately into "Problem Manager (Problem manager, problem-solving)". But rather than focusing on the products being sold to users, there is greater value in focusing on solving the user's problems. If the product manager is willing to take the time and effort to solve the problems faced by users, whether or not to apply their current products, will be able to find more unmet needs. These opportunities will improve the initial product and the company to launch other products, and even guide the production of new products.

Text link: Look for customer problems Òoutsideó of your product

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