Internet Product Planning Miscellaneous Thinking

This dilemma is often faced when planning an Internet product:

On the one hand, because of the market competition needs, leaving the product planning time is not much, need to plan the prototype of the product as soon as possible to put into development and operation, and then gradually improve the operation process, according to the current fashion: "Agile Development", "iterative increment", "continuous improvement." For the Internet industry, the perfect plan does not guarantee the success of the product, as those successful Internet enterprise products "inadvertently inserted willow-lined" story shows: PayPal is originally to provide encryption software and through Palm Pilot to transfer funds of the service, Twitter is the original message Exchange services, Baidu was initially optimistic about corporate search, the Thunder is to do the distributed mail system.

So everyone thinks: Since the plan is not up to change, rather than spend a lot of effort to do product planning, not as "stones", in the process of the gradual adjustment in the direction. However, due to time constraints, the core elements of product planning do not think clearly, for example, product positioning, product core functions, product operations and marketing strategy, resulting in the future to spend a lot of effort to adjust, due to unreasonable planning caused by the failure of products and even the collapse of the company's examples of numerous. So many Chinese Internet companies in order to circumvent the risk of product planning, the use of a comprehensive "cottage" foreign success stories.

And some enterprises put the product planning into an important position, the company will conduct the Internet product planning in accordance with the standard product development process: First spend a few months on market research, competitor analysis, and then spend a few months to do product planning, and then spend the first half or even a year to develop. Finally made out of the product imaginable.

So is Internet product planning necessary?

We generally say that product planning actually contains two parts of product strategic planning and product planning (called Product implementation planning).

Product strategic planning needs to focus on product strategic vision, product strategic direction, product positioning, product core business model, product market segmentation and other important factors affecting the future development of products, and product planning mainly focus on the realization of the product specific function logic. If product strategic planning concerns "what to do", product planning focuses on "how".

General product Strategic Planning is the responsibility of the person responsible for the strategy, and product functional planning is the responsibility of the product manager. There is a gap between the people responsible for the strategy and the people who are responsible for the products. For example, the person responsible for the strategy is often idealistic, not concerned about the feasibility of specific implementation of the scheme, and the person responsible for the product relative realism, focus on the product specific implementation, operation.

It is precisely because of this difference that the product planning often appears in product strategic planning and product planning can not be well linked to the problem, this is the Internet product planning is the most common problem. Strategists say "the product strategy has been very clear, only the product manager to refine it", but the product manager is still not able to do anything. There are many reasons, such as: Product positioning is not clear, what all want to do, the product core business model is not clear;

From the product planning point of view, the product strategic planning can not just stay in the so-called product strategic direction, product strategic vision, product Core model of these macro concepts, the person responsible for formulating product strategy must be able to measure the product strategy under the existing company resources feasibility and implementation path, And the implementation of the product strategy in a clear and concise way to inform the product manager, when necessary, they should be able to fencing, otherwise the strategy is always a strategy.

Someone will say, this is not to let strategists do product managers do, the extreme answer: Yes. A good product strategist must be a good product manager, the world is not lack of a glib strategist, not lack of strategy, lack of the ability to push their ideas to implement the doer, just as a good business model must be able to pass the so-called elevator test (three-minute test), If a strategist cannot measure the feasibility and implementation steps of their own ideas in the current company resources, then such a product strategy can only be free of disease and end. It is strange that many start-up internet companies have a special strategy, so the tragedy of the product strategic planning and product planning cannot be connected.

Since you can shanzhai other people already have products, then whether there is a need for the eldest brother strength to carry out product planning, product planning value in there?

The main reasons are as follows:

A, any excellent products have their inherent cultural genes and temperament, this cultural gene and temperament and create the product of the company's corporate culture and product personnel are closely related to this gene to make it stand out from other products, we in the cottage when others can not cottage this part of the gene, The lack of the soul of the product can only be a mediocre product; In addition, we see the product may be someone else's first iteration of the product, others may have been in the 3rd, 4 iterations of the development, by others the rhythm of the products are not always able to surpass others, we always can only be followers.

B, product planning the most important thing is to do the planning and implementation of the people, directly skip product planning to shanzhai others, then the company's most precious resources: "People" always get the corresponding exercise, first-class products must have first-class product personnel, and vice versa. This can be in the future transformation of the ability, have the resources to quickly complete the transformation, seize the market opportunities, this is PayPal, Twitter and so can achieve a smooth transformation of the root cause, and we only see PayPal, Twitter's initial state and now brilliant, And forget the middle of the process and the strength behind it.

C, the process of product planning is also carding ideas, unity process, only the product strategic planning and product planning to reach a consensus, it is possible to plan the implementation of things smoothly. From this point of view, the planning process is more important than the results of the planning. Therefore, in product planning should be as far as possible to allow team members to participate in the start-up companies, this is a good opportunity for the team to deepen understanding.

D, the market is constantly changing, and planning needs dynamic adjustment, good planning should precede market changes. The control of market change trends must be based on a deep insight into the industry. This is precisely the value of product planning, product planning process can help us into the system to comb the understanding of the market, without such understanding, we can only always lag behind the market changes.

Since the product strategic planning/product planning is important, can not be hasty, that how to balance the Internet product Agile development requirements?

Personally think: the product strategic planning should be as detailed as possible to understand the context of the product, including product positioning, product business model, product core logic, core business functions; For product planning, you can use an iterative planning approach. Because the product strategic planning determines the future development direction of products, it should be considered as far as possible, the future should not be easy to make adjustments frequently, so as to ensure the continuity of the strategy. Product strategic planning has actually identified the product of the total iteration cycle of the target plan; In the case of clear product strategy, product planning is mainly focused on product implementation, at this time can be in accordance with the idea of iterative increment planning, in the course of operation according to feedback, timely adjustment, continuous improvement of products.

Source: http://www.yeeach.com