My knowledge of the product manager

Recently saw a lot of production of internet products direction of the book, participated in several product managers interview, the position has some understanding, in this article to do a comprehensive exposition. As shown in the brain map, this article will analyze the position of Product manager from the basic definition, work content, competency model and team responsibility four.

Basic definition

For the "Product manager", there is no clear definition, and the industry is different, the company's organizational structure, product manager positioning and responsibilities are also different. The birth of a thing always originates from the demand, the enterprise needs a person to be responsible for the product, needs him to define, maintains the product, guarantees the product which the team develops is satisfies the user demand and conforms to the enterprise goal. So the product manager is the CEO of the product.

"As long as you can find the problem and describe it clearly," says Suger, who is the product manager of everyone. into a demand, and then into a task, to win support, launch a group of people, the task completed, and continue to master the mentality of tracking and maintenance of this product, then you are the product manager. I like this statement, it used simple words to describe the Product manager positioning, workflow, core competencies and so on.

What does the product manager do?

Marty Cagan, author of the Book of Revelation, believes that the product manager's work can be divided into two parts: evaluating the product opportunity and defining the product to be developed. I think the division is instructive, but not complete. I summarize the product manager's work as product exploration and product implementation: Product exploration means looking for product opportunities, evaluating possible opportunities and exploring solutions; Product implementation refers to the definition of the product to be developed, and the implementation of the plan to coordinate the promotion and completion of the department's guarantee plan.

To do this, the product manager needs a comprehensive knowledge of multiple areas, the most common of which is the intersection of business, technology, and user experience.

Work content

According to Jian's description in the book "Networking", the responsibilities of the Product manager are divided into three categories:

"Routine work": Collect and analyze competitive intelligence, coordinate development, operation, customer service, sales and other resources to ensure the normal operation of products;

"Phased work": participate in the development of new products, participate in the formulation of annual business plan, use internal and external resources to carry out marketing activities, forecast competitor's action and develop response plan, update new products and educate users, reduce cost, and redesign product line.

"Strategic work": establishing a long-term strategic layout for the product, discovering new product opportunities, and advising on the evolution, enhancement and introduction of the product.

Although product managers in different enterprises may work differently, they can be divided according to the above three categories. With the time and experience of the entry, the proportion of work in each product manager will change.

Competency Model

The internet has a lot of product managers on the ability of the model diagram, the product managers need to have the ability to carry out a detailed classification, and discharge different importance. I think that this kind of meticulous and complex diagram does not have much significance, one is that some of the ability to subdivide is a regular work, not the ability, and the second is that some of the capacity of the basic ability is required in all industries.

Analyze the competency model of a position, of course, from the position of responsibility. From the product manager's job description, I think the core competencies of the product manager include:

"Exploratory ability" means to explore product opportunities, through industry analysis, competition analysis, market analysis, user research, data analysis and other means to find product problems or opportunities;

"Design capability" includes functional design, interactive design, user experience design, etc., although there is a design team, but the product manager needs to master a certain basis, their perceived good or bad;

Execution capability means to carry out one's own task and, more importantly, to lead a team to accomplish a team task and implement a project plan;

"Communication skills" communication skills are necessary to carry out the work, most of the product manager's work is to communicate with others, and the different backgrounds of people (including users, designers, engineers, sales, leadership) need to use different communication skills.

"Technical capability" knowledge of the technology can help the product manager to judge the feasibility of the solution and estimate the workload, in addition to the communication with the engineers also have a role;

Team Responsibilities

Team responsibilities refer to the Product manager's job responsibilities and role in the team during the entire product development process, focusing on the product manager's work from the product process perspective.

First, I define the product process as five phases: the exploratory phase, the requirements phase, the design phase, the development phase, and the operational phase. The following is a description of the five phases and the work of the product manager:

Exploratory phase explores product opportunities. Product Managers find product opportunities through industry analysis, competition analysis, user research, etc., and usually need to work with the research team or marketing team. The product Manager will explore the results of the product plan, form a business requirements document, provided to the leadership evaluation or expert review;

"Demand phase" through the evaluation of the product plan is the project, into the demand phase. At this stage, the work of product manager is to collect demand, organize requirement, analyze requirement, filter requirement and manage requirement. The final output is the product requirements document.

"Design phase" design phase requires product managers and designers to work together to complete including interactive design, visual design and so on. This phase should produce product prototypes that require prototypes to at least describe the product's interaction process. Usability research, validation, and improved design can also be introduced at this stage. This phase differs from the traditional software engineering design phase, and the design of the software project usually refers to the database and class design, which is usually completed by the engineer and can be counted as the development stage. I think the product requirements document only describes the product's functional scope, and can not describe the product interaction process, user experience and other content, in the user experience particularly important Internet products, this design phase before the development is necessary.

During the development phase, engineers are required to implement the product. What the product manager needs to do at this stage is to coordinate the personnel and resources, control the development progress and ensure the product direction is correct. After entering the test, follow up the test, track and manage the bug, ensure the product release smoothly.

"Operation phase" operation phase of the main task is to track user data, carry out the corresponding operations, attract user flow, improve conversion rate, etc., usually have a professional product operation is responsible. But product managers still need to do data analysis, often to identify problems or next product opportunities, to prepare for the next iteration of the product.