Seven tips for being a good product manager

Product managers are a popular job in it and the Internet industry, with a manager suffix that makes people feel inherently taller than any other programmer or test engineer. Coupled with a variety of media, big guy or successful people call the product manager small "CEO", given the position of a variety of halo, so that many new and old students are determined to join this huge potential career. On the other hand, product managers can be said to be the backbone of the Internet team, while docking users, markets, customers and various external partners, the other side attached to the development, testing, operations and other internal resources, often directly affect or determine a function, product, business or even the success or failure of the company. A good product manager needs to have feelings, ideas, communication and design, not a day. There are countless books and articles on how to become a great product manager, introduce the skills of project management, and elaborate on the skill of Dragon Slayer in product management. When you are reading these tall theory, ready to implement the application, the formulation of your six months, a year, two years of planning, you will sometimes yy I can immediately become a cow break product manager? Solid theory is needed, and long-term exercise is also necessary, but fast can make you look like a senior product manager's little trick is not more useful? Well, let's get started.

Be sure to have confidence

We first come to a metaphysical, as a product manager, no matter on any occasion, you must show self-confidence, trust your ideas, your insights into the market and the user's understanding, of course, you should have enough confidence in your design. The product manager is largely a communication job, and how to convince all sorts of people who are dealing with you to decide whether you can be a good product manager or not. And to convince people, of course, you have to believe in yourself. Note that confidence here is not arrogant or stubborn, you have to be able to listen to people's opinions and be good at inspiring others ' ideas. Self-confidence is not afraid of being said to be wrong, but to achieve the ultimate goal of confidence.

So how do you make people feel confident? To give you a few more specific communication tips:

Communication is concise, do not beat around the bush, you can directly use the conclusions, arguments, summed up the three-paragraph approach. Keep your normal speed, voice, and intonation, even when arguing. Keep eye contact, listen carefully, and provide feedback at any time. The key discussion, the meeting must have the preparation, the head is not empty, the heart only then bottom.

It's your job to work overtime.

In order to be able to make people love and spend a good product with flowers, product managers need to do anything. The efficiency and effectiveness of the team is the foundation of success. So as you want to be a good product manager, you need to be able to provide your team with all aspects of quality services, reduce the disruption of the development of testing the chores of the students, and can be outside the work like a magnet a team tightly together. Technical team of students do not cooperate, you have to find a way to help fix, the on-line machine is not in place, you do not forget to go and yun-dimensional students follow up. It's your business to work overtime, but you have to think about how to eat well. Karaoke Relaxed Celebration, naturally you arrange, to be convenient and have fun. Perhaps you have to play a big brother or big sister, help people solve problems. In short, do not think you are a small "CEO" is all the orders, the real CEO has half time is to help others, you are the same.

Send meeting minutes in time

Product Manager to avoid the past one thing is the meeting, we have to as little as possible to meet, open an efficient meeting, but the meeting also is indeed everyone brainstorming, problem solving, synchronization of an important means of state. Without a written summary to clarify the outcome of the meeting and subsequent steps, the effect of the meeting will be greatly compromised. If you can send a high quality meeting minutes for the first time after each important meeting, you will definitely add points to your good product manager image.

Minutes to be issued on the same day, delayed meeting minutes not only lack of timeliness, but also often appear information contradictions and understanding error. The content is concise and clear, do not state the process, but focus on the problem, conclusions, goals. There are specific follow-up tasks to set up the owner and checkpoint or time node. The important contents, conclusions and tasks of the Minutes are to be integrated into other plans or documents, and can be continuously tracked and reviewed.

Test your own product

Making yourself look like a reliable product manager is an important way to be familiar with your own products. From the beginning of the prototype, to the initial test, beta online, to the final release, you should be the most loyal users. Especially in the prototype, testing phase, your feedback should not be less than the user, you found that the bug should exceed the average test engineer. You will install each iteration of the version, you will be at any time in different scenarios, different environments to test the use of your products. If this slowly becomes a habit of yours, you will find that the development and testing alumni are increasingly listening to your opinions about the product.

Reply to user feedback message

Your product is a service to the user. In order to act like a qualified product manager, you need to be as close as possible to the user. Replying to a user's feedback, attending a discussion on a forum, and focusing on a message on Weibo should be an important part of your job. You may be able to introduce your product to your friends, understand their feedback, or when you see a user in your product at the mall, you will come forward and ask about their experience. More importantly, you can summarize the user's needs, find the user's pain point, product defects, clear and team share.

Learn to Say no

The product development process is a process of choice, as a product manager, you need to make a variety of decisions: function, time, resources, and to different people: users, team members, bosses, partners. You will determine the objectives, functions, planning, design, and implementation of the product, and then you and the team are fully committed to it. At this stage, you will find a watershed that can be said to be a good product manager and a regular product manager. You need to be able to say no, only in this way can you ensure that your priorities and plans are completed. But this is not an easy task, you have to have a clear judgment, you have to be able to convince others, and even sometimes this person is your boss, your boss's boss or your important client. You will need some skill to help you express.

Tell them you're going to implement it in the next release. Let them compare their requests and your priorities and give them a certain choice. If you're right, they should be able to make decisions that won't help you. A reasonable response to support their needs, resources, or time factors can make them understand the implications of cost and cost. If they do not, the need to decompose their needs, the first to achieve low cost and high yield of the part.

Do not rely on mail only

E-mail is the primary means of communication for all it students, and we are accustomed to drowning in the ocean of mail. E-mail is simple to use, without the pressure of face-to-face communication, and sometimes more clearly articulate ideas and suggestions. But also because of these characteristics, the message is also easy to abuse, good mail response is not common. At the same time, because there is no direct real-time feedback, sometimes repeated mail exchange is easy to complicate the original simple problem. An experienced product manager will more often rely on face-to-face communication in the following scenarios.

An in-depth discussion of a problem requires close interaction. The confusion of some key points and the synchronization of different opinions. Open discussion or collection of opinions. It is necessary to consider the interaction of participants ' feelings or preferences.