Thinking about Product Manager

Abstract: This article according to the experience of their own products, refined 4 points of thinking to share to everyone product manager is a very strange job, as if most people can do, because everyone has their own views on a product, can put forward some ideas and thoughts, can even

This article based on their own experience in making products, refined 4 points of thought to share to everyone

The product manager is a very strange position, as if most people can do it, because everyone has their own opinions about a product, can put forward some ideas and thoughts, and even can design the principle of implementation; It seems that most people are not good at product managers because thousands of products on the Internet, mostly rubbish, Few products are users really feel very good.

I have been a product manager for less than two years and have been doing technology for the past 10 years. Before I did the technology, I couldn't see the product manager. At that time thought: the product manager oneself what all can not achieve, every day is to raise a point of thought, and the idea is often unreliable, and if one day layoffs, the position of the product manager is the most dangerous; but when I turn to be the product manager, the idea has changed radically: Well, the product manager is too important, and the future of a product is decided on the product manager.

You ask me how to look at the technicians now? Hey, I think now, technology is a knife, let it kill who kill! Of course, it's just a joke. A good technical team is very important to the product manager.

on how to do product manager, I was really a pupil, their own responsible Taobao search in the last two years has not greatly improved. Especially after seeing the Zhou, Zhangxiaolong about the product of some interviews, I found myself in this gap.

But I have the advantage of being good at learning, thinking, summarizing and sharing. And as a layman into this field, the angle of observation will be different. This more than a year down, also found some feeling, found around some product managers, easy to go into some misunderstanding, share to everyone.

1, do product Manager, not function manager.

This sentence I was the first to listen to the cat President Carefree son said, there was no feeling, now found very reasonable, because too many product managers around is actually doing a function manager.

They just don't stop. Product function requirements, and then continuously achieve product functionality. Lack of login, design a login box; No data, find a platform to get through; manage inconvenient, design a tool to manage;

Functional managers are busy every day, concerned about how much demand is queued up behind, and whether the demand side is satisfied. And the user experience in the end, the function is really really valuable, whether it can be more perfect, functional managers care little. When someone complains about a function, he says:

This feature I already have Ah, you said the experience is not very good? No way, the engineer resources too nervous ah, you say why the design so awkward? Think up to the gas, Big Boss is not required so ah, we can only design, no way!

He often expressed the tone that he was forced to do so, and put the blame on others.

However, to be a qualified product manager, you need to focus on the user experience, really focus on the user's feedback, focus on the quality of the data, focus on every detail. Just like buying a pair of shoes, not only can wear, but also consider whether the fit, whether comfortable, the style is beautiful.

There was a meeting, Taobao's president of the language Yan sister said a very simple but very reasonable sentence: products can be used and good with a totally not the same thing!

2, to achieve product demand, not the user needs.

This topic is very interesting. When you ask what the user needs, he will answer that he needs a faster horse. "Never ask what users want! Because users are fools and don't know what they want," Jobs said.

This is actually the product manager often regards the user demand as the product demand. All the users are right, they are asking for their own expectations, but not the product requirements. Some days ago there was an interview with Zhangxiaolong, Zhangxiaolong said he did not look at the user's data. In fact, Zhangxiaolong very concerned about the needs of users, I and Zhangxiaolong in a group, if someone in the group to mention some micro-letter use of the function, Zhangxiaolong will soon give feedback.

These products great gods, behind the meaning, should not simply meet the needs of users, but should think of the user needs refined into product requirements. When the user of a product has tens of millions of times, the product needs of understanding and refining, is very important.

This is easier to understand than to explain.

3, to the icing on the cake, not to gild the lily.

The development of the Internet, so many internet product managers have a inertia: do product iterations faster. Fast online, quick change. Here also has the misunderstanding, for some basic function, really must fast on-line, the quick iteration. Because there is market competition, the need to quickly cut into the market, access to users. However, most product managers do not have the opportunity to design a new product from scratch, most of the time to upgrade or optimize the existing product. At this time the design of many functions, are icing on the cake, but really not too fast.

The function of icing on the cake, equally important, will let the product play better, more interesting, more characteristic. For example, the earliest design of micro-letter rocking function, friend circle function. Micro-blogging function, the previous gift-giving function.

The problem is, icing on the cake, Tim must be a flower, said vulgar point, can not add up is a lump of excrement. If the latter, then a little superfluous, or become a chicken function.

What is a flower? That is, when the function is added, it will make the user's eyes bright. "Wow!!!." The feeling of ...

Unfortunately, Taobao search before a lot of features are not a flower, on the line too much of the superfluous function. Once these features are online, it is difficult to get off the line. Because when you have hundreds of millions of users of the product, a rotten function, every day there will be hundreds of thousands of users in use. Once you get off the line, a lot of people are upset.

Taobao search for the same shop to buy a bit this taste. Technology to achieve high cost, experience in general, the use of not many people. There was a time when we hid this feature, and someone said on Weibo:

I want to do the most things, is to find a knife to kill a product manager Taobao search to solve Jiehen, I incredibly still can't find my most commonly used with the store to buy!

The more the function of the superfluous, let the products carry more garbage, resulting in good features do not have resources to do, poor function and can not be offline.

4, the pursuit of human nature, rather than the pursuit of perfection.

Many product managers, the pursuit of perfection. This is a good quality as a product manager, however, one thing is often overlooked by product managers, the humanization of products.

There is never a perfect product, especially when the number of users of a product reaches tens of millions. User preferences vary widely. How to allow users to enjoy the advantages of the product while tolerating the shortcomings of the product?

We see beauty contest wins beauty, often have sigh, why so ugly still can get the first three Ah! is it because the judges ' tastes are so special? Of course there are some of the judges, but the reason is that everyone's aesthetic is different. Everyone is judging the beauty pageant as a perfect person.

In fact, anyone who wins the championship will find it ugly. Any product, no matter how useful the product manager to launch the function, people will not like!

However, when people treat their friends around, they will not be required to use the criteria of beauty pageant, they have obvious shortcomings, but there are a lot of places to enjoy. Everyone subscribe to Ghost Foot seven micro-letter, most people do not expect, Ghost foot seven daily articles will meet their own taste. Some people do not read the article, only to see "7 elder brother Chat" will also feel very interesting. Why? Because people don't expect ghost foot Seven this account is a perfect account, the Ghost Foot Seven as a friend in the view. Ghost Foot Seven have shortcomings, but also have advantages.

What if you can let users treat our products as friends around us? It feels totally different.

Taobao has an operation colleague one day with me sigh said: "I suddenly feel siege lions are so close to me, every siege lion Heart all live a poet!" I asked why it suddenly felt like this? She said one night, found in Taobao inside a TMS system title bar suddenly a word:

Everyone's pressure, a small part of the survival, mostly from the comparison.

In this sentence, let the user feel the product behind the engineer. Remember the text on the version of the Welcome page of the micro-letter:

Less letter, and more friends to meet!

In this sentence, let me feel the product behind the group of people's psychological activities. I can tolerate some minor flaws in micro-letters.

This is the phrase, I like the micro-letter.

Humanization, is not the product began to have a soul?

How to make the product more humane? How to make Taobao search more humane? Is the question I've been thinking about lately. I define 2013 search keywords: Professional and fun. Hope 2013 will let more people to Taobao search as a friend, not a tool.

Write so much, look back at my article, as if there is no product design method, just some thinking, nothing more.