What challenges will the product manager encounter in the new environment?

When more and more traditional industries are learning to use "internet thinking" to do things, when the user's product use demand from the PC to multiple terminals, when the small product has grown into a large platform, product manager position is also encountering a variety of new challenges.

As "Everyone is product manager," the author of the book, Suger recently in the interview with Tencent technology compared to three years ago when the book was published and the current industry environment for product manager requirements changes.

"If two or three years ago, the product manager we understood was just making prototypes, writing various documents, and following up on projects." Now the industry's demand for product managers has been much higher. It has been quite different from what it used to be to do a Web page. ”

Three years ago, product manager positions were not as hot as they are today, and most companies didn't even know about the position. But now, the job has become one of the most demanding jobs for internet companies.

What new challenges have product managers faced in the new industry environment? At the China Internet Products Conference, hosted by IXDC (Interactive Design Committee) and Sayi (Institute of Design Interaction) last week, Tencent Technology interviewed a large number of participants on the issue, summing up their views, Tencent technology summarized as follows:

1. Platform-level products for strategic thinking and planning capacity requirements

For some product managers who are witnessing the development of their products from small to large, what they have to think about is far from whether the product is good or not, which is only a small part of the product's subsequent growth. More needs to be considered in depth is the balance between the interests of all platforms.

Just published the "Ten years of Taobao products" book Suger Taobao search product manager's experience as an example, if they are just starting from the buyer's needs, so that the popularity of the ranking, high conversion rate, high quality products by the front, the whole platform is the problem is the Matthew effect and low product coverage.

For platform-level products, product managers should consider the balance of interests, including the interests of buyers and sellers, large and small sellers, Taobao internal departments, short and long-term, local and overall balance of all angles. This requires the product manager strategic thinking and planning capabilities.

2. To improve the profitability of the enterprise has a global thinking

A product function design to jump out of the design of the thinking, need more thinking about whether the company's profitability has a direct impact. Since more and more products have entered the stage of the transition from user group to commercialization, the function design of this time emphasizes the global vision.

NetEase VIP Mailbox Director Zhang to Hong Kong shopping malls how to improve the satisfaction of shopping as a case, generally we can think of the practice is to set more decoration to make customers happy, but this has no direct impact on the profitability of the enterprise. A new approach is that shopping malls put electronic screens in many places, and users can find their favorite brands and arrival routes directly on the screen. This allows users to improve the efficiency of shopping in a limited amount of time.

3. The subtraction ability of the moving end

Comparing the first significant difference between the mobile end and the PC side of the product is the smaller screen. When there is not enough space to display so much information on the PC side, how to do subtraction puts a higher demand on the product manager.

Product thinking changes include how to provide different information to different levels of users, how to find commercial space on the limited screen, how to use the hardware level technology to provide some more interesting functions.

Taobao product manager Chen Radium in the introduction of Taobao mobile end products some attempts to introduce the function, product personnel are also trying to use the hardware technical support, such as two mobile phone touch can exchange shopping cart, or everyone's mobile phone in the same wireless LAN can have what interesting function design.

4. Don't myth "smart" tags

The pursuit of intelligent product factors has long been a hot topic, but not all products have to spend a lot of effort to paste this label.

For the myth of the intelligent way, ignoring the user's actual feeling, and can not improve the user's use efficiency. Some mark the "smart" label products, in fact, more is the feeling level of intelligence, the principle behind the product is actually very simple.

In the application of some innovative concepts, the product manager's innovation is often to create new problems, but the root of innovation is to solve the problem, its results guide the determination of the real value of innovation.

As more and more new concepts are coming into the market, product managers need to be more discriminating, and what new models can really solve the problem and which are too much interpreted.

5. Multi-terminal adaptability

The user's product usage scene is no longer limited to the PC side, but a multiple terminal usage scenario. This puts forward higher requirements for the product's multiple terminal adaptability.

Some companies to the product manager's assessment, the latest addition of a very important one is the multi-terminal thinking. When considering a new function, taking care of the use of multiple screens and terminals, the extension of functions on each terminal is a new aspect of product thinking.

Perhaps, now everybody emphasizes PC end and mobile end, but the future includes the television screen, the bus screen, even if the various smart screens appearing in public, are the problem that the product personnel needs to conquer.

But whether the PC or the mobile side, the product manager's basic quality is always the same, these basic skills always include the grasp of requirements, the judgment of priority, as well as the ability to find problems, problem solving.