What must a good product manager have?

Now, the word user experience has penetrated into more and more industries, throughout the enterprise's research and development, promotion and market operation. For example, to buy an iPhone, from the moment you open the box, to the bottom of the sea, from the warm usher to receive you, the experience of the journey began to unfold. It is no exaggeration to say that user experience is to promote the productivity of sales, but also the establishment of differentiated competitiveness, is to promote the strength of industry progress.

Respect the user experience of the enterprise, everyone is the product manager, especially customer service personnel, operators, user support staff, first-line products, front-line technical personnel, such as the most recent people, they have access to a large number of user feedback and suggestions, as long as the user from the point of view to consider the problem, The more opportunity to become the initiator and catalyst of user experience innovation. Education, experience and so on, although very important, but also will not as in the past as the only indicator of talent measurement. The ability to become a good product manager, starting with the user experience, listening to the user's voice, studying the user's needs, and contributing to the product's innovation in the user experience will be an important factor in whether a person can expand his or her career.

So, how to become a good product manager?

In the heart must have the ownership, is must attentively.

What do you mean by heart? If you have worked so painstakingly, save hundreds of thousands of make a down payment to buy a house, you spend a lot of time every day on the internet search, every day to building materials city and the people who sell building materials wits, with what tiles and lamps, what toilets and furniture, prices, materials, types and so on, no one knows. I'm sure it won't be long before you become a decorator because it's your own house. As long as the heart has ownership, as long as efforts, even a layman, can become an expert. I believe that if a person can come up with such a spirit to do products, then he has no reason not to become a good product manager.

If there is no ownership in mind, is to think of themselves as a part-time job, to the boss, to work for the leadership, as long as they nod OK, it will never become an excellent product manager. You may say, then I do other, here does not raise the ye, own raise the department. But as long as the mentality of working with a part-time job, where you can only be mixed, to be outstanding, it can only wait for a lifetime.

Excellent product manager has a big heart, he is not responsible for the boss, but the product is responsible for the user, he will even consider this product as your own child. For example, if you are a designer, in addition to landscaping, polishing, to do the project, is not also the intention to understand how this product? What kind of person is the user? Why do users use this product? What is the value of this product to users? If a technical engineer is only satisfied with a heap of code to achieve a product function, but do not think of themselves in the process through active participation can make a lot of improvements in products, or for what they think is wrong, do not want to raise their objections, such technical engineers do not complain that they are IT workers, Because this way of thinking is doomed he must be an IT laborer.

Care, learn from the user point of view.

A good product manager, in addition to the heart of a big I, dare to assume responsibility, in the mind to have a ego, even selfless, without me, this is to say to care, as a user, from the user's point of view of the problem. The word user experience has been popular for years, but why is it called the user experience, not the Product manager experience, or the boss experience? Because we do products, no matter how good technology, how good the design, the final evaluation is good or bad, is the user, not product managers, not the boss. Bosses, product managers, industry experts choose a product reason, and users choose a product reason, many times is very different. You feel good products, users do not necessarily buy. How to learn from the user's point of view, transposition thinking, said it is a very simple thing, but in fact it is difficult to do. Because everyone, regardless of success, will accumulate their own life experiences and experience, his thinking will become more and more inertia, breaking the existing thinking mode is difficult. In layman's terms, this is the ego is too strong. In this strong ego to do the product, the product to do to do it becomes to do for themselves.

To break through this inertia of thinking, my advice is that the first to read more books, more newspapers, more exchanges with others, with a new external thinking force to break the box in their mind. When I suggest that product managers read newspapers and magazines, less to see the industry category of high-end magazines, look at the general users of the magazine, similar to "computer fans", "Computer Enthusiasts", "computer software" and so on, the content of the above for technicians, may be simple ridiculous, but these content is really ordinary users encounter problems. Reading more of these publications will help you look at the problem from the user's point of view, as I said at the Geek Park event in January 2012, and only in this way can you find real innovation in your users ' needs.

Second, moderate suffering from schizophrenia. Take myself as an example, I'm supposed to be a programmer, have done products, know technology, what software to my hands is not a cinch. But when I look at the 360 software, I will unconsciously like a change of a person, become a not understand the computer also has no patience of ordinary users, a little place to feel uncomfortable or did not find the desired function, will drop the mouse, hit the keyboard, the heart has a rush to unload the impulse. This is a valuable experience I have practiced for many years, and I think anyone can do it. From the user point of view to consider the problem, which for many people is not a matter of ability, but also a mental problem. So, I teach a lot of people in the company, to "Think like an idiot, to act like an expert." This is the product manager who requires 360 to take action as quickly as a technical expert, from the point of view of the average user who knows nothing about the computer.

Look for opportunities to improve the user experience.

For good product managers, the opportunity to improve the user experience is everywhere. A good product manager, his mind is open, his vision is not limited to his own industry and products. A few years ago, I unfortunately hurt my leg, walking down the stairs to run, what registered, outpatient, pricing, pay, film, to ask a lot of people to find departments, to run a lot of road to get these things done. There are Beijing's famous Xizhimen overpass, the driver on the bridge to follow up the jungle, and so you know go wrong, already too late. It can be said that these are bad user experiences. In daily life, the user experience is everywhere. We are product managers, but when we get out of the office, we are users of other products. But we don't want to be a complaining user, we have to raise a level, after complaining, think about whether others like us to complain about how we should improve. You might say, hey, it's not my call, it's useless. Who said that? If you don't try, how do you know it doesn't work? And, this is a training of thought, I believe that if you can see the road, the traffic, the remote control, the car driver panel and so on many bad places, you certainly can find your product needs to improve the place.

Shameless, not afraid to scold, heartless.

A good product manager, the most important quality is to have a strong psychological quality, not afraid to scold, but also good at the sound from the scold to find the opportunity to improve the product. Although the best product solves the user problem, it is not perfect. Products without faults do not exist. A good product manager pursues the ultimate, not the perfect. That is to say, do the product must be in some impress the user's point to do the best, so that even competitors are far behind, even despair to no longer chasing. This time, real users will complain about the use of products, will scold, competitors will hire a lot of people, imitate the tone of the user to scold. In the face of the overwhelming voice, some product managers will produce fear in the heart, feel is not the product in the direction of the wrong. At this time, I will encourage the team to say that competitors are our grindstone, negative information, even opponents of the gun manuscript, but also to find a way to improve the product point of inspiration. We must study their curse sound, think of what can be improved products, and finally let him scold. In this way, the competitor became our grindstone, sharpen our knives more and more sharp, we hand up the knife down, we can chop the enemy under the horse.

Another meaning of heartless is not afraid of failure. Because good products are constantly polished out, good user experience is definitely not a place. Truly innovative products, in the first time must be rough, ugly, look at the first generation of Apple computers, early versions of Windows, Apple's first mobile phone and so on, rough, ugly does not matter, can improve, the key is to solve the user's problem.

A product finally can succeed, rely on is not a recruit enemy, more can not be a cannon and red, it at least after three years five years of uninterrupted grinding, uninterrupted failure, uninterrupted attempt. Without perseverance, it is difficult for a product manager to make a good product. Some people say that the product should be like doing art, but art can only be displayed to a small minority to see, and even art is the artist's narcissism, to do for themselves. But to judge whether a product is successful or not depends on whether it is commercially successful, it must be recognized by the public. Therefore, the product manager must communicate with the public, to endure the suggestions from various users, even if the advice looks so perverse, to endure the noise of competitors, even if such a curse is a rumor. "Disciple Rules" there is a saying: "The smell of fear, the smell of Hin." "It's hard for us people to reach such high moral demands. But as product managers, we can look at criticism with a sense of joy, as we all know that there are opportunities to improve products.

Therefore, the excellent product manager should have a rough heart, to be able to do heartless.