"Yes! Product Manager" tells you: what is the product manager

There are three reasons why Eyoung will strive to succeed in the interview, and thus strive to stay in the company.

First, this is a small scale, strength is not strong, the product is not bad, but, fame or can be the local software companies.

In the 1990s, when China's software industry began to develop rapidly, the enterprise in a professional field to obtain a very high visibility, and it is said at that time the company's main product installed rate at the highest was actually reached 95%, of course, 95% of 95% are thanks to piracy.

This type of enterprise (not just software companies) has accounted for 90% of the number of Chinese enterprises, and they usually have the characteristics:

Initially relying on the original capital of several founders (probably technology, may be a network, it may be a chance, anyway, very few early on by large-scale funds, hard work gradually lay a jiangshan, with the market and the development of enterprises, to do more and more products, more and more employees, more and more departments, the establishment of more and more, While the pioneers are increasingly communicating with their clients (in their communications recording only the investors ' information), more and more can only be given guidance from the level of consciousness, and less on the operational level.

Such businesses usually have only two destinations: the first is to develop quickly, and the second is to die fast.

Unfortunately, most of these enterprises are moving to the latter, the former enterprises are rare.

Therefore, they are collectively referred to as: small and medium-sized enterprises.

Eyoung is the rare kind, according to industry gossip, the company will complete the first round this year, the scale of tens of millions of U.S. dollars of financing, and after the completion of the financing, followed by the launch of the IPO plan.

If so, then, the enterprise is very likely to get rid of the plight of the last meal not to eat, into the life of the well-off stage of eating and drinking.

A bubble is now worried about eating and drinking, so want to find a long-term solution to the problem of food and clothing owners.

Second, the enterprise is preparing to implement the product management system.

This is quite attractive for the bubble.

There is an interesting phenomenon, all do product management work, how many self abuse tendencies, know that product management at home is not an easy job in the post, but all iron heart to go this way the product manager, always constantly for their own trouble, responsible for a product when thinking about when can be responsible for a product line, And so responsible for a product line, and began to figure out when to be responsible for the company's entire product department, such as the real product manager, and began to figure out when to manage all the company's business, in short, product manager is a typical "Mingchi, undeterred" a tendon.

A bubble is no exception, I heard that the company to implement product management this year, this to a further in the position of the product manager, the spiritual pursuit is clearly beyond the material.

Third, let everyone down, there is really beyond the spiritual level, at least for the bubble, even if there is no first two factors, the bubble will try to stay in the company's most fundamental factor.

A bubble must admit, the company's HR sister is really beautiful.

A bubble is not to admit their lust, only to admit that they have the desire to pursue beauty, hehe.

Beautiful things, including people (that is, beauty), can change the attitude, and even can affect the decision.

I heard that a domestic internet company boss is a handsome man, so, there are a lot of women on the job for handsome CEO squeezed the scalp to enter the company.

Now the bubble is faced with such a situation, so, a bubble in the previous two factors completely discarded, this article as the most direct reason to stay in the company.

Therefore, to accept the beautiful HR sister interview, a bubble is bound to do their best to actively respond to, of course, this effort and positive response is only to see HR sister only after the provisional decision.

To be honest, a bubble in the product management of this post should belong to semi-finished products.

Experience is a bit, but impractical things mostly;

The level is somewhat, but the bombastic stuff mostly;

Insight is a bit, but most of the things on the armchair.

However, the bubble is still very confident that the "side" of dealing with HR or more than sufficient.

Usually the HR interview is a process, including questions are standardized content, take the interview product manager, usually divided into three stages.

1. Personal Description: This stage mainly includes personal information, the past work experience, it is simply dictated a resume.

2. Product Management Knowledge Quiz: This stage is usually in the form of questions and answers, although it is about product management, but basically the HR will not ask a very professional question, but preliminary understanding of the product management in the end how much you know, of course, do not rule out the kind of dedicated HR will do some related preparations in advance, For example, ask you what is the product manager, remember, this time try not to play, must quote quote to answer, because HR very likely also read this book.

3. Free Play Stage: Based on the 2nd, HR will let you talk about your product management, including the industry's understanding of product management, this stage is the most critical, although free to play, but also to have a degree, too play will let HR dizzy, in general, as long as the problem based on HR, organized to explain can, It is best to use the "1, 2, 3 ..." form, on the one hand can simply explain your ideas, on the other hand can let HR feel you are very organized.

Methodical and focused work, there is no doubt that product managers must be one of the qualities.

Although the company's HR sister is beautiful, but the appearance of beautiful does not mean that the idea is different, so, in the interview, completely according to my induction process.

The memory of a bubble has always been good, therefore, in answer to the first two types of questions, it can be said to be quoting, interlocking, reasonable, seamless.

In fact, the bubble is more good at the free play, Archimedes once said, "As long as I have a fulcrum, I can move the Earth", the same, for the bubble, "as long as you give me a topic, I can kan dizzy everything."

"What do you think of the position of product manager?" HR sister's face is serious, even can say is expressionless to ask.

I want to laugh, this problem is too not challenging, don't look at the HR question seems very deep, in fact, this problem for her, as high school students in the face of analytic geometry, the principles are understood, but the depth is not.

So the answer to this question is: Can you turn hr into a halo?

I sorted the train of thought, adjusted the state, and began to be eloquent.

"I personally think that the product manager is actually nothing, is a job title, the English name is product manager, came to the country, was translated into Product manager, so many enterprises based on product manager This job title, take it for granted that Product manager is ' Management of the product ' position, however, I think this kind of understanding can not be said to be wrong, but at least one-sided. ”

"Why?" HR sister started putting it on.

"First of all, product Manager is a habitual term, is also recognized by most industries, in fact, there are many titles for this position, such as our familiar brand managers, in addition to the following several names:

Customer Segmentation Manager: Customer Segment Manager;

Industry Manager: Industry Manager;

Large product Leader: SCM product leaders;

Programme manager: Program managers;

Wait a minute.

Therefore, I do not think that we should be able to explain that he is doing product management based on the title of the job, but should be based on his responsibilities to define whether he is a product manager. ”

"Yes!" HR sister went down my way without hesitation.

"Secondly, it is the duty to decide the position, not the position."

One definition is that a product manager is a middle manager responsible for managing and marketing existing products and developing new products, which I think is a simple description, not a definition.

So what is a product manager?

Product Manager is based on the company's product strategy, a (line) products (media, services, brands) assume the fundamental responsibility of enterprise managers. ”

At the same time, I told HR sister this definition stems from the Product Manager Handbook, after all, they are engaged in software, intellectual property rights protection awareness or need.

"I think that's a complete definition of a product manager," he said.

To understand this definition, you just need to grab three keywords.

1. According to the company's product strategy

What is strategy? The strategy is to ' determine the overall strategy ', specifically to the product strategy, for ' the market development of forward-looking and market participants to judge the pros and cons of the situation, and thus made on the enterprise resources to work on the strategy '.

From this, it can be seen that for an enterprise, the product strategy in essence, it simply provides a directional program statement.

For example: An enterprise requires the overall business market share to increase by 10% in 2010, but in 2010, how to achieve the 10% growth target, will require all the business units in the company to develop more detailed strategy and tactics, such as sales department needs to develop a product in different regions sales growth rate, And the task is broken down to the regional leaders.

Therefore, from the perspective of the company's product strategy, it will involve a number of departmental synergies to achieve the strategic objectives, which may include marketing, sales, channels, research and development, customer service, finance and other parallel departments, how to effectively enable these departments to operate in a coordinated manner according to the company's product strategy to work, It takes a company like ' brain ' to manage these departments in a unified way, which is necessary for enterprises to set up a product management system.

And the people in this organization can be defined as being engaged in product management, which is what we often call product managers.

2. A (line) product

We know that most companies have multiple, or multiple lines of products, and the product strategy is specific to a (line) product, it will be different.

For example, a product as the company's main product, and in the mature period, the goal in 2010 is to increase the income of 20% and 10% of the market growth rate, which shows that the product strategy should be to use the advantages of mature products, the target market for more vigorous competition, and B products are the company to test the market products , in the introduction period, in the 2010 the goal is to first of all to ensure the benign development of products, the second is the demand for profit, which shows that the product strategy is a protective growth, and further development of the market for B products.

When an enterprise has multiple products and a variety of specific product strategies, many individuals are required to implement different product strategies.

For example, product Manager a performs a product strategy, product Manager B executes the B product strategy, or product manager A to carry out a Class A product strategy, and the category A product of B products continue to be assigned to Product Manager B, C products assigned to Product Manager C, this is possible, specific according to the company's products (line) Division for personnel arrangements.

And for those only a single product of the enterprise, I think, can establish a product management system, but in this system, there is no need to set up independent product managers, usually by the general manager of the Enterprise or vice president of the escrow, the advantage is to reduce communication links, improve the market response speed.

In short, product managers suitable for many products, multi-brand, multi-market enterprises, a single product and brand enterprises generally do not need to set up independent product managers.

3. Assume fundamental responsibilities

What is the fundamental duty? I think the fundamental responsibility is to: the strategies and methods that lead to product success or failure.

The success of a product may have many reasons, and a product failure is only one reason, that is, strategy and method of error, therefore, as a product manager, more time to assume the responsibility is ' let the product does not fail ', this is the product manager's fundamental responsibility.

So what are these fundamental responsibilities? Personally, I think at least:

(1) According to the company strategy to develop the responsible product (line) of the strategy and objectives;

(2) Adjust the product strategy and target according to the product season (year);

(3) Optimize product (line) according to company strategy;

(4) According to the product market feedback, for the senior level to make the various recommendations for decision-making;

(5) Develop effective competition analysis and competitive strategy;

(6) Management of existing products and new products.

The above 6 points are the fundamental responsibilities of the Product manager, and the work we do is a concrete manifestation of this responsibility, which includes a lot, for example:

(1) Competitor analysis;

(2) Product portfolio management;

(3) Product brand management;

(4) Market demand management (business demand, market demand, product demand);

(5) Planning and development of relevant product strategy;

(6) The management of the resources required by the products;

(7) Formulate marketing strategy (price, channel, promotion, etc.);

......

At the same time, if only from the content of the job to judge whether a position is a product manager, there must be a problem.

For example, the collection, collation and analysis of market demand, in some companies, marketing departments, customer service departments, even direct developers are more or less doing, as well as in the development process of resource coordination, progress follow-up, and so on, the project manager has such a function, therefore, the work content is not exclusive, and the fundamental responsibility is exclusive , so it is unscientific to judge whether a position is a product manager, to judge from the fundamental duties of the position, and to rely solely on the content of the work to define it.

So I think:

What the product manager is called is not important, it is important that the position assumes the fundamental responsibility of a product manager. ”

People always have better-without mentality, a bubble also can not immune.

This pontificate said, even I can not help myself to applaud: "Ah-bubble, you have grown, see this saying." ”

HR sister just listen to the record, I do not know that it is because she did not understand what I said, or really was I kan dizzy.

Pause for a moment, hr sister finally spoke.

"Your answer is wonderful, let me this layman probably know what the product manager should do, it seems you have a very deep understanding of product managers, I will give the results of this interview to the product manager, in a week, the company will inform you whether to enter the next round of interviews." ”

Can hear, HR sister to the recognition of the bubble is from the heart, not the polite response, so, at this moment, I believe that, within a week, I will be sitting in this seat again.

"Do you have anything else to ask, if not, would you please inform the next one, please?" HR sister asked me to vacate this seat politely, without waiting for me to speak.

In fact, I want to ask HR sister, "sister, your phone number."

Apao Dour:

What is the product manager? If this problem is unclear, the following 100 questions are not worth seeing.

So what is the product manager?

As a bubble in the interview and HR sister said, Product manager is actually nothing, but is responsible for product management job title.

Even so, the job title is not unique and has different names in different industries.

This is what a bubble to say, whether to engage in product management work, must not be defined from the job title, but must be from the actual job responsibilities to define.

Now, the name of the product manager too much, impostors more, there are a lot of incomplete product managers, probably estimated, basically accounted for more than 95% of the population.

So, when we talk about what the product manager is, it's really about figuring out what product management is.

So what is product management?

Product management is our understanding of the "product" management?

If this is the case, the job is simple, and it can be done by individuals.

But the problem is that many of our friends now think product management is like this, so a lot of jobs that have something to do with the product also regard themselves as product management.

At the same time, it is necessary to know that the popularization of a kind of management thought is necessarily because of its universality, and it is by no means a ignorantly view to examine this work.

Therefore, to understand what the product manager is, it is important to understand what product management is and where its universality is, only in this way can we truly comprehend what the value of the job we are engaged in is.

Fortunately, Guo sister did not ask so fine, I do not elaborate, but there is a point to know: Product managers, is not the "product" management, nor is it every day to think about what is unrealistic to change the world's products out.

This article extracts from "Yes! product Manager" a book, this is a combination of management, tools and career novel characteristics of the book, the author is the domestic Product manager consulting Industry the most powerful team.

This book provides a comprehensive introduction to product management in the form of workplace novels. Product Manager-related knowledge, all the questions and answers are placed in the design of the 101 scenarios, and each episode also has a corresponding relationship between the reader can from the specific plot to not only understand the product management of the complete knowledge, And can deeply feel a product manager's real working condition, from the knowledge point, involves the basic theory, the tool method and the enterprise implementation, from the target reader, involves the individual and the enterprise. The reader can not only understand the complete knowledge of product management from the specific plot trend, but also can deeply feel the real working condition of a product manager.