As we work long hours, we all carry with us the labels and habits of our profession. One of the topics I’ve been wanting to sort myself out lately is: “How has your thinking changed since you started working as a product manager?”
There was an incisive and embarrassing reply to this question on zhihu, as shown below 🙂
Can’t argue with
In addition to the “tear” degree is strong, perhaps there are the following:
“Be curious and curious about new things.”
At the beginning, it may be the spirit of gossip, but due to the needs and habits of daily work of products, such as industry dynamics or competitive product analysis, they will subconsciously pay attention to and learn new things and trends, and then consider how to improve/apply them to their own projects or products based on the relevance of their own work. In the early stage of operation planning, I would regularly collect and summarize all kinds of new and interesting online and offline activity design cases. But now I am more likely to try some new trends in the industry, recent interesting products or personal knowledge literacy, etc.
A little chestnut who was more curious than ashamed:
Since the experience of a nearby supermarket unmanned collection self-service, unmanned supermarket model of great interest. There is a house in the neighborhood… I went to a self-service experience shop for adult products and studied ~emmmm, all for research.
Sometimes curiosity doesn’t always kill Meow
Second, tend to “target” thinking.
The recurring tip on the corporate desk is “communicate and solve things with purpose”. This is the point that HAS impressed me and benefited me the most in the past year. The position of product manager often needs to connect with different business departments or other different functional positions. However, students in different departments and positions have different concerns and goals. In the process of communication, a core issue needs to be grasped and confirmed: what is the target or problem that the demand side wants to solve? In this way, we can provide corresponding solutions by integrating each other’s goals.
Chestnuts from another family:
There was once a BD friend who was quite troubled. When he communicated with the product manager in his team, he was always told many technical details (interface, callback, asynchronous processing, etc.), but he was in a fog. It took a long time for him to make sure whether it could be realized or not, and the communication efficiency and output were low. In fact, for BD colleagues, what they are most concerned about is whether the current product functions can meet and support the corresponding commercialization mode, and they often do not need to know the technical details of how to realize the specific product. In the process of communication, the following key points are often confirmed:
1. Can the functions of existing products support the realization of this business cooperation model? If not, how long will the transformation take (schedule)?
2, need the other party to help support matters
3. Risk points and suggested solutions on the product side (preferred and alternative)
In addition to understanding the goals of the demand side, another advantage is that solving things with goals can remind me of the right direction of doing things to some extent, at least not deviating too far from the goals.
My goal: Dried fish:)
Third, “structured” thinking.
In the early days of making a product, you might only think about how to implement a feature, the key logic points, the interaction details, the experience, and so on. As it turns out, “structured” thinking is very, very important for product managers. Overall control of product positioning, structure, and business modules is of great importance in the early stages of a product/project, which is why many larger companies have a “big product manager”. With systematic and structured thinking to carry out product planning, will often consider more comprehensive, business compatibility, scalability will be stronger, avoid repeated futile efforts.
Finally, a personal black history chestnut:
One time, we had an operation demand to carry out personalized transformation for a project in a certain province. At that time, we directly planned and arranged functions to go online according to specific requirements. Two weeks later, there was another demand for sub-saving, which was 70% the same as the previous demand. However, since configuration and extensibility were not considered in the planning of functions before, the result needed to be adjusted again, which was equivalent to spending R&D resources to do the same thing and failing to respond to the demand of the operation side more quickly. Learning from this lesson, we will develop a habit of reflection on subsequent requirements: can products and interfaces be configured? Templated?
Keep in mind that good structured thinking is like lazy thinking.
4. “Project manager” thinking.
The characteristics of project manager thinking are: responsible for project results, sensitive to progress, quality and risk. When the company or product has not yet formed a scale, there is often no involvement of “project manager” or “QA” functional students. At this time, product manager also needs to assume the role of project manager. From project approval to launch, resource coordination, progress and risks in all links should be carefully followed. In fact, even if the company has a project manager, often the other side is in charge of N projects at the same time, inevitably there will be balance. The project manager is not necessarily the product manager, but the product manager must be the project manager, because we are ultimately responsible for the product project
In addition to these, there are many other weird or magical or often ridiculed characteristics, such as: prone to doubt and denial, paranoia, habitual anxiety… Every time I received an urgent need to stay up late and work overtime to come up with a plan, I could not help doubting my original choice. However, when I finished the version in the early morning and looked at my planned product online, I was satisfied with my face and exposed my constitution.
Sure enough, it’s M and TOT
No matter what kind of change of thinking, may we never forget the original intention of making products, and may we always be on the way of progress.