Key words: MVP minimum attainable product cut demand

As a code farmer, I have been involved in the e-commerce circle, O2O, mutual finance industry and product demand for many years. I have made some good product demand, but also made many failed product demand. Even if the good product demand is not successful, it is also an exploration attempt, and the result should be fruitful. Good product logic is clear, product value is clear, effectively solve part of the problem, overcome the challenges of all team members. On the other hand, if the product manager fails to think clearly about the requirements and boundary conditions, the requirements will be cut down. Not only the programmer’s time will be wasted, but the supporting design resources, testing resources and even operation resources will be wasted. Without a set of standards to refer to, the two parties’ “bargaining” may appear to have lost a just position.

directory

  • MVP
  • Find out the problem
    • Problem one: Demand is not clear
    • Problem two: inverted items
    • Problem three: mutual contempt
  • How does R&D think about the least feasible product solution
    • 1. The owner of consciousness
    • 2. Find the minimum viable product requirement
      • Hierarchy of requirements
      • The feasibility of
    • 3. Responsible for project schedule and quality
    • 4. Summary and review
    • Take responsibility for yourself
      • Information is aligned
      • The principle of alignment,
      • Interests aligned
  • conclusion

MVP

MVP is a scientific way to cut demand. Let’s take a look at what MVP is. MVP (Minimum Viable product) was first proposed by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Eric Rise. It was published in Harvard Business Review and published in The publication “Lean Startup”. The idea of a “Lean Startup” was introduced in the book. A simple prototype — a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) — was developed to quickly build a Minimum set of features that fit the expected functionality of the Product. The Minimum set of features was sufficient to satisfy the requirements of Product deployment and to test key assumptions about customer interaction with the Product. Then through testing and collecting user feedback, rapid iteration, continuous modification of the product, and finally adapt to the needs of the market.

The goal of MVP — To reach customers faster The normal way of development, from research, to design, to development, to market, is a long process, and there is no guarantee of success. But take a different approach, do a sample research with MVP, get to market quickly, reach out to customers, and get feedback. Continuous prototype modification through feedback and continuous iterative development, greatly reducing trial and error costs.

MVP is very suitable for Internet products, I will analyze the common problems of product demand, how to develop a set of MVP demand reduction methods to deal with.

Find out the problem

If the PM has the following plot may cause programmer discomfort, teeth tingling, finger bone itching, want to beat him up

  1. So let’s do it first
  2. I want it. How is that your problem
  3. This should be simple, isn’t it XXX, then XXX
  4. This requirement, first this, then that, with XX technology quickly solved
  5. Just say if you can do it
  6. I have a wonderful idea, everything is ready, except a code writer
  7. The demand boss has already agreed to it. Just do it

As long as there are 3 or more of the above scenarios, the programmer does not beat you PM, then you are really lucky.

Classic case:

This case perfectly contracted the above mentioned 7 plots, the occurrence of fighting is normal. I can’t think of a better way to fight back against this extreme PM.

Problem one: Demand is not clear

First of all, the product manager should explain the demand clearly. Through the demand review, the participants will clearly understand what the demand is, where the demand comes from, what impact it has on the existing business, and what the expected revenue is. Let the technology and testing have a detailed understanding of the product plan, so that the subsequent development is more efficient, no one is willing to repeatedly communicate and confirm in the subsequent preparation of test cases and development stage, after all, it is very inefficient, except, of course, special circumstances; Let participants clearly know what position they are in in the whole project landing process, what their responsibilities are, what they need to do, what to prepare, what to provide help, and have certain psychological expectations about the difficulty and schedule of each responsible part; Evaluate the technical difficulty and implementation cycle of the product solution, one stage implementation or one stage implementation, and what is the input-output ratio? After all, Internet products pay attention to small steps, quick verification and iteration. How to balance product design (user experience), technical cost and commercial benefits is one of the main tasks of product managers.

Problem two: inverted items

“This requirement is mainly grasped by XX leaders and belongs to the company’s strategic project”;

  • Usually hear this sentence, the heart is manic, and the boss oppress the working people.
  • First of all, it is important to admit that usually the senior management has a broader vision and not everything can be understood by everyone before they start doing it.
  • Trial and error, if the project fails, the most important thing is to get results, but I want to talk about the risks ahead of time.
  • Talk to your supervisor about project details and ask your boss to endorse your work.
  • If a company is full of these needs, it’s either a special time for the company, or get the hell out of here

1. Please send the email to XX leaders for confirmation or cc to XX leaders. PM does not send is PM delay time, bargaining is PM himself did not think clearly.

2. In line with the principle of “if you want to be the same as you want to be the same”, stick to your own time baseline and do not agree with others when you are under pressure to develop yourself.

3. The PM needs to write clearly one by one, and do not miss any item. Email is sent to confirm the schedule, and we will not confirm the schedule without email. It’s just an oral agreement right now.

Problem three: mutual contempt

The main reason for the conflict between programmers and product managers is that there is always conflict between the two sides, and it is obvious that the two sides are on the one side of the requirements provider, and on the other side of the requirements implementation. What usually happens is that the product manager doesn’t understand the technical rules, and the programmer relies on the technology and doesn’t respect the creative efforts of the product manager. Both sides naturally feel that the other is not qualified to cooperate with them. On the other hand, the amount of resources and release time required is fixed, so product managers and programmers are locked in a love war between “chopping features”, “lowering quality requirements”, and “programmer overtime to death”.

How does R&D think about the least feasible product solution

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1. The owner of consciousness

Whether you’re in charge of an entire product, a direction, or even a small campaign, you must consider yourself the owner of the project and take responsibility for the outcome. They care about their products, whether they are valuable to the company, whether they are valuable to users, whether they are valuable to partners.

2. Find the minimum viable product requirement

Take momo APP for an analysis

Hierarchy of requirements

  • Core function: Social interaction between strangers
  • Basic functions: short video, live broadcast, games, friends; Solve the social problems of female otaku who do not go out for a long time and a group of people who lack social life by clustering
  • User expectation function: strange men and women from strange to familiar with the process
  • Features that exceed expectations: Message file also can leave a message (a stranger), message file can only see a recent article 8 the state (to protect my own information, but reminded the stranger want to communicate with my thoughts, keep the old customers, seduce to new users, and also inspired activity) of the message reads the state (can clear understand, we send the message, the other party to have read, It highlights the purpose of our message), stealth (close our distance, but let others see that I am invisible, give me protection, give strangers an expectation)
  • Potential functions: social + e-commerce, games, O2O this is more, not listed here

Core functions and basic functions are the minimum product requirements of this APP

The feasibility of

The feasibility of a product needs to be considered from three aspects: technical feasibility, economic feasibility and social feasibility.

  • Technical feasibility: compare the functions of competitors, study how many similar products in the same industry, what functions they have, and the similarities and differences of functions. Through the analysis of competitive products, we can understand the technical characteristics, product characteristics, development space, market situation, user preference and our breakthrough point and other information. Ease of use and user threshold, product ease of use, user group analysis, whether the product will be difficult to use.

  • Economic feasibility: labor cost, how much labor is needed for product research, analysis, design, development, testing, operation and maintenance, how many people per month, and how much is the average monthly cost per person. Market development, advertising, operating costs, product promotion after the market, marketing methods, needed promotion, marketing costs, advertising costs, etc.

  • Social feasibility: moral, legal, social and social influence. What social benefits will the product bring to the company and how much social influence will be increased through the promotion of the product?

Finally, find the intersection of product requirements and feasibility. Small product requirements to consider the level and here said may be more different, here is just to sort out the idea.

3. Responsible for project schedule and quality

This is an MVP cycle. If it sounds familiar, it’s true that MVP and Agile development work in the same way.

Adding people to a project that is behind schedule will only make it more behind schedule. — Myth of the Man-moon

This shows how important project schedule management is. Too many demands cause too long development cycle, must be decisive phase.

You’ve all eaten the seeds, eaten the seeds, and the feedback period is very short, it takes about two seconds for the seeds to reach your mouth, so you don’t feel tired. On the other hand, the feedback cycle is long, and you don’t know when you’re going to improve on what you’re learning, when you’re going to put it to use.

The shorter the feedback cycle, the more likely you are to get started. We can break a big thing down into small things and give each small thing a short cycle of feedback, which makes it much easier to do.

Our study at school is too far away from practice, so the feedback cycle is too long. As a result, we are tired and unwilling to study in confusion. As a result, there are few students with excellent performance and many students with poor performance.

Judge the priority, cost performance, importance and urgency, lay a foundation in the early stage of the project, and make clear what can be done and the possible risks, so as to complete the whole project.

4. Summary and review

In addition to the technical level, the value of technical personnel in the team also has the value of comprehensive ability, especially soft quality. To better complete the task, but also to solve the abnormal problems in each link, only technology is far from enough.

At its core is the drive, something that’s inside a person. When we say that a person does not want to grow, whether a person is self-disciplined or not, we refer to his self-drive. Self-drive is the source of a person’s growth, and a person with good self-drive will have better development potential later.

Summarize the ability of review, pay attention to the data in time after the project goes online, and correspond to the indicators set before. The problems in the project should be summed up in a timely manner. The purpose of the review is to summarize the experience from the previous experience (may be a successful experience, may be a failure experience) for guiding the follow-up work. A person’s ability is the sum total of all his past successes. There are various ways to summarize the review, but all changes are inseparable from its root, mainly around the following contents: review of objectives, progress assessment, cause analysis, experience summary.

Take responsibility for yourself

The value of a product design = the sum of all TPU values, participate in the product design process, reflect self-value.

Cutting demand will inevitably encounter various disagreements, how to deal with it? I conclude that there are three levels:

Information is aligned

Information symmetry is a very big scientific problem, and the economists Millis and Vickery won the Nobel Prize for their research on this theory. This is the most basic part of work, and more information can increase the value barrier of individuals in the workplace, so as to win more say. To maintain their own advantages to do at least the following 3 points:

  • 1. Be familiar with your work or business;
  • 2. Good at summarizing every step of the work process;
  • 3. Be good at asking for experience from those who have gone before.

The principle of alignment,

If you can’t solve the problem with information alignment, then think about the principles, the mission of the company, the value of the product, etc. Everyone’s goal should be to make a good product. If you talk about the problem based on this principle, you can easily find the answer.

Interests aligned

When the product is done well, we all take credit for the promotion, the promotion, the penny, the team building team building. Everyone knows that it pays to work with you. Over time, reliable people will be willing to continue to work with you, and your reputation and credibility will be built. The best way to do this is to have a common interest among all the people involved, and it works, and everyone benefits, not just departments working together or helping out. But if always want to take advantage of others, take advantage of the point, maybe for a while, is not effective for a long time.

conclusion

This article from the MVP aspect of an extended thinking, cutting demand is not the goal, make a good product, reflect personal value, make their career path can be more stable is the problem I want to discuss with you.

Of course, the MVP doesn’t fit all the time. The problem with the MVP model is that it’s not always the best way to develop disruptive technology. If Steve Jobs had released the smallest working iPhone, would we have concluded that people preferred the keyboard? If Tesla made the smallest working car, would anyone drive it? Because unlike Web services, it is unlikely that anyone will spend tens of thousands of dollars on the smallest available car, hardware is not free and cannot be updated quickly and easily. Of course, it’s not the “minimum available” concept per se that’s the problem, it’s just that some markets don’t fit. How good or best can the product be? The answer may never be found. This model is not necessarily the best way to do big things. Some products are minor, some are symphonies, and sometimes you have to make the music work first.

There is also MLP’s Minimum Loveable Product, where you may have to pay a little extra to make some extra features cute, but you only have one chance to win the customer’s heart from the start. It’s also possible to give a lot and get little in return.

It is hard to avoid overgeneralization. Welcome to correct it!

supplement

The 2019-06-13 supplement:

Review yu Jun’s 3 core product methodology

Farewell to Didi, review Yu Jun’s three core product methodology

From 12 catch-22 rules to three

1.PM is the user first; 2. Look at the problem from the user's perspective; 3. User experience is a complete process; 4. Pursue the effect, do not do useless things; 5. Find needs, not create them. 6. Deciding what not to do is often more important than deciding what to do. 7. Users are hard to educate. Cater to users, not change them. 8. Focus on the most users, surpass competitors in key points, get online quickly, and make continuous improvement in practice; 9. Provide users with stable experience expectations; 10. If you're not sure what to do, learn how others do it; 11. Treat the user as a fool, don't let the user think and choose, think well for the user in advance; 12. Don't give the user what he or she doesn't want. Anything useless is harmful to the user.Copy the code

Three new

1. Product value analysis: Product value =(new experience - old experience)- replacement cost 2. User sample size: The user is the demand, the user is a natural person of a certain type of demand, the user is not a natural person, will change with the change of internal and external scenes. 3. Doubt: Iterate.Copy the code

O2O platform is the unified integration of various store management methods and creates different new ways. B terminal order management, industry, package, preferential strategy, service time and other human management methods into a unified process management.

The 2019-06-18 supplement:

Workload assessment method

Do an initial estimate of each activity and the overall project effort. There are many techniques available for assessing workload, including task breakdown (work breakdown structure), expert opinion, analogy, etc., large project workload assessment process:

  1. Sort out product requirements and interactions, and be able to explain clearly the logic of doing the following work by yourself or by assigning the work to others
  2. Methodological awareness: Create several types of documentation, including a list of systems involved, flow charts that link the business together, various status tables for each step, with scores and details covered. Necessary work such as burying and monitoring should be reserved directly in the template.
  3. Improve the product plan: leave more questions, expand problems as much as possible, avoid upstream missing requirements, resulting in the final workload out of control
  4. Rough workload assessment (called ‘preliminary assessment’ is better) : there must be a rough assessment, PM can not guarantee that the requirements will be fully considered and will not change or increase the requirements, details are left to RD to complete, why do you need to accurately assess the workload? There is no such thing as a job evaluation, only a rough workload evaluation and a more accurate workload evaluation. Let the PM know what he wants.
  5. Add time for contingencies: not all requirements assessments have solutions. These uncontrollable factors may change temporarily, and risks should be addressed. The longer the time, the greater the variable coefficient, personnel dimission, temporary leave may affect the progress of the project, this situation is not external requirements for project delay, can only be controlled by themselves.
  6. Plan output logic is organized and documented: make sure your assessment looks reasonable and be prepared to counter opposing arguments. Document all assumptions. You’ll never know exactly all the details of a project, so it’s important to document all the assumptions and estimates you make.

The 2109-06-20 supplement

Impossible triangle

No way, no way, the impossible Triangle that doesn’t exist.

  • Design: good looking, cheap, fast
  • Project management: TQR, time, quality, resources
  • Investment field: return, risk, scale (i.e. capacity, liquidity)
  • Blockchain: security, efficiency (i.e. environmental protection, low energy consumption), decentralization
  • Field of motion photography: shutter, aperture, sensitivity
  • More money, less money, closer to home
  • A high weight light responsibility
  • Make the horse run fast and not eat grass (all have advertisement: high efficiency, low energy consumption)
  • You win some, you lose some. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.