When it comes to product managers, a lot of companies think that two or three years of work is enough, as long as you can draw prototypes. I also think so at the beginning, until I know a big factory annual salary of nearly ten million product manager big man, it is to refresh my understanding of product manager this position! If you think of yourself as a product manager for simply delivering a prototype, that is, at worst, bullshit.
Holiday wrote a lot of hydrology, of course, hydrology is also a certain part of dry goods, but not pure technical articles. Many friends add my wechat, among them, there is a product manager of a large factory, mention him, can not be, the annual salary of nearly ten million! At the beginning, I didn’t believe it, but I checked his experience online. Oh, my God, I am convinced, god like existence! Let alone the annual salary of nearly 10 million, I believe 100 million!
After adding wechat, we talked for a long time, from technology to products. He recognized my technology, and I admired his cognition of products! What’s more, I learned a lot from his words, especially my new understanding of products and the position of product manager. Next, I will simply summarize my new cognition of product manager through this exchange. In other words, what are the basic qualities of a real product manager?
Here, I would like to briefly say that as a product manager, in addition to the basic quality requirements of the post, I also need to have some skills. As for the basic quality requirements of product manager, you can refer to the following figure, which is the basic job requirements that a qualified product manager must have! It is also the basic skill map that a qualified product manager needs to possess. Some even say don’t call yourself a product manager until you meet the requirements below!
In addition to that, I’ll highlight a few areas of conversation with the product guru, some of which are in the skill chart above and some of which are not. Friends, can compare, hope that each product partners, meet these basic professional qualities.
Must understand psychology
This is the product manager must understand, why so said, when designing a product, we must start from the actual needs of users and the market, that is, to accurately grasp the psychology of users, and accurately grasp the psychological pain points of users, guide users to better use the product. Say a point simply, it is to be able to judge about what the user psychology thinks, at least about the market direction won’t be wrong!
Two. Super market insight
Product managers need to have superior market insight, not only to observe market changes related to their positions, but also technology, market orientation, and national policies. If you are the product manager of the Internet field, you also need to have an estimate of the overall trend of the Internet industry!
Three. To grasp the trend of the market
A qualified product manager can grasp the overall trend of the market, can make a roughly accurate judgment of the overall trend, otherwise, no matter how many products are designed, it is also to follow the trend. For example, the Internet has experienced the PC age of the Internet, mobile Internet era, the era of big data, is now into the Internet era, if a product manager can not accurately forecast the trend, you can’t judge the direction of the market faster than normal people, that his design products, more most can also be designed to follow suit, and follow suit design products, Some even plagiarize.
4. Be able to accurately explore potential demand
In the process of talking with this product leader, I caught a very important message is that a qualified product manager must be able to dig out the potential needs of users and be good at analyzing their immediate needs. In communicating your needs to the customer, don’t just do what the customer says, give it to him in a different way, and remember: sometimes what the customer says is not always right!
5. Be good at analyzing vertical fields
A qualified product manager must have the ability to think deeply and independently, and be able to analyze the vertical areas in the current market environment in depth and in detail, even when the existing market is saturated. For example, e-commerce can be divided into traditional e-commerce, social e-commerce, community e-commerce, cross-border e-commerce, new retail and so on. A qualified product manager needs to have the ability to think independently, and be able to in-depth analysis of the market, to find out the market saturated market segmentation of differentiation areas!
6. Have a certain understanding of popular technology
This is also a must for product managers. Many people may think that product managers don’t need to know technology, but if they don’t know anything, it’s a bit of a bull! Why do product managers need to know technology? Glacier herself has attended many product and open source project conferences held by ali, Tencent and other big companies. She also met many professional product leaders at the conferences. Almost all of them have more than ten years of R&D experience, which is not CRUD experience. People can design a product to take into account the product and technology, can do a product to the extreme. The eldest brother of millet is lei buss of technical background, can accomplish millet product domestic one of the two position; Long Ge, the boss of wechat, is a technology tycoon, leading wechat to continue innovation, to bring users a minimalist product experience; Bytedance’s product manager is awesome, with the best algorithms and recommendations, and Tiktok is awesome. Can you still say that product managers don’t need to know technology? Product managers who don’t understand technology can only play small, not competent to truly top product design!
Seven. Good listening and communication
This is also the basic quality that a qualified product manager must possess. He is good at listening to the feedback of the market and technical personnel, able to grasp the key points quickly from various feedback information, able to quickly improve the deficiencies of existing products, and always iterate the product design with high enthusiasm. In addition, good communication ability is also a product manager needs to have, to convey their ideas to the outside world, need to express clearly in simple and easy to understand language, do not say long wordy, people do not understand what you are saying!
8. Have the corresponding data analysis ability
Data analysis ability is not only for technical personnel and operation personnel, as a qualified product manager must have data analysis ability. With the ability of data analysis, product managers can more accurately grasp the trend of the product and the overall trend of the market.
Ix. Have corresponding competitive product analysis ability
In-depth analysis of competitors’ products, rather than simply looking at page interaction and jump logic. Think deeply about the value and business model behind competing products. Rather than simply copy the logical design of competing products.
10. Have certain business analysis ability
Business analysis ability is a basic quality that product managers must possess to accurately position the product. From the beginning of designing the first version of the product, it is necessary to think deeply about the future business model of the product. Should the product be positioned as free or charge, and if the product is positioned as charge, how to charge? Value-added service model or other charging model? These are all things that require in-depth analysis and thinking by product managers.
As for other basic skills of product managers, you can refer to the first product manager skill map in this paper to compare your own skills and improve your product skills in a targeted way.
At present, most of the product managers of small and medium-sized companies are only product assistants at best, still not up to the requirements of product managers, more do not have the basic knowledge and skills that product managers should have!
Product manager this position is not who can be competent, it needs to master too much knowledge and skills, even higher than the requirements of technical personnel, those product assistant in the product manager post, or in the product manager post will only draw a simple prototype of the prototype painters, and cherish it!
Ok, that’s enough for today. I’m Glacier. See you next time