Running a business is like making cupcakes. enjoy~
Many friends will ask me: what does operation really do? Before, I always used some professional terms to answer the questions. After answering the questions, THE reply I received was basically emMMmmm. After all, the work is boring, and the operation work itself is very complicated, so it is difficult to explain clearly in one or two sentences.
Recently, cupcakes, see friends someone doing nothing, just over the weekend also plans to do something, solve the problem of daily breakfast, in the process of learning to make, discovery of do cupcake is a standard process operations, the tedious operations to parse with delicious cupcakes, likely to be even more flavor, more attractive.
Therefore, in this article, I will start with making cupcakes and explain to you how to prepare and carry out operation work. I hope you can learn operation knowledge when you have endless memories.
This paper will analyze it from the following five aspects:
- Planning period
- Lead time
- Effective date
- Optimization phase
- harvest
Specific analysis is as follows:
1. Planning period
Before the formal start, the market and project research and analysis stage belongs to the planning period; When making plans for daily work, deciding what to do in the future is also part of the planning period. This stage is characterized by thinking and the results stay on paper, which is also the most important stage.
Planning period for operations
In the process of product operation, project approval and the stage before project approval belong to the planning period; For example, to do mobile game research and development, there are RPG, card, strategy, MOBA and other types of gameplay on the market, IP has westward Journey, Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, animation, etc., and other options such as horizontal version, vertical version, 2D, 3D and so on, which do we want to develop in the end? It is necessary to conduct a detailed investigation of the market size, user preferences and revenue of different types of games on the market, and finally determine a suitable game to develop according to their own strength. This stage is the planning period.
Some projects, from the project stage has failed, you do not know, the following one or two years of hard work is a waste of time. As a result, detailed planning is essential to the success of a project, and companies that jump on ideas on a whim usually don’t do well.
Cupcake planning period
Choosing a cupcake is actually the result of planning, and the stage before deciding to make a cupcake is the planning period. The types of products baked are: breads, cookies, cakes, pizzas, and desserts, and under each of the big categories there are many smaller ones. Like cupcakes, chiffon, mousse, cheesecake, muffin, Black Forest. So many kinds, which one to choose?
Bread is my first choice. However, I found that bread needs to be fermented and kneaded. It is very complicated. Cookies. I don’t like them. Just strain them out. Pizza, this is not a thing to eat every day, eat a weekend is ok, but also need to knead dough, decisively give up. As for dessert, as a teenager, I still don’t like this kind of thing. Finally, it landed on top of the cake.
Cupcakes stand out in terms of ease of preparation, length of time and amount of food eaten. With these advantages, it is simple to make, less material, easy to eat and not waste, and it can be installed in moments of friends.
Ii. Preparatory period
After the completion of the project planning, the human, material and financial resources needed can be prepared. The duration of this stage is often not long. It is only necessary to list the requirements and finish them one by one.
The lead-up period for operations
For example, after the product project is approved, the personnel for development and design will be determined, which is usually transferred from other project teams. If it is a newly established company, the personnel will be recruited according to this equipment, which is like filling a hole.
In addition to the preparation of personnel, there are hardware equipment, which is a very heavy piece in a start-up company, site selection, company registration, computer purchase, other miscellaneous documents.
Cupcake preparation period
Relative to the product project, this is much simpler, mainly to prepare materials. What kind of materials do you need? As a novice, I was confused. I asked a friend to help make a shopping list, divided hardware, materials two parts, the hardware has oven, egg beater and some trivial tools, materials have low gluten flour, eggs, sugar and so on.
Then with the help of a universal treasure, one-time purchase of the required items, the preparatory phase smoothly ended. Material preparation must be complete, do not wait for the start of the missing egg beater, it will affect the development of the whole work. In fact, it is more simple or my “tiger speak operation” public number preparation, a computer, a network cable.
Iii. Implementation period
This is the most frustrating phase of the project. The reason why it is helpless and painful, because the implementation period work only one, is to implement. The duration of the implementation period varies from project to project. It is normal for a small project to produce results in a month or two, while a big project will take a year or two.
The implementation period of operations
Made an example of product development, personnel equipment, after entering the development phase, the project manager will be divided the whole into piece by piece for development, to each department to cooperate the demand is higher, the project manager should have good coordination ability, because the workload is fixed, in order to shorten the development cycle, the most common solution is to work overtime.
Eight hours a day, five days a week, 16 hours a day, five days a week for a year, and the development cycle can be reduced to six months or less.
The implementation phase of a product is the phase that takes the product from a requirements document to a reality.
Cupcake launch period
To put it simply, it is a process of making cupcakes. In practical operation, the problems encountered are quite similar to those in operation.
What can’t be done. Do the process of operation will also encounter such problems, do not do activities, do not do forum, that also have to do ah, how to do? Learn and imitate. It is a good way to find an old driver to lead the operation, but cupcakes are a bit troublesome, because there are not many people around. You can only learn through the Internet, baidu below cupcake cooking videos and articles, follow the step-by-step instructions.
Compared with operation, it is much simpler, and each link does not need too deep understanding. Like eggs until they’re white, I just have to do it. In the case of operation, it is generally said that the activity copy should be eye-catching and the font of the advertisement picture should be large, which is not easy to implement. Everyone has different cognition, so the same operation process can produce very different effects.
There is also to remember, clear process to execute, we in the process of operation, sometimes the product online, found a data is not matched, activities online, found that the material has not come out, will cause the effect. I made a similar mistake with cupcakes.
Several parts haven’t completely clear, is doing, had three or four pot roast, make the effect are not very ideal, the last link in a part of illness, is found after add flour to fold, and my first impressions are most lasting thought is to use egg beater continue stirring, made a lot of useless as a result, the rules are clear, if beginning than to make such a low-level mistakes.
4. Optimization period
Optimization and adjustment is an essential stage of any project, no project is born perfect, good products are changed. At present, the most popular king of Glory, at the beginning is also a few times to change the name, optimize the gameplay data, just have today’s results.
Optimization period of operations
Product optimization refers to the optimization of the existing core base, such as increasing retention from 20% to 30%, which is possible through optimization. Like itself is very slag products are not optimized space, this as a business or to know.
The most common way of product optimization is a small amount of testing, through the recovery of data, adjustment, optimization and improvement, continue to small amount of testing, until the data is satisfied, before the official launch.
Cupcake optimization period
In order to bake the cupcakes with beautiful colors, I set the baking time to 30 minutes and took out one every 5 minutes. Finally, I compared the colors and found that the best color was baked in 20 minutes, so I set 20 minutes as the optimal time. Other optimization and temperature test, the amount of testing and so on, the optimization period, light eggs wasted more than a dozen.
In the future, there are plans to put different ingredients in the cake for testing, grapes, nuts, vegetables and so on, which will take time and energy. Optimization was essential before I could find the perfect cupcake, and I missed my dozen eggs.
Five, harvest time
Survived the period of time before helpless pain, ushered in the harvest period. You’re delivering a product that users will recognize, and that will generate revenue over the course of their use. All our hard work has paid off.
Harvest time for operations
Whether doing products or activities, it is ultimately to face users. After optimization and adjustment, the operation will push the product to the market, users will download and use it, and the whole process of a product will be over.
Cupcake harvest time
The result, of course, is a sweet cupcake. For a good product, the harvest time is very long. For example, cupcakes, I spent one month to make delicious cakes through exploration and trial. I can enjoy it for decades to come, and although it’s hard work and a dozen eggs wasted in the process, once it’s done, the rewards will keep coming.
The above refers to successful products. Most of the time, we make products that are terrible, don’t tell the users, you don’t want to use them. This requires us to improve their ability, the first to produce their own recognition of the product, is the need for time and thought to consider to study.
To sum up, there are far more and more complex things to do in operation than a cupcake, but the logic and ideas are the same. Just like e-commerce operation and APP operation, although the positions are different, they are engaged in data analysis and product optimization, but the product attributes are different. Cupcakes and apps are two completely different things, but they can be made in the same way. Therefore, why some people do well in one industry, even if they change industries, still become no.1, because he has fully understood the logic and thinking of doing things, in the face of a new thing, can apply.
# Columnist #
Tiger talk operation, wechat official account: Tiger talk operation, everyone is a columnist for product managers. Focus on operation for 100 years, be a young man with ideas!
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