The responsibility of the product manager is to explore the value and demand of the product, analyze the availability and feasibility, and then unite the interaction design and technical developers to define the characteristics of the product and realize it. In this process, the product manager, as an intermediate hub, needs to communicate and cooperate with team members to drive team execution and improve work efficiency. So how to be a good product manager?
I said before: "Everyone can be a product manager if they are willing to work hard! It is easy to be a successful product manager, but it is not easy to be a successful product manager! " Therefore, before we succeed, we must first become an excellent product manager.
I will break it down step by step and talk about how to become an excellent product manager step by step.
I want to be a product manager.
First of all, we learned about the position of product manager through certain channels. When we got to know it deeply, we began to aspire to be a product manager. At this time, we need to know what preparations we need to make to become a product manager. Let me introduce the preparations for becoming a product manager. Most of these preparations come from the requirements of enterprises for the positions they apply for, but we also need to have requirements for ourselves.
1, personality
The word "personality" is an online word, which really means personal quality and attitude. The product manager is a smooth role in the middle level of the company, so the quality and attitude of the product manager are very important. Experience can be accumulated and knowledge can be learned, but quality and attitude are long-term habits of human beings and are difficult to change. Therefore, enterprise recruitment attaches great importance to this article, and we should always reflect and improve ourselves.
Step 2: Interest
As I said at the beginning, as a product manager, you must love this job, so you must have enough interest in products. Whether it is a product manager or any other profession, it is the best choice to turn your interest into a career. When we are interested in and love this profession, we can inspire the greatest passion in our work and enjoy this happiness.
Let me say a digression here: every team has some shortcomings. Even if you choose this profession and this team, please don't give up easily.
3, product thinking
I wonder if you have paid attention to Weibo, the product manager. In their Weibo, you can always see them making various suggestions on various products in life. In the eyes of product owners, everything is a product; Product people's thinking is always picking holes unconsciously, which does not mean that product people are eccentric cleanliness, but that product people's thinking always puts forward experience defects for products on the role of user experience. Product thinking is a kind of empathy, which is integrated into products and picks out the defects of product design from the user's point of view. This is an accumulated way of thinking, but we need to be aware of this before we become product managers.
4. Logical thinking
This is a very important premise. The product manager's work is not only diligent, but also sufficient. In product design, there are many detailed problems including various logical problems. We need to make clear the relationship between them and write or draw a feasible product implementation plan. We also need to have the thinking ability of logical separation, combination and mixing. In the thinking of product people, there is no unique answer to any question, and there are always multiple implementation schemes for a function. We need to clearly understand and choose the best scheme.
5. Confidence
There is a kind of self-confidence called self-confidence. The explanation for this kind of self-confidence is: "Believe before your eyes see it, and the final reward is that you really see it." I once said in the article "Points for Attention in PM Interview" that product manager is a pragmatic profession, so don't exaggerate products in front of team members. We need to send data to speak (although the data is not necessarily accurate in many cases, the product manager's remarks need to be based. )。
By self-confidence, I mean inner self-confidence. We need to believe that we can be an excellent product manager, and we need to exude confidence from our hearts to infect everyone in the team, so as to arouse everyone's enthusiasm.
Second, before becoming a product manager
When we are ready to become a product manager, we need to know the nature of the product manager's next job, and these properties are our own requirements, and more motivation comes from our love for this profession.
1, working hours
The job of a product manager is definitely not a nine-to-five job, and an excellent product manager is definitely not a nine-to-five job. That's what I said before. We need to have a strong interest in this profession. Only if you are interested in and love this profession can you be motivated to be a good product manager. Products are like the children of product managers, who need to be responsible for the future and fate of this child, so the work of product managers can't be measured by time, and we can't leave the products behind after work.
2. Work attitude
Professionally, the product manager is an army of one person, and he has no direct power to manage team members, let alone ask team members to carry out orders. The job of the product manager is to communicate and cooperate with many departments and persuade them to cooperate. Therefore, a good attitude helps to improve the efficiency of the team, and friendly communication helps to ensure the quality of work.
3, master the technology
Although the product manager is not the person who directly operates the technology, at least he needs to understand the realization principle of the technology. The technology referred to here is not only programs, but also interactive design. Some enterprises will attach importance to the product manager's understanding of technology, but many enterprises think that this is not important, because technical principles are learned quickly, so this is not a necessary condition before joining the job.
Third, become a product manager.
When we officially become product managers, it doesn't mean that we are an excellent product manager. Let me talk about the abilities that product managers need in their work.
1, good at thinking
Find a point, first logically classify, then logically connect in series, and finally data mine to highlight the product value. This is the product incubation process! The responsibility of the product manager is to explore the value and demand of the product and analyze the usability and feasibility.
2. Supervision and regulation of demand
In our work, we will constantly receive demands from leaders, team members, users and ourselves. We need to integrate these requirements, analyze their availability and feasibility, and further plan their implementation if feasible. Before implementation, we need to carry out case deduction through documents or prototypes, deduce that the logic is feasible, and then demonstrate the effect with high fidelity in the next step before implementation. The most taboo in work is the lack of demand management. You can't receive requirements and directly implement them to technicians, and you can't change requirements frequently.
3. Understand user experience design
Some enterprises will have people who are responsible for user experience research. These people are called user research. Together with product manager, interaction design and visual design, they complete product prototype design and high-fidelity model design. There are also enterprises that do not have such personnel. At this time, the product manager usually needs to understand the user experience design by himself and complete the prototype design with the designer.
4. Time management
No matter what occupation, time management is particularly important. Time management, also called schedule management, is the management of our daily work arrangements. Reasonable time management can help us to define the priorities of our work and improve our work efficiency. The following four grades are commonly used work priority sorting rules in many enterprises.
Important (urgent)
Important (not urgent)
Not important (urgent)
Not important (not urgent)
5. Resolve pressure and contradictions.
The product manager is the fulcrum of the team, and also the concentration camp of pressure and contradiction, so we need to have a benign method to solve the pressure and the contradiction of the team at the same time.
Everyone has different ways to decompress, but they are similar in resolving contradictions. First of all, we should know that contradictions often begin with complaints and accusations. When dealing with complaints and accusations, we need to be clear that this is a cancer, which will grow bigger and bigger, and will eventually directly affect the harmony of the team. So we must stop its development and prevent everyone from falling into such inertia.
Complaints and accusations are two-way, others can get lost, but as product managers, we must be rational, stop complaining and accusations, take the initiative to apologize, and stop complaining and accusations from escalating. Although it is not our fault, we are product managers, and it is our duty to stop the development of cancer, and then communicate after everyone remains calm.
Therefore, product managers need to be rational at all times and reduce complaints and accusations, not to mention making excuses for themselves. They must overcome all obstacles and solve all problems.
Fourth, become an excellent product manager.
An excellent product manager must have the following titles: executive driver, work efficiency promoter and team cooperation promoter.
1, define job responsibilities and objectives.
First of all, we need to know the answers to three questions: job responsibilities, job objectives and job direction.
1. 1. The product manager's job is to explore the value and demand of products and analyze the usability and feasibility.
1.2. The product manager's goal is to define the product requirements and determine the logical relationship of the products in the shortest time.
1.3, the product manager's work direction is to continuously improve the value of products.
2. Understand the responsibilities of team members.
There are three departments with the closest relationship in the team, namely product department, design department and technology department. Products are responsible for multi-party coordination, and there are often two kinds of designs, interactive design and visual design, which are collectively called user experience design. In the designer's mind, more attention is paid to aesthetic style. In the team, communication with technicians is the most difficult, so we need to understand the ideas of technicians more. Technicians are often not good at user experience design, because technicians have implementation models in their minds, while product managers have conceptual models in their minds.
Understanding the responsibilities and ideas of team members will help us to coordinate and communicate, and write, draw and speak the conceptual model in the mind of the product manager according to their thinking.
3, clear the task center of gravity and direction
When we assign tasks, we also need to tell each other the goals and objectives of the tasks, and make clear the completion time and priority, which is helpful to improve work efficiency.
4. Close teamwork
From the product prototype, the team should maintain close cooperation. The product manager should determine the demand of the product, make clear what the product should do, and then mobilize everyone to participate in the product design. Get the best user experience and interactive design scheme from the design department, and get the latest technical trends from the technical department, so as to analyze whether it can be applied to products. Especially, the cooperation with the technical department is closer, and the product manager needs to know whether the planned product prototype can be realized and whether it can be realized from the technical level.
5. Don't change the requirements easily.
It has been written in the requirements management, especially when the product enters the development stage. Don't change the requirements easily. Avoid constantly changing requirements to delay the development progress, and consider improving in the next version when there are new requirements.