In the complex journey of product design and development, ensuring that the product can truly meet customer needs and quickly adapt to market changes is a core challenge for every product manager and team. Based on his years of experience, the author of this article summarized a set of concise and practical product methodologies, hoping to help everyone.
To do product design, you must do a set of methodologies, or product design guidelines, this set is not necessarily correct, but there is a set of practice guidelines, you can do verification. Once a certain criterion is verified to be effective, you can slowly form your own thinking of making products.
On the train on a business trip, the train galloped all the way south, looking at the scenery flashing outside the window, and suddenly sixteen words on how to make products popped up in my mind:Focus on customers, single point breakthroughs, first and then optimize, and rapid iteration.
This is my current guideline for making products, whether it is G-end or C-end, it can be regarded as a small summary of my ten years in the industry.
Focus on customers
No matter what product you make, the first point is to do customer research and obtain product direction, demand and business model from customers.
These things can’t be thought about by themselves, they have to be refined from customers like gold panning.
This is also a belief in my products, only by making products that are truly valuable to customers and can really solve customer needs can be regarded as a product, and it is possible to win the market.
But often, in the process of making products, we will often favor the boss, give in to capital, believe in ourselves, rely on competing products, and superstitious theories.
To achieve these three challenges, product managers will only continue to appreciate
Good product managers are very scarce, and product managers who understand users, business, and data are still in demand when they go out of the Internet. On the contrary, if you only do simple communication, inefficient execution, and shallow thinking, I am afraid that you will not be able to go through the torrent of the next 3-5 years.
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These products made by customers are like fireworks, just flash with a “bang”, and then disappear. It may even lead the company to run all the way in the wrong direction, and finally lose money.
So why focus on customers?
Customers are also divided into three, six and nine, to find customers who can really provide you with effective needs, and then you can focus.
Take the automatic generation product of the paperwork I am doing now, which theoretically requires customers to provide as many business rules as possible, so that we can generate better paperwork.
But do you just go to find a lot of customers to cooperate?
Obviously not, because the business experience of most customers is limited, and you do not have the ability to judge whether the business rules they provide can form industry standards and cover as many business scenarios as possible.
Therefore, it is necessary to find industry experts, and their business experience is more authoritative and versatile.
Of course, if you have enough resources and use statistics to conduct a lot of research, you can also find common needs.
Single point breakthrough
Whether it is an individual or an enterprise, we will face a common problem when we make any product, that is, limited resources.
With limited resources, we must seek the optimal solution to make products, which is also a watershed moment that tests the difference in the ability of a product manager. If you don’t have good judgment, the only thing you can do is focus on a single point and make a single point breakthrough.
After making products for a long time, I don’t know if you have had that particularly wonderful experience.
Suddenly finding the direction of a new product, extremely excited. As a result, after working for a while, I found that those giants in the industry were also doing it, and they were developing so fast, like riding a rocket, and you couldn’t keep up with this small pace. The excitement in the early stage turned into confusion at the moment.
Yes, any product opportunity you can see, there must be other people at the same time.
If you want to eat the dividends of a product, in addition to “poor information”, it can cover your breakthrough in a short period of time. There is only one road left to “stumble”, which is to be the first in the industry in a certain product.
Taking a step back, even if you can’t be the first in the entire product industry, you have to be the first in a certain core function, better than all competing products, in order to have the opportunity to seize the minds of customers and win a market.
Continuing to automatically generate this product, when we started making this product, we were forced to invest in it. Because the whole world is talking about AI, big models are coming. If you want to live, you can only join, you can only do AI products.
But everyone knows that making AI products means a large investment, and everyone has no bottom in their hearts about what kind of effect the product can achieve in the end.
At the beginning, for the sake of safety, we only chose to do one-way document generation, which took half a year.
As soon as it had a little effect, familiar customers told us that they were already using the products generated by the whole business scenario document.
When I heard this news, I felt that I was like a little doll who had just entered elementary school, and a college student had emerged in the industry. We have to do a small business scenario for two or three months, and we have to do a full business scenario, not for several years.
However, later in the PK of the actual product, we actually won! Why win?
Win in a single business scenario, the documents we generate have the best effect, the highest accuracy, the most complete elements, and the best product experience.
This is also an important reason why customers are willing to believe that we can do a good job in other business scenarios, and we are more confident to continue to invest in this direction.
Since then, I have become more determined in my product strategy at the beginning, not greedy for more, not pursuing 80 points in all subjects, but focusing on achieving more than 90 points on a product and being the first in the industry
First there is a better one
When we engage in products, there is a thinking that I have always believed in making products, that is, there are no perfect products in this world at all!
Don’t always think that everything is properly prepared and foolproof, and you launch the product, and it is too late to do anything at that time.
Excellent products must be continuously verified and iterated by the market. Perfect products are always on the way, especially Internet products, all the same.
In most cases, when you are not ready, others may be the same as you, still grinding there, and at this time it is about execution.
You have to have a first-generation product, just like building a rough house first, so that customers can live in and experience it, and on this basis, find a better design idea that is more suitable for this product, just like decorating a rough house, slowly making it comfortable and beautiful.
What is execution? To put it bluntly, it means that you have an idea, don’t hesitate, start acting sloppily
Once you have an idea, start acting. If you have a direction, make the product first.
Iterate quickly
The thinking of “rapid iteration” is a bit of a project management style, in the final analysis, what products do in the end, it is the effective management of resources.
You need to work together as efficiently as possible within limited resources, so that everyone can work together towards a goal. At this time, how to mobilize everyone’s enthusiasm has become the key, which requires the adoption of a rapid iteration strategy.
Where do you think the execution of a team is reflected?
It’s like a relay race, there must be a matter that has been moving forward, with phased small goals, just like batons, baton after baton, and milestones are there to guide the direction, such a team is like a well-trained team, with strong combat effectiveness!
The team, like people, must continue to learn and improve, so how can it evolve?
It is to rely on continuous feedback, as long as there is continuous external feedback “nutrients”, the team will easily thrive.
How to get customer feedback?
The best way to gather feedback is to soak in the customer and make yourself an expert in the field at the same time.
