This is the most core ability of the product manager, how to analyze the demand next detailed disassembly. Divided into demand definition, demand expression and demand management in three aspects.
At the level of demand definition, you need to distinguish between user demand and product demand.
According to the attributes of the user is mainly divided into B users and C users, B users, such as organizations serving users (up to an industry, a business, a company, down to a department, a social division of labor roles, etc.), C users are also as a community of people in the ordinary user point of view of the day-to-day contact with the various types of products.
Product demand contains two parts, user demand and company demand, product demand is derived from user demand, product demand is to meet the user needs of the corresponding solution, can be arranged through the combination of product demand to meet the corresponding user needs. Company demand and user demand can be *** with the derived product demand, company demand can reflect the value of the company.
These two theories of needs are also commonly seen and heard, respectively, Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and kano model;
Maslow's theory of needs of human beings is divided into physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, respect for the needs and needs for self-actualization; and the satisfaction of the needs of each level is based on the previous level of needs have been met. The premise of each level of needs is based on the premise that the previous level of needs has already been satisfied. However, when the five needs are mapped to products, the more the needs at the bottom of the pyramid, the larger the area of demand, the smaller the corresponding ARPU will be, which corresponds to the smaller price elasticity in economics. For example, for necessities of life, the price elasticity is less than or equal to 1, i.e., the price reduction will not cause consumers to spend more on the monetary expenditure of this type of commodities. But on the contrary, for some luxury goods, that is, we mentioned earlier the ARPU value of higher products, price elasticity >1, if the price reduction will cause users to spend more on these products.
Another type of demand model is the KANO model proposed by Japanese scholars, which is mainly used as a tool to categorize and prioritize the user's needs, based on analyzing the impact of user needs on user satisfaction, reflecting the non-linear relationship between product performance and user satisfaction.
You can also use the kano model to categorize the requirements, what kind of requirements correspond to which class, so you can judge whether this kind of requirements should be done, and how much should be done. And different needs will be converted at different stages of the product, for example, when a feature is first made, it is a charm (excitement) type of demand, but as users gradually get used to it, or this feature is also available in competitors, it will be converted into an expectation factor.
The Maslow model is more from the human perspective to analyze the demand, and the kano model is more from the product function perspective to disassemble, both are very practical tools, according to the specific situation need to be comprehensive use of analysis.
Demand how to do it, mainly divided into three aspects: their own thinking, use research analysis and data analysis.
As mentioned earlier, the product manager himself is also a social person can think differently, as the user himself, put forward the demand, more test is the product manager's talent (innate), insight (after the day after the continuous deliberate practice, life in the constant observation, questioning, induction, refinement, the formation of their own methodology), as well as experience (the more projects done, the more experience in society, the more the human nature, the East). (the more projects you do, the more social experience you have, the more insight you have into human nature, the more you understand social phenomena, the more you understand every project you've been involved in, etc.). As the saying goes, with the level of effort of most people, it is not yet time to spell out talent. Therefore, in the daily life of observation, thinking, in the completion of a job after the review, summarize, outside the work with peers, around the people, people in all walks of life, the exchange of ideas collision, through reading for the enhancement of the thinking ability, these are caused by the differences between the product manager is an important part of the underlying logic of all walks of life are no more than these, kung fu in the drama. The difference between people is actually in these accumulated self-cultivation, 10,000 hours of the law is actually said to be these.
In fact, I think this part should be the most important part. Primary product managers may see the mountain is the mountain, see the water is water (see just some of the appearance, phenomenon); intermediate product managers will gradually produce some reflection, see the mountain is not the mountain, see the water is not the water (found that the phenomenon in fact there are a lot of root causes behind the phenomenon behind the cause of the intricate and complex); to the highest level of the product manager, to see the mountain is the mountain, to see the water is the water, which in fact, is through a number of columns of thinking, the negation of the Negative, spiral upward thinking, through the appearance of things can penetrate the essence of things, and the essence of many things follow the similar laws, nothing new under the sun, history is not a simple repetition, but always rhyme, understand the underlying logic of things, that is, you can know the external phenomenon of things, but it is a combination of various phenomena, or different forms of different products. So the ultimate goal for product managers is to ask about the underlying logic of things.
How to review, or make their own experience into something that can be valuable to their future, here we recommend a methodology, namely the PDCA model.
PDCA is the English word Plan (Plan), Do (Execute), Check (Check) and Act (Processing), is my personal has been using the review template, the specific demolition is as follows
1, P (Plan) plan, that is, review review plan, including the determination of the guidelines and objectives, as well as the development of activity planning.
2, D (Do) implementation, based on known information, the design of specific methods, programs and plan layout; and then according to the design and layout, specific operations to achieve the content of the plan.
3, C (Check) check, summarize the results of the implementation of the plan, to distinguish what is right, what is wrong, clear effect, identify problems.
4, A (Act) processing, the summary of the results of the inspection process, the success of the experience to be affirmed, and be standardized; for the failure of the lessons learned should also be summarized, to attract attention.
For problems not solved, should be submitted to the next PDCA cycle to solve. The whole PDCA model also applies to daily product iteration, project agile development, and of course to the review of various decisions in our life growth.
But we must remember one thing, tools are just a means to an end, tools must be put into specific scenarios combined with our actual case to see to play out their value.
In addition to thinking inward, we can of course assist a variety of external data, such as through the use of research methods, user interviews, focus group, questionnaires, A/B test, customer service, NPS research, social network user feedback and so on;
There are a lot of ways to get the voice of the user, but it is important to remember these are only means, not ends. There are many ways to get users' voices, but it should be remembered that these are only means, not ends; ultimately it is necessary to explore the bottom logic/requests based on the phenomenon of these user feedbacks and subjective feelings. For example, users can only express their own want to run faster horse, and the ability of the product manager lies in how to refine, de-hypocritical search **** sexual needs, the underlying logic, the user needs to save time on the road, he wants to be a car, airplane, high-speed rail or immersive, delay-free, high-precision VR system used to people face-to-face communication, collaboration.
Industry indices: Baidu index, Taobao index, google trends, the official website of the Bureau of Statistics, etc.; data analysis tools: Baidu statistics, Friends of the League, Google analytics, Baidu mobile statistics, etc.; consulting firms: Ai Rui Consulting, Yi Guan, 199IT, WeChat Sogou (public number article finder), report check, brokerage firms' research reports, etc.;
PEST analysis is a method used by strategic consultants to help companies review their external macro-environment. It refers to the analysis of the macro environment, which refers to the various macro forces that affect all industries and enterprises. To analyze the macro-environmental factors, different industries and enterprises according to their own characteristics and operational needs, the specific content of the analysis will be different, but generally should be political (Political), economic (Economic), social (social) and technology (Technological), the four major categories of influence on the enterprise's main external environmental factors to be analyzed. In simple terms, this is called PEST analysis.
In addition to PEST, another good tool for industry analysis, mainly for competitor analysis, differentiated from the product SWOT, Porter's Five Forces is a company-level perspective, to the industry's basic competitive situation analysis, also belongs to the category of macro-analysis. The five forces model identifies five main sources of competition, namely the bargaining power of suppliers, the bargaining power of buyers, the threat of potential entrants, the threat of substitutes, and competition from companies currently in the same industry. These five major competitive forces, which determine the profitability of an industry, and indicate that the core of business strategy should lie in choosing the right industry and the most attractive competitive position in the industry.
By conducting the analysis of Porter's five forces, the company can formulate a strategy for the company, which mainly corresponds to three kinds of strategic ideas, namely, the total cost leadership strategy, differentiation strategy, specialization strategy;
SWOT is also put forward by the well-known consulting company McKinsey, which can be used for strategy formulation from a macro point of view, and at the same time, it can also be used to carry out the competitor's product latitude from a micro point of view. The company's website is a great source of information about the company's products.
As PEST and Porter's Five Forces are for the analysis of the external environment, SWOT is inward, for their own product analysis.
Through the analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges to develop the next strategy or product improvement program.
The buried data of the existing products, DAU, MAU, per capita time of use, retention (sub-retention, five-day retention, 7-day retention), GMV, channel conversion rate, exposure rate, CTR, etc., according to the actual product scenarios to develop indicators that can respond to the user's behavior and user needs, and through the quantitative number of dismantling the specific reasons behind, and to develop the corresponding solutions.
If you want to be a user growth product manager in the future, mastering the basic theory and method of data analysis and establishing the strategy and function of pushing back the next step through data analysis is what a user growth product manager needs to do. Early Facebook and airbnb are through the mining user behavior data behind the demand, to pry a large number of user growth, and finally created their own growth miracle.
Through data analysis as a lever to pry the potential of user growth
1, the user (who): users, buyers, decision makers, this time you need to ask three questions, the target user is which crowd? What is the size of the crowd? What are the characteristics of the crowd
2, the user purpose (what): what the user wants, what is the desire
3, the user scene (where/when): accurately locate the user needs. How about time, place, network environment, and characters?
4, the user task / solution (how): how the user to use the product to meet the corresponding needs
5, describing a need: the above 4W +1H in series, at a certain time (when), a certain location (where), a certain type of user (who) because of what kind of desires can not be satisfied (what), through a certain way to fulfill the desire (how).
From user demand into product demand: from the core from the core user goals, which can be disassembled into which several scenarios, each scenario in the user to do a thing what things, this thing to solve what pain points. Each scene to solve the pain points, our products to complete what kind of task, to the user a what kind of operation. The task is then subdivided into what functions are available for each task.
User requirements: user roles - > goals - > use scenarios - > tasks - > interface operations
Translated into
Product requirements: understanding the user - > product goals - > needs and scenarios - > functionality and interactions - > specific requirements of the interface
According to the user goals and scenarios, design the tasks that users need to complete, task disassembly, as detailed as possible;
(1) Design the task flow (down to the smallest particle)
(2) Grouping of similar steps
(3) Establishing associations between the groups (page flow)
(4) The design of the groups/pages, prototypes
Among them, (3) (4) need to consider the User habits and platform interaction patterns.
The relationship between demand transformation and demand expression: demand transformation is to transform the demand into a product, a concept to product process; and in the transformation process, to describe the demand, it will use a lot of demand expression tools.
The tools for demand expression are mainly divided into the following seven categories: Requirements Feature List (functional specifications), functional structure diagram (functional disassembly, in-depth and logical summarization), business logic diagram (product and business logic), business process map (role and business flow), page flow chart (page flow relationship), use case diagram (different roles to break down the requirements), user experience map (full process experience design), and so on. Experience map (full-process experience design);
(1) Requirements List Feature List (functional specification description; excel mode)
Requirements List can be edited in Excel in the following format:
(2) Functional Structure Diagram (functional disassembly, in-depth and logical summarization; mind mapping, including: modules, submodules, functions)
Functional structure diagram is a mind map, a structured way to express the functions logically according to the content, grouping and so on.
Functional structure diagrams are drawn in the pre-product idea stage. In the demand analysis stage, when we get the source of demand, specifically how to do the product program, with what kind of function points to achieve the goal. Specific page elements and information do not care, the first 3 modules in the FEATURE LIST: modules, submodules, function points listed, this is the functional structure diagram.
(3) Business Logic Diagram (product and business operation logic; emphasizing logic, flowchart processon, visio)
Business Logic Diagram is the blueprint of the product. Product managers need to y understand the logic of the operation of the product, not just the interface and interaction, but more of the logic behind.
(4) Business Process Diagram (roles and business flows; specific implementation of the process, flowchart processon, visio)
The business process diagram can show the user in the system, the business of the interaction between the logical flow, may include multiple roles. Business process map can express in a particular scenario, the user, information flow and abnormalities.
Six elements of a business process map: roles, tasks, flow (order), inputs, outputs, format
(5) page flow diagram (page flow relationship; prototype diagram axure, ink knife)
(6) use case diagram (decomposition of the requirements of the different roles)
(7) user experience maps
A. Urgent Important Quadrant
B. Product Lifecycle Map
-Product early (0-1) mvp stage: need to tap into the basic needs, to meet the necessary factors in the kano model, the core is to cultivate the market, to do a good job of the basic, core functions;
-Growth period: cultivated seed users, began to expand the market, with the market publicity; through the data analysis to find the lever of prying users to growth, including the removal of reverse engineering, and to find the best solution. Mature: maintain market share, fulfill most of the needs, more difficult to tap into the demand, need to improve the charm factor to keep users active or attract other competitors, etc., and focus on creating aha moments. As mentioned above, this charm factor will be gradually transformed into expectation factor with the passage of time, that is to say, it constantly raises the user's expectation, so it is necessary to continuously explore more charm factors;
-Decline: the product activity gradually decreases, it is necessary to improve efficiency, control costs, eliminate short boards (delete redundant functions), and expand new projects, explore new directions, and carry out breakthrough innovation. innovation.
1, user-centered, mining the user's core needs (in-depth study of user scenarios, user feedback screening)
2, from the business team or the boss and other superiors of the demand needs to be supported by the data
3, ROI analysis of the return on investment (business value, development costs, user value); product value = (new experience or new efficiency - long experience or old efficiency) - for a new experience or old efficiency) - the cost of a new experience
4, hard thinking reverse thinking; inward three questions: what are the core demands of users? Is the design of the function point to meet the user's core requirements? If there is no such function what will happen, the user will still use this product?
On how to improve business thinking and the ability to write business requirements documents, we put the last chapter to discuss the topic.
Let's take a look at the marketing skills that product managers need to develop from writing an MRD document.
First of all, we need to understand what the purpose of the MRD is, just as the PRD is oriented to the object of research and development, designers, BRD is oriented to the object of the boss decision makers, MRD is generally oriented to the object of business, operations, marketing personnel, through a good MRD can help them quickly understand what kind of customers to look for resources to cooperate with the customer to find customers, how to introduce customers to the customer our business model, you can clearly see our products and services, and we can also help them to find the best products. A good MRD can help them quickly understand what kind of customers they are looking for for resource cooperation, how to introduce our business model to customers after finding them, and how to see our products clearly, so as to help customers understand more intuitively. What kind of user groups are targeted by the products. To summarize, MRD mainly contains product model, business model, operation model, market model, etc., clear customer and market direction.
Specifically how to write it, divided into document description, market description, user description, product description of the four parts.
Documentation: contains the basic introduction to the document, the version of the revised records with other requirements of the document is basically the same.
Market description: including the current state of market issues (through the problem to find potential opportunities, such as product level, technical level, operational level, user level, business model level), target market analysis (divided into market size, market characteristics, future development trends, time to assess the cycle of the market is expected to last), the conclusion of the market analysis (the market here to conclude that the judgment of the commercial value).
Target Market Analysis)
User description: including the target user groups (age, income, region, education, etc.); target group **** sexual characteristics; create virtual user roles, categorization and division of the user, extracted to create a typical user, which can represent the ultimate target user. User scenario analysis: the previously mentioned 4W1H; summary of user motivation, summary of user goals and analysis of the main factors used by image users.
Product description: contains the product positioning (to meet what users and what market), the core goal of the product (to solve the core user needs of the target market), the product structure (the overall structure), the roadmap of the product (time nodes of the task-oriented), the product's functional requirements, non-functional requirements (UI / UE design style, etc., experience, stability, security, etc.).
In fact, the product manager to high-level development, especially the AI product manager will be required to have the product owner's awareness of the ability in addition to the requirements of the project management capabilities, I have been undertaking the role of product manager, and gradually began to take on the role of project manager at the same time. Through the practice of work also gradually found the project manager and product manager of different. If the product manager is sometimes an artist, then the project manager is a mission-critical soldier;
Producers need to be responsible for script coordination, set up filming crews, filming capital costing, financial audits; the implementation of filming production, post-production; to assist the funding side (inside and outside), the issuer (inside and outside), and declared awards (inside and outside).
Similarly, the project manager is the overall person in charge of a project, you need to be responsible for the size of the project all things integrated planning,
When the project is launched: 1, a clear project requirements; 2, clear project objectives; 3, clear project scope; 4, set up the project team
Formulation of the plan: 1, the project tasks of the dismantling (how to break down a distant target into specific) Tasks, what specific action items for each task, what are the key milestones in the process, outputs) 2, progress planning 3, communication plan (frequency: daily station meetings, weekly meetings, biweekly meetings? Form: offline meetings, zoom, weekly reports, daily reports, etc.; collaborative office software) 4, develop a budget; 5, develop a procurement plan (coordination and management of external suppliers to match the project objectives and project time plan) 6, risk management (if the project is not carried out to meet expectations, how to solve the problem, whether you need to coordinate more resources, etc.)
Execution of the task: 1, resource deployment (development resources: Computing resources, GPU cards, training resources, debugging equipment, etc.; human resources: formal staff, experts, interns, outsourcing, suppliers, etc.;) 2, team management (team atmosphere: how to stimulate the subjective initiative of the organization's members; work coordination: how to let each person do what he or she does suitable, maximize the value of each member) 3, communication management (organization of the review meeting: the requirements) Review (after the product manager output PRD); UI review (after the designer output design); use case review (after the test engineer output test cases)
Process management: 1, overall monitoring (scope monitoring, budget monitoring; if problems are encountered in the handling measures include increasing personnel, overtime, adjusting personnel, adjusting methods/tools, or by reducing the requirements of the limited scenarios to help the problem of the (2, progress monitoring (stage-by-stage deliverables audit, such as algorithmic projects at different stages of the process to output the corresponding sdk, functional version, performance version, iterative version of the sdk; different stages of the output of the corresponding test report: public test set report, self-built test set report, business test set report, user experience test report); 3, supervision and communication: through regular meetings to output the appropriate Meeting minutes, form corresponding to-do items and action items, etc.; 4, change management: because the project in the specific process will encounter potential demand changes, but no matter what changes are to increase the risk that the project can not be completed on time and according to the requirements, so it is reasonable to avoid the risk of needing to establish a set of change management mechanism to ensure that the project can be managed and controlled. Including, the only receiving entrance (for example, product managers are the only demand change entrance); assessment of the impact of change (not after the conclusion of any change can not enter the implementation stage); change and timely warning (review of the changes through the need to update the corresponding affected documents, time, resources, costs, etc., and synchronize the change situation, for early warning)
Project closure: 1, project Acceptance of results 2, project summary, review (PDCA methodology)
The process of project team formation, you can pull through the corresponding work communication group, the use of some agile development tools for tasks, bug management, such as some collaborative office software, I believe that many companies have their own special designation of the software, not to repeat here. The purpose of using the tool is to let the project team members for the project goals, plans, what time each person to complete what tasks can maintain a high degree of consistency and alignment, to avoid information asymmetry caused by the time, cost, task issues, and through collaborative office software this type of tool can help the project manager to realize the risk in advance, in advance of the risk management and human intervention.
The ability to communicate is actually considered a soft power among many skills of product managers, and it is also one of the core competencies that need to be possessed and enhanced to do the social role of outward communication.
From the different communication objects are divided into upward communication, downward communication, peer communication, cross-departmental communication, etc.;
From the different modes of communication are divided into: verbal communication, text communication, and a more rich and diverse media mode of communication (such as PPT, axure prototyping, excel, word, etc.), we often say that the product manager needs to have the written communication skills, but also the basic skills are also about the product manager's ability to communicate with others. The basic skills of product managers are actually also about the ability to communicate and express themselves plus the ability to think logically.
But no matter how the communication expression changes, the underlying logic is the same, it is just a different way of expression, but ultimately to communicate to the object of the most direct, efficient, no loss of the goal to convey information, any kind of expression of a good mastery, can greatly reduce due to miscommunication caused by the waste of resources, time and manpower.
There are many books and courses on the market that teach communication skills, so you can choose to learn according to your own actual needs, or to emphasize a core point, communication skills are means of expression is not the end. The purpose is how to choose the most appropriate way to carry out the information of high efficiency, no bias transmission.
Here are some specific methodologies and tools for improving communication skills.
The Pyramid Principle is a focused, logical, clear, prioritized logical thinking and expression.
The basic structure: conclusion first, above the bottom, classification and grouping, logical progression. After the main secondary, the first global and then details, the first conclusion after the cause, the first results after the process.
How to quickly grasp and can use the pyramid principle? The main four basic methods are as follows.
1, to always want to set the doubt, in order to trigger the reader to think. Templates are: background + conflict + questions + answers;
2, horizontal to have two reasoning, deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning; deductive reasoning is Socrates put forward the three-part theory (major premise, minor premise, conclusion), the advantage is that it can be more effective to persuade, but the disadvantage is that the premise is too much padding, easy to cause obstacles to understanding.
Inductive reasoning, from the individual to the general, from a large number of things, to extract the characteristics of the ****, such as the seven habits of high-performance people, artificial intelligence, the troika, the three elements of offline retail, etc.; induction can be a clear explanation of people's views, but at the same time for the people to summarize the ability to higher requirements, and the need for things to be a complete summary, or else easy to be challenged.
3, the use of the law of mece, not heavy, not left, not missing. MECE law that is independent of each other, completely exhaustive. But relies on for a thing to be classified, the specific classification of the dimensions are as follows: chronological order, spatial order, logical order, formula method (income = sales * unit price), model method (such as the aforementioned PEST, SWOT, PDCA, etc.)
4, a center, three basic points; that is, the expression of a main body, it is best to find three arguments to support, or supplemented by three stories as elaboration. Why 3, because not more or less, but also convenient for the audience to understand and remember.
Unlike the pyramid principle, which is used more for written expression, nonviolent communication is used more for verbal expression.
A prerequisite for understanding nonviolent communication is to know what violent communication is, and the four reasons are: moral judgment, comparison, avoidance of responsibility, and forcefulness. Therefore nonviolent communication is about avoiding these four problems.
The book summarizes the four elements of nonviolent communication: observation, feeling, need, and request.
In fact, all violent behavior behind, are hidden in the nature of the value orientation, when you think that people's nature is ugly, cold, to others will be violent way to respond, but if you think that people should be good, positive. Naturally, you will adjust your communication style accordingly.