Editor's introduction: Insight into the needs of users is the core work of product managers, only by understanding the needs of users, can we design products that can meet the needs of users and be reasonable. In the cycle of finding problems, analyzing problems, and solving problems, analyzing problems best examines the ability of product managers, but it is also the easiest to put product managers in a difficult situation. Now, let's use this article to understand the most common thinking dilemmas that product managers encounter and how to crack them.
As a product manager, the core work is to gain insight into the needs of users and design reasonable products to meet the needs of users. This is the cycle of problem discovery- problem analysis and problem solving exploration. The focus of finding a problem is to understand what the problem is, the analysis of the problem is to find the root cause of the problem, and the more important thing to solve the problem is to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the product solution and implement the plan.
In these three steps, analyzing the problem can best examine the ability of the product manager, but it is also the easiest to make the product manager fall into a mental dilemma, unable to get out or walk on the wrong fork in the road.
Today, let's take a look at what thinking dilemmas product managers encounter when thinking about products, why they fall into them, and how to correctly build a product thinking structure by breaking the game with "diagrams".
I. What is the "Thinking Dilemma"
What is the mental dilemma? What kind of thinking dilemmas will product managers encounter in analyzing problems?
Based on personal experience and lessons, I think that in the analysis of problems, we will encounter three types of dilemmas: we cannot grasp the essence, the thinking angle is not comprehensive, and it is difficult to break through and innovate.
1. Can't grasp the essence
Everyone knows Hemingway's "iceberg theory", and we can easily find the tip of the iceberg floating on the surface of the water, but it only accounts for one-eighth of the iceberg, and the other seven-eighths are hidden under the surface of the water and difficult to see. In the work of the product manager, the insight into the needs of the user is to grasp the essence of things, but this essence is like an "iceberg", hidden under the surface of the water and difficult to detect.
The following classic question, I believe everyone is not unfamiliar - if I ask consumers what they want, they should say that they want a faster horse, Ford did not look for a faster horse, instead of producing cars.
Product managers often easily find clear needs from the user's speech and demeanor, but often forget to explore the hidden unknown needs, and the so-called "headache cures the head, foot pain heals the foot" situation.
2. Think one-sidedly
Everyone has their own thinking structure and way of thinking, because the perspective of the station is different, and the problems seen are different. If you can't look at the problem comprehensively and think about the solution only from an individual perspective, you will eventually only "see the trees, not the forest" in the end.
The parable of the blind man touching the elephant is familiar, and these four blind people only introduce what the elephant looks like from their own perception, but do not recognize the elephant from the overall appearance, and come up with various one-sided answers.
This story tells us that when we only hear or see part of something, we should not make clever guesses, but only a comprehensive understanding of things can lead to correct conclusions. As a product manager, you need to have a comprehensive understanding of things or problems in order to find effective solutions, otherwise it can only be "the opposite".
3. Difficult to break through and innovate
People's thinking is easily affected by inherent thinking, which causes product managers to draw a "cage" for themselves when thinking about problems, and can only think about problems in the fixed thinking framework. If you can't break through the inherent thinking framework, you may be in trouble and can't get out.
Vacuum cleaners in life, everyone should often use. The early vacuum cleaner used compressed air to blow dust into the container, using the method of blowing away the dust. British civil engineer Booth did the opposite, why not use the way of inhalation, suck the dust into the container, so the use of a powerful electric pump to suck the air into the hose, through the cloth bag to filter the dust, which is the predecessor of the vacuum cleaner we now commonly use.
Early Nokia phones have been working on how to optimize the keyboard on the phone, even if it takes a lot of time and money, can not balance the space between the display and the keyboard contradiction, thinking only limited to the dispute between the phone screen and the keyboard. Later Jobs, contrarian thinking about why a keyboard was needed, finally launched a large-screen smartphone without a keyboard - a mobile phone iPhone, and successfully overthrew Nokia's mobile phone supremacy.
Second, where does the "thinking dilemma" come from?
From the above, I suddenly found that there are so many dilemmas in product thinking, and it is easy to fall into them and not come out. So why do we get caught up in a mental dilemma?
1. Inherent cognitive bias
People's stimulation of external information is dynamic, will not passively accept these stimuli, but can take the initiative to explore the information of the outside world, and the external information from the bottom up, from the top down many times repeated processing, so as to form thoughts, consciousness, concepts, etc., and stored in the brain "information base", the formation of memory.
But the environment in which everyone lives, family relationships and education are different, and the external information stimuli we receive are also different, resulting in different memories in everyone's mind. If we encounter new problems, we will unconsciously use our existing cognition to understand, subjectively dismantle and combine, which will also make everyone's cognition biased.
The black swan events that we often hear can be well illustrated. Europeans before the 17th century believed that swans were all white because they lived in an environment where black swans were not found. However, black swans were found in Australia, and people's perceptions fluctuated greatly.
2. The influence of mental patterns
After many cognitions, the human brain will form a certain stimulus structure composed of several elements or components according to certain relationships, and the combination of this stimulus is a cognitive mode or mental mode. Why do people's judgments about external things come so quickly? This is because people's minds have long formed a standard for judging things, and this is the mental model at work.
The biggest influence on product managers is still the mindset that was formed during the student years. In long-term school education, the process of learning, reading, and doing problems is highly repetitive, and in the whole process, there is almost no thinking about "what to do", and almost all learning experiences are thinking about "how to do".
This causes us to habitually think about what we should "do" when we encounter problems, and neglect to think about "what to do". If you have not encountered this problem before, you will look for help from others, which is also to let others tell you "how to do it".
3. Effects of System 1 and System 2
Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking, Fast and Slow divides our cognitive system into two parts: "System 1" reacts quickly, relies on intuition, and requires little effort to accomplish tasks, while "System 2" is lazy and requires us to concentrate when it works, but it is also rational and precise. We switch between the two systems every day.
That is to say, when we think about the problem, system 1 is in the front, and when system 1 encounters trouble, system 2 will come forward to solve it. For this reason, sometimes decisions are often made according to System 1, but often this decision-making may be unscientific and rigorous.
If you don't believe me, take a look at the following examples.
There are three people, A, B, and C, according to the description below, who do you most want to be friends with?
- A: Free and loose, extramarital affairs, addicted to tobacco and alcohol.
- B: Numerous awards, good character, no tobacco and alcohol, and loyalty to marriage.
- C: Not enterprising, using drugs, poor character, poor grades.
Seeing the descriptions of these three people, I think everyone's first instinct is to choose B to become friends. So I tell you, the three people described here are Roosevelt in the United States, Hitler in Germany, and Churchill in Britain, and now you still believe in your own system1?
Third, how to break the dilemma of thinking
What should we do to get rid of the above mental dilemma? I suggest that you can break the game with "figures", use visual methods to sort out the thinking structure, and break the situation from the following three ways: standing on the overall situation to see the part, using MECE analysis, and visual presentation.
1. Stand on the big picture and look at the part
When encountering problems, we cannot directly follow the previous experience or cognition, we must first understand the overall situation, find out the difference from past experience, if we analyze the problem directly for the problem, we will ignore the external factors.
Standing on the overall situation and looking at the part, the focus is on finding out the elements and related relationships in the problem, and the neglect of any one element will affect the solution of the entire problem.
For example, a truck full of goods plans to cross the tunnel to A, because the height of the loaded goods is 2.05 meters, but the tunnel can only not allow more than 2 meters, how to get to A. We look at the problem in the big picture here, the main body is the car, the object is the cargo, and at the same time we have to consider the external environment - the tunnel. If you consider the external environment, the solution to the problem can also bypass the tunnel.
2. Analyze using MECE
MECE analysis, full name Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive, Chinese meaning "independent of each other, completely exhausted", here we need to break down the elements of the problem.
Using MECE analysis, you can sort out the messy ideas in order to find a better solution. In the above example, the truck passes through the tunnel, you may be able to think of many ways, if you do not list according to the MECE principle, you will only think of one in the east and one in the west.
We also use the example of trucks crossing tunnels to group and classify features. According to whether it has passed through the tunnel, it can be divided into tunnel and tunnel; if it passes through the tunnel, it can be grouped by vehicle, cargo, and tunnel, and the following figure is used as an example for reference.
3. Visual presentation
Once you have considered the elements of the problem, you can consider presenting it in a clear, comprehensive and graphical way, so as to effectively apply it to thinking and solving problems.
Some people may say that we have taken all the elements into account, is it necessary to present them in the drawing? In fact, drawing is not only to present the elements, but also to see the relationship between the elements through the form of drawing.
For example, there are new users and old users in the sales of a certain product, of which the proportion of old users is larger, the following figure shows, you can know at a glance that there are two elements of new and old users, and who accounts for more is also intuitive, and will also notice this in thinking.
The mind map of the truck delivery in the above example is also a visual presentation. Visual presentation is not about how beautiful and accurate the diagram is, the focus is still on assisting you in thinking.
The above is my personal belief that breaking through the dilemma of thinking, more effective ways, of course, there are other ways, welcome to continue to add. I hope that the next time you are thinking about products and solving problems, you can use the knowledge to help everyone think more comprehensively and think more clearly.
This article was originally published by @Fengming on the premise that everyone is a product manager, and reproduction without permission is prohibited.
The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol