What kind of product managers does the boss like?

Some students pursue higher ranks, but don't know how to get started. Although we all know that if we do our own things well, we will definitely be able to "make contributions", but if we know the direction of development in advance and understand what kind of people the boss likes, can we grow faster?

Yesterday, an old friend asked me about the competency system of a senior product manager, and Mr. Jing quickly flipped through the thoughts and summaries of the previous two years, and found that the ancient compass was still valid, and it was also an insight into the desire and overwhelm of many students for higher ranks.

We have always believed that "the day arch of the pawn" will be able to "make a contribution", and the blank often means that it can be carved more efficiently, knowing its own shortcomings, and having a definite goal is a prerequisite for creating value.

Of course, as Charlie Munger said: If you want to get something, the best way is to make yourself worthy of it, so this article also strives to share the ability elements of several senior product students from the perspective of the boss's attention, hoping to inspire you with products.

1. Abstract essence: grasp the main contradiction

Mr. Jing shared a thought in a previous article, which I once discussed with an entrepreneurial friend: What should be the most important ability for product students and development students?

In the end, we came to a surprisingly consistent conclusion: abstract competence is the highest level of workplace competency.

We have said many times that enterprises are driven by one problem by one, and one of the values of employees is to effectively solve problems, any problem has an essential solution and N phenomenon solutions, only the abstract essence can fundamentally solve the problem.

Otherwise, no matter how gorgeous the action is, it will not be able to suppress the splash of high praise.

For example:

Yesterday, we had a requirement postponement, and the product student in charge of the requirement looked aggrieved and complained that it was because the business side did not cooperate well and did not give the business rule table at the agreed time, so the new functions could not be designed.

As soon as I heard it, I knew that she didn't grasp the essence of the problem, so I helped her sort out the origin of the matter, which can be simply understood in this way: function A is to configure and manage different business types, and the requirement is to add a new business type, because the calculation formula of the new business type is different from the previous one, therefore, the product needs the business team to provide business rules to upgrade the function.

I guided the communication with her and reminded her to think from the boss's point of view, so I asked her three questions first:

First, if the addition of new business types requires upgrading and transforming existing functions, will the boss think that our needs research is not in place? (I think the answer is yes, the boss will not think deeply, and will definitely think that the research is incomplete and incomplete)

Second, since it is a market demand research, does the background of the project be clearly understood? Which customer? What is the original demand of the customer? What research has been done (in fact, she doesn't even know the name of the customer, and the business team starts to design when it submits the requirements, and does not conduct research at all)

Third, you said that the delay was due to the business team's failure to provide rules, why didn't the rules be provided? Did you follow up to understand? Is it a business trip or is the project not urgent? We can't just blame the other party for not cooperating in the report? (The fact is that the demand is not urgent, the business team is also making further confirmation, and we have not done a good job of timely follow-up and project process management)

In the end, we agreed on two important conclusions:

(1) Internally, we have deficiencies in demand research and process management, and we should strengthen market research and improvement in the future, especially with the help of systematic methodology to improve the completeness of research, and I helped her formulate a demand research improvement plan.

(2) Externally, this is a matter of prioritization, not a demand delay, which is actually very important, and is essentially a resolution of the problem conflict, in fact, we say that the business team is very supportive, and they are somewhat at a loss.

You see, this is the value of abstract ability, only the abstract essence, in order to effectively solve the problem, whether the boss or the superior, they are not concerned about the process of solving the problem, but the result of solving the problem.

2. Structured thinking: the high-end grasp of expression

Mr. Jing has said many times that "Reliable: Top Consultants Teach You the Basic Skills of Work" is a must-read book for product students, and the author highly recommends "structured expression thinking" in the book.

It's no exaggeration to say that structured expression is the basic quality of reporting upwards, and it is also the most cost-effective starting point – even if your point of view is not very good, at least it can make the leader "mistaken" that you have a clear thought process.

For example:

A few days ago, I went on a business trip with the person in charge of the business to talk about cooperation, and reported the results to the boss after coming back, the classmate said a lot of words that made people get the point, to be honest, the person who listened was very anxious, he spoke for 5 minutes, and the boss directly interrupted him and asked me to report.

Here's how I answered:

Let's start with the conclusion: we have three business goals in this negotiation, which are... On this trip, we have achieved the first two goals completely, and the third goal has reached 80%, and then I will report in detail, about 5 points.

(1) The first point, this time we communicated more fully, the meeting lasted for 3 hours, the leader of the other party who was responsible for receiving us was the vice president, and also the person in charge of our business, he was very pragmatic, and proposed to quickly promote the implementation and formulate a detailed plan.

(2) Second, for business goal A, we have reached the following consensus, and we need to do the following...

(3) Thirdly, we have reached the following consensus on business objective B, and we need to do the following...

(4) Fourth, for business objective C, we have reached the following consensus, and we need to do the following...

(5) Fifth, in general, we have basically met our business expectations, but we also face some challenges, we will formulate follow-up plans, draw up a list of key tasks, and promote them as soon as possible and report in a timely manner.

You see, structured expression is the performance of the user's perspective, not only for upward reporting, but also for various communication and expression scenarios, just like the little goose interview coaching course I did some time ago, which is also the first to recommend structured expression.

3. Product planning: integrated business and landing

As we all know, bosses are cost-conscious components, both worried about opportunity costs and silent costs, and once the product design deviates from the business, or the support is insufficient, it will bring opportunity costs and silent costs, so the bosses have high requirements for product planning capabilities.

Ms. Jing has also shared before that compared with junior and intermediate product students, product planning ability is the most important differentiating advantage of senior product managers, and at the same time, good product planning must integrate business and deeply fit the business model and customer scenarios, which is the only way to effectively land.

In the process of product requirements design, product managers do need to fully consider the development plan of future functions to reduce the cost of subsequent changes and improve the efficiency of requirements realization, in other words, a good product design should be flexible and scalable to adapt to future changes.

Similarly, if the product manager only considers the current situation and ignores future changes when designing requirements, it will lead to a significant increase in subsequent development costs.

I shared a typical case in my column before:

We have a small demand for an APP product some time ago: according to the user's geographical location to display the entrance of a certain function A, simply put, only when the user with positioning coordinates in Henan opens the APP, he can see the icon entrance of the function A, if the mobile phone positioning shows that the user's location is not in Henan, the entrance of the function A is not displayed.

At that time, our product manager only took into account the needs of the Henan region, and in order to quickly realize this demand, we asked the background developers to write the "judgment condition of restricting the Henan region" to death, of course, this is very simple to implement, and the development cycle is also very short.

For example, when our business personnel conduct customer product demonstrations in other places (non-Henan regions), they find that the function A entrance cannot be displayed, and naturally also put forward requirements: in addition to Henan, it also needs to have the whitelist function of other provinces, that is, there needs to be a switch setting function, which can flexibly configure whether different provinces can see the entrance.

I'm reminded of a quote from the book "Big Talk Design Patterns": any change in requirements has a cost.

For example, this "new" business requirement also needs to be changed repeatedly and wasted time, if we consider the future possibilities, think about the product design in the most detail, and think deeply about the future scalability, we may be able to design the system, thereby saving costs and helping to achieve the development efficiently.

For example, we can configure the city whitelist as an editable json file at that time, and the front-end display will be displayed according to the configuration file, so that it can be easily extended to other cities in the future.

Obviously, in the product design process, product managers need to consider a variety of possibilities, including different application scenarios, market needs, and user pain points, etc., if product managers can fully consider these factors in the requirements design, they can reduce the cost of subsequent changes and make the product more flexible and scalable.

This is where the value of product planning lies, and it is also the job requirement of senior products, so how should we ensure that product design is carried out systematically and maintain forward-looking demand prediction?

(1) Deeply cultivate business scenarios and focus on user feedback.

For example, we can understand future needs and trends by analyzing the market situation and researching customers, so as to take into account the future possibilities when designing, and at the same time, through the real feedback of users, we can fully understand the essential needs and real pain points of users as much as possible, so as to think about functional planning to better meet user needs when designing.

(2) Practice the MVP concept and iterate quickly and agilely.

In addition to understanding market trends and user feedback, we can also adopt agile development design methods, truly practice the MVP product concept, run in small steps, agile iteration, and continuously improve and optimize the product, so that we can timely feedback according to market demand in the development process, continuously optimize and improve the product, and at the same time ensure that the planning is easy to dynamically adapt.

(3) Communicate more with development classmates.

In addition, Mr. Jing also wants to say a little more, high-end product students should have technical thinking, and should Xi be accustomed to communicating with development students, which is not only helpful for the Xi practice of abstract thinking, but also helps to achieve the needs efficiently, which is why I repeatedly recommend everyone to read abstract thinking books.

For example, in the actual product design, the product manager also needs to consider the feasibility of the technical implementation, and needs to work closely with the development team to understand the difficulties and bottlenecks of the technical implementation.

In short, product managers must have in-depth thinking about system planning and fully consider future possibilities when designing requirements, so as to design more flexible and scalable solutions.

Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that product managers should design similar requirements with an eye on the present and the future.

In short, as a higher-level product student, you should understand that the boss's value for our product capabilities must be around business value creation, which is more reflected in the above-mentioned "abstract ability", "planning ability" and "structured expression ability", which is also the ability point that we need to focus on improving.

In addition, the ability to continue to evolve is also very important, because it is the norm for enterprises to face new fields, which requires excellent Xi awareness, willingness to learn and Xi Xi learning ability, to be able to continue to evolve, follow the company's development rhythm without falling behind, and be able to continuously improve personal ability and break through development difficulties.

For example, Jing is now in charge of the product and operation teams, and also assisted in the customer success team, I was not professional in customer success and platform operation at first, but we are good at learning Xi, so we have learned from teachers, reading books and newspapers, so we have also learned related books such as "The Power of Customer Success", "Growth Hacking", "Customer Experience First" and so on.

One of Ms. Jing's feelings about the workplace is that only by showing the power of evolution can you create a sense of reliability and win continuous trust.

Of course, it is always difficult for the boss to exhaust the requirements of senior personnel: not only to have professional ability, but also to be able to work flexibly, but also to have a sense of ownership, not only to understand the business, but also to understand the product, but also to understand the customer operation, to be able to dare to sprint, but also to be able to hold the city, but also to be able to take responsibility.

With product thinking analysis, the boss is actually the user of the product classmate, although the product portrait depicted by this user is almost angelic, but we still have to gain insight into user needs.

This requires a return to the senior product position itself, to match the expectations of the leadership, and of course, to exceed the expectations as much as possible.

To put it simply, we must focus on the most important thing, to be able to abstract the core concerns of the boss from the user's point of view, and then prioritize them, which is probably the growth path of upward breakthrough.

You see, abstraction is important.

Columnist

Product Grand Canyon, public account: Product Grand Canyon, everyone is a product manager columnist. Seven years of B-end product manager, supply chain logistics and finance, good at demand design, business guidance, business observation, etc.

This article was originally published on Everyone is a Product Manager. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash and is licensed under CC0.

The views in this article only represent the author's own, everyone is a product manager, and the platform only provides information storage space services.