This is the core competence of the product manager. How to analyze the requirements and then disassemble them in detail? It is divided into three aspects: demand definition, demand expression and demand management.
What needs to be distinguished at the level of demand definition is the difference between user demand and product demand.
According to the attributes of users, they are mainly divided into B users and C users. B users are organizations that serve users (up to an industry, an enterprise, a company, down to a department, a social division of labor, etc.). ), and C users are also all kinds of products that we come into daily contact with as ordinary social users.
Product demand includes two parts, user demand and company demand. Product demand is obtained through user demand, and product demand is a corresponding solution to meet user demand, which can be met through the arrangement and combination of product demand. Company demand and user demand can be derived from the demand for products, and company demand can reflect company value.
These two demand theories are also often seen and heard by everyone, namely Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory and Carnot model;
Maslow's demand theory divides human needs into physiological needs, safety needs, social needs, respect needs and self-realization needs from bottom to top. The satisfaction of each level of demand is based on the premise that the previous level of demand has been met. However, when the five demands are mapped to products, the more demands at the bottom of the pyramid, the larger the demand area, the smaller the corresponding ARPU and the smaller the price elasticity in economics. For example, the price elasticity of daily necessities is less than or equal to 1, that is, price reduction will not lead consumers to spend more on such goods. But on the contrary, for some luxury goods, that is, the products with higher ARPU mentioned above, the price elasticity is >; 1, if the price is reduced, users will spend more on this kind of products.
Another demand model is KANO model proposed by Japanese scholars, which is mainly used as a tool to classify and prioritize user needs. Based on the analysis of the influence of user demand on user satisfaction, the nonlinear relationship between product performance and user satisfaction is reflected.
You can also classify requirements by kano model, and what kind of requirements correspond to which class, so that you can judge whether such requirements should be done or not and how much. And different needs will be transformed at different stages of the product. For example, when a function is just made, it is a charm (stimulus) demand, but as users get used to it or competing products of this function are available, it will gradually turn into an expectation factor.
Maslow's model is more about analyzing requirements from the perspective of human nature, while Cano's model is more about disassembling products from the perspective of product functions. Both of them are very practical tools and need to be comprehensively analyzed according to specific situations.
How did the demand come from? It is mainly divided into three aspects: self-thinking, applied research analysis and data analysis.
As mentioned above, the product manager is also a social person and can put himself in others' shoes. As users themselves, the demand is more to test the product manager's talent (innate), insight (continuous deliberate practice the day after tomorrow, constant observation, questioning, induction and refining in life, forming their own methodology) and experience (the more projects you do, the more social experience you have, the oriental insight into human nature, the understanding of social phenomena and the understanding of each one). As the saying goes, with the efforts of most people, it is not the turn to fight for talents. Therefore, observation and thinking in daily life, recovery and summary after completing a job, communication and ideological collision with colleagues, people around and people from all walks of life outside work, and improving thinking ability through reading are all important components that cause differences among product managers. In fact, the underlying logic of all walks of life is nothing more than these, and kung fu is outside the play. In fact, the difference between people lies in these accumulated inner accomplishments, and that's what the 10000-hour law actually says.
In fact, think about yourself, this part should be the most competitive part. The primary product manager may see the mountain and see the water (only seeing some appearances and phenomena); Intermediate product managers will gradually have some reflections, looking at mountains is not mountains, and looking at water is not water (there are many roots behind the phenomenon, and the reasons behind the phenomenon are very complicated); For the most experienced product manager, seeing the mountains and water is water. In fact, we understand the essence of things through a series of thinking, denial and spiral thinking. Many of the essence of things follow similar laws. There is nothing new under the sun. History is not a simple repetition but always rhymes. We can understand the underlying logic of things, that is, we can know the external phenomena of things, but then we can arrange and combine various phenomena. Therefore, the product manager still needs to ask the underlying logic of the matter clearly in order to achieve the ultimate goal.
How to make a comeback, or turn your own experience into something valuable for your future, there is a methodology here, that is, PDCA model.
PDCA is English words "Plan", "Do", "Check" and "Act". This is a copy template that I have been using. Details are as follows.
1, p (plan) plan, that is, review plan, including the determination of policy objectives and the formulation of activity plan.
2, D (Do) implementation, according to the known information, design specific methods, schemes and plane layout; Then according to the design and layout, carry out specific operations to realize the contents in the plan.
3, c (check) check and summarize the results of the implementation of the plan, distinguish between right and wrong, clear effect, find out the problem.
4, A (Act) processing, processing the results of the summary inspection, affirming the successful experience and standardizing it; We should also sum up the lessons of failure and pay attention to them.
Unresolved problems should be submitted to the next PDCA cycle for solution. The whole PDCA model is also applicable to the iteration of daily products, the agile development of projects, and of course it is also applicable to the resumption of various decisions in our life growth.
But it must be remembered that tools are just means, not an end. Tools must be put into specific scenes, combined with our actual cases, in order to reflect its value.
In addition to inward thinking, we can certainly assist various external data, such as user interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, A/B tests, customer service, NPS surveys, user feedback on social networks and so on.
There are many ways to get the user's voice, but remember that these are just means, not ends; In the end, we should explore the lowest logic/demands according to the phenomena and subjective feelings of these users. For example, users can only express horses that they want to run faster, and the ability of product managers lies in how to refine and discard the false and the true to explore the sexual needs and the underlying logic. Users need to save time on the road. What he wants can be a car, an airplane, a high-speed train or an immersive, time-free and high-precision VR system for face-to-face communication and cooperation between people.
Industry indexes: Baidu Index, taobao index, Google Trends, official website of Bureau of Statistics, etc. Data analysis tools: Baidu Statistics, Youmeng, Google Analytics, Baidu Mobile Statistics, etc. Consulting companies: iResearch, Analysys, 199IT, WeChat sogou (official account article searcher of WeChat), report verification, brokerage research report, etc.
PEST analysis is a method used by strategic consultants to help enterprises examine the external macro environment. Refers to the analysis of the macro environment, refers to all kinds of macro forces that affect all industries and enterprises. Analysis of macro-environmental factors, different industries and enterprises will have different specific contents according to their own characteristics and business needs, but generally four external environmental factors affecting enterprises should be analyzed: politics, economy, society and technology. Simply put, it is called pest analysis.
Besides PEST, another useful tool for industry analysis is mainly used for competitive product analysis, which is different from SWOT of products. Porter's five forces analyze the basic competitive situation of the industry from the company's point of view, which also belongs to the category of macro analysis. Five power models identify 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 the current competition among companies in the same industry. These five competitive forces determine the profitability of the industry, and point out that the core of enterprise strategy should be to choose the right industry and the most attractive competitive position in the industry.
After the analysis of Porter's five forces, we can make a strategy for the company, which mainly corresponds to three strategic ideas, namely, total cost leading strategy, differentiation strategy and specialization strategy;
SWOT is also put forward by McKinsey, a well-known consulting company, which can make strategy from a macro perspective and analyze competitive products from a micro perspective.
Since the five forces of PEST and Porter are the analysis of external environment, SWOT is the inward analysis of their own products.
By analyzing the advantages, disadvantages, opportunities and threats, the next strategy or product improvement plan is formulated.
Buried data of existing products, such as DAU, MAU, per capita usage time, retention (secondary retention, five-day retention, seven-day retention), GMV, channel conversion rate, exposure, CTR, etc. According to the actual product scene, make indicators that can reflect user behavior and user needs, and formulate corresponding solutions through the specific reasons behind quantitative digital disassembly.
If you want to be a product manager of user growth category in the future, it is necessary for the product manager of user growth category to master the basic theories and methods of data analysis and establish strategies and functions through data analysis to push back the next step. In the early days, both Facebook and airbnb used the demand behind user behavior data to incite a large number of users to grow, and finally created their own growth miracles.
Utilize the potential energy of user growth through data analysis
1. Users (who): users, buyers and decision makers. Three questions need to be asked at this time. Who is the target user? What is the size of the crowd? What are the characteristics of the crowd?
2. User's purpose (what): What do users want and desire?
3. User scenario (where/when): accurately locate user needs. Time, place, network environment, and people?
4. User Task/Solution (how): How do users use the product to meet the corresponding needs?
5. Describe a demand: connect the above 4W+ 1H in series, and at a certain time (when), a certain place (where) and a certain type of users (who) can't satisfy their desires in a certain way (how).
From user requirements to product requirements: from core to core user objectives, which scenarios can be disassembled, what users have done in each scenario, and what pain points this thing has solved. When each scene solves the pain point, what kind of tasks did our product accomplish and what kind of operations did it give users? The task is subdivided, and what function each task has.
User demand: user role-> Target-> Usage scenarios-> Task->; Interface operation
translate into
Product requirements: Know the users-> Product goal->; Requirements and scenarios->; Function and interaction mode->; Interface specific requirements
According to the user's goals and scenarios, design the tasks that users need to complete, decompose the tasks and make them as detailed as possible;
(1) Design task flow (down to the smallest particle)
(2) grouping of similar steps
(3) Association between groups (page flow)
(4) Design of group/page and prototype
Among them, (3) and (4) need to consider user habits and platform interaction.
The relationship between demand transformation and demand expression: demand transformation is a process from concept to product; In the process of transformation, in order to describe requirements, many requirements expression tools will be used.
Tools for expressing requirements are mainly divided into the following seven categories: requirements list function list (functional specification), functional structure diagram (functional disassembly, in-depth and logical induction), business logic diagram (product and business operation logic), business flow diagram (role and business process), page flow diagram (page flow relationship), use case diagram (different roles decompose requirements) and user experience diagram (whole process experience design);
(1) Requirements list feature list (functional specification; Excel mode)
The requirements list can be edited by Excel in the following formats:
(2) Functional structure diagram (functional disassembly, in-depth and logical induction; Mind map, including: modules, sub-modules, functions)
Functional structure diagram is a mind map and a structured expression, which can logically express functions according to content and grouping.
The functional structure diagram is drawn in the early creative stage of the product. In the demand analysis stage, when we get the source of demand, how to make a product plan and what kind of function points to use to achieve the goal. The elements and information of a specific page are not considered. The first three modules in the function list: modules, sub-modules and function points are all listed, which is the function structure diagram.
(3) business logic diagram (product and business operation logic; Emphasis on logic, flow chart processing, visio)
Business logic diagram is the blueprint of the product. Product managers need to deeply understand the operating logic of products, not only the interface and interaction, but also the logic behind them.
(4) Business flow chart (roles and business processes; Specific implementation process, flow chart, visio)
Business process diagram can show the logical flow of user interaction between system and business, which may include multiple roles. Business flow chart can express users, information flow and abnormal situations in a specific scenario.
Six elements of business flow chart: role, task, process (sequence), input, output and format.
(5) page flow chart (page flow relationship; Prototype drawing axis, ink knife)
(6) Use case diagram (demand decomposition of different roles)
(7) User experience diagram
A. Four quadrants of urgency importance
B. Product life cycle diagram
-MVP stage of the initial product (0- 1): it is necessary to tap the basic requirements and meet the necessary factors in the Carnot model. The core is to cultivate the market and do a good job of foundation and core functions;
-Growth period: cultivate seed users and start to expand the market to cooperate with market promotion; Through data analysis, find the lever to incite user growth, including deleting reverse demand and creating expected demand.
-Maturity: To maintain market share and meet most of the demand, it is difficult to tap the demand. It is necessary to keep users active or attract other competing users by enhancing the charm factor, and focus on creating aha moments. As mentioned above, this charm factor will gradually turn into expectation factor with the passage of time, that is, the expectation of users will be continuously improved, so more charm factors need to be continuously explored;
-Decline period: product activity is gradually declining, so it is necessary to improve efficiency, control costs, eliminate shortcomings (delete redundant functions), expand new projects, explore new directions and make breakthrough innovations.
1, user-centered, mining the core needs of users (in-depth study of user scenarios, user feedback screening)
2. Requirements from business teams or bosses need data support.
3. ROI analysis of investment return (commercial value, development cost, user value); Product value = (new experience or new efficiency-long experience or old efficiency)-cost of new experience.
4. Diligent thinking about reverse thinking; Ask three questions inward: What are the core demands of users? Does the design of function points meet the core demands of users? What if there is no such function? Will users still use this product?
How to improve business thinking and have the ability to write business requirements documents is discussed in the last chapter.
Let's write an MRD document to see that the product manager needs to cultivate the corresponding marketing ability.
First of all, we should know what the purpose of MRD is, just as PRD is aimed at R&D and designers, BRD is aimed at boss decision makers, and MRD is generally aimed at business, operation and marketing personnel. Good MRD can help them quickly understand what kind of customers they are looking for for for resource cooperation, and how to introduce our business model to customers after finding them, so that customers can clearly see our products and help them understand more intuitively. What kind of user group is the product aimed at? To sum up, MRD mainly includes product model, business model, operation model and market model. , and define the customer and market direction.
How to write it is divided into four parts: document description, market description, user description and product description.
Document description: contains the basic introduction of the document and revision records of the version, which is basically consistent with other requirements documents.
Market description: including the current situation of market problems (looking for potential opportunities through problems, such as product level, technology level, operation level, user level and business model level), target market analysis (divided into market scale, market characteristics, future development trend and expected time period evaluation) and market analysis conclusion (here, the judgment and conclusion of market business value are drawn).
User description: including the target user group (age, income, region, education, etc. ); * * * Characteristics of the target group; Create virtual user roles, classify users, extract and create typical users, which can represent the final target users. User scenario analysis: the aforementioned 4w1h; ; User motivation summary, user goal summary and analysis of the main factors of image users' use.
Product description: including product positioning (to meet what users and what markets), product core objectives (to meet the needs of core users in the target market), product structure (overall structure), product roadmap (time nodes are task-oriented), product functional requirements, non-functional requirements (UI/UE design style, experience, stability, security, etc. ).
In fact, product managers are developing to a higher level. In particular, AI product managers are required to have not only the awareness of product leaders, but also the ability of project management. I have been taking on the role of product manager, and I have gradually begun to take on the role of project manager. Through the practice of work, the difference between project manager and product manager is gradually discovered. If the product manager is sometimes an imaginative artist, then the project manager is a soldier with a mission;
Producers need to be responsible for the script co-ordination, the formation of a film crew, the cost accounting of shooting funds and financial audit; Make shooting and post-production; Assist employers (internal and external), issuers (internal and external) and declare awards (internal and external).
Similarly, the project manager is the overall person in charge of the project, and he needs to be responsible for the overall planning of everything in the size of the project.
When the project is started: 1, to define the project requirements; 2. Clarify the project objectives; 3. Define the scope of the project; 4. Set up a project team
Make a plan: 1. Decomposition of project tasks (how to decompose a distant goal into specific tasks, what specific actions are there for each task, and what are the key milestones and outputs in the process) 2. Schedule planning 3. Communication plan (frequency: daily standing meeting, weekly meeting, biweekly meeting? Form: offline meeting, zoom, weekly newspaper, daily newspaper, etc. Collaborative office software) 4. Make a budget; 5. Make purchasing plan (coordinate and manage external suppliers to meet project objectives and project time plan) 6. Risk control (if the project fails to meet expectations, how to solve the problem, whether more resources need to be coordinated, etc.). )
Implementation tasks: 1, resource allocation (development resources: computing resources, GPU cards, training resources, debugging equipment, etc. ); Human resources: regular employees, experts, interns, outsourcing, suppliers, etc. 2. Team management (team atmosphere: how to stimulate the subjective initiative of organization members; Work coordination: how to make everyone do what they are suitable for and maximize the value of each member) 3. Communication management (organize review meeting: requirements review (after the product manager outputs PRD); UI review (after the designer outputs the design draft); Use case review (after the test engineer outputs the test case)
Process management: 1, overall monitoring (scope monitoring, budget monitoring; If the measures to deal with the problem include increasing manpower, working overtime, adjusting personnel, adjusting methods/tools, or limiting the scene by lowering requirements to help the problem converge quickly); 2. Progress monitoring (phased deliverable review, such as outputting corresponding sdk, functional version, performance version and iterative version at different stages in the process of algorithm project; Output test reports corresponding to different stages: public test set report, self-built test set report, business test set report and user experience test report); 3. Supervision and communication: output corresponding meeting minutes through regular meetings to form corresponding to-do items and action items; 4. Change management: Because the project will inevitably encounter potential demand changes in the specific development process, any changes will increase the risk that the project will not be completed on time as required. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a change management mechanism to reasonably avoid risks and ensure that the project is controllable and manageable. Including, the only entrance to receive (for example, the product manager is the only entrance to propose demand changes); Evaluate the impact of the change (any change before the conclusion cannot enter the implementation stage); Timely change and early warning (changes after review need to update the corresponding affected documents, time, resources, expenses, etc. And synchronize changes to give an early warning)
Project closure: 1, project achievement acceptance 2, project summary, and resumption (PDCA methodology)
In the process of establishing a project team, we can manage tasks and bugs by connecting the corresponding work exchange groups and using some agile tools, such as some collaborative office software. I believe many companies have their own dedicated designated software, so I won't go into details here. The purpose of using tools is to make the members of the project team maintain a high degree of consistency and alignment in the project objectives, plans and when each person completes what tasks, so as to avoid the problems of time, cost and tasks caused by information asymmetry. Moreover, tools such as collaborative office software can help project managers realize risks in advance, control risks and intervene artificially in advance.
In fact, the ability of communication and expression can be regarded as the soft power among many skills of product managers, and it is also one of the core abilities to be an extroverted social role.
From the different communication objects, it can be divided into upward communication, downward communication, peer communication, inter-departmental communication and so on.
From the different modes of communication, it can be divided into language communication, written communication and more diversified media communication (such as PPT, axure prototype, excel, word, etc. We often say that the basic writing skills that product managers need are actually the ability of communication and expression plus the ability of logical thinking.
However, no matter how the communication expression changes, the underlying logic is the same, which is nothing more than the difference in expression, but in the end, it is necessary to convey information to the communication object with the most direct, efficient and loss-free goal. Mastering any expression well can greatly reduce the waste of resources, time and manpower caused by poor communication.
There are many books and courses on the market that teach communication skills. You can choose to study according to your actual needs, or emphasize a core point. Communication skills expression is a means, not an end. The purpose is how to choose the most appropriate way to transmit information efficiently and without deviation.
Here are some specific methods and tools to improve communication and presentation skills.
The golden pyramid principle is a kind of logical thinking and expression with prominent focus, clear logic and clear priorities.
Basic structure: conclusion: first, unification from top to bottom, classification and grouping, and logical progression. First priority, then secondary, first whole, then details, first conclusion, then cause, first result, then process.
How to quickly master and apply the principle of golden pyramid? Mainly the following four basic methods.
1, always want to ask questions, which can make readers think. Templates include: background+conflict+question+answer;
2. There must be two kinds of reasoning horizontally, deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning; Deductive reasoning is a syllogism (major premise, minor premise and conclusion) put forward by Socrates. Its advantage is that it can convince people more effectively, but its disadvantage is that there are too many presuppositions and it is easy to cause obstacles to understanding.
Inductive reasoning, from the individual to the general, extracts * * * from many things, such as the seven habits of high-performance people, the troika of artificial intelligence, the three elements of offline retail and so on; Induction can clearly explain people's point of view, but at the same time it needs people's ability to summarize and summarize things completely, otherwise it is easy to be questioned.
3, using mece method, no weight, no leakage. MECE's law is mutually independent and completely exhausted. However, according to the different classification of one thing, the dimensions of specific classification are as follows: time sequence, spatial order, logical sequence, formula method (revenue = sales volume * unit price), model method (such as PEST, SWOT, PDCA mentioned above, etc. ).
4. One center and three basic points; In other words, to express a theme, it is best to find three arguments to support it or three stories to illustrate it. Why three? Because there is neither more nor less, and it is also convenient for the audience to understand and remember.
Different from the former golden pyramid principle, it is more used for written expression and non-violent communication is more used for oral expression.
The premise of understanding nonviolent communication is to know what violent communication is. There are four reasons: moral judgment, comparison, evading responsibility and forcing others. So nonviolent communication is to avoid these four problems.
The four elements of nonviolent communication are observation, feeling, need and request.
In fact, behind all acts of violence, there is an inherent evil value orientation. When you think human nature is ugly and cold, you will respond to others in a violent way, but if you think people should be kind and positive. Naturally, the corresponding communication methods will be adjusted.