Two days ago, the design circle became hot, and a CEO asked the designer to complete 150 designs in one day.

Editor’s note: This article comes from WeChat public account “Dead Leaf Cafe” .

Introduction

In the last two days, the design circle became hot. A CEO asked a designer to complete 150 design drawings in one day, which caused public outrage. Although I am not a designer, product managers have encountered similar problems.

For example, the boss asked us to submit 100 prototype drawings before work.

100 pages a day prototype

Zhang San is my friend and a senior product manager. During his product experience, there was such a thing that made him deeply touched.

The company decided to develop a new platform business and decided to give this business to Zhang San. After a simple business review meeting, the boss said, “Tough work today, finish the whole product prototype drawing, tomorrow we Discuss again. “

This is a new platform business, including three independent, new product lines. After sorting out the product structure, the total number of pages is close to 100.

The boss also emphasized that designing all conceivable needs is complete, which means that it is not a simple product version of 1.0, but three complete products of mature period.

In one day, I designed three products, 100 prototype drawings, and dozens of business processes. Zhang San’s approach was very simple. It took 2 hours to modify the resume, and the rest of the time, I applied for the resume, the next day , Submitted his resignation application.

The same thing happens to many people, one day to complete a certain function, one day to complete a product design, one day to complete a certain solution.

It seems that these tasks are “small tasks” and “so easy” things in the eyes of the boss, or the boss has special expectations of us and thinks that we are very good and very professional. In other words, it is the kind of thing that can be done overtime without difficulty.

Why the boss asks for “excessive” requirements

The position of product manager has become a technical position. Our product solutions and design skills have become a skill. The main factor for the boss to make “excessive” requirements is that the boss does not know the product-level technology.

In a sense, this is the same as we do n’t understand development technology and think that a certain function is easy to implement, so as to press the development time.

The boss pays attention to “result”, the product pays attention to “process” + “result”

The boss focuses on the results of a single point, yesA solution to solve a problem, but some problems must be implemented with a lot of logic that is not easy to detect. These are usually ignored.

In the simplest terms, the e-commerce system allows users to buy our products.

However, to realize this demand, you need to have user system, account system, product management capability, order management, warehousing capability, payment capability, return and exchange logic, promotion capability and so on.

Some bosses think that is not the ability to buy things? Why do so many things even question the understanding ability of product managers and our professional ability.

In fact, it is the embodiment of our professional skills to be able to accurately predict the peripheral businesses that need to be matched to achieve the needs.

The “results” we focus on are different

There are also some scenarios where the “outcome” we focus on is different from the “outcome” the boss cares about.

The boss asks for a list of articles, and presenting multiple articles in the form of a table of contents is the “result” that the boss understands.

But for product managers, just presenting the content of the article is not the result. The result we focus on is “article visit rate”.

What kind of layout, and which parameters are more attractive for users to “access article details”? Is the title more attractive or the picture more attractive? The thinking of these issues can not be separated from the support of product skills, regardless of the visit rate and the list of jump rates, basically the rogue.

Just thinking about layout, we have four design schemes, with the picture above the title, the title above the picture, the picture to the left of the title, and the picture to the right of the title. Different layouts, suitable for different article content, have a direct impact on the final article visit rate.

Sometimes the demand result we pay attention to is different from the result the boss pays attention to.

In the final analysis, the boss asks for “excessive” requirements because he does not understand “product technology”. This phenomenon is not uncommon. We need 10 days to complete the task. In the eyes of the boss, it only takes 1 day because There are many tasks and it is impossible to know without professional ability.

Conversion thinking, when we question the time evaluation of R & D, it is actually the same. The product solution we propose to the final effect is realized. There is a process of code implementation in the middle, which we do not know and cannot see. process.

What should I do?

The boss made an “excessive” request because he didn’t understand “product technology”, but this is not a “problem” but an environmental feature. As employees of the company, we need to adapt to the environment, not go Changing the environment is the same, even for product directors.

Most product people will encounter bosses who do not understand “product technology”. This is the living environment of the product industry, and our answer is alsoeasier.

This is a multiple choice question with only three options: A, influence the judgment of the boss through communication, B, leave, C, accept punishment.

A: Communication

There is an old saying in our country, “I don’t know the innocent”, which means “you should not blame if you offend because you don’t know beforehand.” I do n’t understand, I do n’t know, but we ca n’t be manipulated by “emotions” when we meet “excessive demands”. We should give priority to understanding the other party and divide this excessive demand into the “innocent innocent” range.

The more the request is excessive, the more it is conveyed that the boss does not know the information. It is precisely because the layman will never make a request to convey the boss’s layman’s message.

We attribute “excessive demand” to the objective factor of “lack of information”, instead of deliberately making things difficult, such as subjective factors such as personal attacks, we can solve this problem through “communication”.

The role of communication lies in information completion, not only to convey the information we know from a professional perspective to the boss, but also to propose one or more professional solutions.

Actually, the task of completing 100 pages of prototype drawings in a day is not the number of drawings, but to prepare a material for the discussion the next day.

We can try to communicate with the boss: “It takes too much time to draw the prototype. In order not to affect the discussion the next day, I can first design the product structure, that is, what business each product should include, and each business. What features are there, let ’s list them first, and after we discuss and determine, we will arrange time to design the prototype diagram.

In this way, you can transform the tasks of the 100-page prototype diagram into a combing of business processes and a combing of functions.

The main points of communication are as follows:

1. Clearly inform the task of the feasibility

2. Provide alternatives with the same effect.

B: Leaving

Some bosses do not have any foresight. They obviously do not understand, but do not think they do not understand. Not only are they unwilling to follow the advice of professionals, they even question the professionalism of professionals. Regarding whether or not the task can be completed is regarded as a professional and non-professional criterion, and the professional ability of the technician is measured by the criterion of whether it is pleasing or not.

Simply speaking, some bosses regard product managers as production machinery, do not respect our professional skills, and even launch some personal attacks on us.

My personal suggestion is: leave, or start preparing to leave

It’s not because this thing hurts our emotions, but it’s such a boss who can hardly lead us to success.

The growth and development of product managers are very dependent on the growth of the company.The product manager is now a product manager of a large factory, and some have achieved financial freedom.

In other words, if the company we work for does not have development potential, even if we work for five or ten years, the help to our growth will be extremely limited, or even unknowingly, it will become a resistance to our growth. .

A boss who does n’t understand product technology and does n’t trust professionals, ca n’t treat suggestions objectively, and only works with subjective preferences. Obviously, the success rate is relatively low.

When we confirm that the boss is such a boss, we should start preparing to leave, not because of emotional damage, but the risk of continuing to invest in this company is relatively high. The time and youth we invest will be highly probable. Not returning.

C: Accept the penalty

The third option is an option that I do n’t particularly agree with, but it does exist, and it is also one of our most probable choices, that is, accepting the penalty for the failure of the task.

Some less demanding requirements. What we have to accept is to work overtime, sacrificing our personal time as a punishment, and some requests that cannot be completed overtime will be subject to abuse, fines and other punishment methods.

There are many reasons for accepting punishment. The company has a good leader that can help us grow. The project has an optimistic prospect, it is worth betting, or it is a survival problem. After all, job hunting is difficult now.

In general, we can choose to accept the punishment, in order to change our own survival, growth and even some other favorable conditions, this is understandable.

Just to make some preparations in advance, at least you need to think carefully. Is this boss worth following for a long time? If not, we have to live in peace and prepare for the next choice in the current stable environment.

It is important to follow people

We work for a company. We sign an employment agreement with the company, not a slave contract. We sell our time and capabilities, not personality and dignity.

The company and employees are a two-way choice. Not only is the company selecting employees, employees should also learn to choose the company, that is, choosing the people they want to follow.

Following is a relationship that is closer than hiring. When we decide who to follow, it is equivalent to tying our future and our dreams to each other. If the boss succeeds, we succeed, and the boss fails. We Also entered the loser camp.

Many senior talents are willing to accept half-pay salaries when joining the entrepreneurial team. Some excellent talents are even willing to accept zero salary salaries because they trust the founders and follow the founders to make themselves more Approaching dreams can achieve greater success in the future.

There are also some founders who have poor personality charm, even forIt is difficult to attract outstanding talents with great returns.

In an employment relationship, we sell time and capabilities in exchange for the salary we need to survive. This is a very simple and basic relationship.

In the follow-up relationship, we are delivering our dreams to the founders, and even more, we are delivering our future to the founders. We are collaborators for a common goal.

Following the right person is really important. In order to meet the “right” person, we need to leave the “wrong” person.

Author introduction

Dead leaf, 9 years experience product person,

Public Account: Dead Leaf Cafe

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