This article describes how to go from the weak chicken development to the counterattack of the product owner. From the confusion at the beginning of the work to the process of becoming the person in charge, you can come and see. Look.
Editor’s note: This article comes from Everyone is a product manager , author vitamin.
As of March 2020, my product life is almost three years old. Taking this opportunity, I decided to write something to record my product journey in recent years, many of which I have stepped on. Experience, I hope it is helpful for you who are reading this article.
The threshold I understand
According to my understanding or judgment of the experience of IT practitioners on the market, 1 to 3 years is a primary threshold, 3 to 5 years is an intermediate threshold, 5 to 10 years is an advanced threshold, and More than 10 years may be a watershed. Excellent people will become industry benchmarks, managers or experts, while inferior people may start to enter the middle-aged crisis or decline in value. At least the sense of crisis will be heavier than young people with less experience.
This means that in my definition, I have passed the primary threshold and jumped to another threshold. Just like many people think that the 18-year-old ritual is an obvious dividing line. After 18, you can stand up to the top, and before 18, even if it is still a few days, you feel that something is missing, then you ca n’t Be invincible.
Although I am not willing to admit that I have crossed a threshold and kept climbing in a direction that is getting harder and harder, the time is fair. Despite the spirit and fresh clothes, some facts are It will happen, for example: since last year, I found that my hairline has moved up significantly, and my body shape is getting harder and harder to control ~
But if you do n’t hesitate, you can only follow.
At this moment when I am moving from one new pit to another, I decided to record my climbing pit as a way to encourage myself to move confidently and boldly to the new pit, and also to work hard Make a goodbye to the alumni ceremony yourself.
Short development career
My university major is software engineering, so when I graduate, most of my classmates work in the directionHelp, even now I still feel that the team rapport and overall R & D ability at that time are the most efficient and harmonious I have seen.
From the two internship experiences I have n’t graduated yet, the team ’s influence is really great. A bad team may let you start from budding to give up. A good team may let you develop from a rookie. Transition to a primary product that can stand alone.
I came to Shenzhen at the end of October. After an interview for a week, I joined this company, a supply chain company, which is mainly responsible for the warehouse management system and related order management system.
The second period of product life can be distinguished by several key points in time. I just started in 17 years ~ I just started in 18 years, I just started in 18 years ~ I was promoted in 19 years ago and I was promoted in 19 years ~ now.
I just joined the company in 17 ~ I just started in 18
I have been in the product-related content for about half a year since I just started my job. It can be said that I am equivalent to “sitting” on the cold bench for half a year and “watching” the water dispenser for half a year.
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On the one hand, the reason is that the company was established shortly before, and the product team did n’t have any training system in place. I may have been here for several months and I still do n’t know how many systems the company has. Which piece, what is the specific development process, release process and so on.
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On the other hand, because of the supply chain management, competing products are difficult to find, lack of physical and specific scenarios, and it is too difficult to understand the business.
I remember that it was a few months later that I went to the warehouse twice, and I realized that people often say “picking”, “picking”, “reviewing”, “delisting”, “out of stock”, What do you mean by “receiving goods” and “checking out”? Before that, no one had given me a business flow chart, and no one had given me training or explanations.
At that time, it was probably the longest life. No one cared about me, and no one told me what to do. I can only look at some product-related books, tutorials, and courses every day, but I lack the opportunity for practical combat. I basically forget to read them, or I ca n’t see them at all.
After boiling the frog in warm water for a while, I was arranged to go to the warehouse to do some hard work and help. These episodes are quite miserable, but they have gained a lot. At least they are familiar with some of the doorways of the warehouse.
Just started in 18 years ~ before promotion to product management in 19 years
It was around May of 18 years. Due to the problem of personnel transfer, I finally started to actually take over the related business. I was responsible for the company’s warehouse management system, WMS. In this way, I fell in love with WMS in the past two years. It started.
When I first took over the WMS system, my first feeling was “simple”, and excessive simplicity was “simplicity”. Few features, few pages, and logic doesn’t seem complicated. But when I actually started to prepare for the show, I realized that I still think too young and I don’t see enough.
At that time, I was accessing an e-commerce platform. They raised some requirements. We will meet them only after they meet them. Then they began to organize the needs, find competitive products, do analysis, and finally raised a brow. Program. Then began the review. After the internal review, I felt that there was no problem. We went to communicate with the e-commerce platform, and as a result, many plans were passed on the spot. So I went back to the internal discussions, revised it, and then continued to communicate with the e-commerce platform, and many plans failed.
two thousand years later …
After so many trips back and forth, the leader above decided to make a decision. In any case, the docking will be done during the Mid-Autumn Festival in September.
With Deadline, it seems that everyone’s cooperation has become happier and more efficient. In the last few days, I worked overtime and stepped on the line and posted it online. Then, as the person in charge of the relevant product, I went to the Hong Kong warehouse to actually collaborate on the production operation, and spent a significant Mid-Autumn Festival.
It is also from that day onwards that I know that Hong Kong ’s Mid-Autumn Festival is closed on the second day after the Mid-Autumn Festival, and there is only one day off. In those three days, I almost went out early and returned late, and fell back to sleep after returning to the hotel.
Fortunately, all these efforts paid off. My product capabilities, my output and my enthusiasm still made my colleagues recognize me, and I began to take over the WMS system slowly and comprehensively. Also from that time, I felt why I said that products are treated like my own children.
I proposed to reform the framework of the system, changed the new framework UI, and planned many new features.
Although many ideas and solutions were too naive, they were too shallow. However, with my tenacity and enthusiasm, even before I joined the new front-end, many CSS styles were directly written and debugged by me, and some places were harsh enough to explain how many pixels.
At that time, I was unwilling to accept imperfections. Perfectionism is not only a requirement for myself, but also for specific products. Of course, I still make a little sense, so as not to put forward a bunch of needs to be hacked for development in pursuit of perfection. That time was the time I loved and enjoyed the most about the profession of products. I felt the charm and motivation of this profession, and also understood the meaning of “self-driven” and “kernel-driven”.
After 19 years of promotion management ~ now
After fully taking over WMS in 18 years, I started to find some rhythms of making products. Many things were slowly contacted, and my business was a lot familiar. But at this moment, the product team is still a piece of sand. There is no leader and no cohesion.A lot of information is not shared, and everyone’s capabilities are uneven.
Combining all aspects of the cause, and the luck of “all relying on peers”, I was like the catfish thrown into the sardines, which stirred the originally quiet situation. A “spoiler”, with the kind of enthusiasm of the newborn calf, was a small wave. I was promoted to the leader of the product group in the early 19th. At that time, there were 6 people in the product group.
Promotion is naturally a happy event for me, it can also be said to be proud of the spring breeze; then naturally there will be frustrated people, which caused the dissatisfaction of the old members of the product group. Maybe it ’s because I did n’t get along with me, maybe I did n’t get attention, or maybe I ’ve encountered a better opportunity. In the end, three products left in succession. It was originally a group of 6 people, and there were only 3 people left. One of them was an intern who had just joined the company.
For me, the resignation of the old members is beneficial to me to some extent, because the management of elder members who are older than their own age, experience, working age, etc., I will have some pressure and some places Open; but in some aspects, obvious shortcomings have been exposed. The shortcomings of the previous products were exposed at once. If one person leaves the job, then the other person under his responsibility cannot take over for a while. The document has no system. , Specifications, historical data, data, etc. have not been collected and sorted out.
This led to a lot of pressure later on. I had to stand up to several people at the same time, and I was busy recruiting and supplementing new students.
This experience actually inspired me a lot, and it turns out that some things really need to change before we meet new opportunities and discover new continents. From this experience, I realized the importance of teamwork, the importance of regulations, and the importance of intangible assets.
As a result, I am still doing product work on a daily basis, and I have spare time to make up for management knowledge. My management road also started around March 19th.
As far as the management experience is concerned, at present, it is very difficult for me to have any insights, nor can I refine any framework experience. But regarding the three importances, I did work hard to explore, and I also have a little bit of a shallow opinion.
(1) The importance of teamwork
Since I took over the team, I have begun to strengthen the management of team collaboration in several ways. One is software, such as using Axure’s team collaboration version and Tencent’s document collaborative office. On the one hand, it regularly holds product weekly meetings, proposes weekly report systems, and product sharing sharing communication meetings. Let everyone sit together and communicate as much as possible. Whether it is the assignment of work tasks or the experience of the product, these things that bring the team closer can be done without spare time.
(2) The importance of rules and regulations
I began to document my methodology and experience of product work, and then recorded it in WIKIn I, I edited an item called the product daily work specification guideline; I also combed and restructured the links that were developed or tested, complained, and spit out in the daily product work, and then announced in the team what will be needed in a future link Do not do anything, it is equivalent to the next command. At the same time, I also encourage everyone to self-examine, review, and raise irregular points in daily work that need to be improved, and then we follow the new system and process together to prevent similar things from happening in the future.
(3) The importance of intangible assets
The “intangible assets” mentioned here actually refer to the collation and collection of some documents and data.
For products, there are many daily data files. Common brain maps, flowcharts, prototypes, demand pools, demand files, demand applications, and even learning materials, PDF e-books, weekly report templates, PPT Templates, mail templates, reporting templates and more.
With the increase of working hours, a huge amount of data will be generated, and many times when leaving for transfer or rotation, because these materials are not collected and sorted at the time, it will not be found when it is needed. Now, some things may be rewritten, and some do n’t remember at all. It is painful and costly to turn over the records and restore them with memory.
So “intangible assets” are also assets, and they should be valued and dealt with in advance, just like the risk awareness in investment. Precautions in advance may sometimes seem daunting, but in the event of a risk accident, this part of the preparation will have the effect of sending charcoal in the snow.
Future story, to be continued
To date, I have been groping for a year in product management. Both product and management capabilities have improved a lot over last year.
This is actually very similar to some theories in Feynman’s learning method. It teaches and learns.
In the past year, I have read more books than I have in previous years, and have written more articles than in previous years. I have also done a lot of internal training, and I have taken steps to participate in industry salons or share Assembly, etc. My experience and perception is:
No pace, no miles.
If you do n’t have any feelings about these words, and you feel too chicken soup or polite, then I write a little more common: do things when you are awake, read when you are confused, sleep when you are angry, think when you are alone, and act when you are anxious. Writing when disturbed.
My product story is not ups and downs, and I may not be very good at writing articles that resonate or provoke nerves. This reminds me of the writing book I read recently:
Writing must have four degrees, height, breadth, depth, and temperature. Good articles stand taller than readers, look deeper than readers, have broader knowledge and materials than readers, and write more warmly than others. .
The threshold I am in now is in a situation where the four degrees are not enough, and it has a taste of “four prospects.”
The future story has a lot of uncertainty. I find that this is actually very similar to fund investment. Everyone wants to predict whether it will rise or fall tomorrow, and then buy low and sell high to make a profit. However, it is impossible for people to analyze the real ups and downs and the fluctuations of emotions, so everyone will emphasize that investment is based on strategies and principles, not predictions and emotions.
The product road is actually similar to this. I see a lot of people are very impetuous and anxious. I also sometimes do this. I always feel that the cards I hold are not good enough, I always want to change a pair. Good cards to play. However, writing and reading have changed my thinking and understanding in the recent period. I may still be impetuous, but I will rely more on strategies and principles to make decisions, rather than blindly predicting emotions.
What I will do in the future is to first build and improve my “investment strategy” and “investment principles”, and then rely on these frameworks to make relevant decisions and choices.
When the tide comes, everyone will rise up. The height you get may not be due to your ability; but when the tide recedes, everyone will know who is swimming naked and who is making the tide.
Retain some sense of crisis, and always be vigilant about whether you are on the rise, but you don’t need to worry too much. Since the waves are coming, isn’t it just beautiful to follow the waves.
Finally
I think the product has an interesting profession, but it is also a boring profession; if you are an interesting person, what you actually do will feel interesting, if you are an uninteresting person, then you will feel boring when you do anything. tedious.
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If you are a new product entering the workplace, then you only need to lay a solid foundation and move forward step by step;
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If you have been in the industry for a long time, and even a little tired after battles, then you may try to adjust your emotions to find some more beautiful;
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If you have cultivated a field for many years, and you are experienced and knowledgeable, then you may not need me to watch what I say here.
Looking back at my product journey, I found a few important points, these are:
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Identify yourself. If you think you are inadequate, then spend more time there to make up for it. Be more positive and optimistic. Luck lovers will not have bad luck.
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Don’t be too envious of those seniors who have many years of experience.There will be a compound interest effect. From now on, you can also become excellent.
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Products and technologies have a lot in common. Don’t refuse to be friends with development, and don’t refuse to communicate with development. An excellent team should learn from each other in development, product, and testing. As a product, knowing the technology is the best. If you don’t know the technology, then try to understand the technical staff.
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If you feel that you have read too many books, articles, courses, there is still no progress. Then I recommend you to output the forced input, try to use what you see and learn to share with friends around, has been taught to learn, progress is rapid. The easiest way to start is to teach colleagues around you to use Axure. You will find that in order to prepare for this teaching, you may learn a lot of knowledge that you thought you would never learn at all.
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Do n’t be so full of your mind that you only want product knowledge in the field every day. Many things are interlinked, and there are also many things that you ca n’t rush. Pay attention to the subtle precipitation in life, such as from writing a good article. Minutes of the meeting, make an excellent PPT, read a good book, practice standard keyboard fingering, and start to accumulate over time. You will experience qualitative changes.
An ordinary person like me can play a bad hand; it’s not much easier for you to draw a good hand and play another good hand!
About the author
vitamin, everyone is a product manager columnist. Intermediate product manager, one year development experience + three years product experience. Leading online education products, currently a cross-border e-commerce supply chain warehousing and logistics product,
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