How to become a product manager. Part 1
In this blog, we write a lot about the development and promotion of applications. It is time to look at the other side. In the middle of November, our friends from Sports.ru launched a course on product management for mobile applications . Among the lecturers are employees of Sports.ru, AppFollow, Aviasales, Uber and other cool guys. Throughout December, a kirillkobelev student will tell you how the training is going and what the young product manager needs to know in order to create the best mobile application. Give the word to the author:
“The product manager is the one who needs the most” (popular wisdom)
There is a commonplace, but effective way to understand whether your work brings some benefit: try to explain to an investor (or grandmother) what you do without using obvious borrowings. What, manager? Did not hear. Evangelist? Thank you, my grandmother still recorded you in the sect at the stage of Bashorg. Engineer? Already better, but what about the humanities?
')
After ten years of work as a project manager, I came up with the idea that for my parents I was an “organizer” (half a step from the media entertainer). And then he changed his job to an even less comprehensible for the older generation and again began a painful search for the wording. Of course, the phrase in the epigraph saves, but now I have high hopes for the intensive Product Degree. This is an almost non-commercial project, in a fashionable format for the exchange of experience between the first among equals. Naturally - 12 lectures on the management of mobile products are read by speakers ranging from a visionary to an investor. Each lesson lasts 3 hours, and still not enough. Product Degree has set itself, sorry for the stamp, an ambitious goal - to give us the opportunity to try ourselves in a new role and think about how to stay in it. In the next six articles I will tell everything that I learn about product managers - such knowledge should be available. There will be a lot of text, few pictures.
The lecture was led by Mikhail Kalashnikov, the product manager of Sports.ru and the creator of the blog Mediaskunk . If you are too lazy to read the text below and want to understand everything on your own - this is Michael ’s presentation .
So, back to the sectarians who are trying to explain to their relatives in the language of marketing marketing that the product manager is not a control stall or a drug dealer. I, with my experience as a project manager, have to say: products are even more difficult. The project due to its nature will end sooner or later, and the product will live “forever”.
It is important to understand that the product itself contains an offer, moreover a public one. That which is not is not a product, but an idea; that which does not carry value is not a product, but an experiment; that which cannot be produced is not a product, but a concept. See, we haven't really started yet, but already a bunch of nagging.
There is a classic “four pe” scheme:
The product manager is responsible for making decisions on all four points, maintaining the right balance between the desire to save business and the developer’s desire to do everything at once. It can be said that the product is responsible for such a business in miniature.
A Tale goes about Tolstoy (and sometimes Dostoevsky), that on the very first page of the manuscripts brought to him by young creators he wrote in red (!) Pencil (!!) the only word: “Why?”.
The product management profession began to take shape approximately after the dot-com era, when in various progressive industries the most restless experts realized that the work they do besides their main duties is substantial in itself. Therefore, communication with practitioners for a novice product may be much more useful than a separate academic course. Fix: product managers come from different areas, but at some point they cease to be designers, developers or marketers. In their new capacity, they must constantly think about the balance (but not compromise!).
If the product compromises, it will be an inferior deal with the devil: in the end, everyone will lose. Practice shows that it is most effective to look at the world through the eyes of the consumer: to demand a maximum from the team for a minimum budget. Yes, many will hate you for it. And users too. Alas.
But then a new world opens up before you, and you are the master in it. Only your product can effectively solve the identified problem in the best possible way and to everyone's happiness. Otherwise, why do you need it (see the first paragraph)?
The “for oneself and for that guy” approach works in the opposite direction: the company realizes the need for a product manager when it feels the lack of special expertise, opens a new business or simply grows actively. If you have been thinking for a while how to explain to management, why you should be paid more, just reflect on this list:
If you were already a manager (that is, a manager, and not just a victim of the lack of language of the personnel department), you may have been faced with the need to correctly set the tasks. This is important for the product manager - he has to invent everything himself. The approximate way to work with the product can be described as:
To sum up the above, the product manager is a mini-general manager, with only the minimum budget allocated for a specific goal . The downside of all these product problems with self-determination is the opportunity to do something really cool and necessary.
Each product passes in its development the following stages: ideas → choice (one idea) → business plan → prototype → testing → production . The starting idea should be a spectrum of ideas. Do not try to go straight to the final decision, think about the meaning, the problem that the product should solve. Here is the second useful list:
Answering at least mentally to these questions, you can move in one of two ways:
- minimal viable product (minimum possible product),
- minimal desirable product (minimum desired product).
The lecture was read by Maria Mikhalchuk, product designer at Kixx.
And let this word be brief and clear, and describe the basic user scenarios so that all 12 tribes (and Razrabmany, and Testirovichi) understand you unequivocally. This, of course, an awkward chauvinist joke, but seriously - user stories "rule". Think of a specific user Goshu, and let his whole life is reduced to the interaction with your product.
All the rest of the time Gosh suffers: intellectually, sensory, motorly and somehow. The consumer finds a delicate balance in the level of discomfort, and your product should not disturb it. It seems that everything in this life is against the user. Intellectual workload at home and at work forms too many logical connections, and the smaller they are, the easier it is to live. Everyday life constantly presses on the sensors: by ear, sight, smell, and other organs of perception — it presses precisely and comprehensively, climbs into the head with advertising and clogs the channel with instagrams and other vapes. And all this in the subway, in the crowd, among children and pets, in the company of drunken friends in the club.
I am sure there are at least three areas in which you are well-versed, therefore, in terms of design, I’ll focus on 2 key requirements:
Clarity implies a well-thought-out structure, a minimum of keyboard input, accurate texts, thoughtful navigation and correct contrast, readable fonts. The simplicity of interaction concerns, first of all, input elements (they must be adequate to the input data), buttons and areas of pressing and interface response. Do you think I speak banality? Go look at the applications from the third dozen of any story.
Another important point is the existence of user scripts in time. Think about who your approximate Gosh:
Knowing the nature of user behavior will help shape the structure of the elements: determine how the graphic dominant and the secondary information layers are combined, how the background and the figure interact. In addition, the rule “one screen - one action” is important in the design of the structure. “Stayers” should give more “unexplored space”, developed content and several information layers.
Their names are known: App Store and Google Play. Design standards of platforms not only create a lot of problems at all stages of design and development. They also form the habits of user interaction with the interface, preparing them and removing the sensory load.
Android uses material design with a shallow depth of space, simple geometric shapes and the active use of floating action button. Contrary to popular belief, the applications on it do not have to be executed in the acid palette, it can be done in a calm scale. iOS pays much attention to the depth of space, content, simplicity, animation. In the latest versions they actively use blur. Again we give battle to stereotypes - it is not necessary to make an iOS application in the style of bright minimalism. Hidden bonus - applications that follow the platform standards of design are more likely to be promoted by the stores themselves.
The designer is one of the first in whose language the product manager should speak. And it is necessary to start talking quickly, as it is necessary to convey the idea to the designer at the stage of its formulation in order to get quick first sketches. The designer will start with complex loaded screens and the rendering of the main user script. This process can not be allowed to drift, you need to constantly try, watch and refine.
At the same stage, the brand identity is formed. When you have decided on the main screens, you can fix the overall style and go to the secondary and empty screens, landing pages, etc. At the same time, it is important to constantly remember that design development goes in tandem with the order of user interaction with the application.
In particular, think about this:
Do not say this to your designers, but: until about the stage of the secondary screens, everything can be thrown out and drawn again several times, before you reach the final overall style. And another thing: the designer is engaged in the design of interfaces, the illustrator is engaged in drawing. And one more thing: you should try to get the first design drafts as quickly as possible. From the first layouts, you need to make the first prototypes in order to catch errors in the design, but you shouldn’t make a lot of detail on them and invest in it too much.
Always remember about the exemplary Gosha. After working out the main and secondary screens, you can do blank screens, introductory screens, emotional involvement of the user, social media referees, call-to-action-elements.
Remember, the product manager represents the interests of the user. He needs to keep in mind all of the above, but still prepare for the worst. On this joyous note, perhaps, I will take a pause and promise a reward: next time I will try to retell "the long and disjointed speech of the Aviasales sales manager" (as it was announced to us) - because "everything can be simplified twice".
Thanks to the educational project Product Degree and personally Mark Tenu, as well as to the kind-hearted people from Appodeal, who let me into my blog. See you.
“The product manager is the one who needs the most” (popular wisdom)
There is a commonplace, but effective way to understand whether your work brings some benefit: try to explain to an investor (or grandmother) what you do without using obvious borrowings. What, manager? Did not hear. Evangelist? Thank you, my grandmother still recorded you in the sect at the stage of Bashorg. Engineer? Already better, but what about the humanities?
')
After ten years of work as a project manager, I came up with the idea that for my parents I was an “organizer” (half a step from the media entertainer). And then he changed his job to an even less comprehensible for the older generation and again began a painful search for the wording. Of course, the phrase in the epigraph saves, but now I have high hopes for the intensive Product Degree. This is an almost non-commercial project, in a fashionable format for the exchange of experience between the first among equals. Naturally - 12 lectures on the management of mobile products are read by speakers ranging from a visionary to an investor. Each lesson lasts 3 hours, and still not enough. Product Degree has set itself, sorry for the stamp, an ambitious goal - to give us the opportunity to try ourselves in a new role and think about how to stay in it. In the next six articles I will tell everything that I learn about product managers - such knowledge should be available. There will be a lot of text, few pictures.
Lecture first. Why do we need product managers?
The lecture was led by Mikhail Kalashnikov, the product manager of Sports.ru and the creator of the blog Mediaskunk . If you are too lazy to read the text below and want to understand everything on your own - this is Michael ’s presentation .
It is necessary to launch the product while it is still a little shameful for it.
So, back to the sectarians who are trying to explain to their relatives in the language of marketing marketing that the product manager is not a control stall or a drug dealer. I, with my experience as a project manager, have to say: products are even more difficult. The project due to its nature will end sooner or later, and the product will live “forever”.
It is important to understand that the product itself contains an offer, moreover a public one. That which is not is not a product, but an idea; that which does not carry value is not a product, but an experiment; that which cannot be produced is not a product, but a concept. See, we haven't really started yet, but already a bunch of nagging.
There is a classic “four pe” scheme:
- Product,
- Price
- Place,
- Promotion.
The product manager is responsible for making decisions on all four points, maintaining the right balance between the desire to save business and the developer’s desire to do everything at once. It can be said that the product is responsible for such a business in miniature.
... and where do they live?
A Tale goes about Tolstoy (and sometimes Dostoevsky), that on the very first page of the manuscripts brought to him by young creators he wrote in red (!) Pencil (!!) the only word: “Why?”.
The product management profession began to take shape approximately after the dot-com era, when in various progressive industries the most restless experts realized that the work they do besides their main duties is substantial in itself. Therefore, communication with practitioners for a novice product may be much more useful than a separate academic course. Fix: product managers come from different areas, but at some point they cease to be designers, developers or marketers. In their new capacity, they must constantly think about the balance (but not compromise!).
For myself and for that guy
If the product compromises, it will be an inferior deal with the devil: in the end, everyone will lose. Practice shows that it is most effective to look at the world through the eyes of the consumer: to demand a maximum from the team for a minimum budget. Yes, many will hate you for it. And users too. Alas.
But then a new world opens up before you, and you are the master in it. Only your product can effectively solve the identified problem in the best possible way and to everyone's happiness. Otherwise, why do you need it (see the first paragraph)?
The “for oneself and for that guy” approach works in the opposite direction: the company realizes the need for a product manager when it feels the lack of special expertise, opens a new business or simply grows actively. If you have been thinking for a while how to explain to management, why you should be paid more, just reflect on this list:
- you want and know how to do something in a team;
- you are interested in influencing the development of an existing product;
- You are planning to start a business, but you want to warm up on other people's cats.
Step by step (until the monitor is blind;)
If you were already a manager (that is, a manager, and not just a victim of the lack of language of the personnel department), you may have been faced with the need to correctly set the tasks. This is important for the product manager - he has to invent everything himself. The approximate way to work with the product can be described as:
- Hypotheses. What happens if you make A and B? And if not done? Correctly formulated hypothesis sets the right direction to the whole process.
- Setting goals. It’s not enough for you to understand what you need, you still need to be able to explain this to the team, moreover, each in his own language and several times. Probably, you will explain a hundred times, you will already understand it yourself, and the designer (developer, tester, investor) is no more.
- Prioritization. It's like in a good game: you need to choose the right thing to pump over - only without saving.
- Communication. I have already spoken about the importance of communication - and I will say more.
- Study. The hypothesis should be based on the accumulated data. Remember, you are not your target audience, no matter how deceptively close your parameters may seem to you. A rare product is made “for our own people”, and we know our own people worse than it seems.
- Testing and adaptation. Few things are done as originally intended.
- Feedback. Remember, I promised to return to the topic of communication?
To sum up the above, the product manager is a mini-general manager, with only the minimum budget allocated for a specific goal . The downside of all these product problems with self-determination is the opportunity to do something really cool and necessary.
Each product passes in its development the following stages: ideas → choice (one idea) → business plan → prototype → testing → production . The starting idea should be a spectrum of ideas. Do not try to go straight to the final decision, think about the meaning, the problem that the product should solve. Here is the second useful list:
- for whom is your product?
- what pain does he relieve? (vulgar, but accurate Americanism).
- when to use it?
- How do people find out about this product?
- How does it differ from analogs? Seriously, do not miss this item.
- who pays?
Answering at least mentally to these questions, you can move in one of two ways:
- minimal viable product (minimum possible product),
- minimal desirable product (minimum desired product).
Lecture two. Mobile interface design.
The lecture was read by Maria Mikhalchuk, product designer at Kixx.
First there was the word
And let this word be brief and clear, and describe the basic user scenarios so that all 12 tribes (and Razrabmany, and Testirovichi) understand you unequivocally. This, of course, an awkward chauvinist joke, but seriously - user stories "rule". Think of a specific user Goshu, and let his whole life is reduced to the interaction with your product.
All the rest of the time Gosh suffers: intellectually, sensory, motorly and somehow. The consumer finds a delicate balance in the level of discomfort, and your product should not disturb it. It seems that everything in this life is against the user. Intellectual workload at home and at work forms too many logical connections, and the smaller they are, the easier it is to live. Everyday life constantly presses on the sensors: by ear, sight, smell, and other organs of perception — it presses precisely and comprehensively, climbs into the head with advertising and clogs the channel with instagrams and other vapes. And all this in the subway, in the crowd, among children and pets, in the company of drunken friends in the club.
Football, politics and design
I am sure there are at least three areas in which you are well-versed, therefore, in terms of design, I’ll focus on 2 key requirements:
- clarity
- ease of interaction.
Clarity implies a well-thought-out structure, a minimum of keyboard input, accurate texts, thoughtful navigation and correct contrast, readable fonts. The simplicity of interaction concerns, first of all, input elements (they must be adequate to the input data), buttons and areas of pressing and interface response. Do you think I speak banality? Go look at the applications from the third dozen of any story.
Another important point is the existence of user scripts in time. Think about who your approximate Gosh:
- sprinter (there is a specific goal, not enough time - he needs monofunctional applications)
- a stayer (there is an abstract goal, and there is a lot of time — news, social media, and the like will do).
Knowing the nature of user behavior will help shape the structure of the elements: determine how the graphic dominant and the secondary information layers are combined, how the background and the figure interact. In addition, the rule “one screen - one action” is important in the design of the structure. “Stayers” should give more “unexplored space”, developed content and several information layers.
Who are the judges?
Their names are known: App Store and Google Play. Design standards of platforms not only create a lot of problems at all stages of design and development. They also form the habits of user interaction with the interface, preparing them and removing the sensory load.
Android uses material design with a shallow depth of space, simple geometric shapes and the active use of floating action button. Contrary to popular belief, the applications on it do not have to be executed in the acid palette, it can be done in a calm scale. iOS pays much attention to the depth of space, content, simplicity, animation. In the latest versions they actively use blur. Again we give battle to stereotypes - it is not necessary to make an iOS application in the style of bright minimalism. Hidden bonus - applications that follow the platform standards of design are more likely to be promoted by the stores themselves.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The last & final design v121.3
The designer is one of the first in whose language the product manager should speak. And it is necessary to start talking quickly, as it is necessary to convey the idea to the designer at the stage of its formulation in order to get quick first sketches. The designer will start with complex loaded screens and the rendering of the main user script. This process can not be allowed to drift, you need to constantly try, watch and refine.
At the same stage, the brand identity is formed. When you have decided on the main screens, you can fix the overall style and go to the secondary and empty screens, landing pages, etc. At the same time, it is important to constantly remember that design development goes in tandem with the order of user interaction with the application.
In particular, think about this:
- Difficult screens and navigation,
- The main user script,
- General style
- Secondary screens,
- Blank screens (before the entered content),
- Introductory screen for a new user (so-called onboarding),
- Landing page (aka landing page),
- Shop design.
Do not say this to your designers, but: until about the stage of the secondary screens, everything can be thrown out and drawn again several times, before you reach the final overall style. And another thing: the designer is engaged in the design of interfaces, the illustrator is engaged in drawing. And one more thing: you should try to get the first design drafts as quickly as possible. From the first layouts, you need to make the first prototypes in order to catch errors in the design, but you shouldn’t make a lot of detail on them and invest in it too much.
What else is important to consider, or the third useful list
Always remember about the exemplary Gosha. After working out the main and secondary screens, you can do blank screens, introductory screens, emotional involvement of the user, social media referees, call-to-action-elements.
- Empty screens. Screens without data are also important: they must report that there is no data, give an opportunity to fix it, suggest other ways.
- Micro-interaction and interface responses. The response describes the user interaction with the application: think about clicks, press confirmations, confirmation of the initiation of an action.
- Animation should be unobtrusive, modest, stylish. It is important to remember about the style of the product and brand.
- Be sure to work out the error screens . Show them immediately, the message should be simple and tell you about the next steps. It is important that the user continues to feel comfortable.
- Simplify interaction. Use autocomplete and hints. The layout must match the data types. Validation should occur in real time. Controls should not overlap the contents of the application.
Conclusion
Remember, the product manager represents the interests of the user. He needs to keep in mind all of the above, but still prepare for the worst. On this joyous note, perhaps, I will take a pause and promise a reward: next time I will try to retell "the long and disjointed speech of the Aviasales sales manager" (as it was announced to us) - because "everything can be simplified twice".
Thanks to the educational project Product Degree and personally Mark Tenu, as well as to the kind-hearted people from Appodeal, who let me into my blog. See you.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/316154/
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