Analysis: How to change careers as a product manager?

To be a good product manager, we should work hard from five aspects: the overall view of products, the use of product tools, comprehensive ability, the analysis of industry products and the accumulation of personal works.

How to become a product manager;

First, the overall view of the product.

Read books about products.

Personally, books will always be one of the most direct and effective media for our structured learning or understanding of a certain field. Some books are considered by many people to be required books for product managers to get started, such as Revelation, Networking, Everyone is a Product Manager and so on.

Subscribe to websites related to viewing product information.

There are abundant learning resources about product managers on the Internet. You can form the habit of subscribing, watching and thinking, and you can constantly cultivate your sense of products in the subconscious. For example, there are many articles under the product vertical community such as "Zhihu" product manager related topics and "Everyone is a product manager".

Watch product launches and interviews.

Watch the product launch of mobile phones or software, from which you can learn the stories behind many products and the product values of these mature enterprises. At the same time, I also like to watch the dialogues and interviews of relevant product leaders, and I can also learn a lot from my predecessors.

Second, the use of product tools.

Axure

Axure, as a professional rapid prototyping tool, is one of the most commonly used softwares for product managers, which helps us to quickly create wireframes, flowcharts, prototypes and other contents of products.

office

As the most famous office software, several models are commonly used by product managers. Word is generally used to write product requirements documents, excel can be used for data analysis, ppt is often used for project communication, and visio is very practical when drawing product flow charts.

mind map

Product managers should also learn to use mindmanager and other mind mapping tools, which can help us think about product structure and other issues in a structured way.

These are just some representative softwares, and there are many softwares with similar functions. You can gradually understand their advantages and disadvantages in order to better use them for yourself. Of course, as a product, don't forget the most convenient tools at any time, that is, the paper and pen in your hand.

Third, comprehensive comprehensive ability.

Product manager is the core communication hub in teamwork and needs the cooperation of multiple roles. Therefore, product managers are required to know all aspects of knowledge, but they don't have to be as proficient as professionals, which requires the comprehensive ability of product managers to be higher than other positions. Therefore, in the process of preparing to join the product manager, you can first improve your abilities in all aspects.

learning ability

This is a very important basic quality of a product manager, and you need to keep a curiosity at all times.

Visual user interface design

Knowing some basic UI knowledge can not only make communication with visual designers smoother, but also help you to better control the visual presentation of products, improve your design aesthetics, and greatly improve the output quality of requirements documents, PPT and even resumes.

Basic technical knowledge

A product manager who knows technology must have a unique competitive advantage, which will be helpful for the communication of product design and realization development and consideration. With the basic knowledge of front-end, I can directly adjust and optimize the presentation style of web front-end "F 12 and then adjust the parameters", and then try to communicate with front-end engineers when I am satisfied.

In addition to the two items listed above, there is a lot of knowledge worth learning and understanding by product managers, including interactive operation and so on.

Fourth, the industry product analysis

"Product Manager" is a very vague title to some extent. Only when it is implemented in a specific industry or project can there be a specific discussion, because the product quality required by different industries will vary greatly in some aspects. So when we decide to be product managers, we also need to think clearly about our understanding of different industries.

If you are a big shopper, maybe the products in the e-commerce industry will be more suitable for you. Then, before you really enter the business, you can conduct a "competitive product analysis" on the mainstream e-commerce products in the market, try to write some product experience reports, or provide some solutions according to the pain points and product thinking in your usual shopping process.

If you are keen on making social products or other products in a certain direction, the same is true. Going deep into a specific industry to do product analysis can not only help us understand the form of this industry, but also exercise and cultivate our product sense from the overall product dimension. At the same time, for those newcomers with clear industry goals, they can also show their unique advantages and opinions in this industry to recruiters when applying.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) accumulation of personal works

As mentioned above, the product manager is a position that requires high comprehensive ability, and one of the best ways to show his comprehensive ability is to output his own personal works. At the same time, in the process of conceiving and completing our own products, we have been well cultivated and promoted in all aspects.

If you are interested in a certain industry and have many ideas, you can try to ask yourself as a product manager to output relevant materials, such as PRD documents and interactive prototypes. If you already know something about UI design, you can also try to design a visual draft. If you still have certain technical ability, you can even write a simple product demonstration.

abstract

Admittedly, the entry threshold for product managers is relatively low, but it is not easy to be an excellent product manager if you want to do well. Product managers should always keep an open mind. Through actual project practice and reflection summary, I constantly improve my product depth ability, and at the same time, I constantly find my limitations in product cognition. Only in this way can they walk on the road of product managers and grow continuously.