如何成为好的产品经理

　　在网上收集关于UCD的资料时，无疑中看到这样一本书《如何成为好的产品经理》，看见了其前沿介绍（中英文）：

　　如果你想做一个坏的产品经理，那就给你的产品加上尽可能多的功能。产品的功能越多，就越可能满足用户们各种各样的需求。谁都希望产品越来越好，嗯，多加些功能就好了。加上一堆小功能要比加一个大功能要好，大家不就喜欢多吗？
　　如果你想做一个好的产品经理，尽量用少而精的产品功能给客户带来价值。客户购买产品因为他们想要解决手上的问题。产品功能本身是没有意义的，只有当一个功能真正帮客户解决了问题，这个功能才真正有“功能”。

　　但是，产品经理经常没有做对。他们搞出一个功能清单，然后让开发人员估算开发时间。他们倾向于要尽量多的功能，所以一些重要但是比较耗时的功能往往就不做了。这样开发出来的产品充斥着不太重要的小功能。

　　不要再去算这个阶段你要发布几个功能了，产品经理应该算算要给客户带来多大的价值。产品管理不意味着发布最多的功能，恰恰相反，你应该发布最少的功能。硅谷产品组（Silicon Valley Product group，一个多人博客）的Marty Cagan在好产品靠的是设计（译注：链接指向英文站点）一文中提到：

　　产品经理的职责是：定义出一个尽可能简单的产品来满足用户需求。产品越是简单，用户越容易理解，开发的时间越短，产品的技术构架也越容易。

　　产品经理还需要经常考虑产品现有的功能是不是真的有价值，有的时候还应该考虑移除某些功能。当一个产品经理设计出给客户带来价值且最简单的产品，这个产品会容易销售，容易支持，容易维护且为用户和公司带来更大的价值。

　　英文原文：

If you want to be a bad product manager, try to deliver as many features as possible. The more features you have, the more likely you are to have the things that any individual customer cares about. Customers expect products to keep getting better, and the way a product keeps getting better is by adding more features. Plus, adding a whole bunch of smaller features will be just as good — if not better — than adding that one big important enhancement. More is always better, right?

If you want to be a good product manager, try to deliver the fewest features which will provide the most value. Customers buy products because of the needs that the product fulfills and the problems the product solves. Features in and of themselves are useless — they exist to fill a need. Customers will find product features valuable only if those features satisfy a need and if the act of filling that need is something which is valuable to the customer.

Unfortunately, product managers often approach this problem the wrong way. They will create a long list of desired features and then get estimates from engineering on how much effort each requires. The most important features may take the most amount of effort, so, in the hopes of getting more features more quickly, a product manager will forgo the most time-consuming — and often the most valuable — enhancements to the product. Instead of a few valuable features, the product gets a larger number of less consequential additions.

Rather than simply counting the number of features or the amount of enhancements, product managers should evaluate the ratio of value to effort and focus on obtaining the most value for the customer with a given amount of effort. Product management is not about delivering the most — it is about delivering the least. As Marty Cagan of Silicon Valley Product group writes in Great Products by Design (which has been quoted here before and will likely be quoted here again):

The job of the product manager is to identify the minimal possible product that meets the objectives and provides the desired user experience — minimizing time to market, user and implementation complexity.

Instead of adding more features, product managers need to make sure they have the right features in their product and consider removing features when appropriate. By creating a product that provides the most value for the least amount of effort, a product manager will produce a product which is easier to sell, support, and maintain, and ultimately deliver more value to the customers and to the organization.

　　个人体会：

　　就内容而言，我想这也是很多做用户研究人员的一个困惑，至少我自己是：在查看我们之前的用户研究资料以及在走访用户时总会发现有很多功能亮点可以体现，但是，是不是一个产品可以满足所有功能需求，答案显然是否定的，首先我们不可能想到所有的功能点，也许市面上有的功能我们都把它体现这是可以做到的，但个人认为如何在客户需求与产品成型之间获得一个均衡是很难的。我想这里面最重要的是找准目标用户，产品功能能最大化满足目标用户的需求就是产品的成功了，但仍然存在一个问题：如何准确定义目标用户。这需要我们用户研究人员与市场人员的良好合作了，同时自身也应提高洞察能力并不断的学习。