Many managers have encountered such problems in product research and development: products that were expected to go online in 8 months, and completed 70% of the functions after one year; the deadline is approaching, but the product target can not be completed; Released version, but found that there are tons of bugs not dealt with …
So, as a manager, how to ensure that the version can be released once every two weeks? Is the product fast and stable when the function is perfect?
Making products is like a marathon, the sense of rhythm is very important
I am a person who likes to run. When participating in a marathon, if you want to achieve good results, you must first understand your physical condition. Fortunately, during the race, you will continuously adjust the running posture and speed according to your physical condition, save physical strength, and sprint before the finish line.
Product development and running marathons are almost the same. Throughout the process, I also need to constantly adjust the team’s working state and maintain a sense of rhythm. I can’t solve all problems with unlimited overtime. This is easy to enter a vicious circle, and everyone will also have bad emotions.
To form a sense of rhythm, I think we must focus our work first. The work is clear, and everyone will go to one place, it will be easy to achieve the goal, and communication will also reduce a lot of resistance.
Chairman Mao Zedong once said: When facing powerful enemies, we must concentrate our firepower and break through each one. That’s almost what it means.
Of course, it is not enough to have a claim, but also a way to achieve it. In the process of managing the team, I walked a lot of pits, and also summarized some of my experiences in the process of climbing the pits. I organized them here and shared them with you.
Make work more focused
I remember that when I was in charge of the project for the first time, I was naturally full of ambition. I carefully organized the requirements every day and filled the task list. In order to complete the goal of product launch on time, I asked the team to work overtime and make progress. Go to the top of life. But what puzzles me is that instead of speeding up the process, this approach makes the team more prone to work.
Later, after the master’s instructions, I awakened my dream in one sentence: the goal that cannot be achieved is equal to no goal.
Yes, set such a big goal. Everyone doesn’t know where to do it every day. I think there are so many behind … I went to his uncle, and I went to Jingdong Taobao!
After this lesson, I resolved to change my management style.
I summarized that the main reason for the inefficiency of the team is that there is no clear sense of purpose, which causes everyone to lose their enthusiasm for work. So I thought, if turning the long task list into small achievable goals, will it make everyone more motivated?
Afterwards, I started to split the project into many small goals. Each goal was planned separately. There were not many tasks in the goal. It could be completed in about 2 weeks. Then I only made one goal at a time. next. In this way, you can enhance your sense of purpose and focus your work. (As shown below)
Divide the project into several phase goals, and focus on one goal at a time
After trying this new management method, within a month, I can obviously feel that the team efficiency has improved, everyone is more motivated, and the need to work overtime is getting less and less.
Track progress and adjust goals in time
But then there are new problems:
Since the working hours of each task are estimated at the time of making the plan, plus the situation where there is an urgent bug that needs to be modified, or user feedback needs to resolve this sudden event as soon as possible, it is difficult to ensure that the goal can be completed as planned.
In order to achieve the goal on time, every morning when I arrive at the company, I will hold a standing meeting for about 20 minutes, sum up the work of the previous day, and make a work plan for the day.
On the one hand, clarify everyone’s work content that day, so that everyone’s work goals are consistent; on the other hand, adjust the plan content in time according to the progress of the target to ensure the plan’s completion. Especially in the early stage, when everyone is not proficient in the estimated workload, it is even more necessary to adjust the target in time.
If the task in the target is not completed in any case, I will also end this target and move the unfinished task to the next target.
As for why we should not hesitate to move the mission, we should also end the goal, which I will talk about later.
First of all, I have to solve the problem of how to make a work plan for the day.
As I mentioned earlier, a very important part of the morning meeting is to clarify everyone’s work content for the day. Of course, it’s not clear that just talking about it, management needs to fall on the pen, and there must be records.
But the question is, under the premise that there is already a layer of target plan, how to make another layer of plan in the plan? Moreover, if the management level is too deep, it is not convenient to view.
This really troubled me for a long time, and I didn’t solve this problem until the list + Kanban switch was adopted.
After I set the target plan in the list, I divided the Kanban board into three task bars: pending, in progress, and completed. All tasks under the target are first assigned to “Pending”. At the early meeting, I will drag all tasks that you want to do that day into “In Progress”.
This has two benefits: For me, the list mode is more convenient for adding tasks and setting a goal plan; for those who execute, the kanban mode allows them to focus only on “in progress” tasks, and will not be Interference with other tasks in the target.
But this method has a limitation:
For tools supported by both the list and kanban modes, the adaptability will be very good; if only kanban and target management can be used, but the experience is slightly worse when planning; if there is only the list mode, due to its deep hierarchy This method is not recommended.
Don’t put bugs and tasks in the same “basket”
Another problem that is more difficult to solve is bug management.
The reason why it is difficult is because the bug itself is uncontrollable. Just like playing whack-a-mole games, you do n’t know when they will pop up, or how much will pop up, you ca n’t ignore it, otherwise it will play game over with you.
Therefore, developers often have to put down their work to deal with these lively “hamsters”, which greatly affects the progress.
To solve this problem, I have to avoid putting bugs and tasks together , otherwise new bugs will enter the current goal every day, and I will never want to complete it.
I generally divide bugs and plans into different project management. The test first records the bug in a separate project, marks the urgency of the bug, and then I decide which bugs can enter the current target and be processed first.
When setting goals, I will set aside 1 to 2 days to deal specifically with emergencies and bugs. The specific time depends on the actual bug output and urgency.
Sometimes this happens, until the product goes online, there will be hundreds of bugs in the project that have not been resolved.
In fact, this is a very normal situation, I will not deliberately deal with all bugs, because bugs can never be dealt with, as long as they are guaranteed not to affect the function and stability, then the product itself is healthy.
This is another reason why bugs are managed separately: to avoid being disturbed by these “off-site factors”.
Make sure the goal must be completed
Finally, let ’s talk about why the goal must be completed. In fact, as of this writing, everyone has been able to find that all the content written above is to achieve one goal: to complete the goal.
You may ask, why do we have to make sure that the goal is achieved even when we adjust the plan?
In fact, the reason is very simple: only when the team’s goals are completed on time can everyone treat the goals as a practical standard.
Although at the beginning, due to the insufficient setting of the target task volume or the excessive output of bugs, some tasks may not be completed. But as long as you persist, you will find that goal setting will become more and more reasonable, fewer tasks will be left behind, and more and more goals will be completed. It will change from a ritual to a standard. When you complete the task, you will continue to have a sense of accomplishment, let everyone focus on the goal in front of you, and maintain this efficient working state.
In this way, a sense of rhythm is naturally established.
