No matter what field your business belongs to, no matter what level you are in, no matter how difficult business problems you encounter, you can use drawing to find their laws. Starting today, forget E-mail, forget Excel, and forget PPT! Solve all business problems with only a napkin and a pen!
4 steps of product thinking: thinking → observing → analyzing → drawing.
Step 1: Thinking
Think about what a useful website is. The first is of course the brand, and the second is the function and content.
Step 2: Observe
What content should the website contain: website content, website functions?
- Website content: What do people want to know?
- Function: What do people want to do?
Step 3: Analysis
To do such a webpage requires designers, editors, and freelance writers.
Step 4: Hands-on drawing
Everything about a useful website is presented on a napkin.
When we do anything, we must think → observe → analyze → draw . Because when people are thinking about something, what they do by themselves is often something that has already been thought of in their brains, and our hands are more to execute ideas. But there are always flaws in people’s thinking. At this time, take out a piece of paper and a pen to draw your thinking, so that you can intuitively discover the problem you are thinking about.
Practical case
How to use 4-step thinking to make a product
Due to the current work of Jumei Youpin Company, the projects are all back-end data analysis products, so it is not convenient to disclose. So, here I will explain the project of Where I Going Technology Co., Ltd. in Sichuan where I worked before.
Project Name: Automatic Ticket Issuing System
Project experience: This is the first product I took over after graduation. The PRD of the product has been modified 42 times before and after. The completion of the PRD document took up to one and a half months. Finally, this product was made at the beginning of the second year. But in the end it was my superior who took over. But my product thinking was formed in this project.
Step 1: Thinking
I just graduated from university and I was going to work at Where Technology Co., Ltd. in Sichuan. My major was software testing. But after working for 3 months, the company transferred me to the product department and started my product career.
As we all know, the position of product manager in many colleges and universities has no corresponding professional study. So when I was a product manager, I was like a headless fly at the beginning, completely ignorant of the direction. So he started his career as a product manager ignorantly.
At a regular product meeting of the company in 2012, I was told to do an automatic ticketing project. At that time, I just transferred to the product department, and I didn’t understand the ticketing business at all, let alone the reconciliation and payment business. But one thing I have clearly explained is that the supplier can issue tickets automatically or semi-automatically.
Here is the first step we do: thinking? How to automatically issue tickets for ticket suppliers to issue tickets automatically or semi-automatically. So draw the automatic and semi-automatic ticketing process that needs to be realized.
Traditional ticketing process:
Semi-automatic ticketing process:
Fully automatic ticketing process:
Step 2: Observe-product research
At that time, I slapped my head and thought of an automatic ticketing product. At the expense of a Saturday and Sunday, I worked overtime at the company to produce documents for automatic ticketing products. (Now think about the 10-megabyte document. I wrote it in two days. It’s really a sense of accomplishment.)
As a result, it was handed over to my superiors for review on Monday, and was directly approved, saying that I did not understand the business at all, and the design I made was completely unsuccessful, so I was confused at once and didn’t know what to do. At this time, the boss of our department said that if you don’t understand the business, you should go out and run the supplier, and you will know after a survey.
That week, I went directly to the related suppliers to investigate and asked their ticket drawers how to issue tickets, what to pay attention to when issuing tickets, what to check, what to fill in, and so on. Then I collected all these manual operations, so I knew which manual repetitive actions the automatic ticketing program should be responsible for. If the ticket is issued semi-automatically, which manual actions need to be retained.
Information required for traditional ticketing:
- Check policies and prices;
- Check the user’s name and ID number, and whether there are children or babies;
- Fill in the mobile phone number in the code to facilitate notification of flight changes;
- Pay attention to the changes in the rebate given by the airline, if it is too low, you can change it to other policies;
- Log in to airline reservations, and so on for a series of information.
Here is the second step we do: Observe? See how the ticket is issued manually. So the program is nothing more than performing the action of manual ticket issuance.
Step 3: Analysis: product design
After designing the product, we have a mature document, so how to realize the content designed in this document? So we held a PRD review meeting to directly convene the relevant persons in charge of the R&D team to review our program logic and algorithms. The R&D team will raise various objections and questions about these algorithms and logic, and then we will modify them. This is repeated until the R&D team and the product manager reach an agreement, and the project is included in the development.
In the end, we made an extremely simple and convenient automatic ticket issuance operation interface, which can be completed with one click.
Click before semi-automatic ticket issuance
The effect after clicking semi-automatic ticket issuance.
(Note: Fully automatic ticket issuance is done directly in the background, no display interface)
But here comes the problem again. Our goal for this product: the supplier issues tickets automatically or semi-automatically. So what should I do if the product is only made and no one uses it. So the assistance of the operations team is needed.
We found the company’s director of operations to request assistance in promotion, but the promotion plan and plan need to be completed by our product team. This product has changed the supplier’s ticketing habits, so the initial obstacles are still relatively large. However, we have made various analysis data reports to see the utilization rate of suppliers. The final effect is still good.
Here is the third step of our work: analysis? Analyzing such an automatic ticketing product, in addition to the product manager team and R&D team to complete product development, it also needs the operation team to help promote it.
Step 4: Hands-on painting: product return
Now assemble the three parts explained above, can we draw them on a piece of paper. If you want to make an automatic ticketing product, what are the components of the automatic ticketing product, what is the business of each part, who we need to complete, who is responsible for which part, these are all clear at a glance.
But when we draw these things on paper, the loopholes in thinking are exposed (if you just put it in your head, the problem is easy to be ignored). All of us only consider how to let the supplier issue the ticket automatically or semi-automatically, but after the ticket is issued, the supplier has to settle the ticket payment. How can the ticket payment of this automatic ticketing product be distinguished from the ticket payment of manual ticketing? Therefore, an identifier is added to distinguish the data statistics of automatic ticket issuance and manual ticket issuance.
Here is the fourth step of our work: show? Show the design drawings of the entire product to everyone and find out whether there are still problems in thinking. If there is no problem, then anyone in the project team can understand the display diagram.
This document is for college students who have just graduated. No matter whether you are in the Internet industry or not, the napkin thinking is universal. It will help you sort out all kinds of big and small, complex and simple things. When you are doing something, if you don’t have a clue, then please take out paper and pen and start drawing! Be sure to recite the 4-step rule in mind:
The first step: thinking? See the ultimate goal of this matter.
Step 2: Observe? Observe which parts of this matter are mainly composed.
The third step: analysis? Split the whole and refine each split part. After I have to do this, each part of the split, who I need, which resources, and what they are responsible for.
The fourth step: paint? Show your planned plans to everyone and discover loopholes together.
