Here are some of my pick-up from my past PM life in tech industry, as most of the time, I use Chinese and English simultaneously to cater the needs of such giant cross-border organizations. Thus, I would like to log down some useful tips.
There are several threads of domain knowledge that are critical to becoming a qualified PM in the Internet industry:
1. Communication ｜ 跨文化交际
Coffee chats may not seem easy for a rookie PM, and learning how to talk will always be the first lesson in this industry. I never think it is easy for approaching people from a totally different culture, to learn where they came from when talking is top priority for kicking off your work.
1.1 Deal with people 人际交往：
- Resolve the deadlock
- Revisit / circle back to the pain-points discussed before.
- Write the deck = 写slides
- **Jam Sesh = Jam session 来源于乐队进行即兴演奏，引申为一群人讨论一下解决方案
- You Nailed it! = 做的很棒
1.2 Coordinating with Dev/Algo:
- Launch/release the feature 上线某个功能
- Sunset the feature 下线某个功能
- jointly debugging 联调
- Hardcode 写死
- Fine-tune models 调试模型
- CV models = Computer vision models
- Silver bullet = 灵丹妙药 （there is no silver bullet in solving this problem)
- Silver Lining = 一线希望 (Every cloud has a silver lining)
- Catch up with
- One on One 一对一交流
- tl;dr = too long; didn’t read
- Best practice 最佳实践
- Basic gist 基本主旨
- Legacy Version：Try to avoid using the term
old versionsince the legacy may have more underlying meaning underneath it.
1.3 Personal Growth
Increase your visibility 增加自己的职业能见度
- Boost your personal brand 打造个人品牌
- Know what’s on the top of mind in your key stakeholders’ mind
- Speak up in meetings
- Consistently deliver quality work
- Stay abreast with the market trends. 对市场趋势保持洞察；abreast = 并排/并肩
- Having a clear feedback loop is critical for staying proactive. 拥有清晰及时的反馈路径对于主动的风险监控至关重要。
- Narrow down / break down 拆分/拆解问题
1.4 Meetings/ 会议对对碰：
How can I localize Transitioning words in Virtual meetings? These frequently used phrases can help Chinese PMs to talk more smoothly.
- 拎一下: Lead something/ take ownership of something
- 碰一下: touch base with sb on sth
- 做会议记录: take meeting minutes; I was jotting down some important highlights
- 插一嘴: Let me chime in here
- 点名同事回答下: Sorry to put you on the spotlight; Sorry to call you out
- 总结一下: Let’s call it a day
- 不太难/很容易: it’s a walk in the park
- 突然想到的: off the cuff thoughts
1.5 Data Analytics：
- YOY = Year on year; MoM = Month on Month; WoW = Week on Week
2. Master Distraction | 项目管理术
Project management is being used and heard in so many places. I cannot remember how many times I saw the title Scrum Master on LinkedIn. Indeed, different organizations lean on their own methodologies to help grow their business. No matter what type of methodology you are using: Scrum, Kanban and Agile, always find the good fit should not be errant.
2.0 Methods - Agile Framework
Agile represents an overarching philosophy for software development, emphasizing the value of iterating quickly and often to satisfy customers. An agile framework can be defined as a specific software-development approach based on the agile philosophy articulated in the Agile Manifesto.
I love what is defined in Debian rules.
2.1 定期清理消息
公司内部沟通的时候，因为节奏快，喜欢DM类型的直接私信，而不是邮件沟通，因此我会时刻保持对于消息的alert，但是这样既耗时，也容易分散精力，之前和supervisor交流过这个问题，没有得到很好的解答，但是最近在一个研发小哥的working log中看到了一种可能的解法：
- 定下固定的时间窗口，清理Lark聊天软件上的记录；
- 定下focus mind专心画图/写文档的slot
2.2 给出问题选项，少问开放性问题
开放性问题在庞大机构和组织里简直就是个灾难，作为底层打工人而言，直接给supervisor选项，并能阐明pros & cons, 会比直接问出开放性问题得到更加有效的反馈。
2.3 黑白选项
Instead of giving the black/white options for a product solution, a bearable minimum product design is always a good start if you need to buy in multiple stakeholders.
2.4 降低预期
Always set lower expectations and be humble.
穷举选项给用户不一定是一件好事，因为设计者常常站在自己的角度在给使用者挖坑。 产品设计的精细化和精密仪器设计不一致，在bug常有的创业公司，不要给自己预设很多心理防线。
3. Writing | PM写作之术
3.0 Overview: From Mindset to Essential types of Documentation
Mindset: From
- Business Value (Matters most)
- Social Value (e.g.: T&S industry)
- Personal Value (For growth & promotion)
Types of Documentation in Tech
There are numerous types of documentations in different industries. For various of purposes,
- Pitch Deck: to pitch yourself as a product manager. Audience: Upper Management.
- Primer: beginner’s guidebook.
3.1 How to write Roadmap?
- Logic: is the key to good article.
- Structure: can be trained.
- Words & Sentences: shall be smooth & natural.
- Etiquette: usually be overlooked, but need to be highlighted.
Section 1: Mission Statement & Vision Statement
To write the roadmap for my work, I need some big visions, so here I collected some of the most well-known tech companies’ mission statement for a better reference.
1. Google’s corporate mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
2. Google’s corporate vision is “to provide access to the world’s information in one click.”
3. Facebook mission statement is “to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.”
4. Facebook vision statement is “People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.”
The purpose of this section is to make sure all are aligned to the same mission.
Section 2: Milestones in Each Phase
Section 3: Resource planning & Timeline
Engineering source planning Prioritize the right features from the begining.
Kick off from the MVP version first, you’ll never complete unless you start.
3.2 How to write a PRD?
3.2.1 Context(Business & Product)| 商业背景和产品上下文
- Version control: Always put the change log above in the header part in case there are any changes after the feasibility study.
- Applicable Scenarios: For many well-established companies, the targeted users are coming from various sources: Web, APP, and
3.2.3 Indicators/Metrics | 常用指标
E-commerce Industry:
- Bounce rate is calculated by the total number of one-page visits divided by the total number of entries to a website. As a good rule of thumb, the bounce rate rambles under 40%. Between 40% and 55% is usually okay.
- CTR: The assumption is that the higher the clicks, the more relevant are the recommendations.
- CTR*CR: Click-through rate and order conversion rate, which is used for measuring how efficient the traffic can be turned into actual orders.
- Customer churn rate as the rate of attrition or customer churn, is the rate at which customers stop doing business with an entity.顾客流失率,
Content Industry:
- Short-term Engagement Metrics: Playtime/U, Play/U and DAU.
- North-star Metrics: Valid View users.
3.2.4 Terms & Glossary | 常见术语：
UI/UX design | 前端相关
-
“In-app” refers to actions that take place within a mobile application 常见搭配有：In-App Purchase, in-app announcements, in-app notifications 等。
-
Banner: Banner ad units display rectangular ads that occupy a portion of an app’s layout.
Project Management | 项目管理
- [Scrum Sprint] /sprɪnt/ to run as fast as you can over a short distance, either in a race or because you are in a great hurry to get somewhere
4. Product ROI validation
Same like Clinical Trials, to evaluate the validity and effectiveness of a new feature/ function, a PM needs to make good judgements upon the ROI. Usually the ROI validation will be quite different depending on the stage of the company. For a start-up, the growth will be the key no matter how. For a mature listed company, the profitability might be the highlights that no one will miss when reviewing the annual report.
ROI高不高往往是决定产品feature是否能够上线的重要因素。但是如何衡量收益呢？和药物临床实验一样，在工业界的验证也是通过实验的方法，拿到真实世界的用户数据反馈，在不断的迭代中，往前推进。
4.1 Evaluation Methods
Quantative vs Qualitative
4.1.1. Canary Deployment
A canary deployment, or canary release, is a deployment pattern that allows you to roll out new code/features to a subset of users as an initial test.
Fun fact: This technique is called “canary” releasing is because just like canaries that were once used in coal mining to alert miners when toxic gases reached dangerous levels, a small set of end users selected for testing act as the canaries and are used to provide an early warning
2. BlueGreen Deployment
Blue-green release means keeping the old version, deploying the new version then testing for problems, then switching the traffic to the new version.
The process is generally as follows:
- Step 1: Deploy version 1 of the application (initial state). All external traffic requests will go to this version.
- Step 2: Deploy version 2 of the application. The code for version 2 is different from version 1 (new features, bug fixes, and so on).
- Step 3: Switch traffic from version 1 to version 2, that is, v1:v2 traffic goes from 100:0 to 0:100.
- Step 4: If there is a problem with version 2, you need to roll back to version 1, v1:v2 traffic is switched back to 100:0.
3. A/B Testing
This is frequently used in search & recommendation feature validation. Traffic distribution, AA sanity check are always necessary to keep the experiment fair enough to be trusted.
一般在工业界，除了AB实验，人们还会经常提到AA实验，这是为了观察实验平台的流量是否分配均匀而使用的一种方法，流量分配均匀是取得公正可信指标的前提。
如何解释线上指标的波动？ 如何解释实验指标的波动？
这几个问题是日常工作当中最常面对的几个关键问题，核心思路是：先分析指标是如何变动的（描述性统计），再分析变动程度，变动是否具有周期性，还是仅一次性的波动，以及变动的绝对程度（直接做差）和相对程度（计算变动的百分比）
5. Deal with people
5.1 How to give efficient and top-quality feedback?
- Be specific on the issue.
- Ask for permission before you explain.
- Give a big picture for your subordinates.
-
Identify the success and challenges: we often focused on the negative, but we still need to mention the positive to break the ice.
- Solve the Problem Collaboratively. (Always remeber your job is to develop people)
- Establish Clear Next Steps
