Nowadays, product managers have gradually developed into data product managers, e-commerce product managers, financial product managers and C-end product managers. Although there are differences in some qualities and abilities among different segmentation types, demand analysis has always been one of the core competencies of all product managers.
Demand analysis is the process of transforming user demand into product demand. The author divides this process into four stages: requirements collection, requirements classification, requirements mining and requirements grading. This paper first introduces the definitions of related terms of demand analysis, and then discusses the contents of each stage of demand analysis in detail, so that readers can fully understand the demand analysis process of product managers.
Figure 1 Requirement Analysis Stage
1. Definition of nouns
What is demand analysis?
Wikipedia says that in systems engineering and software engineering, requirements analysis refers to all the work to be done when determining the purpose, scope, definition and function of a new system when creating a new system or changing an existing product. Requirements analysis is a key process in software engineering.
According to Baidu Encyclopedia, requirements analysis, also known as software requirements analysis, system requirements analysis or requirements analysis engineering, is a process in which developers accurately understand the specific requirements of users and projects for functions, performance and reliability through in-depth and detailed research and analysis, and transform users' informal requirements into complete requirements definitions, so as to determine what the system must do.
The requirement analysis discussed in this paper refers to the process of mining users' real goals from their requirements and transforming them into product requirements.
What are the user needs?
User demand is the demand put forward by users from their own point of view. The requirements often put forward by users are correct from their point of view, but they are more concerned about their own situation and have their own expectations for a certain function of the product. Usually they don't know the positioning and design basis of the product, so their suggestions may not be the best way to realize the function, and they are not enough to directly serve as the direct basis for product planning.
What is the product demand?
Product demand is a solution that refines and analyzes the real needs of users and conforms to product positioning. Solutions can be understood as products, functions or services, activities and mechanisms.
2. Various stages of demand analysis 2. 1 demand collection
In the demand collection stage, the demand is mainly obtained from various channels, and its sources mainly include user demand, competitive product analysis, literature report, network platform, enterprise strategy, team members, data analysis, product experience and so on. Product managers should gradually establish a stable demand collection mechanism, so as to ensure the collection of extensive and comprehensive requirements and lay the foundation for the subsequent stage of demand analysis.
2. 1. 1 user requirements
Demand comes from users. Only when the product manager knows and is familiar with the target users of the products he is responsible for can he find the real needs of the users and then make the products that the users are satisfied with. The sources of user needs include user feedback, user interviews, focus groups, usability tests, questionnaires, etc.
(1) User feedback
User feedback is the most basic way to obtain user needs. After using the products, users will give feedback and comments through customer service channels, product feedback modules, Weibo WeChat and related post forums, and product managers can extract valuable information from these feedbacks.
(2) User interviews
User interviews generally take the form of one-on-one chat. Before the interview, the product manager should determine the topic or question of the interview, and then exchange questions and answers with the user, so as to obtain the user's views and needs, and then extract some demand ideas from them.
For the interview form, try to conduct one-on-one face-to-face interviews, which will help to understand users from more aspects such as language, expression and action. If you can't interview on site, you can choose telephone interview, video interview, etc. The product manager can prepare some small gifts for the users who participate in the interview to get more users' active participation. In addition, we should give timely feedback on the product problems raised by users, so as to make users feel more involved and cultivate more fans.
(3) Focus groups
Focus groups are different from user interviews and usually adopt a one-to-many communication mode. By chatting with multiple users to exchange product experiences, users' opinions can be obtained. Whether using one-to-one or one-to-many, the product manager should pay attention to make corresponding records and record every demand, which will provide the basis for the later demand analysis. When product managers use focus groups to investigate users' needs, they should pay attention to reducing too much subjective intervention, so that users can naturally and truly express and confide their true thoughts, thus effectively obtaining the needs.
(4) usability testing
Usability testing is to let users use the products in the real environment as much as possible without too much interference, and then the product manager will observe the users' behavior in the real scene, so as to understand the most real user needs.
(5) Questionnaire survey
The questionnaire is not limited by location, sample, time and other factors, and the requirements collected or analyzed before can be verified by questionnaire. Questionnaire survey needs to set a reasonable sample size. If the sample size is too small, it will be difficult to reflect all user behaviors, and if the sample size is too large, the cost will be too high. In addition, the difference between questionnaire survey and other user survey methods is that when there are more sample users to be surveyed, the whole survey cycle will be longer.
2. 1.2 analysis of competing products
Competitive product analysis is an important demand collection channel, which can help product managers to obtain user requirements from each other's product design. Literally speaking, competing product analysis is to study how competitors' products are made, whether competitors' practices are good or not, whether users like them or not. We can introduce, absorb and digest the functions that users like, and avoid the functions that users hate when doing product iteration.
A more accurate definition of competing product analysis is to compare one's own products with other products of the same type, such as direct products, indirect products, potential products, etc., give the analysis results of analogy induction, and understand the relevant information of existing products, so as to learn from them in the process of product design and research and development.
2. 1.3 literature report
Product managers must always pay attention to the industry information and market situation where products are located, and can dig out some useful information from market changes, thus providing ideas for product iteration. Common sources for obtaining this information include professional data analysis websites such as product industry analysis websites, iResearch, Analysys think tank and Baidu Index.
Product managers can collect relevant industry market analysis reports and industry data reports through these websites, and then further sort out and screen these data according to their own experience to obtain useful information, thus providing ideas and basis for their own product requirements iteration.
2. 1.4 network platform
(1) social platform
Social platform is an important channel to obtain demand, and product managers can learn the opinions expressed by users in these places through platforms such as Zhihu, Weibo and Post Bar. We can also post some questions on these platforms for users to discuss, so as to get users' real ideas and needs.
(2) Media websites
Product managers should not only pay attention to social platforms, but also pay attention to Internet-related media information websites, such as Tiger Sniff, 36Kr and Titanium Media. Through these platforms, they can keep sensitive to market trends and get some valuable information, including hot information and media views.
2. 1.5 company direction
For the company's direction, the product manager comprehensively considers the company's strategy, the company's development direction, the company's profit model, and the company's vision. , including analyzing the problems encountered in the company's development process, and then excavating the product demand from these aspects to find the product demand idea that conforms to the company's strategic development direction. Sometimes, just thinking from the perspective of the product you are responsible for, and from the perspective of a higher-level company, you may be able to solve the problem.
2. 1.6 team members
From the company level, we need to consider the ideas of the top management and other departments of the company. The top management of the company has long-term contact and observation on the market, and has more experience in controlling the direction. Other departments of the company, such as data department, operation department, customer service department, marketing department, sales department, etc. , closer to users, their problems and needs also need to be considered by product managers.
(1) senior management of the company
In startups and some small and medium-sized companies, the product manager may not be able to confirm all the requirements with the boss, but when the project is approaching or has been launched, the boss will ask many questions or requirements when trying out the product. The boss's demand is also the real user's demand. The boss's demand can be analyzed as the user's demand, but the boss's demand needs to be given priority and controlled effectively.
(2) Data Department
In many Internet companies, there will be specialized data departments to provide professional product data analysis reports and data analysis services. Colleagues in the data department will submit some requirements from their perspective, such as problems encountered in using products, product problems found during data research, or customer needs when dealing with customers.
(3) Testers
In the process of product launch and subsequent iteration, testers need to constantly test the product, and in the process of this test, they will encounter many problems and produce more ideas or better ideas, so they can be included in the demand pool as a demand source.
(4) business operators
Operators always pay attention to operational data, including user data and product usage data, such as product visits, users, click-through rate, conversion rate, retention rate, activity and other data. Through the analysis of data and further insight, we can find problems and then find requirements.
For the way to obtain operational data, start-ups can obtain it from some third-party platforms, such as Youmeng, TalkingData, GrowingIO and so on. If these platforms can't meet the demand for data, a system of data embedding, monitoring and analysis can be established.
2. 1.7 data analysis
Data is a tool to measure the effectiveness of product functions. Data analysis is to discover and mine users' needs by analyzing the data generated by users using products.
The data allows the product manager to analyze the user's behavior in the product, evaluate the effect of product revision or new functions, and find out where the product needs to be improved. Data analysis allows us to draw a certain demand conclusion, but the analysis of behavior data can not completely replace the observation and research of users in reality, and needs to be combined. For example, by observing the user's performance in a certain process through the user behavior funnel, we can intuitively see which step the user loses more, and then we need to investigate why the user loses.
2. 1.8 product experience
Why do Internet companies need to recruit senior product managers when recruiting?
Because product experience plays an important role in continuous iterative optimization of products. Product managers need to constantly accumulate product experience, industry experience, market experience and user experience, so as to improve their market and product sense, and then truly understand the target users and markets of products, so as to find the real demand and make correct decisions.
2.2 Demand classification
After collecting the requirements, we need to classify the requirements in the next step, so as to facilitate further requirements analysis in the future. When classifying requirements, we can divide different kinds of requirements from different dimensions. This paper mainly discusses from two aspects: coarse granularity and fine granularity.
2.2. 1 coarse granularity division
Generally speaking, requirements can be divided into functional requirements, business requirements, data requirements and design requirements from a relatively coarse granularity.
Functional requirements are the most common and important requirements, which are reflected in the interaction between the system and users to help users solve problems and complete tasks.
Operational demand refers to the demand put forward by operators related to product operation, such as the demand for e-commerce holiday promotion activities.
Data requirements are data-related requirements, such as data embedding and data processing.
Design requirements are usually related to the visual presentation of products.
2.2.2 Fine division
If the requirements need to be subdivided, they can be divided into basic requirements, usability requirements, operability requirements, operability requirements, policy and legal requirements, security requirements, performance requirements, maintenance requirements and data requirements.
Basic requirements need to be able to solve the most basic problems of users using products.
Usability requirements are mainly related to user experience and convenience.
Operational requirements refer to the operating environment of products and the problems that must be considered in this operating environment.
Operational requirements are related to product operation.
Policy and legal requirements refer to ensuring that the use of the product itself and users does not violate the law.
Security requirements refer to requirements related to product security, payment security and user information security.
Performance requirements refer to the speed, reliability and accuracy that the function must achieve.
Maintainability and portability requirements are related to system maintenance and system transfer.
2.3 Demand mining, which can be understood as demand mining, demand thinking and demand evaluation, is the most important stage of demand analysis. Demand mining is to first analyze the motivation behind the demand, find the deep demand, and then expand the demand according to the deep demand to form the product demand.
When analyzing the motivation behind the demand, there are three situations:
The first is that there is no deep-seated demand. At this time, the demand itself can be expanded to form product demand;
The second is to find the deep demand, and then expand the demand to form the product demand;
The third is to find the deep-seated demand but need to dig deeper into the user's mind, and then expand the demand on this basis to form the product demand.
Commonly used requirements mining methods include 3W analysis, Maslow's analytic hierarchy process, Carnot model, 5W 1H analysis, HMW analysis and so on. Different methods have different application scenarios, and product managers need to flexibly choose methods to analyze and obtain product requirements when mining requirements.
2.4 demand classification
Requirements classification refers to the priority division of requirements so that product managers can carry out subsequent product design and iteration according to the priority of requirements.
Demand classification usually adopts four-quadrant method, also called matrix analysis method, which divides a two-dimensional abscissa and ordinate into four quadrants, with the abscissa as the urgency and the ordinate as the importance. Importance refers to the demand whether it must be done; Urgency means the need to do it at once.
In this way, we can get four quadrants: the first quadrant is important and urgent, the second quadrant is important but not urgent, the third quadrant is unimportant but urgent, and the fourth quadrant is neither important nor urgent.
(1) The first quadrant is an important and urgent need, so do it right away. This kind of demand needs to be done immediately, and the product manager needs to control the quantity of this kind of demand, and measure the demand mainly with the urgency he thinks is important, supplemented by the demand side's requirements.
(2) The second quadrant is an important but not urgent demand, so we should do it in a planned way. For this kind of demand, we need to evaluate it repeatedly and carefully, come up with the perfect product scheme as far as possible, and control the landing of demand efficiently.
(3) The third quadrant is an unimportant but urgent need, so do it as little as possible. This kind of demand is often encountered in daily work. For this demand, the product manager should not be confused because the demander is in a hurry. He should try his best to make a good demand assessment, identify the authenticity of the demand, and put forward a perfect product plan for the real demand to avoid the waste of resources.
(4) The fourth quadrant is not important and urgent, so try not to do it. The product manager needs to put limited resources into the most important requirements, try not to do it when encountering unimportant or urgent requirements, communicate with the demand proponent and explain the value of such requirements clearly.
The product manager can analyze and sort out the importance and urgency of all requirements according to the four-quadrant method, then put these requirements into the corresponding quadrant one by one, and finally according to the four-quadrant method, the first quadrant >; The second quadrant > the third quadrant > the fourth quadrant completes the demand classification.
Figure 2 Four-quadrant rule
3. Summary
The process of demand analysis is the process of transforming user demand into product demand. This paper divides it into four stages: demand collection, demand classification, demand mining and demand classification, and comprehensively introduces the whole process from the proposal of a demand to the formation of product demand and the determination of demand priority.
First, collect requirements through as many sources as possible; Then classify the requirements according to coarse granularity or fine granularity; On this basis, product managers use various methodologies to dig deep into requirements and form product requirements; Finally, the priority of requirements is determined according to their importance and urgency.
This paper discusses the understanding of demand analysis and the main contents of each stage of product manager's demand analysis, hoping to bring some inspiration to readers.
This article was originally published by @ Eric. Everyone is a product manager. Reprinting is prohibited without permission.
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