Operational methodology in 2019!

In just over ten days, we will officially say goodbye to 2019. This year has been an eventful one, with trade wars going on back and forth. In the workplace, you always hear a lot of comments like "the overall environment is not good this year". E-commerce always has a wave of personnel optimization at the end of the year or the beginning of the next year, which makes people feel very disappointed.

At this time last year, I was also invited to write a summary, but I always feel that this year's growth is incomparable to any previous year. Rather than saying that entering the e-commerce circle is a small step in my career, it is better to say that entering the search product circle is a leap in my career. Therefore, here I am holding a secular heart of "loving to teach others" to instill some thoughts on operations or products and my methodology to everyone.

Maybe I was a little arrogant before and seldom read the methodologies written by others. Now I have gradually begun to face up to my own shortcoming of being "a coward on the outside but stubborn on the inside". I keep digging and filling holes in practice, and I need to digest and accept both the good and bad methodologies I have explored. Therefore, I wrote this article for self-reflection.

From an architectural perspective, a product or operations position is more like the "filling" of an Oreo. In this position, if you belong to the demand business side, it is a very painful role. On the one hand, you have to constantly meet your own needs, and on the other hand, you have to promote product solutions that are not under your own architecture. It is said that you can't please both sides.

Unfortunately, I worked in such a position before, and that time was really hard to endure. When the resources were not in my hands and I had to communicate with the Party B department to push forward, it was often difficult to make much progress on a thing. I was dull and not good at socializing at that time, and it was really difficult for me. First, the other party ignored me, and then my direct boss urged me unrealistically. Finally, I experienced what it means to "go to work like going to a grave."

So how should this sandwich operations position handle daily affairs?

Stress resistance and work endurance are now a must-have word in many product or operation job recruitment JDs. So in this kind of sandwich operation position, our ability to withstand stress will be the first thing that needs to be considered and will become an essential skill for us to adapt to the rhythm of this position.

Perhaps we usually write in the self-evaluation column at the end of our resume: strong ability to withstand pressure and good psychological quality. But when it comes to actual practice, I get extremely anxious. So here I would like to give a warning to all students who are about to engage in Internet product operations, especially those in this kind of sandwich position, if you want to have good psychological quality, you will inevitably fall into all the pitfalls.

The training of stress resistance is actually the training of endurance. In Internet companies, especially large Internet e-commerce companies, phenomenal products and traffic explosions are hard to come by, and most of them exist in obscurity. Therefore, in a product operation position, you must remain patient, because good products are not achieved overnight, but are polished over time (with the exception of a few rare exceptions), and don't expect to achieve success overnight.

Secondly, in terms of cross-departmental communication, building good interpersonal relationships is a necessary threshold, and you have to be thick-skinned. Students who say they are introverted can save their energy. In this society, except for those who are engaged in technology and art, your introversion is actually useless, so you don't need to talk about it every day. "Go out and bring in", this is what I want to say to you all.

rule

After all, what is said above is a bit abstract. So is there a more honest methodology? Yes, there is. No matter what operations you are doing, the first thing you should think about is how to solve a single problem, not how to solve a category of problems.

What does it mean? The role of operations is to act as a rule maker and process optimizer. When it comes to issues such as docking, what should be considered is not just solving one problem, but first of all how to formulate a set of smooth and reasonable rules to solve a class of problems. This is the high-level idea of ​​operations.

Of course, students who are new to the workplace may scoff at this, thinking that as long as the problem can be solved, it will be fine. In fact, this is not the case. All organizations in this society are established according to certain rules. The same is true in the workplace. The solutions to problems are mostly similar. Doing things according to rules can save labor costs, save time on talking, and improve work efficiency.

This methodology is not only limited to operations and products, but is also universal in management. Therefore, students must remember that they can think further ahead when doing a lot of work. Once a problem arises and is solved, how do they solve the same problem next time? This requires some summary and reflection. What contingency plans and rules can quickly resolve this type of homogeneous work problem?

Therefore, whether it is product operation or management, we must always think long-term about solutions to problems and always ask ourselves this question: How can I deal with this kind of problem quickly and accurately next time I encounter it?

Yes, that is to establish a set of process rules so that you won’t be in a rush. There is an old saying that goes, "Planning ahead will lead to success, while lack of planning will lead to failure." The same goes for this.

Automation improves labor efficiency

The formulation and smooth application of rules is the first step to improving labor efficiency. Then the rationality of the formulation of rules, improving the smoothness of rules and reducing execution time are the second steps to improving labor efficiency. We can get a glimpse of this in the domestic craze for artificial intelligence.

Take the entrance image and activity page of an e-commerce activity as an example: originally, e-commerce needed to design, cut the image, and then arrange the products on it, which was time-consuming and labor-intensive. Although the page might be vivid and beautiful, not all activities require such a cumbersome investment.

Then the automated algorithm puzzles emerged. Several domestic e-commerce companies, led by Alibaba, launched the Luban system, and JD.com followed suit. We can find examples of this kind of personalized graphics on the carousel banner on the homepage of its app. You only need to configure it in the background to perform personalized puzzle work and display it on the front desk.

This is the most intuitive example of automation, so in the face of such rapid changes, we have to change our previous problem-solving ideas. Some even predict that after 2025, most manual operations will become unemployed due to the rise of artificial intelligence. because

Therefore, students in operations or product positions need to think carefully. When formulating rules to solve problems, the ultimate goal is to improve labor efficiency and output, or even reduce the human part to 0 (of course, operation and maintenance supervision is still required). Replacing manual labor with machines is a leap in productivity.

Therefore, I would like to give a suggestion to students in operations or product. When planning a product or operation rules, you should ask yourself a few questions: How can we reduce human intervention and allow machines to achieve autonomy? What problems need to be solved in order to achieve automation? Is it possible to achieve automation at this stage? Will there be a breakthrough in the future? Can it be divided into several stages?

Directionality of indicators

Basically every position in the workplace has assessment items, so anything done in operations or products must be infinitely in line with their own KPIs. We always have centralized solutions to solve problems. One is to predict in advance, and the other is to reverse the purpose. The former is to judge how to achieve results based on the current situation and the problems discovered, while the latter is to break down the goals into steps to complete the indicators.

Therefore, when we are doing operations or formulating rules and procedures, we also need to think clearly about a few questions - what is my KPI? How does what I do help my KPI? What factors affect my KPIs? Which impacts are controllable? Which ones are uncontrollable, etc.

Let me give you an example here. E-commerce sales = traffic conversion rate and average order value. If you want to achieve the GMV indicator, you need to attract traffic, improve conversion, and increase the average order value. Next, we will break down the methods and details on how to attract traffic and improve conversions, so that we can make corresponding operational planning and arrangements in an orderly manner.

Some people call this kind of thinking structured thinking, which is true, but a true understanding of structured thinking still has to be based on logic. Many of the operational assessment indicators are rigid requirements, which also determines that operations or product operations must be highly consistent with KPIs in their own decisions and planning. A disorganized operational plan will not only fail to produce results, but will also result in a lack of operational accomplishment.

Cognitive flexibility

There are not many black and white things in this world. It’s more about standing on different positions, so people look at things from different angles. That’s why in the workplace, we often encounter examples of people parting ways unhappily due to disagreements.

So students who are new to the workplace must recognize one fact: "Don't challenge the boss's authority in a boss-like manner."

Although this sentence may sound a bit unpleasant, it is an alternative form of "power politics" in the hierarchical atmosphere of the workplace. You may all understand this, so I won’t elaborate on it.

So how do you deal with the problem of disagreements causing projects to go sideways?

"Discuss and make concessions to each other." In fact, no one is anyone's enemy at work, unless that person is really prejudiced against you. However, we need to hold on to the idea of ​​being able to go anywhere with reason. Arguing with reason is the hard truth, but it does not mean that you have to charge forward bravely and never give up until you achieve your goal. Instead, you need to have room for maneuver.

This is always the case in a society where relationships are important. If you propose a very big goal, the other party may not accept it, and you may argue with each other. Then, you compromise and propose a goal that is smaller than before. The other party's acceptance may be greatly improved. This is what I call in psychology: the threshold effect (I just made it up, mainly because I can't remember it).

Therefore, this is applicable in cross-departmental communication or other negotiation situations. To achieve your goals, you need to understand roundabout strategies or step-threshold strategies. It is always easier to execute and achieve them step by step than to achieve a small goal of 100 million all at once, right? So no matter what the ultimate goal of your communication is, it is good to be able to solve the problem in one go, but if the problem cannot be solved in one go, do not rush into it. A phased or roundabout implementation strategy is also one of the ways you can consider.

Lifelong Learning

After graduating from college, we gradually become focused on learning social experience, and may gradually become alienated from book knowledge. This is the norm for many people, and it was also my norm for a period of time. However, with the intensification of social competition, I feel that I can no longer keep up with the pace of the times in terms of academic qualifications or professional knowledge, so I slowly began to pick up the books that had been abandoned for a long time. Choose some books that interest you and that may help your dreams or career. There is a saying that goes "If you don't learn, you'll lose it; if you learn, it's worth it." This will only benefit your career.

Stay healthy & happy at work

Although this sentence sounds a bit like nonsense, I still want to mention it. After all, the body is the capital of revolution, and it is also what I have experienced most deeply recently.

I hope I can be better to myself in 2020, that's it~

Author: Wang Huan

Source: Wang Huan, WeChat: wanghuan314400