2 ways of thinking and 3 habits that operators should have

After working in operations for two years, I began to think about some work ideas. I hope that writing them down can serve as a reference for everyone.

one. Two kinds of thinking

I personally think that the most important way of thinking for operators at work is:

Framework thinking

Framework thinking can help operations personnel quickly organize their work ideas and find the "thread ends" in the ball of wool.

1. Framework thinking: goal decomposition

Goal decomposition is actually quite easy to understand. It is to continuously break down a large goal into smaller and smaller pieces until it is broken down into the smallest executable unit. This kind of thinking has been mentioned in many articles and fields. It is mentioned in the book "The Light of Operations" that target decomposition is a core skill of operations. For example, there is a logic tree method in data analysis , which continuously refines various indicators through decomposition.

Why do I think goal decomposition thinking is very important?

For example, at the end of the year, the leader said that the plan is to increase the capital stock by 1 billion next year (I work on a P2P platform , so there is this indicator). You get overwhelmed when you hear this, what? 1 billion? Where can I find it? At this time, we can use the target decomposition, taking the net increase of stock as the first-level indicator, and the investment amount and withdrawal amount directly related to the stock as the second-level indicators, and then slowly decompose it downwards, such as:

After the details are broken down, we estimate the growth that each part can bring based on historical data, as well as which part can be focused on for improvement.

The purpose of goal decomposition is to tell you what you should do, where to start, and to adjust the work direction by effectively monitoring each small indicator. In fact, whether it is a product operation plan or an activity plan, you can try to use this method to break it down.

2. Framework thinking: process-based

Process-based development is actually relatively easy to understand: before doing something, you need to think about what to do in the first, second, and third steps respectively. In simple terms, you need to have a plan before doing anything.

For example, the interviewer asks you, if you were asked to create a points mall, how would you do it? You answer, "First, I need to do a competitive product research, understand the current product situation, and determine the KPI of the points mall; secondly, prepare the points name style, and at the same time count the positive and negative behaviors of the product, and then formulate the points acquisition and consumption rules, and then (200 words omitted here), and finally observe and iterate the online data. Through these steps, the construction of the points mall is completed, and there is XX content in XX step that requires special attention." This answer is very clear.

This process is usually continued imperceptibly by experienced employees, and sometimes they may not feel its importance. But the significance of process is to tell you how to do it, which can help you organize your thoughts and grasp the trivial work content without missing any key steps. If you add the estimated completion time for each step, it will help advance the work. (Especially for unfamiliar projects, planning the process in advance can effectively avoid pitfalls. When I first did product and technology docking, I overturned the development architecture later because I did not confirm the data volume problem at the beginning.)

The role of framework thinking is to help operators think logically and comprehensively in trivial work content. They can consciously train themselves to learn this way of thinking.

Cost-effective thinking

Cost-effective thinking means that operators should consider cost-effectiveness as an important consideration throughout their working career.

Whether a plan can be implemented depends not only on its effectiveness but also on its cost-effectiveness. To give a simple example, if we give all users the biggest interest rate increase bonus, then investment will definitely grow rapidly, but we cannot do that because we need to control costs. The cost mentioned here is not only the department's budget, but also includes various invisible costs, such as R&D costs, subsequent maintenance costs, etc. A good operation plan will take into account both cost and effect, and will make some trade-offs for the desired functions.

How to look at the cost-effectiveness? This involves a "minimum viable test plan" that can help you estimate the effect. That is, use the smallest effective unit to test the effect of the plan, such as the group testing task mentioned in my previous article. By testing the plan with a small range of sampled users, the data results can be used to estimate the effect and then calculate the cost-effectiveness.

two. Three Habits

The following three habits are not only for operations positions, but can be used as a reference for colleagues in the workplace.

The habit of keeping a small notebook

Keeping a small notebook means writing down the work to be completed at any time.

The operations work is really very trivial. I may remember at this moment that I need to confirm an issue with XX today, but be distracted by other things in the next moment. So I am used to recording the work to be completed in a small notebook. Our team directly uses Tower to manage members' work content and progress, eliminating the trouble of daily reports. Sometimes I just write down important things on sticky notes and stick them on my computer, especially those that need to be done n days later. Sticky notes are more convenient and easy to use than setting an alarm.

In addition to writing down your daily work content/completion progress, you can also develop a habit of recording your thoughts and experiences, even if it’s just one sentence. Try to sort out your work experience or learning gains, and output them again in text or other forms, which can help you think and digest them. (It was only when I started writing that I discovered the benefits of output, haha. It really forced me to think and improve my knowledge system .)

The habit of actively giving feedback on work progress

Feedback on work progress refers to providing feedback to your superior on the progress of the work assigned to you by him.

The feedback here is not the feedback in daily or weekly reports, but timely synchronization. For example, once the project schedule is confirmed, in addition to sending an email, you can verbally inform your leader of the approximate launch time of the project. For example, if the previously discussed plan starts or ends testing today, you can also proactively say so. It is not to make the boss feel that I am very busy or capable, but to show that I have been following up on the project. Such proactive feedback can let the boss know the progress of the project in a timely manner and have a clear idea of ​​it. There will be no problem when the senior leaders ask about it.

The habit of speaking with data

Speaking with data means making decisions based on as little intuition as possible.

I believe that in this era of big data , no company will operate without data. The reason why we use data is that, first, using data can greatly reduce unnecessary arguments, and second, sometimes the decisions we make based on experience may be wrong.

I won’t elaborate on the first point. Let me give you an example for the second point. For example, our platform wants to add a sign-in function because we believe that sign-in can increase daily activity and further stimulate investment (besides, so many big platforms have done it, so it must be useful). According to the normal funnel, if there are more daily active users, there will be more users who will be attracted to investment. But the leader raised doubts at that time. First of all, can the sign-in function bring about an increase in daily active users? Secondly, will the daily activity brought by sign-in affect investment? We did a simulation test on this (trying to increase daily activity through features like sign-in to test whether it would affect investment), and ultimately found that daily activity increased, but investment did not increase. This result was different from what we originally thought, and it illustrates the difference between making snap decisions and speaking with data (in the end we still built the sign-in feature for other reasons). From then on, I would try to use more data to assist in making decisions on the plans I made.

Conclusion

The reason why I wrote this article is that I have recently realized that for operations with several years of work experience, in addition to professional knowledge and skills, thinking style and pattern are also very important. But in fact, this is a very abstract thing, which probably requires accumulation of knowledge and continuous thinking training.

The author of this article @佳佳 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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