7 aspects that a complete operation plan should include

Operations are basically a process of constantly writing plans, revising plans, and implementing plans. Many of my friends may feel overwhelmed when they hear the word "plan", and they will feel "blue and thin" and "shiitake mushrooms"! The editor is also like this, this article is really good~ Come and take a look~

Anyone who does operations will know that there are various plans to write during the operation process. For example, you often encounter the following scenarios at work:

Boss: "We want to build a community. Please write a community operation plan !"

Boss: "National Day is coming, we are going to have a National Day event, please write me a plan before tomorrow night!"

Employee: “I think the activity of our product is not very high recently. The reason is…we can do this…to increase the activity.”

Boss: "Well, your idea is good. Please write a plan first!"

Boss: "We are going to launch a mobile product soon. Please write a mobile operation plan!"

Operations are basically a process of constantly writing plans, revising plans, and implementing plans. Many of my friends may feel overwhelmed when they hear the word "plan", and they will feel "blue and thin" and "shiitake mushrooms"! Not to mention that the plan will make you want to die after being revised, just the idea of ​​writing the plan is enough to torture you to the point that you want to beat up your boss.

In fact, is the plan really that difficult? Why do many of us rack our brains until late at night and still have no idea where to start? Or you may stop halfway through writing a plan, run out of ideas, and then start to doubt the content of the first half.

The so-called plan is the idea and plan before you do something, and it has two purposes:

Let your leader know your ideas and thoughts, whether your strategy is feasible, and whether there are loopholes in your thoughts;

I was able to think twice before acting, and the subsequent execution was orderly and based on evidence.

Since the purpose of the plan is to sort out the ideas of doing things or to sort out the operational ideas and specific work plans in our operations, we must have a correct writing idea. The operation plan must be an interlocking process, the main logical line must be clear, and the ideas and goals must be clear, so that you can write a high-quality operation plan with clear ideas.

1. Key ideas for writing a proposal

The plan is used to sort out our ideas and guide our practice. We can recall that in fact, we follow this key idea in doing anything:

In what context are you doing this?

What is your purpose in doing this?

What goals do you use to measure your success in doing this?

What is your specific execution strategy for doing this? That is to say: clear scheduling of people, things, money, resources and time.

The background of the plan is to better clarify the purpose of your doing this thing, the purpose is to clarify the direction of your work, the goal is to measure the effectiveness of your work, and the strategy is to clarify how you should execute this thing, that is, what kind of people do you need? What to do? How much budget is needed? How many resources will be needed? How long does it take? What to do at each stage?

The most critical step here is to clarify the purpose, because all the subsequent things to be done are centered around this purpose. It is the direction in which you do things. If the purpose is wrong, all subsequent work will be wrong. Therefore, before you do something or write a plan, you must be clear about the purpose of doing it.

2. Key thinking to use in writing a proposal

Brother Chao wrote in the article "Your own experience tells you, which is more important, thinking or experience? 》 mentioned an example. If you were asked to associate the word "apple", what would you think of?

The wrong way of thinking is to directly give the result word that comes to mind, such as thinking of Apple computer, then thinking of eating apples, and then thinking of Apple mobile phone. The result of this wrong thinking is that your thoughts are confused and the final result is incomplete. This is the key reason why many people often have a confused mind when doing things.

Let's take a look at the correct ideas. We can use the thinking decomposition method to think about it. The specific ideas are as follows:

The above is a breakdown of the associative thinking associated with the word “apple”. How to break down ideas and goals during actual operations? Let’s take the operation of self-operated e-commerce platform as an example. Brother Chao has never done e-commerce operation, but as long as the purpose is clear, the ideas can be thought of, so here I will try to use the method of thinking decomposition to sort out the ideas of e-commerce operation.

Anyone who does e-commerce should know that there is a universal formula for e-commerce: sales = traffic * conversion rate * average order value. The most direct purpose of e-commerce operations is to increase sales, and the goal is how much we want to increase sales? For example, if we want to increase sales by 10 million in a month, whether this goal is achieved is a basis and standard for measuring our operational work. Of course, the setting of goals must not be made on a whim, but needs to be calculated based on actual conditions.

Let's first sort out our ideas:

Purpose: To increase platform sales

Goal: Increase sales by 10 million in one month

Three factors that affect sales: traffic, conversion rate, and average order value (universal formula for e-commerce)

First, we can divide the work into three aspects according to the three factors that affect sales:

Increase store traffic

Improve store conversion rate

Product Pricing

Secondly, set goals and break down the work based on the breakdown. For example, in order to achieve sales of 10 million, how much traffic do we need to attract and to what extent should the platform's conversion rate be increased? What kind of price promotion strategy should be adopted?

The traffic goal can be divided according to channels, and traffic targets can be set for different channels at different stages based on the promotion effect of the channels.

In order to improve the conversion rate of the store, we need to consider the factors that affect the conversion rate, and then take corresponding measures around these factors. For example, we can improve the conversion rate through the following aspects:

Improve product packaging

Optimize detail page pictures

Optimize the description text on the details page

Optimize consumers’ order payment path and experience

Customer service promotion skills

Manage consumer reviews

Implement price promotion strategies, such as discounts, free gifts, discounts, etc.

…

How to improve product packaging, product photography and image processing, what kind of copywriting can attract consumers, order and payment path optimization, how to improve customer service sales skills? User evaluation management skills and other specific optimization tasks involve the division of labor among personnel, and professionals do professional things. Of course, this is just an example of part of the work of e-commerce operations, because the actual operation work also involves product category planning, store decoration, etc.

If you think about it carefully, you will find that if you clarify the above purposes and goals, break down the purposes and goals, and then refine the specific strategies and work content according to the actual operation situation, and then further clarify the division of labor, time node scheduling, operation budget and required resource support, then it will be an e-commerce operation plan. Of course, this plan must not be imagined out of thin air like what Brother Chao did for the sake of example, but should be formulated based on the current situation of the store and data analysis, but the specific ideas are similar.

The above ideas also apply to product operation plans. You can recall the universal e-commerce formula mentioned above: sales = traffic * conversion rate * average order value. If the average order value is 0, that is to say, if we are operating a free product, then the sales volume will also be 0, because the direct purpose of operating a free product is not to increase sales volume, then the only work we have to do is traffic*conversion rate. If our solution is to attract new customers to the product, then the above formula becomes:

Registered users = traffic * conversion rate

Therefore, our work direction can be clearly divided into two directions:

Traffic diversion (promotion)

Improve product registration conversion

Next, all work can be carried out around two aspects: attracting traffic and improving conversions.

Any plan is the same. The focus of making a plan is on ideas. After clarifying the background, first determine the purpose, then set specific goals and break them down around the goals, and then determine the implementation plan. All subsequent content is based on the purpose and goals. When making a plan, you can use the current mainstream thinking tools Xmind and Visio. These two tools can quickly help you sort out your thinking system.

Taking the establishment of operational processes and standardized systems as an example, this is a relatively large and complex task. The actual operation is not as simple as imagined, because it involves various processes, specifications, rules, definitions, and various standardized template forms in the operational work. So how should we proceed with this work? We still adopt the previous method of disassembly, which can be simply disassembled as follows:

Different from the activity plan, in the operation plan, the "things" among the elements of "people", "things", "finance", "resources" and "time" in the specific implementation strategy are more core. In the operation plan, it is necessary to plan the subsequent operation work from the "matter" level.

We can still break down the ideas for the "things" in the operation plan:

For any operational work, we can divide it into routine operational actions and non-routine operational actions. To make an analogy, it is the relationship between health supplements and Viagra. Health care products need to be taken regularly and over a long period of time to improve body functions, and their effects are relatively mild; whereas Viagra is a strong medicine that provides a temporary stimulation. In operations work, routine operations and mechanisms are health products that ensure the continued activity of users, while irregular activities, product revisions, and major content strategy improvements are the Viagra that stimulates users in stages.

Therefore, the direction of executing strategies in the operation plan is basically clear, which is divided into two aspects: routine operation work and non-routine operation work (generally innovative work content).

Routine operation work is the establishment of a fixed operation mechanism, that is, the fixed work that operation personnel need to do every day, every week or regularly; non-routine operation work is some irregular innovative work. How to establish a regular operating mechanism and what fixed and normalized work should be done? What kind of activities or product strategy adjustments can promote the faster achievement of operational goals needs to be combined with the actual operational status of the product.

The decomposition of the ideas mentioned above needs to follow a principle: exhaust each other and do not include each other. Here I will use Brother Chao’s previous article “Ideas + Steps + Methods, Three Steps to Teach You How to Quickly Build User Portraits?” 》As an example to illustrate:

The division between explicit and implicit has been exhaustive, which means that you cannot find a third dimension parallel to explicit and implicit. In terms of complementary inclusion, it means that the dimensions of each level must be in an AND relationship. If there is an inclusion relationship, then it must be wrong. The inclusion and included relationship can only exist in the upper and lower dimensions.

3. Examples of ideas for writing a plan

When writing a proposal, you should follow the principle of being concise, direct, and no nonsense.

A complete plan should include the following aspects:

1. Project Background

Please do not write too much, limit your article to 3 sentences or less

2. Project Purpose

1. Direct purpose (there is only one, and all subsequent work must be carried out around this purpose)
2. Indirect purpose (related purpose, no more than two, other related effects that can be brought about by doing this thing)

3. Project objectives

Goals set around objectives must be quantified, as this is the most direct measure for evaluating operational results.

This can be done by taking community operation as an example. For example, a community is positioned for high school students, and all content is centered around high school students’ study and life exchanges. However, after users enter university, the content of the community can no longer meet the needs of this group of users entering university. If we want to retain this group of users, we need to open a new section suitable for college students. The direct purpose here is very clear, which is to solve the problem of user retention after graduating from high school. So when setting goals, quantitative goals can be set like this:

4. Operational Strategy

If it is an activity plan, the activity object needs to be included here:

1. Event Time
2. Activity Form
3. Awards
4. Activity Schedule
5. Prepare corresponding copywriting content and materials.

If it is an operation plan, we take the operation of the new community section as an example, including:

(1) Section positioning and content positioning

(2) Content Operation

Content production methods: PGC&UGC, as well as phased target planning for PGC and UGC output, and UGC output sources and incentives. For example, how to select moderators and produce content, interact and motivate sections, as well as motivate and promote expert users.

Section content standards: Section posting and replying standards, content management, etc.

User incentive system: such as membership growth mechanism, incentive system, points, reward and punishment mechanism for posting and replying, etc.

This part of the content can be divided into routine operational actions and non-routine operational actions. Due to time constraints, we will not make a specific division here and will just serve as a reminder.

(3) Early promotion strategy

Such as key user invitation, section exposure, event promotion, etc.

(4) Preliminary promotion plan

5. Scheduling

The purpose of scheduling is to clarify who will do what and when. The time nodes, work items and responsible persons must be clearly defined.

6. Resource support

Promotion resources (resource positions, promotion channels, etc.)

Demand support (design requirements and development requirements)

Department Support

…

7. Operating Budget

This involves the formulation of a cost budget. For example, in the operation of a community or a gold coin mall, gold coins will be used as an incentive. In this case, the cost needs to be converted according to the ratio of gold coins to RMB.

In this program idea, purpose and goals are the most important. When writing a plan, of course, including in the specific operational work, you must clearly define the purpose and confirm it with your boss, and then carry out subsequent work when the purpose is correct.

Author: Everyone is a Product Manager

Source: Everyone is a Product Manager

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