Product post and demand post are like a pair of "fraternal twins"

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samrobin
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Joined: Thu Aug 11, 2022 6:04 am

Product post and demand post are like a pair of "fraternal twins"

Post by samrobin »

I am a product position that has gradually transformed from a demand analysis position. After the transformation, I will often support the demand analysis work of the delivery team. In the process of team development in the past two years, products and requirements have also been recruited simultaneously.

Many people think that the difference between the two positions is not big, or they do not know where the specific differences are reflected, and they feel that the content of the work is similar. At the same time, many companies have strange positioning for these two positions. They have the title of product, and they are doing the work of demand analysis.

So today I would like to talk about my views on these two positions and discuss them with you.

One, there are many similarities
For requirements and products, most of the daily work is to meet requirements, talk about requirements, write requirements, talk about requirements, draw Special Database prototypes (some pure background or weak channel projects are not involved), follow progress, do acceptance, respond to emergencies, etc. Wait. They will also do more or less market/user research, competitive product analysis, user Q&A, etc. This aspect is no longer described, because everyone has a similar understanding of these contents.

Therefore, these two positions can be said to have the same root and the same origin.

Second, there are many differences
1. In terms of work content
The product post will pay more attention to the iteration of the version, the planning of the product vision, and the need to pay more attention to the user experience. The product positions of some industries or companies also need to take into account operations and pre-sales plans, and at the same time, it will also be extended to take into account the business model. Of course, there are some that need to be at the senior or director level to get involved.

The demand post pays more attention to the implementation of the solution, the details of the functions, the guidance of customers, the control of the change of requirements, the spread of requirements and other issues, and also has certain requirements for the development workload of the solution (minimizing the design of executable solutions). At the same time, communication with the technical team, knowledge of project management, software engineering, etc., will also be more important than product positions.

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2. In terms of team composition
As the director of the product post, he may be responsible for multiple product lines, or multiple application modules under the same large product line, and will manage multiple product managers, product assistants, etc. to form a product team. In terms of management, it is necessary to take into account the industry trends, scenario planning, application effects, and cooperation of R&D resources for each product line. It is also necessary to teach students according to their aptitude and know people well in terms of work division and personnel growth within the team.

As a solution team, the demand post can support the demand analysis of multiple delivery projects by one person. If the businesses you do are similar, you can gradually form product solutions and incubate product teams; if the businesses you do are relatively independent, then this model will actually have a big bottleneck in terms of development and efficiency. Team managers need to explore how to better support multiple delivery projects, how to arrange multi-task parallelism and multi-person collaboration, especially involving remote collaboration. Of course, there are also many companies that will subordinate the solution team to the delivery team, which will be scheduled by the delivery director.

For some long-term and stable delivery projects, the demanders have been working in a project. This opportunity can actually shift to product thinking, gain a deep understanding of the industry, competing products, and users, and guide customers in later project iterations.

3. On the type of business
Demand positions are more reflected in outsourcing and solution IT companies, setting up demand positions in the delivery team for customization, and continuing to tap the new needs of Party A (of course, many human outsourcing teams are also recruiting product managers, but the actual work content more inclined to needs analysis).

At the same time, like my company and many similar friends, although they mainly focus on project outsourcing, they also set up R&D teams, continuously increase R&D investment, and conduct standardized product incubation, thus forming one product team after another.

And like the Internet self-research team, most of them will set up product positions instead of demand positions, even though some companies may work mainly on demand analysis. It is analogous to: the leader is your first party, and the R&D team is your delivery team. In this case, the product post and the demand post will have more similarities.
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