产品经理如何运用杠杆率
Brandon Chu 翻译：Kevin嚼薯片
我让每一位新加入到团队里的产品经理，在第一个月里去阅读（或重读）安迪·格鲁夫《给经理人的第一课》。这是一本实实在在地讲述什么是经理人以及如何成为经理人的书。虽然大多数产品经理不是管人的人，但他们却是通过团队的方式去管理最终的执行结果。
书中有两个我建议团队产品经理去内化的关键概念：首先是怎么评估管理产出，第二个是管理杠杆率的概念。
管理产出是指你作为一个经理人的产出的东西，这在书里被简洁地阐述为：
一个经理人的产出 = 他直接管辖部门的产出＋他间接影响所及部门的产出
管理杠杆率是指经理人做某些事情比做其他事情时创造更多产出的部分，对每一件具体的事情来说，单位时间内创造的产出量就是它的杠杆率。这也是你决定去做事情A还是事情B的依据。
当产品经理把这些概念内化时，他们能感受到对他们的角色来说最重要的是什么。在他们每天的日常事务中，他们会做出很多选择——这些选择会有一些正向的产出，但从长远来说他们必须培养出一种知道哪里有杠杆率的意识。
这是我给产品经理们分享的一个关于分析他们角色的杠杆率模型（这恰巧也是我作为他们经理时杠杆率最高的工作之一）。
产品经理的杠杆率（标题）；优化工作，项目管理，低杠杆率，80%工作，20%产出（左上）；基本工作，产品管理，高杠杆率，20%工作，80%产出（左下）；待办事项、范围、战略、愿景
一些定义：
1.愿景代表你前进的方向；抱负或目标
2.战略代表你通过市场/公司/顾客/产品去实现愿景的计划
3.范围代表你执行策略所需要的东西
4.待办事项代表完成范围所要的工作单元
我希望产品经理们从这个框架中学到的东西很简单：
产品经理们通过愿景和战略去运用杠杆率——其余的则作为优化工作
愿景和战略是基础工作。它们提供方向，让人以团队的形式去工作。
范围和待办事项是优化工作。它们加速对已知目标的进度。
两者都重要，但在正确方向上慢慢推进总比选错方向要好。当决定工作优先级时，产品经理应该首先自问是否给团队作了好榜样。如果没有，那这是他们要努力的地方。
产品经理杠杆率的第一原理
这个模型是基于作为一个产品经理的我的早期愿望而构建的：
1. 任何在我团队里的成员，都需要知道他们的工作是怎样直接帮助公司实现愿景【愿景】
2. 任何在我团队里的成员，都可以阐述我们通往目标背后的基本方法【战略】
这个愿望基于杠杆率原理。你团队中比你专业和聪明的工程师和设计师比比皆是，所以如果你把工作关注点放在了细节实现上，那不仅你的管理杠杆率会更低，也会削减他们的工作杠杆率。
你将 1+1 变成了 0.5+0.5。
相反地，如果一个产品经理懂得驱动愿景和战略，他关于产品的广泛的专业知识能帮助他找到处理事情的最合适的做法，并随后为团队的前进方向作出更好的决策。
去验证团队中产品经理优劣，最简单的方法是让团队中的工程师或设计师去阐述他们产品的愿景和战略。他们回答的是否一致会让你找到你需要的答案。
构建基础工作
愿景和战略往往被视为是空泛的概念，在MBA领域被视为没有硬技能。它们实际上备受争议，根据我过往的经验，大多数产品经理其实并不知道两者之间的区别，也不知道如何有效运用它们。
愿景
愿景通常用来形容你团队所有成果的最终状态。它最重要的目的在于让组织能简单地理解团队应该关注的地方 ，它代表了团队的重心和存在的理由。
一个好的愿景能影响团队所做的日常小决定。它还是联结产品团队和他们利益相关者的基础。
我不会在这篇文章中深入讨论如何建立一个好的愿景，但我将分享一件我总是提醒下属的事情，那就是他们创建的愿景必须在公司愿景的范围内（或者是更大机构的愿景，母公司的愿景）。
确保你的愿景符合公司的愿景
我曾见过许多产品经理火力全开地投入进来，尝试去做产品的CEO和去做牛逼的事。我赞赏这种精神，以及赞赏他们雄心勃勃、兴致盎然、强烈主见的愿景，但不能偏离总体的愿景，否则他们就是在踩钢丝。
产品经理应该花时间去思考和引导他们公司团队成员去理解这些愿景的细微差别。因为愿景的形成是个无止境的过程，对于刚入行的和入行已久的产品经理都需要这样做。愿景往往建立在单纯的环境下，但进步与科技的力量会不断催生新环境，拓展或挑战我们的愿景。
在Shopify（一个加拿大电子商务公司），我们称这为绿色持续发展之路。
战略
战略描述了实现愿景的选择和方法。它的重要意义是把你目标愿景和真实世界通过周密的行动方案贯穿起来。
构建战略是困难的，因为世界并不像以下这样：
相反地，你需要考虑有很多影响你前进道路的事情。例如我们是应该首先做功能A、B还是C？例如谁应该是我们的第一个目标用户群？例如竞争对手X在做的事情有多相似，以及何时有成功的希望？一个好的战略会在决定如何前进时去综合考虑这些问题。
而我也不会在这里深入介绍如何制定一个好战略，但这有我看到产品经理经常犯错的一个思考。
战略不是一个路线图。路线图应该是战略的产物，好的路线图往往回接战略。真正的战略是解释我们构建的是什么和为什么构建，我们的目标是谁和为什么是它，我们如何成长和为什么这样成长，以及如何使得公司最终获得一个相对竞争对手更好的位置，及其原因。
杠杆率使产品经理有效地扩大影响力
按这个模型去实行的最大好处是，它使一个产品经理的影响力随着成长更有效地放大。随着对设置团队基础工作的熟识，一个单纯的产品经理能通过这项工作明显地在一个组织中获得更多影响力。
金字塔的层次应用。
诚然地，产品经理有时候还是需要驱动优化金字塔中很大的一部分，尤其是高优先级项目或有很多实施风险的时间紧迫的项目。在这些情况下，范围的细化和理性地排序能增加成功的可能性以及公司的价值，一个产品经理应有能力这样做。
逐渐地，当人数快速增长、更多团队创建、还有愿景需要去完成时，对产品经理来说更有意义的事情是尽可能地为更多产品构建基础工作，并放心地交给他们团队来执行。
在Shopify（一个加拿大电子商务公司），我们常看到中层产品经理同时管理2-3个产品，在其他地方是做不到的。我相信这很大程度上是由于我们组织中的管理杠杆率增值效应，以及由于我们拥有非常了不起的研发和设计团队。
你是在做能力范围内杠杆率最高的工作吗？
如果没有别的，我力求让产品经历正视这个问题，并且把它作为一个思维习惯。
有效地利用你接下来的一小时，并设想通过你团队创造产出是最好的方法。问问你自己是否为你团队制定了正确的基础工作，如果还没有，就去建立吧。
如果你觉得这篇文章有价值，请在文章底部为我的文章点和打赏。
Applying Leverage as a Product Manager
BY Brandon Chu
I get every new PM I manage to read (or re-read) High Output Management by Andy Grove within the first month of joining my team. It’s a timeless, no bullshit overview of what a manager is and how to think about being one. Most PMs do not have people reporting into them, but in all cases they are still managing outcomes that are executed through a team.
There are two critical concepts in that book that I aspire for PMs on my team to internalize: the first is how to measure managerial output,and the second is the idea of managerial leverage.
Managerial output is what you produce as a manager and is succinctly explained the book:
A manager’s output = output of their team + output of the surrounding teams that they influence
Managerial leverage is the idea that some things a manager does creates more output than others, and for each possible thing, the amount of output created per unit of timeis its leverage. That’s the basis of how you should decide whether to do activity A or activity B.
When internalized, these concepts impart on PMs a sense of what matters most in their role. They have lots of choices in what they can do everyday — all of which produce some positive output- but developing awareness of where they have leverage is critical to their long term impact.
Here’s a framework that I share with PMs on thinking about leverage in their roles (which coincidentally turns out to be one ofmyhighest leverage activities as their manager).
Some definitions:
1. Vision describes where you’re going; the aspiration or goal
2. Strategy defines how you plan to get to your vision in the context of the market / company / customers / product
3. Scope defines what you need to ship to execute your strategy
4. Backlog represents the units of work to achieve a scope
What I hope PMs take away from this framework is simple:
Product managers exert the most leverage through vision and strategy — the rest is optimization
Vision and Strategy are foundational. They provide the direction, the inspiration, and enable a group of people to execute as a team.
Scope and Backlog are optimizations. They accelerate progress towards a known destination.
Both are important, but going faster in the wrong direction is far worse than going slower in the right one. When prioritizing their focus, a PM should first ask themselves if they’ve built a solid foundation for their team to operate in. If not, that’s where they need to start.
First Principles of PM Leverage
This framework was built upon an early aspiration of mine as a PM to create the conditions where:
1. Any individual on my team knows how their work directly contributes to achieving the company’s vision. [Vision]
2. Any individual on my team can explain the rationale behind why we’re approaching the goal the way we are [Strategy]
This aspiration is rooted in leverage. Your team is full of smart engineers and designers who know better than you how to build things, so if you start focusing on the implementation details, not only are you exerting less managerial leverage, you’re also diminishing their leverage.
You’re making 1+1 into 0.5 + 0.5.
In contrast, when a PM drives vision and strategy, their breadth of expertise accross the product makes them the best suited to process all the context, and subsequently make better decisions about the direction of the team.
The easiest way to test for good product management on a team is to ask any engineer or designer on that team to describe the vision and strategy for their product. The coherence of their answers will give you all the feedback you need.
Building the Foundation
Vision and Strategy are often seen as wishy-washy concepts, the domain of MBAs with no hard skills. They are in fact critical, and in my experience, most PMs don’t actually know the distinction between the two, nor how to utilize them effectively.
Vision
Vision is used to describe the end state of your team’s efforts. Its primary importance is to provide the organization a succinct understanding of what a team cares about. It represents the heart,the raison d’etre, of that team.
A good vision influences the everyday micro-decisions being made by a team. It should also be the basis of alignment between a product team and their stakeholders.
I won’t go too deep in this post about how to establish a good vision, but I will share one thing that I always remind PMs I manage, which is that the vision they create has to fit into the bounds of the company’s vision (and in bigger organizations, any parent group vision).
Make sure your vision fits into the company’s.
I’ve seen too many PMs come in guns blazing, trying to be theCEO of the product and do epic shit. I love the energy — and their vision should still be ambitious, exciting, and strongly opinionated — but it can’t deviate from the bounds of the global vision, or else they run the risk of a blow-up down the line.
PMs should always be spending considerable time talking to the leadership team in their company to internalize the nuances of the vision. This is true of new PMs and ones that have been there for a while, as the process of vision alignment never really ends. The forces of growth and technology continuously spur up new situations which push a vision — one that was established in much simpler times — into new territory and debate.
At Shopify, we call this staying on the green path.
Strategy
Strategy describes the chosen approach towards achieving the vision. Its primary importance is to intersect the goals of the vision and the realities of the world into a gameplan for action.
Building a strategy is hard because the world isn’t like this:
Instead, there are tons of things to consider that influence your path forward. Should we do feature A, B, or C first? Who should be the first customers we target? How likely is competitor X to do the same thing, and in what time frame? A good strategy incorporates questions like these into a decision about how to proceed.
Again, I won’t deviate into the making of a strategy here, but will leave one thought I see PMs often trip up on.
A strategy is not a roadmap. Roadmaps should be an output of strategy, and good ones will always clearly tie back to one. Real strategy answers what we’re building and why, who we’re going to target and why, how we’re going to grow and why, and how the end result will put the company into a better competitive position relative to alternatives. And why.
Leverage Enables PMs to Scale Efficiently
The final benefit of operating under this framework is that it enables a product manager’s impact to scale more efficiently as they grow in a company. By becoming great at setting the foundation for a team, a single PM can have significantly more impact within an organization by doing that work accross a set of teams.
Next-level pyramid use.
Admittedly, there are still times when PMs do need to drive the optimization portions of the pyramid, particularly in high priority or time sensitive projects where there is lots of executional risk. In those cases, refinement of scope and sequencing materially increases the likelihood of success and value to the company and a PM should be capable of doing it.
Generally though, when headcount is growing quickly and there are more teams ready to build then there are visions to execute, it makes most sense for PMs to build foundations for as many products as they can and then just trust their teams to execute.
At Shopify, we’re now seeing the median PM manage 2–3 products, which in most places would be untenable. I believe this is possible in large part because of the appreciation of managerial leverage within our organization, and because of the incredible team we have in engineering and design.
Are you doing the highest leverage work you can?
If nothing else, I strive for PMs to take this question and make it a mindset.
Make your next hour the most impactful it can be, and assume creating output through your team is the best way to do it. Ask yourself if you’ve established the right foundations for your team to operate in, and if not, build them.
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