Last time I shared with you my experience in interviewing the ROG motherboard product manager at ASUS, and I was lucky enough to join and become a member of the ROG product manager team.
I left Asus a while ago due to personal reasons, so I would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of the meaningful things I have learned during my PM work experience. Let's continue reading!
Lesson 1: Be very familiar with the product
Why do you need to be familiar with the product?
To put it simply, the product manager is the father and mother of the product. You must be very familiar with the product before you can truly build it from zero to something.
Therefore, as a product manager,You must be very knowledgeable and familiar with the products you are responsible for, working independently or communicating with cross-departments will be smoother, and all stakeholders can be more trustworthy in the decisions you make.
What should I do if I still don’t understand the product?
When I first joined the department last year, I had no experience in PC assembly at all. In daily company communication, meetings, and chats, there were a lot of professional product terms, such as Gerber out, Sample Run, PVT, etc. etc., or the name of the manufacturer, etc. At that time, I was very panicked when I couldn’t understand!
Especially when I was assigned to host a meeting and was responsible for updating the progress of each project. However, without relevant knowledge, I was very afraid of making typos when hosting the meeting XD
If you are like me, don’t worry. I also learned it slowly after a while. As long as I follow the learning steps carefully, I will be fine!
From my own observation, when you love this product and are a fan of this product, you will have the enthusiasm to continue to burn enthusiasm for this product.
So if you want to find a job related to PM product manager in the future, I would recommend that you find the product you are interested in!
How can I get familiar with the product in the future?
I consider myself very lucky.
The mentor who happened to be brought to me by this department was very senior and had experience in mentoring many subordinates in the past, so he planned the entire course from scratch so that I could get started more quickly.
In addition, the colleagues in this department are also very friendly. If you have any questions, they will try their best to help you answer them. I feel that I am really lucky to meet these angel colleagues!
For me who don’t play with computers, I am very lucky to have this opportunity to understand the whole picture of the motherboard relatively quickly! So I am really grateful to this Mentor and my colleagues~~
In addition, when I first joined the company and had insufficient product knowledge, I would inevitably feel very anxious, so I learned through the following two methods:
- Learn knowledge related to motherboards and some industry knowledge: All knowledge related to motherboards, such as: CPU, DRAM, M.2 or features on the motherboard, etc., allocate time to learn on YouTube, or refer to Internal documents look at how things are really done in the industry.
- Ask engineers or colleagues for advice: Remember not to use it as a sign. My suggestion is to search all internal documents first, Google and then ask them for advice.
Attached is a sample of my question
Before asking other people questions, I will try my best to do my homework first, sort out all the questions, roughly list 1-3 points, and make an appointment with the relevant person for 5-10 minutes to consult with him.
I will try my best to ask the questions at one time instead of asking them intermittently to save everyone's time.
Another point is: I usually ask them questions based on "personal opinions and expected ways of understanding", and ask them to help confirm whether this understanding is correct, and then double check whether the way I disassemble and learn is correct.
For example, my question would be:
"I would like to ask you about the function of xxx. The following is my understanding. Please help me to see if it is correct. If there are any mistakes, please correct them.
I have done some research, and the xxx function will only be displayed after the user performs yyy behavior. Normally, the default will not be displayed."
It is also provided here for your reference.
Realization 2: Problem-Solving ability is very important
When you are a product manager, you encounter many, many problems.
The types of problems range from big to small, ranging from factories needing to shut down production lines to stopping shipments, and as small as the design of stickers.
Regardless of your position, problems from all departments will sometimes be thrown at you, including RD, Marketing, Sales, etc., so you often hear people ask: Where is the PM? You have to ask PM about this.
When promoting products to market, no matter before, during or after, each unit will throw out many problems, and hope that the PM can help solve them or provide a solution so that the entire process can continue smoothly.
The solution to each problem is different, so the most important point is how to analyze the problem in order to correctly solve the essence of the problem.
Insight 3: Filter information to specific people and seize everyone’s time
The most important thing about being a product manager is how to deliver the corresponding information to the corresponding people.
Product managers need to confirm that the information they give is in line with what the unit "needs to know", rather than passing on information they don't need, which will not be beneficial to the results and may even be risky.
For example, when we want to launch a new motherboard product and explain our latest features to businesses around the world, what do we need to mention to them?
The main thing business people want to know is: what special designs or functions has our generation made, is there relevant data to support it, and can it beat its opponents.
So if you talk about how the engineers designed this new feature at that time, or talk about a lot of appearance design, it is not necessarily the key point that the business wants to hear, and it will also waste each other's time!
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