产品导向VS客户导向？其实只是一种平衡！

It’s no secret that at Brainmates we see product management as the engine of growth in every organization. This means that we see a ‘product-led’ direction as the path that modern organizations should follow to achieve sustainable and innovative growth.

众所周知，在Brainmates，我们将产品管理视为每个组织增长的引擎。这意味着我们认为“产品导向”的方向是现代组织实现可持续和创新增长的必经之路。

We talk about product-led thinking, we have a Product-Led Program, and we even advocate to senior executives and boards across Australia and New Zealand that being product-led is the secret sauce of growth.

我们谈论产品导向的思维，我们有一个产品导向的计划，我们甚至向澳大利亚和新西兰的高管和董事会提倡，产品导向是增长的秘密武器。

But, as many executives have in the past, you may ask yourself why product-led?

但是，正如许多高管过去所做的那样，你可能会问自己，为什么是产品导向？

Don’t we want to be ‘customer-led’?

难道我们不想“以客户为导向”吗？

This gets to a fundamental misunderstanding. Product-led does put customers at the heart of decision-making, but customers are only half of the equation.

这就产生了一个根本性的误解。产品导向确实把客户放在决策的核心位置，但客户只是等式的一半。

Product-Led Is About Balance

产品导向是关于平衡的

Product-led is about balancing customer and organizational value. Creating great outcomes for the customer and delivering great outcomes for the organization.

产品导向是关于平衡客户和组织的价值。为客户创造伟大的成果，为组织提供伟大的成果。

This balance avoids the pitfall of solving the wrong customer problems – ones that aren’t really valuable for the organisation to solve.

这种平衡避免了解决错误的客户问题——那些对组织来说没有真正价值的问题。

If you have ever asked the question “why are we building this”, and the only answer was “because XYZ customer wants it”, you would understand what happens if we don’t have balance when considering customer needs. It makes for products with no realisable market potential as they are built for one customer who yells the loudest.

如果你曾经问过“我们为什么要构建这个”，而唯一的答案是“因为XYZ客户想要它”，你就会明白如果我们在考虑客户需求时没有平衡会发生什么。它导致产品没有可实现的市场潜力，因为它们是为一个大声喊叫的客户制造的。

Balancing both sides of this equation necessitates you knowing a LOT more about your customers than you may think.

平衡这个等式的两边需要你比你想象的更多地了解你的客户。

Not only do we need to know their problem, but also how painful the problem is.

我们不仅要知道他们的问题，还要知道这个问题有多痛苦。

How many other similar customers (in our realisable target market) have this problem?

（在我们可实现的目标市场中）有多少其他类似的客户有这个问题？

Is it sufficiently painful that they will exchange something of value with us to solve it for them?

这是否足够痛苦，以至于他们愿意与我们交换一些有价值的东西来为他们解决问题？

How much would they exchange?

他们会交换多少钱？

How often?

多长时间？

Being a product-led organization means your whole organization aligns around this balance of customer and organizational value. At a more tangible level for product leaders, it means your teams have the skillsets of customer research and commercial acumen in balance as they discover and communicate product opportunities.

作为一个以产品为主导的组织，意味着你的整个组织都围绕着客户和组织价值的平衡而保持一致。在产品领导者的更具体层面上，这意味着你的团队在发现和沟通产品机会的过程中，拥有客户研究技能和商业敏锐度的平衡。

Less than 50% of product teams actually engage with their customers.

只有不到50%的产品团队真正与客户接触。

Engaging with customers directly, continuously and meaningfully is still the best way to gain a shared understanding of their needs, and is essential to being truly product-led.

直接、持续和有意义地与客户接触仍然是获得对他们需求的共同理解的最佳方式，也是真正以产品为主导的必要条件。

Product-Led Is About Customer Research

产品导向是关于客户研究

‘Know your customer’ – or some version of this – is the core tenant of many product practice theories, and most product teams think they do indeed know their customers.

“了解你的客户”——或者其他类似的说法——是许多产品实践理论的核心内容，而且大多数产品团队都认为他们确实了解客户。

In a recent study, over 50% of product teams believed they had a shared understanding of customer needs. However, 69% of them also said that the products and features they released were not consistently well received by customers.

在最近的一项研究中，超过50%的产品团队认为他们对客户需求有共同的理解。然而，69%的公司也表示，他们发布的产品和功能并没有得到客户的一致好评。

This may have to do with the fact that less than half of product teams actually engage with their customers.

这可能与不到一半的产品团队真正与客户接触有关。

Engaging with customers directly, continuously and meaningfully is still the best way to gain a shared understanding of their needs and is essential to being truly product-led.

直接、持续和有意义地与客户接触仍然是获得对他们需求的共同理解的最佳方式，也是真正以产品为主导的必要条件。

But how do we do this?

但是我们要怎么做呢？

The three best ways are:

三个最好的方法是：

• Directly – Actually talk to them! Using product analytics, A/B & multivariate testing and other indirect, quantitative measures is important but not a substitute for actually talking to them. The old adage that numbers can tell you ‘what’ but not ‘why’ only scratches the surface of this – the colour and empathy you get from 5 minutes with an actual customer can never be expressed in numbers.

•直接——与他们交谈！使用产品分析，A/B和多元测试以及其他间接的定量方法很重要，但不能代替与他们进行实际交谈。“数字能告诉你‘是什么’，但不能告诉你‘为什么’”这句古老的格言只触及了表面——你与一个真正的客户相处5分钟所获得的色彩和同理心永远无法用数字来表达。

• Continuously – Make talking to customers a habit, and part of your weekly process. This ensures you are walking the talk and truly understanding the needs of customers. It also means you aren’t only talking to one or two customers, but many, to not skew research to the ‘best’ or ‘loudest’ customers.

•持续——使与客户交谈成为一种习惯，并成为你每周工作的一部分。这可以确保你言行一致，真正了解客户的需求。这也意味着你不仅要与一两个客户交谈，而是要与许多客户交谈，以避免将研究偏向于“最好的”或“声音最大的”客户。

• Meaningfully – being considerate of how you engage customers, and being planned and structured is essential to getting meaningful insight from customer research. Unstructured research is good, but a few minutes of effort to put together a research objective and a few questions will make it even more meaningful. Better yet consider an evergreen research plan that harnesses interactions all team members have with customers to gain meaningful insights for all.

•有意义——考虑到如何吸引客户，计划和组织是从客户研究中获得有意义的见解的关键。非结构化的研究是好的，但是花几分钟的时间把一个研究目标和几个问题放在一起会让它更有意义。更好的做法是考虑一个常青树的研究计划，利用所有团队成员与客户的互动来获得对所有人都有意义的见解。

Product-Led Is About Commercial Acumen

产品导向是关于商业敏锐度

If ‘know your customer’ is a core tenant of product practice, ‘know your commercial models’ is the poorer sibling sitting in the corner.

如果说“了解你的客户”是产品实践的核心要素，那么“了解你的商业模式”则是坐在角落里的可怜的兄弟姐妹。

It’s no good to generate customer insight without being able to translate that into a commercial model which the organization can then benefit from.

如果不能将客户洞察转化为企业可以从中受益的商业模式，那么产生客户洞察是没有好处的。

Unfortunately in many organizations the commercial potential of a product-led approach is never leveraged or harnessed. This may be as simple as a lack of a baseline understanding across the organization of the numbers that drive it (costs and benefits). It may be a lack of process for making commercial decisions using robust frameworks and commercial value models. Or it may be a fundamental lack of trust in product to make sound commercial decisions.

不幸的是，在许多组织中，产品导向方法的商业潜力从未得到充分利用或利用。这可能很简单，因为整个组织对驱动它的数字（成本和收益）缺乏基本的理解。它可能是缺乏使用健壮的框架和商业价值模型做出商业决策的过程。也可能是对产品根本缺乏信任，无法做出合理的商业决策。

In a recent study by the Association of Product Professionals which interviewed over 50 non-product (CEO, CTO, VP, GM, EGM, COO) and product leaders, they found that senior executives “doubt the commercial skills of product managers [and therefore], define the scope and solution before handing over”.

在产品专业人士协会（Association of Product Professionals）最近的一项研究中，他们采访了50多位非产品（CEO、CTO、VP、GM、EGM、COO）和产品领导者，发现高管们“怀疑产品经理的商业技能（因此），在移交之前定义范围和解决方案”。

Product-led organisations place an emphasis on all areas of the organisation, including product, being bi-lingual – speaking the language of customer value and organisational value.

以产品为导向的组织强调组织的所有领域，包括产品，是双语的-说客户价值和组织价值的语言。

They balance their assessment of investment opportunities on two fronts:

他们从两个方面平衡对投资机会的评估：

• Market Assessment – Focusing on who the target market is in detail and what compelling and painful problem we will solve for them.

•市场评估——专注于目标市场的细节，以及我们将为他们解决的引人注目和痛苦的问题。

• Commercial Assessment – Focusing on the value model for achieving organisational benefits, how we will achieve value for the organisation, how much value will be achieved (revenue & cost) as well as the business risks involved in securing those benefits.

•商业评估——关注实现组织利益的价值模型，我们将如何为组织实现价值，将实现多少价值（收入和成本）以及确保这些利益所涉及的商业风险。

Finally, product-led organisations gain alignment across the organisation more easily to sound opportunities (and see-through vainglorious ones) as they are all speaking the same two languages in balance.

最后，以产品为导向的组织更容易在整个组织中获得一致性，从而更容易听到机会（以及看透自负的机会），因为他们都在平衡地说着同样的两种语言。