12,000 words丨Perhaps the most practical operation upgrade guide on the entire network

As an operator, with the promotion of different levels, the corresponding requirements and abilities are also different. Knowing the corresponding stage abilities in advance can provide a stronger guarantee for our promotion. This article makes a detailed analysis from each operation level, hoping to give you some help.

Overview of the growth path of operations

In a large Internet company, it takes about 10 years to go from a newbie in operations to a senior expert in the operations field, if you are fast.

Of course, if the company is a startup, it will take less time to obtain this title, but the capabilities of each position may vary greatly.

The core logic of this difference is that large companies have very clear operational competency models for each job level, and salaries are linked accordingly. However, non-large companies often do not have very complete operational job level planning, so there is no corresponding competency model and salary matching.

To make it easier for everyone to understand, this article directly quotes Alibaba's operational job level division to explain the corresponding growth years, required capability model and salary range for each job level.

1. P4: Operations Specialist
2. P5: Advanced Operations
3. P6: Senior Operations
4. P7: Operations Expert
5. P8+: Senior operations expert and above

Looking at the development of each job level vertically, P6, P7 and P8 are all relatively important watersheds.

P4~P5 No matter from which dimension, they are relatively basic execution positions in the field of operations. They solve point-like problems. For example: funnel optimization of a certain link, customer acquisition of a certain channel, content supply coverage in a certain field, or basic execution of a certain type of activity. The difference between P5 and P4 is that P5 has higher execution ability and begins to try to draw inferences from one example.

If we define P4 as "basic executor".

P5 can be called a "deep executor", or in colloquial terms, a "veteran".

If we use points, lines, surfaces, and bodies to describe the work focused on by operations at different levels, P4 and P5 are both on the "points", but P5 is a larger and darker point.

Why are P6, P7, and P8 considered important watersheds?

1. P6 needs to start to partially detach from the specific execution, and be able to self-drive planning projects in a certain operational direction and get results.
2. P7 needs to have a deep understanding of a certain operational field, and at the same time needs to be able to lead the team to achieve results and inspire multiple horizontal teams to devote their energy and cooperate to achieve business goals.
3. P8 needs to break through the boss's thinking and be able to plan the development of its own business operations from a business strategy perspective. This often requires us to be able to grasp the changing trends of the external environment, capture industry opportunities, and bring about transformative breakthroughs in the business.

Our requirements for each position are different, but they are basically inseparable from two dimensions of ability: one is professional ability, and the other is general ability.

The improvement of professional ability enables us to have operational knowledge, experience, accumulation and thinking, which helps us to respond, plan and make decisions quickly when we encounter operational problems. Depending on the operation position, the professional ability that needs to be mastered in the early stage of the career is slightly different. However, the higher we go, the more complex business problems we face, and we need to be able to be a generalist in operations.

The improvement of general capabilities enables us to handle any operation project with ease and avoid being overwhelmed. This is the basic skill of operation practitioners. Data analysis ability, project management ability, team management ability, product thinking, etc. all belong to the category of general capabilities.

Let’s analyze each operational level in detail.

1. P4: Operations Specialist

To explain the overall ability of P4 in one sentence, that is, under the condition of clear goals, they can complete the fixed tasks under the current position under certain guidance. As newcomers to operations, P4 students begin to enter the world of operations, are curious about everything, and gradually develop an interest in a certain field of operations and gain a certain understanding of operations.

In terms of professional ability:

Able to understand daily operational knowledge, including but not limited to understanding the relevant operational knowledge and underlying logic in a certain operational module, and be familiar with daily work processes. Able to achieve 80 points of project execution under the guidance of the supervisor.

In terms of general abilities:

• Data analysis: Have basic data processing capabilities and the ability to identify operational indicators.
• Project Management: Be able to understand the upstream and downstream teams in daily work connection, and be able to work closely with upstream and downstream partners under the leadership of the supervisor.
• Management ability: Just be able to manage yourself well. A real man should not cry easily.
• Product thinking: Be able to have a basic understanding of the work mechanism of product managers and be familiar with the product logic of their own operating modules.

The P4 stage generally involves working for 0 to 1 year, with a monthly salary range of less than 12K and an annual salary range of around 100,000.

2. P5: Advanced Operations

To explain the overall capability of P5 in one sentence, it is the ability to execute operational tasks without compromise, and to continuously think, draw inferences from one instance, and accumulate experience during the execution process.

After being reprimanded by their boss, the P5 students learned from their mistakes and became very dedicated to their projects. They studied hard and began to have 100% execution capabilities for some medium-sized projects. They also gradually developed the ability to think independently.

In terms of professional ability:

Proficient in the operational knowledge of a certain operational field, able to skillfully apply the knowledge in that operational field and draw inferences about other situations, gradually break away from the guidance of supervisors, and be able to achieve 100 points in the execution of small and medium-sized projects.

In terms of general abilities:

• Data analysis: You can understand the relationship between data and operations, and begin to break down the goals given by your superiors and apply them to your own work.
• Project Management: Master relatively basic horizontal management capabilities and be able to independently promote upstream and downstream project collaboration and cooperation.
• Management ability: Able to accumulate project execution experience, form SOP, and guide interns to complete basic daily work.
• Product thinking: Have empathy for users and be able to understand their basic attributes and profiles. From an operational perspective, be able to understand the basic capabilities of product development to meet your own operational needs.

The P5 stage generally lasts 1 to 3 years, with a monthly salary range of 12K to 20K, and an annual salary range of around 180,000 to 280,000.

3. P6: Senior Operations

To explain P6's overall capabilities in one sentence, it can be combined with its own operational direction, independently break down the tasks and goals of a certain operational module, and independently think and complete projects.

P6 students are showing off their ambitions. They can gradually reveal their ideas within the overall operation framework, turn them into their own projects, and get better results.

In terms of professional ability:

The ability to master and accumulate operational knowledge in a certain operational field, to have a unique understanding of the operational field, and to accumulate one's own thoughts. The ability to independently handle relatively complex operational problems and achieve better results.

In terms of general abilities:

• Data analysis: fully capable of breaking down and implementing project goals, with comprehensive understanding of indicators and data insights.
• Project Management: Have strong horizontal management capabilities, be able to promote and inspire precise coordination among project teams, ensure timely delivery of projects, and ensure optimization of project operation strategies.
• Management ability: Begin to have a preliminary awareness of team management and be able to lead an independent operations team.
• Product thinking: From the user perspective, you can empathize with users and understand the core pain points of users in the process of using the product. From the operation perspective, you can understand the basic capabilities of product development and consciously improve operational efficiency through product mechanisms and means.

The P6 stage generally lasts 3 to 5 years, with a monthly salary range of 20K to 30K, and an annual salary range of around 300,000 to 450,000.

4. P7: Operations Expert

To explain the overall capabilities of P7 in one sentence, it means that they can deeply understand the operating principles of a certain operation direction, and can skillfully apply them to their own work, and can inspire multiple teams to cooperate to achieve project goals. Give full play to personal influence at the company level.

Students in P7 can let go completely. They already have a strong ability to deconstruct the industry. Based on the characteristics of the industry and their own operational knowledge reserves, they can plan certain areas and lead the team/or cross-departmental project team to achieve results.

In terms of professional ability:

Be familiar with the operational knowledge of multiple operational modules, and specialize in the operational knowledge of a certain field, capture industry dynamics in a friendly match, and be able to form your own operational methodology. Begin to be responsible for the core goals of the department, introduce talents according to the needs of the team, build a complete operation team, and achieve the core goals of the department by leading the team and collaborating with multiple department teams.

In terms of general abilities:

• Data Analysis: Ability to adjust team and business focus based on data changes. Ability to skillfully quantify operational efficiency and target tracking through one or more sets of indicators.
• Project Management: Ability to utilize win-win thinking, actively promote external cooperation, complete own project goals, and promote the achievement of other team goals.
• Management ability: You can manage the boss's expectations well. You can also use multiple management tools to enhance team cohesion and build a serious and lively working environment.
• Product thinking: From the user's perspective, you can empathize with the user and understand the core pain points of the user in the process of using the product. From the operational perspective, you can understand the basic capabilities of product development and consciously improve operational efficiency through product mechanisms and means. At the same time, you can deeply understand the relationship between users and products, and begin to consciously leverage some product functions to create "profitable" value for users.

The P7 stage is generally 5 to 8 years after graduation. The monthly cash salary ranges from 30K to 45K. At the same time, most companies will issue options or stocks to P7 students. The annual salary package ranges from 500,000 to 1.2 million.

5. P8+: Senior Operations Expert and above

To explain P8's overall capabilities in one sentence, it means having a deep understanding of the operational principles in a field and being familiar with the operational capabilities in multiple operational directions. He can fully control project work in multiple operational directions, lead multiple operational teams to achieve operational results, and begin to have a certain influence in the industry.

P8 students can combine the company's development direction, identify department goals, carry out operational project planning, and build a complete operational team to ensure project execution. By constantly observing industry and operational trends, capturing industry opportunities, they are responsible for the overall operational goals of the company/business unit.

In terms of professional ability:

Have a thorough understanding of the knowledge of multiple operational segments and be able to capture their development dynamics. Have a broad vision, not limited to the knowledge of operational knowledge, and have a horizontal understanding of product, data, technology, finance and other related knowledge, leading multiple operational directions and gaining insight into industry development trends.

In terms of general abilities:

• Data analysis: Ability to identify business opportunities brought by industry data, integrate and explore industry and own business data, and seek business breakthroughs.
• Project Management: Ability to drive multiple teams to conduct large-scale and complex project management, ability to manage project progress across departments, ability to efficiently handle risks in key links, ability to efficiently resolve key issues, and ability to make efficient decisions on project plans.
• Management ability: Good at multi-level management and grasping the overall direction of the department. Begin to emerge in the management team and gain reliable external evaluation.
• Product-oriented thinking: Able to deeply understand the business model of the business, good at mobilizing company resources to create unique user value. Long-termism, have their own independent judgment of user value, and be able to promote the long-term improvement of user value against all odds.

The P8 stage generally involves working for more than 8 years. The monthly salary in cash ranges from 45K to 60K, and the rest is mostly made up of options or stocks. The annual salary package ranges from 1.5 million to 2 million.

1. From intern to P4

Let’s first talk about the core requirements of large companies for operations specialists (P4).

To sum up, there are two points: one is that you need to have sufficient execution ability, and the other is that you need to be smart enough.

Many students asked, then academic qualifications, majors, and communication skills are not important?

unimportant.

Think about the prerequisite of "big company". To be selected by big companies and enter the candidate stage, these abilities have long become basic conditions. They are not the core factors for interviewers to decide whether to choose you.

Why is it “strong execution” and “smart enough”?

Because "strong execution" means that you are hardworking and passionate about operations. The higher the level of operations, the more important the previous experience in the project. The so-called "10,000-hour rule" is still valid in operations. "Smart enough" means that you will reflect and summarize. Operations are not a static job. There are thousands of ways to solve problems, most of which do not have SOPs. It requires you to have logical reasoning and find better ways to solve problems. What a disaster it is for an operator who only uses other people's operational experience without thinking about whether his own product is suitable.

After understanding the core requirements of large companies for P4, what should you do as an intern who wants to work as an operator in a large company?

1. Clear planning

First of all, I hope you can understand what the Internet industry is and confirm which industry you want to work in. From the perspective of Internet industry classification, tools, social networking, content, and transactions (e-commerce/services) have different characteristics. You can learn about the development history and progress of different industries from various information sources. I recommend the Internet Development Report of CNNIC. I will not list other information sources. I believe everyone should have this search.

Secondly, it is recommended that you systematically read books related to basic operations, understand the nature of operations, understand the classification of operations, and determine whether you like and which type of operations position you prefer.

Recommended books:

• Qu Hui: Silicon Valley Growth Hacker Practical Notes
• Li Shaojia: Evolutionary Operations
• Huang Youcan: The Light of Operation
• Zhang Liang: Operations from Scratch
• Han Xu: Super Operations

I believe that after you have browsed the relevant information, you will have a relatively full understanding of different industries and different positions in the Internet operation, so let’s start.

2. Gain experience

How important is it to have one or two operational internship experiences?

It’s so important that I don’t care about your academic qualifications.

I believe that most students are faced with "being selected" at this stage. So before joining a large company, you can consider a small company that "gives you the opportunity to improve yourself". You can strive to complete at least 1-2 complete projects during each internship. You can check whether you can effectively learn in the project during the internship by following the following questions:

• Clarify the background of the project: What is the background of this project? Why are we doing this project? How does this project contribute to the overall goals of our department?
• Clearly define quantifiable goals: What is the goal of this project? How does it quantify the value of our project? Why set such a goal?
• Clarify your own role: How is the overall project broken down? What is my main work in it? Are there clear quantitative goals for these works to measure my output?

If you can understand every detail of the project during your internship (of course, you may not be able to do it completely, but please try your best), you will be able to be more targeted in the interview.

Since we have said that big companies need young people who are "strong in execution" and "smart enough", how do we do it?

• You need to know as much information about the project as possible. Although some content is not related to your job requirements, understanding more than 80% of the information about the project is the first thing you must do.
• When executing, please think about whether what you are doing now is related to the originally set goals; if it is related, please think about whether there is a better way to complete the current task during the execution process. After completing the current task, you can ask your leader to verify the feasibility of the plan you gave and confirm that your thinking is meticulous and effective.
• Use 80% to 120% of your time to complete the tasks assigned by your leader, and use 20% of your time to discuss the problems you encounter with him. You need to make full use of your leader and colleagues, and ask them for advice on your professional content and career development. They are the most effective and cost-effective way to improve your cognition. Don't be shy, no one can be responsible for your ability improvement, only you can.
• It is best to find two people in the workplace, one is the person who expects short-term alignment capabilities, and the other is the person who expects long-term alignment capabilities. Observe how they deal with problems encountered in actual work, try to put yourself in their environment, and think about how you should solve the problems. Lead yourself to align with their strengths, which can quickly improve your abilities.
• Take in more knowledge systematically, but try to take in knowledge that is relevant to your current confusion, and then use it in practice to turn it into your own ability. Make reading and thinking a habit, believe me, you will benefit greatly from it.

The above is about the operational upgrade from intern to P4. I hope it can inspire you.

2. From P4 to P5

1. How to define operational P5?

What are our evaluation criteria for P5?

If we define P4 as "basic executor".

P5 can be called a "deep executor", or in colloquial terms, a "veteran".

If we use points, lines, surfaces, and bodies to describe the work focused on by operations at different levels, P4 and P5 are both on the "points", but P5 is a larger and darker point.

The specific standards are:

① Completely executed multiple projects (usually no less than 3)

②In-depth promotion and reflection on each project:

• Able to understand the core goals of each project and clearly understand the relationship between the project in hand and the team's overall goals
• Ability to logically break down the target
• Able to match the disassembled sub-targets to one's own work
• Be able to correctly deal with problems in execution and learn from them to improve

I assume that your team leader has arranged your work reasonably and provided adequate guidance. Generally speaking, when P4 students are promoted to P5, they will still frequently encounter the following problems:

• I won't break down my own goals, I will just do things according to my boss's arrangements.
• They don’t know how to measure their work results and have only a vague understanding of the results they can achieve.

Let’s look at these two issues separately.

2. How to do target decomposition?

Generally speaking, the goals your boss gives you are strongly related to your project.

Why is goal breakdown important?

Because often a goal cannot be directly intervened by our operational actions. It cannot be directly affected by our operational actions, and the differences in our operational actions cannot be directly reflected through data changes.

Target decomposition is a basic operational skill.

Through specific logic, we break down the goals into indicators that can be directly intervened in our daily operational actions. This is the essence of goal decomposition.

When talking about the basic principles of goal decomposition, we have to mention the MECE principle.

MECE stands for Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive, which means "mutually independent and completely exhaustive" in Chinese. It means that for a major issue, it can be classified without overlap or omission, and it can effectively grasp the core of the problem and solve the problem.

This principle completely matches the target decomposition logic.

Generally speaking, target disassembly has the following two characteristics:

1. The splitting logic is diverse, and it can be done horizontally or vertically.
2. The splitting logic is not an independent math problem and cannot be split apart from the actual operational actions.

How to understand the diversity of splitting logic?

For example.

Assume that you are an e-commerce operation team, and the goal of the entire team is GMV. Your amiable old leader has already broken down GMV into the following:

GMV = traffic × conversion rate × average order value

The arrangement given to you is to improve the overall "conversion rate" goal.

So how do we break down the “conversion rate”?

Direct answer:

Horizontal disassembly:

• User dimensions: new and old customers, user groups (students/non-students, etc.), user attributes (gender, age, region, etc.)
• Supply dimensions: product categories, product regions, and quadrant classifications

Vertical disassembly:

Funnel level: Home page visit-channel visit, channel visit-product details visit, product visit-submit order, submit order-complete payment, complete payment-complete fulfillment

At this point, you who have gone through nine years of compulsory education should have suddenly realized:

Decomposing formula 1:

Conversion rate = new customer ratio × new customer conversion rate + old customer ratio × old customer conversion rate

Decomposing formula 2:

Conversion rate = Category A product traffic share × Category A product conversion rate + Category B product traffic share × Category B product conversion rate + ...

Decomposing formula 3:

Conversion rate = homepage-channel conversion rate × channel-product details conversion rate × product details-submit order conversion rate × submit order-complete order conversion rate × complete order-fulfillment conversion rate

After you have operated like a tiger, you will find that:

• The proportion of new users is so high, but the conversion rate of new users is too poor. I can optimize it by giving targeted subsidies to new users.
• The traffic of Category A products is very high, and the conversion rate still has a lot of room for improvement. I can optimize it by optimizing the quality of product supply.
• Product Details - The conversion rate of order submission is too low. I can optimize it by optimizing the product details page and event subsidies.

Congratulations, at this point, you have completely learned to break down the indicators into your own operational actions.

3. How to quantify the results?

Operations is a highly result-oriented job.

As an operator, you must learn to present your work results to your boss objectively and accurately.

I understand that students who are unable to measure their work results have two main problems:

1. I don’t know for what purpose this operation is being carried out.
2. I don’t know how to express the results of my operational actions. How can I solve these two problems?

Break it apart and look.

3.1 How to identify the purpose of operation?

All our operational actions must be based on a certain purpose. So "quantifying operational actions" logically means how to set a goal after having a purpose.

There are two common purposes of operations: one is called "scale" and the other is called "efficiency".

• Scale: user scale, revenue scale, supply scale, etc.
• Efficiency: customer acquisition efficiency, conversion efficiency, retention efficiency, etc.

In the first section, "What is Operations?", I mentioned that from the company's perspective, the goals of operations are:

Total user value = user scale × single user value

In this formula:

• The total user value represents the scale of revenue or profit.
• The user scale is as the name suggests.
• Single user value represents operational efficiency.

The overall situation will not deviate from the scope of "scale" and "efficiency".

To put it simply.

The formula I mentioned above:

GMV = traffic × conversion rate × average order value

In this formula:

• GMV represents the company's turnover.
• Traffic represents the user scale.
• The conversion rate represents the conversion efficiency.
• The average order value represents the company's operating efficiency.

The overall concept will not deviate from the scope of "scale" and "efficiency".

Therefore, the purpose of our operational actions can be carried out based on the two perspectives of "scale" and "efficiency", and then corresponded to quantitative goals.

Clarify your purpose first.

Reconfirm the target.

Keep thinking, iterating, and verifying. Habits will form naturally.

3.2 How to measure your work results?

Do you understand OKR?

If we break down OKR, one is Objectives and the other is Key Results.

I will not elaborate on the definition and usage of OKR here, there is a lot of information on the market to learn from.

What we need to learn is the expression logic of OKR: first qualitatively describe the changes brought about by our work, and then quantitatively explain which data have specific changes in this work.

Let me give you a simple example.

If you have paid attention to the Government Work Report released by the country in March 2023, you will have a deeper understanding.

An excerpt:

The economy maintained recovery and development. The GDP reached 114 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.1%. The national fiscal revenue exceeded 20 trillion yuan, an increase of 10.7%. 12.69 million new jobs were created in urban areas, and the average urban survey unemployment rate was 5.1%. The consumer price index rose by 0.9%. The balance of international payments was basically balanced.

The qualitative statement is: the economy maintains recovery and development.

The quantitative explanation is:

• The gross domestic product reached 114 trillion yuan, an increase of 8.1%.
• National fiscal revenue exceeded 20 trillion yuan, an increase of 10.7%.
• 12.69 million new jobs were created in urban areas, and the average urban surveyed unemployment rate was 5.1%.
• Consumer prices rose 0.9%.
• The balance of payments is basically balanced.

All quantitative explanations are to support the qualitative result that "the economy maintains recovery and development."

Without this qualitative result, the overall data presentation would make people feel that they can't grasp the key points.

Therefore, everyone can learn how to interpret their work results from the perspective of OKR.

4. Conclusion

The above is the definition of Operations P5 by major companies, as well as common issues that arise when Operations P4 is promoted.

Generally speaking, if the speed is fast, the operation can be promoted from P4 to P5 within one year.

The 10,000-hour rule also applies to operations jobs.

Adhere to in-depth thinking, execution, and review.

The meaning emerges naturally.

3. From P5 to P6

What is the core difference between P6 and P5?

As mentioned above, P6 is an important milestone in operations. P6 begins to partially detach from specific execution and be able to self-drive project planning in a certain operational direction and obtain results.

Therefore, the biggest difference between P6 and P5 is that it requires relatively complete project planning capabilities.

This is also the biggest problem for many P5 students when they are promoted. We will find that many P5 students, when presenting promotion content, focus more on solving specific tasks and specific problems assigned by the boss, but do not mention operational project planning at all, which ultimately leads to failure of promotion.

So how do you plan an operations project?

In his book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, strategy guru Richard Rumelt proposed three core elements that a good strategy must have, namely:

1. A diagnosis: Define or explain the nature of the challenge, simplify the situation, and identify the key issues.
2. A guiding policy: A guide for addressing a challenge and selecting an overall solution.
3. Coherent actions: Design steps to implement guidelines so that each step is linked and coordinated with the others.

Therefore, the essence of operations project planning is to find the essential problems that the operations team needs to solve, design a feasible solution based on the problems and internal and external conditions, break down the project into a sustainable and executable project rhythm, and promote the project online and iterate to obtain good project results.

For example.

1. Find the essence of the problem

Li Si is a classmate of the user growth team of a food delivery APP platform. He has a job level of P5 and is currently responsible for the scale of new paying users in the MGM (Member Get Member) channel. After taking over the MGM project for a while, Li Si found that the first-order conversion rate efficiency of new users brought by the event initiators after visiting the APP had obvious problems, at only 10%, which was very different from the 30% visit-transaction conversion rate of the general market.

Li Si tried to reach out to users by targeting some of the new users brought by MGM, and conducted a simple AB test by reminding them through a pop-up window on the APP homepage that their coupons were about to expire.

Experiment name: MGM first-order user transaction efficiency improvement experiment

Core assumption: Currently, the first-order conversion rate of new users brought by MGM is low. Guiding and prompting users through pop-up windows on the homepage can increase the first-order conversion rate of new users.

Hypothesis established: If the first-order conversion rate of the experimental group is significantly improved, the hypothesis is established.

Experimental content: Users are randomly divided into 5:5 groups.

Experimental group: Reach users through pop-up prompts;

Control group: no intervention for users.

After testing for a period of time, it was found that the first-order conversion rate of new MGM users in the experimental group increased by 50% compared with the control group, indicating that the experimental hypothesis was completely established. He first used the experimental data to convince the product manager to promote the optimization of the overall link of the MGM project. At the same time, based on the departmental goals (average daily transaction volume of the APP) that his boss usually emphasized to the team, he thought that it might not only be the first-order conversion rate of the MGM channel that was poor. After pushing the data analysis team to provide data, it was found that the overall first-order conversion rate of the APP was in a relatively low state. Li Si calculated through existing data that if the existing overall first-order conversion rate is increased by more than 50%, the average daily new payment user scale of the APP will also increase by more than 50%, completely exceeding the average daily new user level of the MGM project he is currently responsible for.

Li Si thought this was a good opportunity.

Once we reach a level close to P6, we can no longer just focus on achieving the goals of the tasks assigned to us. We must try to elevate ourselves to the perspective of our boss to have a comprehensive view of the overall situation. Based on our own front-line experience, we must find better opportunities for our boss to complete department goals, try to verify it, and obtain data and logical support for project planning.

Don't always fall into the trap of cultivating your own little piece of land.

Try to break through your own boundaries. In addition to working hard in the fields, you should also look up at the sky.

The rule for advancement in the workplace is always to continually exceed your boss' expectations.

2. Design a solution

After Li Si obtained the experimental data on the first-order conversion rate and the data provided by data analysis, he began to design a plan.

Project name: APP first order conversion rate improvement project

Project Background:

During the process of optimizing the conversion of the MGM project funnel links, we found that the first-order conversion rate for users who came to the APP through MGM was only 10%.

During this period, we conducted a guided experiment, that is, when users visit the APP, we remind users of the APP's new user discounts through a certain method (pop-up window), which can increase the first-order conversion rate by 50%. (Presenting the experimental data table)

We communicated with the data analysis team and explored the first-order conversion rate of all channels, and found that the overall first-order conversion rate was only x. The data is shown below. (Presenting the exploration data table)

After internally exploring this phenomenon, we completed a competitive product analysis. The competitive product's strategy for guiding new APP users is as follows. (Presenting the results of the competitive product analysis)

Therefore, we believe that guiding and intervening in new APP users can help improve the first-order conversion rate of new users.

Project goal: After the program is launched, it is expected to increase the first-order conversion rate of new users from x to y, and eventually increase the number of new payment users to n, accounting for m% of the overall new payment user target. The calculation logic is: (Presentation of the calculation logic)

Project plan: According to the MVP project promotion principle, it is recommended to launch the strategy first and then gradually optimize it.

We believe that the first-order conversion project for new users can be divided into three stages:

Initial stage: Focus on improving results, launch a unified strategy first, one size fits all, and give new users from all channels a guide conversion strategy that they agree on. (Present the specific content of the initial strategy, including the core content such as the acceptance style demo, user rights, and guide copywriting)

Medium term: focus on channel acceptance, and set different conversion acceptance strategies for different channels based on channel priority.

Later stage: Focus on capability reuse. After verifying that new user onboarding is feasible, try to guide retention and conversion of lost and recalled users.

What are the elements of a good solution?

Have a clear project background.

We need to clearly communicate our understanding of the current status of this project (including but not limited to macro trends, policies, internal status, data, competitive solutions, data, etc.), as well as our underlying thinking logic for this project.

Have clear project goals.

We need to clearly state our expectations for the project, and clearly state the goals, costs, and ROI of our project. It is worth mentioning that when reporting project plans internally, you must be aware of your core reporting party, who will decide whether the project can be successfully launched, and you should highlight the core concerns of this person in the plan. For example, the boss’ core concern is how much incremental scale the project can bring to the overall market goal, how much budget is needed, and how the input-output is, so these contents need to be presented in the core.

Have a detailed project strategy.

We must not think of a project as a phased matter. We must understand that the more complex the project, the more we need to grasp the rhythm. If we clearly plan the final state of the project from the beginning, it is good, but it is not necessary, because we cannot push a huge number of logical products online at the same time. This is not the way of doing things advocated by the Internet industry. We can split the project into rhythms. It is enough to plan the first phase of things clearly. Many projects are gradually clarified. If there are some major changes in the middle, it is a waste of energy to plan the details of the later projects before the project starts.

3. Coordinated action

After designing the project plan, Li Si needs to further improve its implementation process.

Resources required for the project : Human resources: operations/design/product/R&D, etc. List of project members Marketing investment: total marketing budget and detailed financial data such as cost per user by time period Other investments: marketing resource positions, project incentives, etc.

Project risks and solutions :

Project risks: Expose project risks in advance based on the actual situation of the project.

Response plan: Response plan when project risks arise, manage the boss's expectations, and if risks arise, it may be necessary to coordinate additional resource inputs.

Project execution timeline :

Set a project execution schedule based on project milestones.

example:

• Complete the operation plan. Person in charge: XX; Completion time: XX.
• Complete product PRD. Person in charge: XX; Completion time: XX.
• Complete the UI draft. Person in charge: XX; Completion time: XX.
• The first phase of R&D was completed and launched. Person in charge: XX; Completion time: XX.
• Completed the review of Phase I and synchronized the Phase II plan. Person in charge: XX; Completion time: XX.

Project collaboration mechanism : including but not limited to: periodic meeting mechanism, project risk increase decision-making mechanism, project timetable progress management, project document collaboration, etc.

Any project, if it does not have a sound project execution mechanism, will lead to the risk of deviation in the final implementation effect of the project, causing the project to fall into an irreversible abyss.

I will not go into the details of the implementation, as I believe that students who have reached the P5 level already have a good foundation.

We will explain this in more detail in the following chapter on project management capabilities.

4. From P6 to P7

In a large Internet company, P7 is already a core front-line backbone. Some P7s have begun to lead teams and are responsible for departmental indicators.

What is the core difference between P7 and P6?

1. The ability to build an "operation system".

This sentence sounds like Internet jargon, but it seems that there is no more precise word to describe it within our language system.

What is an operation system? Solving an abstract but extremely complex operation problem through a series of methods and means is called an operation system.

For example.

The boss talked to Li Si, who had just been promoted to P7, and said, "From now on, you will be responsible for increasing the user scale of our APP."

Li Si said, OK.

Li Si returned to his workstation and began to think about it.

For our APP, how do we quantify the output of our new user acquisition work? Li Si wrote a few words in the document: How to quantify the user scale of the APP? For food delivery APP, APP DAU can be used to quantify, and the average daily transaction users of the APP can be used as an auxiliary reference indicator.

How to disassemble it?

Li Si continued:

APP DAU=MAU✖️Average monthly visit days/30=（MAU of new users + MAU of new users retained last month + MAU of old users retained last month）✖️Average monthly visit days/30=（MAU of new users + MAU of new users last month✖️Retention rate of new users in the next month + MAU of old users last month✖️Retention rate of old users in the next month）✖️Average monthly visit days/30

According to the current status of our APP, the only indicators that can be intervened are new user MAU, new user retention in the next month and old user retention in the next month.

The corresponding project layout is:

• New user MAU: Channel 1, Channel 2, Channel 3...
• Retention of new and old users in the next month: Project 1, Project 2, Project 3…

We then build teams based on the actual situation of the team, serving various new and retained projects respectively, and breaking down the projects into team members. At this time, P7 students need to do more important things such as core project promotion, key project decision-making, team building and capacity stimulation. P6 students may only be responsible for one or more projects under this framework to help the team achieve its goals.

P6 solves line problems, while P7 solves more surface problems.

2. Management capabilities of the operations team

When we manage a team, what are we essentially doing? We are working on the team's capabilities.

Team capacity = human flow × human capacity × organizational efficiency

Movement of people:

• Recruitment: Introduce suitable people, find people who match the temperament of your team, have strong abilities, and can bring positive changes to the team. According to the actual situation of the business and the team, pay attention to the number of people at each level.
• Elimination: Eliminate people with low ability and poor willingness. We found that the biggest problem with junior managers is that they don’t want to be the “bad” person in the workplace. They can’t cut the Gordian knot with team members with low ability and poor willingness. In fact, this is a huge consumption of team capabilities.
• Adjustment: Put people in the right positions. We should fully respect the wishes of team members and let them do what they are willing to invest in and what they can do well; some team members may not be doing well in a position, but in fact it may be a problem of their positioning. We should understand their personality, their interests and their willingness, determine the position that suits them, and put them in the right position.

Human Capabilities:

• Learning: Through standardized and regular training, team members can learn company knowledge and general operational knowledge, so that they can have a deeper understanding of the overall environment. Through irregular one-on-one communication, understand the confusion of team members in work or career development, and regularly do a good job of solving confusion. Guide team members to develop the habit of reading, so that they can subconsciously get some inspiration that is beneficial to their work from books, and share them in the team to promote everyone's common progress.
• Thinking: Through constant project review, let team members develop the habit of thinking diligently. You can also advocate writing and expression in the team. We absorb what we have learned and thought and then output it. Observing the results of our thinking from a three-party perspective will be a good way to force ourselves to think.
• Exercise: Put team members into projects more often to exercise themselves, whether it is training or reading. Only by focusing on the projects in the end can team members further understand whether the knowledge they have learned is effective.

Organizational efficiency:

• Atmosphere: We must build a friendly, mutually trustworthy and hopeful team atmosphere. Don’t do too much high-pressure management, nor just upward management. A good team atmosphere is the cornerstone of a good team.
• Cognition: We must regularly establish consensus with our team classmates, clarify the team's goals, mission and values. The essence of building team consensus is to enable our team classmates to make efficient decisions when facing problems, and use consensus to decide the corresponding solutions for various problems in the project.
• Action: Through high-standard processes, the team students can keep pace with the project execution. If a team cannot standardize the project management process and operation experimental process, everyone's consensus will no longer exist. Through standard processes, the team students can maintain higher efficiency in internal and external cooperation.

If you understand the nature of team management, you will not lose your goals in team management.

Author: Biluo, WeChat public account: Operational Meditations