I found the following sentence in the book of Ben Horowitz, who has provided advice to fast-growing entrepreneurs such as Facebook and Airbnb in Silicon Valley.
A good product manager keeps the team focused on sales and customers. Bad product managers focus their teams on the number of features their competitors develop.
A good product manager defines a good product as one they can achieve with great effort. A lousy product manager either defines a good product as something that can't be done or lets engineering build what they want to build (that is, solve the most significant problems). From "HARD THINGS How do you face challenges and difficulties with no answers" (Ben Horowitz, Umihiko Namerikawa, Nobuo Takahashi, Takao Ozawa (preface))
"In order to make the product we are developing a hit, we can win if we add more functions than our rival products!"
"I came up with a good idea. With this, I can beat anyone. No one can solve such a difficult technology. I will solve it no matter what. That's why I paid you a high salary."
If I had to work under such a leader, I could only say I would be unhappy.
My boss says I can't choose, but if possible, I'd like to be able to choose from here.
Suppose a product leader is planning a product with confidence that "This will sell!"
What do customers value when they buy the product?
I believe that customers will appreciate the "functions" included in the product.
If you make a mistake with this function, no matter how hard you try, the customer will not be satisfied, and the product will not sell.
For example, I think a dictionary's function is generally to "look up words".
You can use an electronic dictionary if you want to look up words.
However, some want dictionaries to function as "displaying on a bookshelf". From such a point of view, an "electronic dictionary" cannot satisfy its functions.
Some customers cannot be satisfied unless they have a paper dictionary with a thick, high-class, intellectual feeling and an exterior.
If you anticipate such a customer and develop a product with the wrong functions that the customer wants, you will end up with a product that the customer will not accept.
Product planning begins with generating ideas, compiling an idea book for a new product, and determining the direction.
Next, we research the market and other companies' trends and conduct "product planning" based on these.
Ultimately, it is essential to carry out "product planning" based on the functions that customers want.
"Customer" ⇨ "Product Development", not "Product Development" ⇨ "Customer".
In the "product planning" step that follows "product planning, " we decide the product's specific functions and characteristics.
If you do this on a whim, it would be nice if God was with you, but your success would be uncertain if God gave up on you.
Furthermore, the existence of God is only in the human heart, and there is no such thing as an absolute existence somewhere gently watching over us.
It is essential to proceed with product development by logically determining the direction of development and the priority of characteristics to be emphasized rather than just coming up with ideas.
The so-called "Eight Trigrams that hit, Eight Trigrams that don't hit" may hit, but it will be more likely to miss.
It will be full of functions and features.
QFD (Quality Function Deployment) is used here. As mentioned earlier, quality function deployment is indispensable as the "foundation" when presenting product plans.
(Quality Function Deployment / Required quality deployment A method used to set the design quality that satisfies the customer and to develop the design intention for the manufacturing process.)
For example, suppose you plan to develop a quiet fuel pump. In that case, it is necessary to have a basis for the numerical value when specifically saying "how many kPa to keep the pulsation width" and a basis for why the pulsation width is emphasized.
Without the use of quality function deployment, you cannot the features and features chosen by the engineer cannot be presented to management or others with a compelling justification for their choice. So, naturally, the product plan is not approved either.
QFD is a tool for determining what functions are required during product development and what characteristics are necessary to demonstrate those functions.
To create a matrix (quality chart) in which functions (required quality development chart) are arranged horizontally (rows) and characteristics (quality characteristic development chart) are arranged vertically (columns), and to decide where to focus development Use for
When the development designer develops the following product, it is impossible to move to a concrete design just by having a vague image of the product.
Visualize what kind of functions you have in your mind, "I want the next product to look like this," and how to create characteristics that satisfy those functions.
Quality function deployment is used for this purpose.
Unfortunately, this QFD is an essential tool for development designers, but it is said that only about 10% of companies are using it properly.
There are two possible reasons.
One, I don't know how to use QFD.
Another reason is that it is possible to build products for the time being without using quality function deployment.
Most companies know the term quality function deployment but have not implemented it. There are many books on quality function deployment, but it isn't easy to put QFD into practice just by reading the books.
It will be the use of the matrix projection method of QC. Quite a few companies incorporate QC, but I think there are surprisingly few that can put it into practice.
'Matrix diagramming' is a method used to determine the 'weighting' and 'division of roles' of the policies developed by 'systematic diagramming'.
A method for effectively solving problems by focusing on the intersection points of a two-dimensional table composed of elements belonging to rows and elements belonging to columns.
Even if quality function deployment is not used, you cannot build the product for the time being.
What are the drawbacks of not using quality function deployment?
You're missing out on the functionality you need. For example, when developing a fuel pump for a car, if it is developed with only the function of "sending fuel, " the pump may have a significant pressure change. With this, it is possible to "send fuel", but the noise and vibration will increase.
As expected, it is rare to drop essential functions, but there are cases where other vital functions are leaked.
However, from the customer's point of view, the essential functions are "obvious functions", and there are surprisingly many people who seek value in other functions. It is an incomplete product.
introduced at the beginning,
"Bad product managers focus their teams on the number of features their competitors are developing."
That's why there are product managers.
In Quality Feature Deployment, we assume five types of features. [1] Basic functions, [2] Additional functions, [3] Main unit functions, [4] Harm prevention functions, and [5] Self-protection functions.
If you don't understand that such functions exist, you will miss many necessary functions to make a product successful. But unfortunately, we tend to get caught up in the essential functions of [1] and often overlook other functions.
The Toyota Group values processes, so we consider quality function deployment essential in product development.
With the idea that you can build a product without quality function deployment, you may get lucky and get good results. Still, it is pretty challenging to produce good products consistently.
After all, it is essential and sound to think that good results are produced because a proper process has been followed.
By using quality function deployment, you can logically explain why you focused on the characteristic value of that function and why you chose it as an essential characteristic.
It will be possible to share the knowledge of the organization rather than the knowledge of individual designers.
The point when using quality feature expansion is to find out exactly what the feature is.
Since quality function deployment considers characteristics based on functions, you cannot produce characteristics if functions are omitted, and product development will not proceed.
Rather than finding functions by a single designer, the people in charge of design, manufacturing, production engineering, quality assurance, and inspection gather to carry out quality function deployment.
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