To Be A Product Manager | Week 29

This journal helps me improve 1% every day…

Zake Zhang
Aug 26, 2017 · 2 min read

Welcome to Week 29 of

To Be A Product Manager

Coming to the end of August, it’s been 8 months since I launched as a product manager this January, and it still feels like yesterday.

We had meetings at the beginning of this week, which help people come to an agreement of what the product should be looked like and what are the most important features or bugs need to be developed and solved.

In the past 8 months, I think I’ve developed an understanding of what new features or future plan should be included for each product in each version, and what the standard pace for product development.

On Wednesday, a severe typhoon struck the south part of China, and both Shenzhen and Hong Kong are in the middle of the typhoon area.

I woke up early that day as usual, took the bus and went to swimming. When I was in the pool for about an hour, the typhoon and heavy rain hit us ruthlessly. But when I got out of the gym, everything looked fine again.

By the time I got in office, the strongest part hit us. “We’re taking a day off.” That’s the message I got from our group chat. I decided to stay in our office, since I cannot go back home either.

I tried some parameters with our new encoding algorithms, but the results is not inspiring.


What I accomplish

  • demo presentation
  • website copywriting
  • demo app planning and testing
  • new encoding algorithms test

What I’m pondering

On Thursday, some people went out for a partnership meeting in Guangzhou, and I was the only one left on product team. And on Friday, there’s a demo presentation that we need to prepare for.

This is an another partner in game industry, and I didn’t follow this line from the beginning. I have no idea about the conclusion of last meeting and what the demo should be looked like.

After wandering and reading some related documents for awhile, I had a general idea about this meeting, and at least, I had to get the demo prepared.

During the process, I also took a review of myself. As I mentioned in the previous posts, the good thing about being at a startup is that, you have more opportunities to take initiative and ownership, growing faster.

However, it seems like I haven’t make fully advantage of it. And if not, I might just be like most people. And I don’t want that.

You know what you need to do.


My name is Zake Zhang, a VR product manager based in Shenzhen, China. I write weekly product journal and reflection.

Thanks for reading and let’s keep on hacking!

Warm Regards,

Zake

)

Zake Zhang

Written by

Product Manager@OnePlus, searching for mental clarity by making films and videos.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade