How to draw a product architecture diagram?

Come to a classic working scenario of product manager ：

Boss ： The company plans to build a content e-commerce product , You first give me a preliminary plan , Let's discuss .

The product manager ： OK .

What is the preliminary plan ？
In product work , There will be many forms of this preliminary plan , It can be a competitive product analysis report , It can also be a product structure diagram 、 Core business flow chart , Or a list of features .

Or in the form of product architecture diagram , As shown in the figure below ：

that , How to draw this kind of architecture diagram ？

The role of Architecture

The architecture diagram usually appears in the early stage of product planning , A rough plan for presenting the product . Because the product has not yet taken shape at this time , It still needs to be discussed again and again to determine the details . But there must be a specific document for reference when discussing , Otherwise, the sky is flying , Discussion has no direction .

How to output an architecture diagram

The product architecture diagram contains two elements ： Product side 、 Functions of each end .

First step , According to the product strategic positioning , Determine the user roles and requirements of the product , So as to determine which terminals the product has .

ad locum , This user role is divided by the boundary of requirements . That is to say , If there are two user roles whose requirements are completely different , The product needs to plan a product end for both roles .

such as , For an e-commerce product , There are roles for users and merchants . Users' demand is shopping , The demand of businessmen is to sell things , The demand is totally different , The product needs to plan a merchant and a user . Also for e-commerce products , Users are also divided into member roles and non member roles , But the needs of these two types of users are shopping , Therefore, the product is unlikely to plan a member side and a non member side .

Back to the case we just started —— Build a content e-commerce platform , There are only two roles in this product ： Ordinary users and platform administrators . Their needs are obviously different , Users buy things , Read articles and videos , And the platform administrator is to provide management services , So this content e-commerce platform , We have identified two paragraphs ： Platform side and client side .

The second step , According to the needs of users , Deduce the function of the product end .

In the first step, we only have a general understanding of the scope of users' needs , If you want to derive the function of the product , Users' needs need to be further clarified , That is, specify the business scenarios of the product .

The so-called business scenario , That is, what business goals users want to achieve through the product , What process will you go through to achieve your goals . With the business scenario , To deduce what functions the product needs to provide to meet .

Of course , Business scenarios are the last thing we need , before this , Product managers need to do it in different ways （ For example, user interviews 、 Competitive analysis, etc ）, To sort out the business scenarios , And output the flow chart . These methods will not be expanded here , Let's talk about it alone when we have a chance .

And after getting the flow chart , According to each node of the flow chart, we can deduce the functions required by the product , Because each node needs functions to support . The process of derivation , It also needs interviews 、 Competitive product analysis , Or rely on the product manager's own experience .

Be careful , If the requirements are simple , Then the business scenario is also very simple . If the business scenario is complex , For example, a content e-commerce , There are many business scenarios involved , Then you need to disassemble the business , Disassemble a large business into several sub businesses , Then derive the process of each sub business , And deduce what functions are needed .

How to disassemble the business ？

We can disassemble in two ways ：

One is to disassemble through business boundaries , That is, the two business objectives are relatively independent , Then it is disassembled into different sub businesses . For example, our content e-commerce products , There are obviously two different business goals ： E-commerce and content , Therefore, the product can be disassembled into two sub businesses ： E-commerce and content . In the e-commerce business , Users search for products and place orders also have relative independence , So you can split and cancel the search and order businesses .

The other is to disassemble through the responsibility boundary of roles , That is, when a character has done something , Start from another role , The responsibilities of these two roles are divided into two businesses . For example, e-commerce business , After the user orders , It's the platform's turn to deliver , Then order and shipment can be split into two businesses .

The third step , Fill the product functions to the corresponding end .

After getting the function , You can fill the function points to the corresponding end . If there are many functions , Then the functions can be classified properly , In order to make the architecture diagram more hierarchical .

Architecture diagram is used in the early stage of product planning , Therefore, you only need to present the overall outline of the product and the major functional direction , There is no need to cover too many functional details （ There is no way to involve , Because it's still a long time before the product comes out ）.