W46 - One-Year Work Anniversary Retrospective

My first anniversary at the company is approaching, and as I reflect on this past year I'm pleased — there have been massive changes both inside and outside. I won't dwell on the outside: the world, the industry, the company, and the team have all adopted an attitude of embracing change. I'll briefly describe how I've changed.

I pondered one question: immersed in Meituan's crucible of methods and fundamentals, which single approach has changed me the most?

Is it the “four classics”? They seem to be a set of communication-related methodologies and practices that represent a kind of top-down expectation. Is it the standardized actions in projects like continuous delivery and retrospectives? Those were learned, but they didn't alter my thinking deeply or thoroughly enough.

After thinking it over, it seems to be a transformation in my way of working. What exactly is it? I believe it's the transformative mindset the internet has brought to modern enterprises — lean theory. The lean work methods described in the famous The Lean Startup, popular in Silicon Valley and originating from Toyota in a resource-constrained island nation, embody a thinking born of scarcity.

The core logic is the build-measure-learn loop: continuously validating each idea's value and growth hypotheses. Under this guidance, every action is the minimum necessary, using iteration to assemble a great system rather than driving progress through grand, complete designs. Compared to higher-cost waterfall workflows, lean theory fits this rapidly changing world perfectly. At Meituan, working this way seems to be in our blood, having become a consensus and a standard for judgment.

I had heard of The Lean Startup before, but only skimmed it — “who doesn't know MVP? Got it.” What it changed in me now makes me see that a year ago I was basically a 'deluded idiot.' A year ago I had just hastily ended a startup project; our approach then was to prepare everything and wait to reap the rewards, only to find out in the field that we were in a fish pond, not a leek field. Meituan made me feel the build-measure-learn loop in a real way. Perhaps it's only now that it has truly triggered my thinking and made me appreciate its importance.

The loop sounds simple. Take build as an example: how large should each build be? In what form should it be built? Is there a lower-cost way to build it? Without deep understanding and practical experience, it's hard to accept this way of working, because in a state of 'delusion' resources are the least scarce thing. Build is only the first step; measure is a stage many companies struggle to implement. We are prone to trust intuition and other subjective impressions because they are easier to grasp and make decisions with. I recently discovered Lean Analytics, which addresses the measurement stage well — for example, how to set the single most important metric at different product stages? How to find PMF through iterative probing? Facing piles of daily reports, which metrics deserve attention and which are redundant? I read the preface and realized there's a lot to learn; it's worth digging deeper.

I hope that when I look back next year at myself this year, I'll still be a 'deluded idiot.'