Product Management Q&A

Recently I came across a few product management questions  in Cindy Alvarez's Blog : http://www.cindyalvarez.com/ . Here are my  terse answers to  8 Non-Useless Interview Questions for Product Managers

1.    Your product is just about to hit code freeze, but the Sales team has gotten feedback that one of the company’s most important customers won’t buy it unless you add Feature X.  Talk through your process for understanding your options.

·         Evaluate the value of the feature for your Business, Customer, and Product.

·         Learn if time is even negotiable. It is generally not.

·         Identify some features that you can drop from your feature list to accommodate the new feature.

2.    You’re reviewing product functional requirements with the engineering team, and your engineers tell you that developing Feature Y is “not possible”.  How do you respond?

• Generally, can mean three things. A) Architecture or platform does not allow it. B) He does not know how to do it C) He does not have the time to do it
• Understand with open questions what he means by “not possible”. If it is an architectural or technology choice issue then evaluate the scrap and build option or even make/buy option. B) See if you have resources in the company that can pitch in for the feature. C) Consider advocating resource additions.

3.    You’ve discovered a bug in a product that has been deployed to an enterprise customer.  QA tells you the bug is an edge case – it will affect at most 1% of users, probably fewer – but for those it does impact, it will be an extremely negative user experience.  Take 10 minutes to compose an email response. (YES – actually make them write it.)

• State company vision
• Communicate the bug with a brief apology for inconvenience
• A brief explanation of why the mistake and a promise to make amends.
• Workaround or alternatives for the moment.
• Fix timeline.
• Positively say what you will do in a broader way.

4.    One of the Sales VPs is bugging you for an updated roadmap before he goes out to talk with a VIP customer.  You have a draft, but it hasn’t been internally approved or prioritized yet.  How do you help the Sales VP?

• Learn from him 3 features that he is going to base his sales pitch on.
• Get a buy-in from engineering team and your team for these features.
• Discuss with engineering to identify  3 sure shot deliverable features
• Add it to the preliminary Product Roadmap and deliver.

5.    Your company uses a customer feedback tool where users can submit product enhancement ideas and vote on them.  There is a specific feature that is by far the most popular idea among your users – but it doesn’t align with your long-term product strategy.  How do you respond to the users?

• Either the customer from whom you solicited feedback were not the customers you were targeting.
• Your corporate strategy was developed with minimal or flawed customer input OR missed a big opportunity.

For users , evaluate the risk of losing them if you do not develop the feature.

6.    You and the design team have collaborated on the workflow for a new feature, but your boss is convinced it should work another way.  You feel very confident in your version, and very strongly that her suggestion is a terrible one.  How do you move forward?

·         Explain your approach or thought process that leads to a decision. Ask him to specifically point out issues in your thought process. Ask your boss to do the same thing while you poke a hole.

·         Propose a looks like or works like prototype / mockups with evaluation from a third party.

7.    Imagine you have 2 days in which to develop a simple version 1.0 “to-do list” application.  You are the sole owner of getting this product functional and launched. Take 20 minutes to document requirements for the product. (YES – actually make them write it.)

• Identify the primary beneficiary of the product and ask what values add are we providing.
• List other stakeholders and categorize them and their value adds
• Create 3 buckets: Critical Important and Desirable.

8.    You’ve inherited a mature product and discovered that a lot of time is spent dealing with customer issues reactively.  What kind of process would you put in place to be more proactive about making sure the stuff that needs to get fixed, gets fixed?

Classify the bugs into severity

• SEV 1: the product is not working – Fix now
• SEV 2: major product functionality not working – Fix Now
• SEV 3: doesn't work as documented - Check if the requirement is documented right. If so fix it.
• SEV 4: enhancement request – Next release
8. Write a release note?

Source of questions : http://www.cindyalvarez.com/psychology/8-non-useless-interview-questions-for-product-managers