Product Questions

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Cracking the PM interview — Product Questions

Good framework have the following characteristics:

  1. Ask appropriate questions
  2. Understand and assess a goal
  3. Apply a structured approach to accomplish the goal

Type 1: Designing a product

Step 1: Ask questions to understand the problem.

“What, who, why, where, how” For example, design a pen, what kind of pen? A pen for whom? Why do we need it (what’s the goal?) How is it special (special features)? Where to launch?

Step 2: Provide a structure

“First, I’m going to talk about the goals. Then, I’m going to list out some potential features. Finally, I’m going to evaluate each of those features against the goals. Okay, starting with the goals…”

Step 3: Identify the users and customers

In some cases, users and customers aren’t the same person. The customer is the person paying for the product; the user is the one using it. There also may be multiple users. (e.g. Design a calculator, the potential users or customers may be the child, the teacher and the parent. Design a better stove, the users may be novice cooks, advanced cooks, children, elderly or disabled.)
Think carefully about what makes this type of user special

Step 4: What are the use cases? Why are they using this product? What are their

For each user, make a list of the use cases.
Then assess, which use cases to design for.

Step 5: How well is the current product doing for their use cases? Are there obvious weak spots?

Go through each use case and assess how well the current products or solutions address those.

Step 6: What features or changes would improve those weak spots?

Name a few ideas and then ask the interviewer if they want you to dive deeper into any of them.
Explicitly tie your feature ideas to the use cases or goals. Make it really, really customer focused.

Step 7: Wrap things up

Give the interviewer an overview of your solution.

Type 2: Improving a product

“Let me start first with understanding the goals of the product, then move on to the issues and how to solve those. Okay, so the goals of the product are…”

Step 1: What is the goal of the product?

What’s the product’s ultimate goal? What problem is it solving for the user?

Step 2: What problems does the product face?

Need to expand user base? Increase revenue? Increase user engagement? Increase conversions?

Step 3: How would you solve this problem?

Brainstorm a few ways, discuss pros and cons, be open about the tradeoffs of each option
Can be bold, crazy ideas, or they might be small, iterative improvements. Consider company size, risk tolerance, budget, culture.
You can say like this: “We can make a few quick fixes that will help mitigate the issues. However, if we are willing to take a bigger gamble, some additional options are open to us.”

Step 4: How would you implement these solutions?

What’s the plan to implement? What’s the challenges? How would you reduce costs and risks? (Maybe you want to roll out to a small group of users first).

Step 5: How would you validate your solution?

What metrics you would gather to see if your solution really worked.

Type 3: Favourite product

Step 1: What problems does the product solve for the user?
Step 2: How does the product accomplish these goals? What makes user fall in love with the product?
Step 3: How does it compare to alternatives?
Step 4: How would you improve it?

Frameworks

Personal Experiences – STAR

Situation, Task, Action, Result

Marketing – 4Ps

Product, Price, Promotion, Place

Opportunity & Strategy - SWOT

(For a company or a product)
Internal: Strength, Weakness;
External: Opportunity, Threat

Situation – 5Cs

company，competitor，customer，collaborators，climate

Industrial Environment – Porter’s 5 Forces

Porter's 5 Forces

  1. Threat of new entrants
  2. Threat of substitutes
  3. Bargaining power of customers
  4. Bargaining power of suppliers
  5. Competitive rivalry

Product Design – CIRCLES

CIRCLES

Comprehend:

You’re entitled to ask the interviewer clarifying questions. What can or should you ask the interviewer? Here’s a list:

  • What is it?
  • Who is it for?
  • Why do they need it?
  • When is it available?
  • Where is it available?
  • How does it work?

This list of basic questions is frequently called the “5W’s and H.” However, the interviewer may not have patience for you to ask 101 questions about the product. To start the interview, you really just need answers for the four bolded questions: what is it, who is it for, why do they need it, and how does it work? So we’ll call our version the “3W’s and H.”
If the interviewer refuses to answer your clarifying questions, make an assumption based on what you know. Then, give the interviewer an opportunity to correct you, in the event he thinks differently about whom it is for or how the product works.

Identify customers:

Product design questions

  • Define an objective for the product improvement
  • Choose and identify the most appropriate target customer
  • Empathize with the target customer
  • Articulate use cases (aka pain points)
  • Prioritize those use cases
  • Brainstorm creative ideas
  • Make a logical recommendation

Examples of product design questions

  • Redesign the Facebook Newsfeed for the Web.
  • How would you improve Pinterest?
  • Create an experience around Disney theme parks using your phone.
  • Design the next product that Nest will offer, focusing on mobile app design.
  • If you were the CEO of LEGO, what new product line would you come up with to increase revenues? Why? Who is the target customer? How do you reach them? How does the product function and what does it look like (UI/UX)? What’s the potential market size?

What are interviewers looking for?

  • Goals and metrics. Did the candidate define objectives before answering? Were the candidate’s selections reasonable?
  • Target Persona & Pain Points. Did the candidate choose a target persona? Did the candidate explain the persona’s pain points to the extent that demonstrated true consumer insight?
  • Prioritization. Did the candidate demonstrate ability to prioritize competing use cases or pain points in a compelling way?
  • Creativity. Did the candidate demonstrate sufficient creativity? Or were the ideas copycats of competitive features and products?
  • Development Leadership. When asked, did the candidate have a reasonable explanation of how a proposed feature would be implemented?
  • Summary and Next Steps. Did the candidate summarize their main argument at the end, including clear next steps?

Product Metrics – AARM

  1. Acquisition: Tracking customer signups for a service. The bar for signing up for a service has gotten lower and lower, thanks to the popularity of free signup and pay later “freemium” models. The typical acquisition metric to track is lazy registrations or app downloads.
  2. Activation: Getting users that have completed a lazy registration to register fully. For a social networking site like Google+, this may include uploading a photo or completing their profile page.
  3. Retention: Getting users to use the service often and behave in a way that helps the user or business. Key metrics include adding more information to their profile page, checking the news feed frequently or inviting friends to try the service.
  4. Monetization: Collecting revenue from users. It could include the number of people who are paying for the service or the average revenue per user (ARPU).