Clarifying Scale & Scope
When asking clarifying quesitons, remember you are focused on getting idea of what limits there might be on scale and scope.
Too many candidates just run through a list of memorized questions like:
What do you mean by ______?
What is our goal?
How much funding do I have?
Who are our users?
You ask me those questions during a product design case and I am going to fail you. You know I am not going to answer them, so why ask them?
Now if you turned each one of those questions into an assumption, maybe I would be okay.
What is better?
Keep your focus on the Scale and Scope questions you need to more forward.
Let’s take the prompt: Design an App to find Doctors.
Here are three possible clarifying questions:
Scope: When I think about finding doctors I think about two big categories of physical and mental health. I assume you want me to decide where I want to focus, but just want to check.
With this I am looking to see if the interviewer can help me reduce the scope. If they can’t or won't, I have at least helped myself by thinking out loud and showing that I am thinking about narrowing scope and problem space.
Scale: I noticed you didn’t mention a company name, should I assume I am building this as a startup or as part of a larger company. The company size might change my approach to the problem, so just wanted to check.
Scale & Scope: Do you want me to assume we would launch in the next 6 months or can I think a little further out?
Notice:
No questions about the users, I know it is up to me to decide that.
No questions about goals: I know I need to demonstrate my ability to set goals.
No decision-making: I am not giving the interviewer a chance to throw it back on me and force me to make a snap decision.
