Difficult Decisions
A common interview question is “Tell me about a time you made a difficult decision.” Follow on questions include:
What made it difficult?
How did you prioritize your choice?
How did you deal with the fall out?
Common Twists on the question include:
Tell me about a time you made a decision when there was a conflict between what was good for the customer and what was good for the business.
Lots of candidates are stumped by this question. In this article, I will strive you help you jog your memory and come up with some examples.
Common scenarios for product managers that can be considered difficult decisions include:
Turning away a customer because they are not the right fit.
This can be in the form of pricing them out of the product or refusing them service or just refusing to build their requested features.
Sunsetting (turning off) a product with a core user base but not enough users to make it viable for the business.
Pricing decisions that are good for the business but bad for cost-conscious customers.
Empathetic PMs often struggle to find the right balance.
From a business perspective, it often means taking a short-term hit (reduced cash flow) for a longer-term gain (more productive and profitable).
Pricing at the top or bottom of the market.
This will set the bar for your product.
Offering discounts that are difficult to role back or take a long time to be forgotten.
Putting up firewalls for products. (Turning away through pricing decisions.)
Giving difficult feedback, particularly to people who are above you in a hierarchy.
Making a decision that is counter to your boss’ stated wishes because you feel it is ethically correct or the best decision for the company in the long term but a subpar decision for your team in the short term.
Giving or taking away responsibility to a team or individual. This means letting go of control of a situation. For some, this can be difficult.
Deciding to move forward with an investment of time and/or money without data (or without significant data).
