Prioritization in Product Management: Making Tough Decisions with RICE

In the competitive world of product management, candidates often face complex scenarios requiring prioritization skills. One such dilemma: “If your engineering team wants to do a bug fix and your sales team wants to implement a new feature, but you can only do one, how do you decide?” This post will apply structured decision-making concepts and illustrate navigating such challenging situations utilizing frameworks from ‘Decode and Conquer.’

Detailed Guide on Framework Application

a. RICE Scoring Model

The RICE scoring model (Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort) is a suitable framework for making such trade-offs. To use RICE, conduct the following steps for each workstream:

1. Estimate the Reach: How many users will each option affect?
2. Assess the Impact: What will be the impact on the user or business for each option?
3. Determine the Confidence level: How sure are you about your estimates?
4. Calculate the Effort: How much work will each take to implement?
5. Score and compare the options to make a data-informed decision.

b. Hypothetical Example

• The bug affects 30% of users, while the feature is demanded by only 10% of new customers.
• The bug fix will improve customer satisfaction which can lead to retention, while the feature might increase new sign-ups.
• Confidence is high for the impact of the bug fix, but low for the new feature as it’s not validated.
• The effort for the bug fix is known and minimal, while the feature requires substantial resources.
• Calculating RICE scores might reveal that addressing the bug has a higher return on investment (ROI).

c. Fact-Checking and Educated Guesses

Cross-reference with existing data on user behavior, previous feature releases, and engineering effort. Without all the data, make educated guesses based on your industry experience and logical reasoning.

d. Effective Communication

• Be clear and concise about the rationale behind each step of your decision.
• Discuss potential trade-offs and how you mitigated them.
• Validate your approach with the interviewer, showcasing collaboration.
• Exhibit comfort with making hard decisions given resource constraints.

Conclusion

Making the right product decisions involves carefully evaluating the trade-offs between differing objectives. Using the RICE framework provides a structured methodology for doing so. Effective communication is key in ensuring all stakeholders understand the rationale behind your decisions. Continue practicing prioritization problems, and you will develop the intuition and skills necessary for success in product management interviews.