How to Answer Strategy Questions during Product Manager Interview

Framework for answering strategy questions during a product management interview.
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What are strategy questions?
These questions have to do with short or long-term planning for a product or company and aim to determine the actions that a company or product should take in the future given its current situation or another specific set of circumstances.

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Because these questions deal with hypotheticals, there is no definitive "right answer" to strategy questions. However, the interviewer will be checking to see if are able to create and follow a logical structure to evaluate the different paths that a company or product could take in the future.

Note: while it is a good idea to stay up to date on tech and business news and happenings, you don't need to memorize the financial documents for the Fortune 500 to be prepared to answer strategic questions.

Answering strategy questions:
1. As always, make sure you understand the signal that the interviewer is looking for -- ensure that you are dealing with an actual strategy question.

2. Clarify and understand the question to work in the direction that the interviewer is interested in -- disambiguate any portions of the question that are unclear and make sure you and the interviewer are aligned on what exactly you will be discussing. If there are multiple questions asked, tell the interviewer that you'll be focusing on one of them, and make sure they agree.

3. Start thinking about two main ideas: "What is the business?" and "Who is the customer?"

What is the business?
What are the company's roots, history, mission? What does the company do? How does it do this? Are any changes necessary now or in the future?

Who is the customer?
What is the user and user's motivation? Are there multiple groups or types of users? What are the users' problems? What is the user trying to do? Could these needs evolve? How?

4. Look for potential overlap, connections or synergies between the elements above. Try to look beyond a surface level of insight: if you come up with an idea or insight that naturally follows from defining the company (for instance, Netflix should focus on producing more original content), then try to go deeper (Netflix is actually in the entertainment business, and that doesn't have to only mean streaming content, it could mean other forms of entertainment, such as gaming, or music).

5. Use the "Five C" framework, and put yourself into the shoes of the business owners:

Company: you, your organization, your mission or vision, your products and product lines.

Customer: these are the users and customers that buy, consume or interact with your product and company.

Competitors: these act to try to take your customers or users, directly or indirectly (think substitute goods), now or in the future.

Collaborators: anyone who helps you produce/create/distribute/sell the product for the customer or user (suppliers, distributors, content creators, employees, contractors, etc).

Climate: actual environment, government/regulatory perspective, competitive climate, public perception.

When in doubt, go back to #3 (the business and the customer): who are the parties and entities involved? What are they doing? Why are they doing this? Are there alternatives? What opportunities exist between the customer and the business? What could the company and the user do differently?

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Видео How to Answer Strategy Questions during Product Manager Interview канала Alex Rechevskiy - Growth PM