How to Answer Decision-Making Questions

Decision-making questions present a scenario where you’re asked to make a product decision. Often, your choices are similar and there's no obvious winner. For example, you may be asked:

“You're a PM on Facebook Watch. Your team is working on a redesign. This redesign improved the watch time, but it also caused a drop in likes and comments. Should you ship this redesign?”

The key to delivering a solid answer is to spend time clarifying product and company goals and defining decision criteria upfront.

What interviewers are looking for

Interviewers are looking the same skill set as in RCA questions, but there is added emphasis on:

• Product thinking
• Strategic thinking and business acumen
• Ability to evaluate options

Note that decision-making questions are an excellent opportunity for you to showcase your domain expertise, so don’t shy away from referencing personal experience.

A framework for answering decision-making questions

Decision-making questions are designed to take roughly 25 minutes. Follow this 4-step process to arrive at a decision efficiently and confidently.

• Step 1: Clarify and gather information
• Step 2: Set decision criteria
• Step 3: Evaluate options
• Step 4: Decide and recap

Let’s continue using the above question as an example. Assume you’ve been asked:

"You're a PM on Facebook Watch. Your team is working on a redesign. This redesign improved watch time, but it also caused a drop in likes and comments. Should you ship this?"

Step 1: Clarify and gather information

Decision-making questions require you to make a big decision without much context, so always begin by asking clarifying questions. In the next step, you’ll begin to explain your criteria for evaluating your options, so your goal here should be to gather enough information to understand how your decision will ultimately affect business and define your priorities as a PM.

Clarify any unclear terms including company names, important nouns, and adjectives. If a metric was referenced, be sure to gather more information about that metric. What is the baseline value you’re comparing against? Is the change positive or negative (or is this unclear?)

Don’t hesitate to ask questions about how the scenario you’ve been given affects the business, but be aware that your interviewer might not offer that information. In that case, it’s fair to make assumptions based on what you know of the product or company and its goals, but be sure to communicate any assumptions to your interviewer.

Step 2: Set decision criteria

Next, set decision criteria based on the information you gleaned in the last step.

Setting decision criteria is similar to goal setting in other interviews. Aim to sum up the most important factor(s) to consider based on the context defined above. Clear decision criteria will help you stay focused and objective while building support for your decision later, so we recommend spending significant time on this step.

Your decision criteria will hinge on what’s most important to your product and to the company. Use your judgment to figure out what’s most relevant to your question. Common areas to consider include:

• Strategic product or company goals
• The current market including key competitors, trends, pending regulation, etc.
• Clear user needs or pain points
• The company’s mission

Explain your thought process to your interviewer and repeat your key takeaways before moving on. If you have access to a whiteboard, record your decision criteria so you can refer back later.

Step 3: Generate and weigh options

Now it’s time to come up with options. If you haven’t already been given options to choose from, brainstorm a few solutions. Variation is good; coming up with three entirely different solutions is better than coming up with five variations on the same idea.

Briefly discuss:

• The potential effects of each option, both positive and negative
• Any important dependencies that might affect the overall outcome
• The tradeoffs associated with each

Be sure to make the pros and cons of each option very explicit. This will ensure that your decision rests on logic rather than gut instinct. Only after you’ve fully fleshed out options, dependencies, and trade-offs should you begin to weigh your options against your decision criteria.

Step 4: Decide and recap

Finally, decide which option offers the most benefits and fewest risks based on your decision criteria. If you followed the previous steps, your decision should be fairly to easy to justify.

Quickly recap the logic behind your decision criteria and your choice given your options. Tradeoffs will have been covered in the previous step, so your evaluation of your answer will focus on what to do next. Consider mitigation strategies or compromises you might make, and offer ideas for solving potential issues that might come up.

“Okay” vs. “good” vs. “great” answers

• An okay answer explains the trade-offs between options. The candidate does a reasonable job evaluating these trade-offs and makes a coherent argument for their choice, drawing on product or strategic insights.
• A good answer places the situation within a larger product context. This context informs the criteria used to evaluate the situation. The candidate paints a picture of how the trade-offs affect the product as a whole and their decision is well-supported.
• A great answer demonstrates a deep understanding of the product or strategy, allowing the candidate to identify the key factors at play. The trade-offs and their impact on the product are deeply thought through and go beyond obvious, immediate effects. Additionally, the candidate might even suggest how to execute their decision, say by finding a middle-ground approach that optimizes the benefits or by devising a release strategy that minimizes risk.

Common pitfalls

• Deciding too early. Don’t make a snap decision when you hear the options. Keep your mind open throughout, and you may be surprised to find another option that makes more sense. Choosing too early often leads to downplaying your evaluation of the other options to try to “convince” your interviewer. They’ll wonder why you missed potential benefits.
• Not setting decision criteria early. These questions are about trade-offs, so you have to be able to evaluate what trade-offs make sense. If you don’t have decision criteria, you’ll end up making a decision after the fact, leaving you with a weaker argument.