How One Product Manager's Bold Pushback Reshaped Stakeholder Relations and Priorities
Loading Video...
Preparing the interview
Complete interview transcript & analysis below
Enhanced transcript with interviewer insights
INTERVIEWER
Uh, tell me about a time where you pushed back against a decision. That negatively impacted your team, meaning a decision was being made that you knew was going to negatively impact your team. What was the issue and how did it turn out?
CANDIDATE
All right, I'm just noting it down. Push back against the decision that negatively impacted my team and just specifically, would this be product centric, meaning a, a product like a team? Any it could be any
INTERVIEWER
decision, any decision, but it's being made by somebody else and you're being volunt to, uh, align with it.
CANDIDATE
Gotcha. Yeah, so, One of the answers that comes to mind is a little bit less dev centric, but more stakeholder centric. If I look at my product team as a whole, um, at one time, I was asked by, uh, my previous hiring manager, actually, funny enough, to prioritize a $1.8 million dollar contract, um. In order to integrate a new vendor, um, to, to distribute like new, new trading software, new research to help people trade. Um, at the same time, I was also asked by our mobile team and our new web responsive team to prioritize trading software over that. Um, so I was in a little bit of a, a tough spot where I felt like I had to make a decision for the entire program based on capacity, but I couldn't help, but I was really hurting that stakeholder team, um. It them being my, my previous team asking for that $1.8 million dollar contract, um, by essentially presenting them with the, the business goals, the stakeholder apps I have, the capacity I couldn't meet to work on all of them at once, and simply asking them to let me deprioritize it or really stating, here is why, um. So, I think in some ways I was helping the overall team on the product level, getting towards goals for the overall program, uh, but I couldn't help but hurt, I was, uh, help but feel like I was hurting, um, so like kinda not prioritizing someone's baby on it, and uh I also had skin on the game on that one and then. It was a product I actually wanted to integrate. Um, so any thoughts on that? Do I
Interviewer Insight
from a structure point of view this story could use a bit of work. It's not clear from the outset what role the candidate was filling, and exactly how the decision came to the fore or how it was made. This eventually comes out later in the answer from follow-on questions but the candidate could have done a better job with setup.
INTERVIEWER
feel like, so I, so hold on, so the decision here was. You were being told by your previous team or asked, I guess, uh, to prioritize work, but you already had a priority queue of work. In front of you that you had committed to. Through whatever channels you guys use to commit to work, right? So that was committed work and you were being asked to kind of stop doing that work and insert this new thing. Is that, am I understanding that correctly?
CANDIDATE
You're, you're understanding it correctly, but I didn't give you the context of the time. Um, so it all happened basically in real time in a PI session, uh, a program increment planning using safe agile framework, just similar to Scrum Alliance, and I prioritized according to those two programs, mobile and trading combined with their priority. And deprioritize kind of in real time, in the broader setting, the entire group, what I couldn't work on, which was that larger contract, and then I took it forward and kind of broke it down with the stakeholders as to what it would mean and why after, um, because polite politely enough, I wasn't just, um, be lambasted or pushed back on, um, in the broader setting. So hopefully that gives a little bit more context around the timing and when the decisions were made and where.
INTERVIEWER
Well, so what I was looking for was more of a case where kind of you were being signed up to do work and you pushed back. And what didn't land here and maybe, maybe I just missed it was, did, did this team that was your, you know, your previous team, did they have the, I guess for lack of a better word, the authority to push work onto you or was this simply a request that you didn't agree with?
CANDIDATE
It was, it was more of a request that I didn't agree with, and, and that was one of the things I wanted to clarify too. And when I asked, did I, did I hit on the, the core of the question, I feel like I may have not, and I may want to pivot to a better example that
INTERVIEWER
needs a little. Yeah, I don't, I don't like to do that because I like to follow the thread to see where it goes, um, so with that in mind, it's was on. Sure. Uh, so with that in mind, what, what was your primary objection, right? I, I understand having, uh, the conflict of not enough resources. I get that, right? Oftentimes we do 100 things, we can only do 10. I get that. So, but, but at some point, you had to make a reasoned, I'm assuming a reasoned call between the two, right? So what was your objection, specifically your objection to the work that was being asked of you by your previous team?
CANDIDATE
Uh, my specific objection was that it went against, uh, a higher priority, I think in terms of the business goals, um, meaning I, even though they had just executed the contract, and they now had the vendor and they, they wanted, they needed services built straight away, that doesn't deprioritize or take away any importance from. Updating trading software for uh web and mobile, um, just knowing that that's aligned with the core business that we need to update in order to scale the new website. So that was like my main, the thing that jumped out to me is that this may be the most important thing and it may be something that I absolutely have to do, but I simply felt like I couldn't do it now for those, for those reasons. And so and constraints on resources which we covered.
Interviewer Insight
this feels like a bad process - could potentially have used additional consultation with other leaders in the company or candidate's boss, and potentially additional data. This answer was a little too high level and light on details.
INTERVIEWER
So based on what you said though, you made the decision in real time and then went back to the team and said, sorry, can't help you. So I, I'd like to understand a little bit more about the process, right, because they came to you with a request, you, you, or, you know, whether, whether it came out of band of your, your planning meeting or not is unclear to me whether or not they introduced it in the planning meeting or not. So let's start there. Did they, did they get introduced in the planning meeting or was it introduced ahead of that and then you, so they, they introduced it in the planning meeting.
CANDIDATE
Yes,
INTERVIEWER
and then in real time you told them no.
CANDIDATE
In real time, rather than saying conversationally to, you know, I prioritized according to what I think I could actually do in the quarter and stacked, let's say the mobile trading software, just to be clear, the mobile trading and responsive web software before that, and then in the preceding meeting. I immediately knew like, hey, they wanted it, and I couldn't deliver on the dependency in the PI planning, at least from my assessment of, but I was like, I owe them a conversation for sure. I can't necessarily just, I don't want to do that in a vacuum, um, just with my prioritization, and I said, you know, I owe you guys a follow up conversation.
INTERVIEWER
So I think, hm Try to think about how to ask this question and get. Directionally where I wanna go. So I prescript everything just because it makes it easier for me to take notes, but so if, if I, if I think about this from just a as a product executive guy, right? Making that decision in the room unless it's clear cut. Sometimes can be tough, right? Because, you know, you can have vigorous debate in the room, but sometimes you don't have all the information that you need in the room, right? So in looking back on this, did Were there was there additional data that you could have used to make a different decision? Were, were there people that you could have consulted to maybe make a different decision or did you have all the information you needed in the room to make that decision?
CANDIDATE
Yeah, so I'll, I'll definitely answer that. Um, I don't think I had all the information I needed to come to a final decision in the room, um, meaning that this is one of those things where, hey, two different stakeholders who I pretty much value the same in terms of trying to meet all stakeholder needs when they have a dependency. At the same time, I felt like, oh, OK, I know I, I don't think I can, so I'm gonna have to decide. Here's my initial guess, all the information I needed, I, I kind of CC. My, the head of my product team on that follow-up meeting, because I was getting 22 conflicting messages right from stakeholders I usually view as equal and aren't in conflict. Um, and I really wanted to clarify just the OK, you know, hey. Am I interpreting the overall business goals for the quarter and the services I should be working on according to management directives and business objectives, or am I misinterpreting? So that's hence the follow-up, you know, I'd say in, in our PI planning, my team would always get a ton of dependencies, so it's always kind of like my best guess, and then wherever I was in conflict, I'd usually have a follow-up. And then the one thing I wanted to add is, the final part of my answer is that I included that executive, let's call them executive level or just like head of my web product team. On that follow-up meeting, transparently communicated my interpretation with all the stakeholders in the room, mobile, responsive web, and that vendor integration team, um, which wanted the research, and then we drew the same consensus as a group, and my, the head product person showed up, and he was like, oh, OK, like, you guys are in agreement, we don't need to have this meeting. Um, so that hopefully that kind of adds a little bit of color as like why I had the follow up and what I felt like I was missing in real time.
CANDIDATE
No - we had a follow up meeting with the stakeholders and everyone was in agreement in the meeting, and he agreed.
INTERVIEWER
So everyone in the room agreed when you made the decision, and then when you followed up with your product leader, he also said, well, if everyone agreed. Then what are we talking about?
CANDIDATE
Yeah, so, to be more specific. I had a 2, it was everyone in the group, everyone in the room was every team inclusive of those dev teams, so let's say like it was like roughly 6 to 8 dev teams, and then, so all those people were there when I put my initial shared my initial, um. My initial prioritization, then I had a follow up with just the three key stakeholders, and it was on that meeting where I included the uh the higher level person just as basically a sanity check, and that's when they, they came and showed up and said, oh, by the time they got to the meeting because they're running late, they're like, oh you guys are all set, you're done. I don't need to, um,
INTERVIEWER
yeah. Got it. OK.
Expert Assessment
Interviewer assessment - would be used in a hiring meeting
There was a slight disconnect between what the candidate heard and what the question sought. The candidate presented a situation where they pushed back on a request of them and their team, not a situation where they pushed back on decisions made above them. In the context of Have Backbone, the candidate demonstrated that they have the ability to make potentially unpopular decisions, which is good. What was missing from this answer block was a demonstration that the candidate can push back on decisions made above them. No cause for concern in the context of the question block but it would have been nice to have better question-story alignment.