Strategy question
Multiple enterprise customers are requesting different workflow capabilities for their AI agents. How would you decide which requests should become reusable product roadmap items, which should be handled through configuration or customer-specific solutions, and which you would decline? Be explicit about the criteria and tradeoffs you would use.
- Sierra
- Strategy
- Hard
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What this question tests
Tests the ability to set clear, repeatable criteria for what becomes roadmap, what stays configuration, and what gets declined across many customer requests.
How to approach it
- Classify each request by reusability: does it solve a problem likely shared by other customers, or is it truly specific to one account's process.
- Classify by strategic fit: does the request align with where the product is headed, or does it pull toward a different kind of product entirely.
- For requests that are reusable and strategically aligned, propose them as roadmap items with an estimated impact and cost.
- For requests that are customer specific but low cost, handle them through configuration or a lightweight customer specific solution.
- Decline requests that are neither reusable nor strategically aligned, explaining the reasoning clearly to preserve the relationship even while saying no.
- Revisit declined requests periodically, since a request declined today might become a pattern worth reconsidering as more customers ask for it.
What a strong answer includes
- Uses two explicit criteria, reusability and strategic fit, together rather than either alone, since a reusable but off strategy request should still likely be declined.
- Proposes explaining the reasoning behind declined requests clearly, protecting the customer relationship rather than a flat, unexplained no.
- Builds in a revisit mechanism for declined requests, recognizing that a pattern can emerge later even if a single early ask does not justify the roadmap.
Common mistakes
- Using only reusability as the criterion without checking strategic fit, which could pull the roadmap toward capabilities that do not serve the core vision.
- Declining requests without a clear explanation, which risks damaging the customer relationship unnecessarily.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you handle a highly reusable request that does not fit current strategic priorities?
- What would make you revisit a previously declined request?
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Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 9: Prove it paid off: outcomes, economics, and pricing
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop