Strategy question
Multiple service components and combatant commands want LUX and military-planning capabilities, but they define success differently and some requirements conflict. How would you create a cross-cutting product strategy that captures reusable platform value, avoids customer-specific forks, and still wins enough stakeholder buy-in to expand across accounts?
- Scale AI
- Strategy
- Hard
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What this question tests
Ability to build a unifying product strategy across multiple powerful stakeholders with genuinely conflicting definitions of success, without fragmenting the platform.
How to approach it
- Map each stakeholder's definition of success and the underlying mission need behind it, distinguishing surface level feature requests from the deeper capability each command is actually trying to achieve.
- Look for the shared underlying capability beneath the conflicting requirements, for example if commands disagree on interface but agree on needing faster planning cycle turnaround, anchor the platform strategy on that shared outcome.
- Define what stays as a core reusable platform primitive versus what becomes a customer specific configuration layer on top, using conflicting requirements as the signal for where to build flexibility rather than forking the codebase.
- Build buy in incrementally, proving the shared primitive on one or two commands before asking others to adopt it, using early results as evidence rather than asking for buy in on a promise.
- Set up a governance forum across commands to arbitrate future conflicting requests against the platform roadmap, preventing every new ask from becoming a bespoke fork.
- Communicate the strategy back to each stakeholder in terms of their own mission outcome, not just the shared platform vision, so each command sees their specific need represented.
What a strong answer includes
- Distinguishes surface level feature conflicts from a shared underlying capability need, and anchors the strategy there.
- Proposes a concrete platform versus configuration split as the mechanism to avoid forking, not just an intention to avoid forks.
- Builds buy in with early proof points rather than asking for consensus upfront.
- Proposes a governance mechanism to prevent future conflicting asks from re fragmenting the platform.
Common mistakes
- Trying to satisfy every command's stated requirement literally, resulting in a fragmented, forked platform.
- Asking for buy in on an abstract strategy before showing any concrete proof point.
Likely follow-up questions
- What would you do if two commands' underlying mission needs turned out to genuinely conflict, not just their stated requirements?
- How would you handle a command that refuses to adopt the shared platform primitive?
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More questions from Scale AI
Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovering and Sizing AI Opportunities
- Chapter 9: Measuring AI Product Economics
- Chapter 14: Interviewing for AI PM Roles