Strategy question

You see the same integration or workflow issue across several enterprise deployments. How would you decide whether to handle it as a one-off custom solution, turn it into a repeatable implementation playbook, or advocate for a core product investment? Walk through the decision criteria you would use.

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What this question tests

Tests the decision criteria for graduating a recurring issue from a one-off fix to a playbook to a core product investment.

Count instances across deployments and tag by root cause, since the same symptom can have different causes in different accounts.
Default to a one-off fix if it appears once and is genuinely account-specific, with no clear reuse case.
Escalate to a documented implementation playbook once the same fix recurs across two or three accounts with the same root cause but low build cost.
Escalate to a core product investment once the pattern recurs broadly, costs significant FD time per occurrence, and a platform fix is technically feasible.
Weigh engineering opportunity cost explicitly: a core investment must beat other roadmap items on expected time saved across accounts.
Set a review checkpoint, since a playbook that keeps recurring may be signaling it should graduate to a product investment.

Uses instance count and FD time cost as the deciding threshold rather than gut feel about how annoying the issue is.
Treats the playbook stage as a deliberate middle step, not skipped straight from one-off to core investment.
Revisits playbooks that keep recurring as a signal to promote them, showing an ongoing process, not a one-time decision.

Jumping straight to a core investment without validating reuse across more than one account.
Leaving a frequently recurring issue as an undocumented one-off fix repeated by hand each time.

How many accounts would need the same issue before you'd invest in a platform fix?
How would you measure whether a playbook is actually saving FD time?