I've been spending a good bit of time in the Product Manager interview cycle lately, and one recurring interview format that keeps coming back is the "Product Sense" interview. These interviews are typically framed around a prompt like "How would you design X" or "How would you improve X," and aim to dig into your ability to think through an ambiguous problem in a structured way, while communicating clearly throughout.

It can be easy to spin your wheels or get stuck; I've experienced it plenty of times myself. The one thing (aside from practice, of course) that helped me quite a bit was having a plan of attack beforehand. The "plan of attack" that's worked for me is here, in the form of a template, tips, and resources. I've found that if you have a default structure and adapt it to your needs well, that's half the battle. Once you win that, all you have to do is execute, and enjoy the fun part: creatively solving a problem with someone else.

A Template

1. Clarifying Questions

Anything unclear off the rip? e.g. “Can you further define “improve” or “engagement” or what platform we’re talking about? Or is this more open-ended? I’m assuming I’m a PM at X? Is that cool?”

2. Structure 💭

Don’t just slap on frameworks. Think about what makes sense given the framing of the prompt. e.g. Do you already know your pain point or target persona? Pick and choose from the following and adapt it to the discussion:

  • ⭐️ Motivation: Why does this matter?
  • ⭐️ Users: Who and what use cases should we build for?
  • ⭐️ Problem: What pain points do the target segment run into?
  • ⭐️ Solutions: How should we address the identified pain point?
  • ⭐️ Design: What should the prioritized approach look like in user-land?
  • Risk Mitigation: What are potential risks or open questions?
  • Evaluation: How would you validate or test that this worked or didn’t?

3. Motivation 💭

  • Impact for Users: What is the company’s mission and what does it mean for users? Why should they care that the product exists or is improved upon
  • Competition + Trends: What competitors exist out there? Are there any trends occurring in the space that are relevant?
  • Strengths to Leverage: Does the company have existing building blocks, market share, or tools that are relevant to the prompt?
  • Strategic + Business Goals: How does this fit into the company’s goals? Increased market share? Activation? Retention? Revenue?

4. User Segmentation 💭

Start thinking through broad segments based on frequency + use cases, and then segment further until you have a useful, mutually exclusive, oddly specific cut. Then prioritize one based on audience size / frequency of use / alignment with company strategy. More concretely this means:

  1. Broad Segments: It's easiest to start with frequency of use + different use cases if they come to mind here.
  2. Specific Segments: Hone in on each until you have a oddly specific cut of a few different personas.
  3. Prioritization: Assess each on 1) Audience Size 2) Frequency and 3) Alignment with Strategic Goals. Pick one to focus on and explain your reasoning out loud.

5. Problem Identification 💭

Once you have a target segment, it’s time to dig into pain points. Once again it’s simplest to start broad and then get really specific afterwards. Map out the user journey, then identify where friction occurs, and connect it to a hypothesis for why the problem exists. Laid out this looks like:

  1. User Journey: Map out a quick list or flow of steps of how the target persona interacts with the product or experience.
  2. Specific Pain Points: Hone in on parts of the flow with friction and pick a few pain points to connect to human emotion and pitch to the interviewer. The more specific these are, the more unique your solutions will be later on!
  3. Prioritization: Don’t pick a pain point to focus on based on vibes. Assess each based on 1) Frequency and 2) Severity, taking into account existing workarounds if they exist.

6. Solution 💭

Before you dive in to solutioning, it’s good to restate your hypothesis based on prior steps to make sure you’re anchored on that. Once you’re in the right headspace, start generating some ideas:

  1. Generate Solutions: Get creative here! Generate a few divergent, interesting approaches to solving the chosen problem.
  2. Prioritization: Assess each proposed solution based on 1) Impact and 2) Effort. Explain why you would focus on one, potentially weaving in strategic implications where it makes sense.

7. Design 💭

Describe the overall shape of the chosen approach and map it back to the hypothesis you stated. Then dig into details. Get visual with it, a few boxes with words in them goes pretty far relevant to just talking it out.

  1. Overall Shape: What does the overall product experience look like for users and how does it map to the hypothesis?
  2. User Flow: If there’s time, get into more details around what exactly the user flow will be. Open up Figma or another design tool and draw some boxes to align on the solution. Summarize once more and typically, that’s a wrap!

Some Tips

With the above in mind, here are some more tips that worked for me:

  • Share your screen. Working off a shared doc is easiest to align on.
  • Don't blindly apply templates. Think through the structure that makes sense.
  • Take time to collect your thoughts before you rush in and start speaking.
  • Pause throughout and ask for feedback. This helps your interviewer stay engaged, collaborate with you, and redirect if you're heading off course.
  • Don't monologue. Outside of the "Why" pitch and closing summary, don't be too verbose. Try to speak more choppy and bullet-like if it's natural enough.

Resources

And finally, here are some resources that helped inform this write-up:

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