(2018-08-28) Jones Favorite Pm Interview Question

Chris Jones: Favorite Product Manager Interview Question vs 2017-03-21-CaganMyFavoritePmInterviewQuestion.

if you are the manager responsible for building a team of PMs, there’s a question I like even better

The question comes late in the interview, but early in the overall hiring process. The setup goes like this: “Now that I know you a bit, I’d like to give you a list of 4 broad work attributes. You’re a product manager, so I already expect that you’re strong in each. But I highly doubt that you consider yourself equally competent in all of them. So I’m going to ask you to stack rank them in order of strongest to weakest

Now for the 4 attributes in no particular order. I usually describe them this way:

• Execution — how well do you get things done, do the right thing without being asked, and track lots of simultaneous targets?
• Creativity — how often are you the person in the room with the most or the best ideas?
• Strategy — how well do you get up above what you’re working on and put it into a broader market or vision context and then make this clear to others?
• Growth — how good are you at figuring out ways to multiply effort, through smart use of process, team management, etc.?