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How to Answer Craft and Execution Questions

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What exactly is Google looking for in craft and execution interviews? Well, a lot of things.

Let’s look at the sample questions again.

  • "Pick a product of your choice. What are the goals of the product? What’s in your monthly business review deck for the leadership team?"
  • "Imagine I'm a VC, offering you $20M to build any technology-enabled product/service you'd like. Please walk me through how you would get started? (Problem, Solution, User, Monetize, TAM)"

If you break these down, you’ll find a few common elements.

  • Immediate context: You're presenting to leadership or pitching to a VC. Without this specific context, these would be ordinary product questions. Do not ignore the immediate context - your ability to assess a situation is being tested.
  • Product elements: Time to put your product skills to use within a specific scenario.
  • Strategic elements: No business review or pitch is complete without the macro business context. Leadership, VCs, and virtually all other stakeholders you present to will care, so don't forget to discuss.

We find it helpful to think through each before diving into a response. Let’s take one of the questions above and think through how we’d diagram our answer.

"Imagine I'm a VC, offering you $20M to build any technology-enabled product/service you'd like. Please walk me through how you would get started? (Problem, Solution, User, Monetize, TAM.)"

Step 1: Assess the Situation

You’re given some interesting context -- you’re speaking to a VC offering you $20 million to develop any technology-enabled product/service.

Before you can pick a good product, define goals for this VC meeting. Ask clarifying questions until you really understand the context of the scenario you’re given. For example, how are we defining "technology-enabled" vs. a technology product? Is this VC specialized in any way? Are there expectations for how the money will be allocated?

Tip: Don’t feel pressured to move through this stage quickly. Focus on really nailing down the immediate context. Any info you gather here will make the rest of the process easier, because you’ll have a smaller set of product and strategic options.

Then, tailor the rest of your response to the scenario. A VC wants to hear that your product will yield a high ROI, so you'll want to offer an inspiring product vision and speak to growth opportunities over time. They also probably want their name associated with something “on brand.” Of course, you’re not given context on their brand here. Maybe worth a clarifying question?

Whatever the prompt, be sure to tailor your response.

Step 2: Pick a Product

The next step will be to use your product skills. Begin by brainstorming some product / service ideas and choose one to deep-dive.

Remember that PMs at Google’s are entirely user-centric. Make sure you define your users and the problem statement you’re solving for them as the basis for any product ideating you do. Keep in mind you were offered a specific amount of money - $20 million - so make sure you choose something reasonable for this amount.

Step 3: Explain the Business Context

Part of product craft is checking your decisions against business priorities and relevant macro forces as needed. As you make your pitch, be sure to have an organic discussion around strategic considerations as you develop your product.

Is there a competitor out there already doing something similar? How will you position yourself? Are there macro trends to be wary of, or take advantage of? How will you respond to challenges as your product moves along the product lifecycle? What metrics will tell you whether your strategy is successful?

Tip: As you think through each of these buckets, remember that all three elements should align. Don’t forget to cross-check your ideas and assumptions against each category as you go.

Review Exercises

Craft and execution questions pull together the whole PM skillset. Here are some short review exercises to refresh your product, communication, and strategic skills.

Communication Skills

Review the cross-functional collaboration course and choose an interview question where you’re asked to communicate with a cross-functional peer, an executive, or a non-technical person.

Prep a STAR-formatted answer that showcases your ability to tailor your communication to your audience.

Product Skills

Pick a product design prompt and follow the product design question flow from user definition through to feature selection and user experience deep–dive.

Tips:

Strategic Skills

Take your product idea and run through a quick strategic analysis, including competition and major market trends. You should be able to outline a rough product roadmap at this point.

Tips:

  • Try using Porter’s 5 forces model if you’re struggling with competitive or market analysis.
  • If you find yourself losing focus on your users, or you come up with a roadmap that you’re not 100% confident in, try a value chain analysis to validate your assumptions.
  • If you have trouble with the product roadmap, this high-level guide by Atlassian is a good short recap. For a more in-depth look, try this guide by ProductPlan.
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