Project Context
ShopWave, a mid-market e-commerce platform, wants to launch a new fraud decisioning rules engine before the holiday shopping peak. The business is pushing for a decision within days on whether to ship a lightweight rules-based version now or delay two weeks for deeper analysis and broader rule coverage. You are the program manager coordinating a 10-person cross-functional team across product, engineering, data science, risk operations, and customer support.
Key Stakeholders
The VP of Revenue wants the feature live before November 15 to reduce chargebacks during peak traffic. The Head of Risk wants stronger analytical validation and lower false declines before launch. Engineering wants to avoid rework because the checkout platform is already committed to a separate performance upgrade. Customer Support is concerned that a rushed launch could increase merchant complaints.
Constraints
- Launch decision required in 5 business days
- Hard launch window: November 15, ahead of a projected 35% traffic increase
- Remaining project budget: $120,000
- Team: 4 engineers, 1 data scientist, 1 product manager, 1 risk analyst, 1 designer, 2 QA/support leads
- Engineering capacity limited to 24 story points per sprint because 40% of backend time is reserved for checkout reliability work
- Historical fraud data is incomplete for 18% of merchants due to a tracking migration last quarter
Complications
- Early analysis suggests the new rules could reduce chargebacks by 8-10%, but false declines may increase by 1.5-2.0% for new merchants.
- Sales has already told three enterprise merchants that stronger fraud controls are coming before peak season.
- The data scientist who built the initial fraud model is leaving for vacation in 10 days.
Deliverables
- Propose a decision-making approach that balances analytical rigor with the 5-day deadline.
- Create an execution plan through launch, including scope trade-offs and decision checkpoints.
- Define launch success criteria, guardrails, and rollback triggers.
- Identify the top risks and mitigation actions.
- Recommend how you would communicate the final decision to executives and merchant-facing teams.
