Align Team Beyond Sprint Goals | Dataford Interview Questions

Company Context

NotionFlow is a Series B B2B SaaS company that sells workflow and project collaboration software to mid-market teams. It has 12,000 paying companies, strong adoption among product and operations teams, and is now trying to expand into enterprise accounts where buyers expect a more coherent long-term product direction.

Problem

You are the PM for NotionFlow's core planning product. Over the last two quarters, the team shipped 14 sprint commitments on time, but customer feedback suggests the product feels increasingly fragmented. Sales says enterprise prospects do not understand the product's long-term value proposition, design says the UX is becoming inconsistent, and engineering feels roadmap changes are reactive to the loudest stakeholder.

Internal data shows:

Sprint completion rate is 92%
Team members can describe current sprint goals, but only 35% can clearly articulate the 12-month product vision in an internal survey
40% of roadmap items added in the last 6 months were unplanned requests from sales or executives
Feature adoption for the last 5 launches averaged only 18% among target users after 60 days

The VP of Product asks you: "How would you make sure your team is aligned with the product vision, not just the current sprint?"

Deliverables

Define how you would diagnose the root causes of misalignment across product, design, engineering, and go-to-market teams.
Propose a practical system to connect long-term product vision to quarterly planning and sprint execution.
Explain how you would prioritize incoming requests that may help short-term revenue but dilute the vision.
Describe how you would communicate the vision so that different functions can make better day-to-day decisions without waiting for PM direction.
Define how you would measure whether alignment is actually improving.

Constraints

You cannot reorganize the team or add headcount in the next 2 quarters
The company has committed to 3 enterprise customer launches in the next 6 months
Engineering capacity is tight: only 20% of roadmap capacity can be used for process or platform improvements
Leadership wants visible improvement in one quarter, not just a long-term culture plan

Problem

Company Context

Problem

Internal data shows:

Sprint completion rate is 92%
Team members can describe current sprint goals, but only 35% can clearly articulate the 12-month product vision in an internal survey
40% of roadmap items added in the last 6 months were unplanned requests from sales or executives
Feature adoption for the last 5 launches averaged only 18% among target users after 60 days

The VP of Product asks you: "How would you make sure your team is aligned with the product vision, not just the current sprint?"

Deliverables

Define how you would diagnose the root causes of misalignment across product, design, engineering, and go-to-market teams.
Propose a practical system to connect long-term product vision to quarterly planning and sprint execution.
Explain how you would prioritize incoming requests that may help short-term revenue but dilute the vision.
Describe how you would communicate the vision so that different functions can make better day-to-day decisions without waiting for PM direction.
Define how you would measure whether alignment is actually improving.

Constraints

You cannot reorganize the team or add headcount in the next 2 quarters
The company has committed to 3 enterprise customer launches in the next 6 months
Engineering capacity is tight: only 20% of roadmap capacity can be used for process or platform improvements
Leadership wants visible improvement in one quarter, not just a long-term culture plan

Problem

Company Context

Problem

Internal data shows:

Sprint completion rate is 92%
Team members can describe current sprint goals, but only 35% can clearly articulate the 12-month product vision in an internal survey
40% of roadmap items added in the last 6 months were unplanned requests from sales or executives
Feature adoption for the last 5 launches averaged only 18% among target users after 60 days

The VP of Product asks you: "How would you make sure your team is aligned with the product vision, not just the current sprint?"

Deliverables

Define how you would diagnose the root causes of misalignment across product, design, engineering, and go-to-market teams.
Propose a practical system to connect long-term product vision to quarterly planning and sprint execution.
Explain how you would prioritize incoming requests that may help short-term revenue but dilute the vision.
Describe how you would communicate the vision so that different functions can make better day-to-day decisions without waiting for PM direction.
Define how you would measure whether alignment is actually improving.

Constraints

You cannot reorganize the team or add headcount in the next 2 quarters
The company has committed to 3 enterprise customer launches in the next 6 months
Engineering capacity is tight: only 20% of roadmap capacity can be used for process or platform improvements
Leadership wants visible improvement in one quarter, not just a long-term culture plan

Problem

Company Context

Problem

Internal data shows:

Sprint completion rate is 92%
Team members can describe current sprint goals, but only 35% can clearly articulate the 12-month product vision in an internal survey
40% of roadmap items added in the last 6 months were unplanned requests from sales or executives
Feature adoption for the last 5 launches averaged only 18% among target users after 60 days

The VP of Product asks you: "How would you make sure your team is aligned with the product vision, not just the current sprint?"

Deliverables

Define how you would diagnose the root causes of misalignment across product, design, engineering, and go-to-market teams.
Propose a practical system to connect long-term product vision to quarterly planning and sprint execution.
Explain how you would prioritize incoming requests that may help short-term revenue but dilute the vision.
Describe how you would communicate the vision so that different functions can make better day-to-day decisions without waiting for PM direction.
Define how you would measure whether alignment is actually improving.

Constraints

You cannot reorganize the team or add headcount in the next 2 quarters
The company has committed to 3 enterprise customer launches in the next 6 months
Engineering capacity is tight: only 20% of roadmap capacity can be used for process or platform improvements
Leadership wants visible improvement in one quarter, not just a long-term culture plan