Own Strategy Beyond the Backlog | Dataford Interview Questions

Company Context

TaskFlow is a B2B SaaS workflow platform used by 12,000 mid-market teams to manage approvals, requests, and internal operations. The company has strong adoption in operations and HR teams, but growth has slowed as larger competitors position themselves as more strategic platforms rather than task management tools.

Problem

You are the PM for TaskFlow's core workflow product. Over the last two quarters, your team shipped 18 customer-requested features on time, but key business outcomes barely moved: weekly active teams increased only 2%, 90-day retention stayed flat at 71%, and expansion revenue grew just 1%. Leadership feedback is that PMs are acting like backlog administrators—reacting to sales asks, support tickets, and stakeholder requests—rather than strategic owners who define where the product should go and why.

Customer interviews show mixed signals:

Admins want easier workflow setup and governance
End users want faster task completion with less manual work
Sales is pushing enterprise-specific requests for a few large deals
Engineering wants to reduce platform complexity and tech debt

You have one product squad (8 engineers, 1 designer, 1 data analyst) and two quarters to show measurable impact.

Deliverables

Explain how you would shift from backlog-driven execution to strategic product ownership for this product area.
Identify the most important user segment and job to be done you would prioritize first.
Propose a product vision and 2-3 priority initiatives for the next two quarters.
Describe how you would decide what not to build, especially when facing stakeholder pressure from sales and executives.
Define success metrics and how you would know the team is operating more strategically.

Constraints

You cannot increase headcount this half.
At least 20% of engineering capacity must remain allocated to reliability and tech debt.
The company has three enterprise prospects worth $1.8M ARR combined, each asking for custom capabilities.
Any strategy must show measurable product impact within 6 months.

Problem

Company Context

Problem

Customer interviews show mixed signals:

Admins want easier workflow setup and governance
End users want faster task completion with less manual work
Sales is pushing enterprise-specific requests for a few large deals
Engineering wants to reduce platform complexity and tech debt

You have one product squad (8 engineers, 1 designer, 1 data analyst) and two quarters to show measurable impact.

Deliverables

Explain how you would shift from backlog-driven execution to strategic product ownership for this product area.
Identify the most important user segment and job to be done you would prioritize first.
Propose a product vision and 2-3 priority initiatives for the next two quarters.
Describe how you would decide what not to build, especially when facing stakeholder pressure from sales and executives.
Define success metrics and how you would know the team is operating more strategically.

Constraints

You cannot increase headcount this half.
At least 20% of engineering capacity must remain allocated to reliability and tech debt.
The company has three enterprise prospects worth $1.8M ARR combined, each asking for custom capabilities.
Any strategy must show measurable product impact within 6 months.

Problem

Company Context

Problem

Customer interviews show mixed signals:

Admins want easier workflow setup and governance
End users want faster task completion with less manual work
Sales is pushing enterprise-specific requests for a few large deals
Engineering wants to reduce platform complexity and tech debt

You have one product squad (8 engineers, 1 designer, 1 data analyst) and two quarters to show measurable impact.

Deliverables

Explain how you would shift from backlog-driven execution to strategic product ownership for this product area.
Identify the most important user segment and job to be done you would prioritize first.
Propose a product vision and 2-3 priority initiatives for the next two quarters.
Describe how you would decide what not to build, especially when facing stakeholder pressure from sales and executives.
Define success metrics and how you would know the team is operating more strategically.

Constraints

You cannot increase headcount this half.
At least 20% of engineering capacity must remain allocated to reliability and tech debt.
The company has three enterprise prospects worth $1.8M ARR combined, each asking for custom capabilities.
Any strategy must show measurable product impact within 6 months.

Problem

Company Context

Problem

Customer interviews show mixed signals:

Admins want easier workflow setup and governance
End users want faster task completion with less manual work
Sales is pushing enterprise-specific requests for a few large deals
Engineering wants to reduce platform complexity and tech debt

You have one product squad (8 engineers, 1 designer, 1 data analyst) and two quarters to show measurable impact.

Deliverables

Explain how you would shift from backlog-driven execution to strategic product ownership for this product area.
Identify the most important user segment and job to be done you would prioritize first.
Propose a product vision and 2-3 priority initiatives for the next two quarters.
Describe how you would decide what not to build, especially when facing stakeholder pressure from sales and executives.
Define success metrics and how you would know the team is operating more strategically.

Constraints

You cannot increase headcount this half.
At least 20% of engineering capacity must remain allocated to reliability and tech debt.
The company has three enterprise prospects worth $1.8M ARR combined, each asking for custom capabilities.
Any strategy must show measurable product impact within 6 months.