In this module9 lessons
Making trade-off decisions
Make a clear call when two metrics move in opposite directions, using one currency, a time horizon and guardrails, not "it depends".
5 min readFull kit
The question behind the question
"A change raised time spent by 5% but cut ad revenue by 3%. Do you ship it?" "Our new onboarding lifted sign-ups but lowered seven-day retention. What now?" Trade-off questions test whether you can decide with incomplete information and explain why, which is much of the job.
The most common weak answer is "it depends", followed by a list of what it depends on and no decision. The second most common is an instant decision with no reasoning. The interviewer wants a call, the reasoning behind it, and the conditions that would change your mind.
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Practice this lesson
- A feature increases engagement but also increases reports of harassment. Do you keep it?
- Ads revenue would rise 5% if you added one more ad to the feed. Should you?
- Notifications drive 30% of daily opens, but the uninstall rate is rising. What do you do?
- Engineering can either cut app load time in half or build the top-requested feature this quarter. How do you choose?
- A feature in your app is used by only 2% of users. What would you look at before deciding to remove it?