Product practice
Each challenge is a situation someone could plausibly hand you, followed by what is actually going on underneath it. Decide what you would do before you open anything else — and read the trap on every single one, because the trap is the move that looks right.
One ticket, decompressed properly. What problem, for whom, and the smallest version.
A decision to explain, a scope to cut, a metric to pick before the build.
An experiment that lies, a stakeholder who wants an answer, a feature nobody uses.
An incident with a product cost, a roadmap that is wrong, and the postmortem that has to change something.
Beginner
One ticket, decompressed properly. What problem, for whom, and the smallest version.
Finance lead, in a Slack message: "Can you add a button to the admin that exports all orders as a CSV? We need it for month-end. Shouldn't be a big deal, right?"
Your manager: "The PM and finance keep going back and forth on guest checkout. Can you write it up so they can decide on Friday? Keep it short."
PM: "Customers keep asking for gift options — gift wrap, a message card, hiding prices on the packing slip, and delivery on a chosen date. Can we have it all before the holidays?"
Intermediate
A decision to explain, a scope to cut, a metric to pick before the build.
Head of marketing, in the planning meeting: "Our biggest competitor launched wishlists and I want one before the holiday season. How long would it take?"
Engineering manager: "Checkout had an incident because two feature flags interacted in a way nobody expected. There are dozens of flags in the service. Can you sort it out?"
PM: "Leadership wants to know when order tracking will be on the order page. I need a date by tomorrow. Can you give me one?"
Support lead: "Half our tickets are 'where is my order?'. Could you add a FAQ page about shipping times so we can link to it?"
Advanced
An experiment that lies, a stakeholder who wants an answer, a feature nobody uses.
CTO: "The new payment provider offers lower fees. Finance wants to switch next quarter. Can you evaluate it and tell us if we should go ahead? We can always switch back if it does not work out."
PM: "Great news — the lower free-shipping threshold won the A/B test. Completion is up. Let's ship it to everyone on Monday."
Design lead, after the review: "We are going with the new order page layout. I know you had concerns, but the decision is made. Can you lead the build?"
Expert
An incident with a product cost, a roadmap that is wrong, and the postmortem that has to change something.
Support lead: "We are getting a lot of angry tickets about checkout — people say they paid and never got a confirmation, so they paid again. Your dashboard says everything is fine. Can someone actually look?"
Your manager: "That is the third checkout incident this quarter caused by the promotions code. Write the postmortem and let's put it behind us. Also, the team wants a rewrite — can you put that in as the main action item?"