This question will help assess your ability to influence leaders so as to drive impact for the technical work you wish to do.
By Software Engineer Professional
Software development has changed significantly in the last 10 years or so. We have had products grow incrementally in sprints so that companies can innovate continually, fail quickly, adapt rapidly and surprise customers constantly.
What this has meant is that engineering teams have become bottom-up and more siloed. While this has helped create amazing products, senior leadership has become more removed from the details, and then when it comes time to make decisions, things slow down for lack of shared context.
Here are some techniques I’d use to help accelerate decision-making:
- Ongoing demos on how the product is iterating and growing
- Metrics on product success like adoption numbers, cost of data storage, and new feature usage.
- Delivery timelines and changes based on tool choices.
I’d use biweekly lunch-and-learn sessions and one-pager memos to ensure that I am building a critical mass of shared knowledge so that come decision-time, we all have common context to reference.
As critical decisions come up, I will identify key players, their concerns and needs so as to craft an alignment strategy that speaks to those needs. Since our products keep evolving, so must our methodology to help drive decision-making.
Why this answer worked well:
- It set the stage for how modern tech work has changed including its pluses and minuses for strategic decision-making.
- It provided examples of how decisions would be made and also why those approaches would help.
- It closed by making the point that the work to produce tech products has to evolve to help drive the products themselves.
Here are some tips on answering this question:
Set context. Explain who your leadership would be and why it may be hard, yet crucial, to drive alignment.
Provide examples. Offer specific ways you would help the leaders see the world as you see it - such as showing facts, choices, timelines, and risks. This helps them better understand why you need certain resources as they make decisions.
Show impact. Use metrics and evidence to show the effectiveness of your arguments and strategy.
- Make sure you operate cross-functionally rather than just in a silo so as to be seen as a leader.
- Develop the muscle to explain your tech work to a diverse set of stakeholders. Otherwise you may get typecast and pigeonholed.
- Develop ongoing communication strategies to explain why your work is critical and needs to be resourced.