Defining, agreeing on and tracking team goals as a product manager

How do you set goals for the teams you work with? Walk the interviewer through your process and support it with an example from your own experience. ```hint Build from one real cycle Pick one planning cycle you ran from start to finish, explain where its goals came from and how they were judged at the end, and draw your general process out of that story. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Do you mean people who report to me, or the cross-functional group of engineers, designers and analysts a product manager leads without formal authority? - Should I cover only how goals are chosen and agreed, or also how they are tracked and changed during the cycle? - Should I assume the company already runs a planning process such as quarterly objectives, or describe how I would set goals where none exists? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - How team goals are derived from company strategy and from evidence about users and the business - How each goal is worded and made measurable, and how ambitious the target is - How the team and stakeholders shape and commit to the goals, including how conflicts and capacity limits are resolved - How progress is reviewed, and when a goal is revised or dropped - A concrete example told in STAR form, with the result and what changed afterwards ### Follow-up Questions - Tell me about a goal your team missed. What happened, and what did you change in how you set goals afterwards? - How do you handle a partner team whose priorities conflict with the goal your team committed to? - How do you keep a target metric from being gamed at the expense of the outcome it stands for?