Q4 Planning Scenario: Prioritization, Scope, and Stakeholder Leadership

You are the sole data lead for Q4 supporting three initiatives with fixed sponsor expectations and limited engineering capacity.

Initiatives

• (A) Courier cancellations: Reduce cancellations by 10% by Nov 15; estimated effort 1.5 eng-weeks; sponsor: VP Operations.
• (B) Merchant quality dashboards: Launch by Oct 30 for the QBR; estimated effort 2 eng-weeks; sponsor: Head of Merchant.
• (C) Pricing uplift experiment: Launch by Nov 30; estimated effort 1 eng-week; sponsor: CPO with +2% revenue expectation.

Constraints

• Capacity: 2 eng-weeks available before Oct 30; 1 eng-week available in November.
• Compliance: Mandatory 1-week lead time before any launch (work must be code-complete one week prior to the date).
• Design: Shared design team cannot work on more than one initiative simultaneously.

Tasks

1. Prioritize and sequence the work using a concrete framework (e.g., RICE or WSJF). State assumptions and the decision rule used.
2. Propose minimal viable scope (MVP) for each initiative that preserves expected impact while fitting constraints. Explain where you cut scope and why.
3. Draft a stakeholder communication plan: what you will commit to each leader, what slips, and how you align on tradeoffs. Include an example status update and a short script for saying no.
4. A critical incident occurs on Oct 25 requiring 0.5 eng-week to fix a data quality issue affecting cancellations. Update your plan: how you renegotiate deadlines and manage risk without eroding trust.
5. Define success criteria for your own performance (leading indicators, risks, contingencies).