Risks and mitigation plan after an unreleased smart speaker prototype leaks to the press

You are a product manager at Google on the team building a new smart speaker that has not launched yet. A prototype of the speaker was left behind at a cafe, and tech news sites are now covering it in detail. Explain what risks the team and the product now face, and how you would mitigate them. ### Clarifying Questions - Had the speaker been announced or hinted at publicly before, or is this coverage the first time anyone outside the company has heard of it? - Is the prototype still missing, and do we know who has it now: the cafe, a journalist, or someone unknown? - Was it a working unit that could hold test accounts, internal software builds, credentials or recorded audio, and can it be reached remotely? - How far is the product from launch, and are its key inventions already covered by patent filings? ### Part 1 — Identify the risks List the risks the leak creates for the product, the team and the company, and decide which matter most. ```hint Who can act on the leak? Think about each party that now has something it did not have yesterday: whoever holds the device, competitors, the press and future buyers, and your own company. Some risks come from the physical unit; others come from the story. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - Risks across security and data, intellectual property and competition, brand and customer trust, and the launch and sales plan. - A ranking by impact and by how quickly each risk needs action. - Whether any part of the leak actually helps the product. ### Part 2 — Mitigate them Describe what you would do, in what order, and with whom. ```hint Three time horizons Split the response into what has to happen in the first day or two, what changes in the launch plan over the following weeks, and what keeps it from happening again. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - Immediate containment of the device and of anything it can access. - The communications and launch decisions, with the trade-offs of each option. - Process changes for prototype handling, with an owner for each action. ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A prioritized view of the risks rather than a flat list, with security handled first. - Each mitigation tied to a specific risk, with an owner and a timeline. - A proportionate public and legal response that does not make the story bigger. - Launch-plan judgment: keep, accelerate or reshape the launch without shipping an unready product. - Follow-through that fixes the process instead of blaming one person. ### Follow-up Questions - The coverage is mostly positive and interest in the product jumps. Would you change the announcement or the launch date? - A competitor announces a similar feature a few weeks later. How do you respond? - What rules would you set for prototypes taken outside the office, and how would you keep them from slowing down real-world testing?