IIT-M PM CASE BOOK
23 INDUSTRY STANDARD INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS TO HELP
YOU ACE YOUR NEXT CASE
THE FIRST ENGINEERING UNDERGRADUATE CASEBOOK
WITH CASES FROM TOP PRODUCT MANAGEMENT FIRMS
ISSUE DETAILS
All rights reserved by Case Club, IIT Madras.
ISBN : In Progress
First Published : October 2022 (Version 1)
No attempts can and should be made to transmit the information, store, retrieve and copy any part of the book by any
means (digital, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) prior to the permission of the authors.
DISCLAIMER
→ The cases collected in the book are purely based on memory of candidates post their interviews. Hence certain
discontinuities / derailment can be expected from the actual interview.
→ In order to maintain a continuous flow of conversation in the multiple cases, certain parts have been modified with
respect to the actual cases we collected. The said action was also taken at certain places to ensure a steep learning
curve for the reader.
→ For the above reasons, the cases are not to be taken as a word-by-word transcript of the interview but rather a
resource to get an idea of type of cases and difficulty level an engineering undergraduate can expect in their placement
interviews for management consulting profiles.
PREFACE
This book has been prepared by the Case Club, IIT Madras. We saw a gap in the case preparation that
students from IITs do every year. There seemed to be lack of a book that satisfies both the criteria - provides
cases at undergrad level and focuses on cases that engineers can expect. Due to the steep rise in the variety
and complexity of products, the demand for product managers who streamline the process of bringing a product
to market across industries has surged up.
This casebook happens to be the first casebook at an engineering undergrad level and IIT Madras is the first IIT
to develop this. It contains a set of 23 case interview transcripts, collected from the on-campus placement
season ‘21 alongwith a few practice cases. The cases are supposed to give an exact flavor to candidates for
the type and difficulty level they can expect.
The Case Club of IITM (including heads, strategist and associates) has put its heart and soul behind collecting,
writing and perfecting each case for the benefit of the problem solving culture, not only at IITM but across all
colleges in the country. Do go through this and try to share with anyone you feel would benefit from this.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We have received support from several people on the way and we would love to thank each one of them for all
the help they provided in return for absolutely nothing :
IITM Graduates (APMs at present) :
It wouldn't have been possible without y’all giving us the cases with utmost patience that you displayed.
Anuj Khandalikar (Flipkart), Mansi Khandelwal (Flipkart), Samarth Wagh (Groww), Kritin JP (TATA Cliq),
Abhishek Kumar (TATA Cliq), Anfas Nujum (Metadome.ai), Ishaan Indurkar (Metadome.ai), Janakiraman
(Kotak), Guru Pramoth (Zomato)
IITM Administration :
We would like to thank Prof. Ramamurthy K, Chairman, Library Advisory Committee 2021-22 for all the support
provided. A special mention needs to be given to the Academic Affairs Secretary - Ramkamal T B (2022-23) for
the help and more importantly the faith shown in a new club for this major responsibility.
Decode and Conquer, Cracking PM interview, PM interview cracked, Preparing for Product Interviews:
We would like to thank the authors of above mentioned casebooks to develop the amazing casebooks which
motivated us to go ahead and build one of our own for engineering undergraduates. The clarity in their
casebooks really helped us take some major decisions about how should we go ahead and write the cases.
GUIDE TO USE THE BOOK
→ Form a case group among your friends.
→ Practice the cases in your group. The interviewer needs to keep an open mind - grill when interviewee is making
absurd assumptions, help when they’re off track and most importantly be open to new approaches.
→ Have a positive feedback session post the case. Do not hesitate in sharing negative feedback. Help each other
improve, it’s your responsibility!
→ It’s a casebook. It’s intended to look perfect. The actual interviews however are full of hiccups, unusual
conversations & the interviewer constantly trying to keep candidate on track. Don’t get thrown away if your solution does
not follow the flow in the cases here. Rather have confidence in your approach and reinforce positive learnings from here
in your own case solving.
ABOUT CASE CLUB, IIT MADRAS
Case Club, IIT Madras was started in 2021 with an aim to improve the problem solving culture in IITM. The founders
realised that problem solving and structured thought process are tools not just relevant to Consult but rather to every
industry. In fact it’s an efficient skill to solve any problem one faces in life.
With excellent initiatives executed just within its 1 year of existence - Consult 101, Guesstimate Premier League, Product
and Consult Casebooks, Case Club has received a lot of traction and appreciation and is full geared up with its brand
new set of activities which are even more fun and engaging for the students. Stay Tuned!
MEET THE AUTHORS
Gayathri Vipin, Associate
Nabhitha B, Associate
Rethik Visweswar, Associate
Kishore Rajendran, Associate
Aditya, Associate
E Prakathishwar, Associate
Aryamaan Singh, Associate
Vaishnavichandra G, Associate
Nidan Basheer, Associate
Anushka S, Associate
Anirudh Kulkarni, Head
Revati Sawant, Head
Janisha B L, Strategist
PAGE NUMBERS SAME AS PDF PAGES :)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
S.NO
NAME
DIFFICULTY
COMPANY
A.
FAVORITE PRODUCT
1
GATHERING STEAM
EASY
TATA CLIQ
10
2
MEDITATION IS THE KEY
EASY
GROWW
12
3
LACK OF SLACK
MODERATE
TATA CLIQ
15
B.
PRODUCT DESIGN
PAGE
9
18
1
PEOPLE AND PANDEMIC
EASY
HI LABS
19
2
BLIND TESLA
MODERATE
MEESHO
21
3
ZOMATO FOR SENIORS
MODERATE
ZOMATO
23
4
ELIMINATING FAKE
DIFFICULT
FLIPKART
26
C.
PRODUCT IMPROVEMENT
1
MADE IN WHATSAPP
EASY
FLIPKART
33
2
BETTER UBER RIDE
MODERATE
GROWW
36
3
FLIPPIN FLIPKART
MODERATE
FLIPKART
39
4
WHAT’S THE RATING ?
MODERATE
FLIPKART
42
5
LEARNING PROPERLY?
MODERATE
GAANA
45
6
PAY WITH GPAY
DIFFICULT
KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK
47
7
DO YOU WANT A JOB?
DIFFICULT
GAANA
50
32
PAGE NUMBERS SAME AS PDF PAGES :)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
S.NO
NAME
DIFFICULTY
COMPANY
D.
ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS
1
USERS EVERYWHERE, SUBSCRIBERS NOWHERE
EASY
TESTBOOK
55
2
CYCLE MECHANIC
EASY
TATA CLIQ
58
3
YOUTUBE HACKS
MODERATE
GROWW
61
4
I HATE FAKE !
DIFFICULT
FLIPKART
63
E.
PRODUCT METRIC
1
INSTAGRAM INFLUENCE
EASY
TATA CLIQ
69
2
BECOME AN INDIAN IDOL
EASY
ZOMATO
71
3
ENGAGE TO GROW
MODERATE
GROWW
73
F.
GUESSTIMATES
1
THE TERMINAL
EASY
HILABS
77
2
MESSY MESS
MODERATE
KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK
79
PAGE
54
68
76
FAVORITE PRODUCT
GATHERING STEAM
COMPANY
This interview was based on a Microsoft form where the interviewee was asked to type out their answers and the
interview itself was a discussion on the responses collected.
Hi, let us start with the case. What is your favorite product?
Steam is my favourite product. It is a gaming marketplace and a community forum where gamers, modders and developers
can buy, sell and discuss games.
ROUND
PM
Great. So how would a platform like Steam generate revenue?
Platforms like Steam earn money from commissions generated by sales of games, microtransactions, which are in-game
transactions and game cosmetics, which are visual accessories used in games like Fortnite.
Why would consumers prefer Steam over their competitors?
Consumers prefer Steam as it is very reliable and is quite easy to upgrade.
TYPE
Sounds good. Can you give me a brief walkthrough of an average user journey.
FAV PRODUCT
A first time user would have to initially download the application
create an account
search or explore games
purchase the game
download the game
add billing details
Very well. Now are there any reasons why a consumer would choose a competitor over Steam?
DIFFICULTY
Platforms like Epic Games offer more trials and discounts on their platform, which motivates many to use it instead.
EASY
Great. Who do you consider as the major competitors of Steam?
Platforms like EA Origin, Xbox Store and Epic Games are the direct competitors of Steam.
GATHERING STEAM
COMPANY
According to you, how competitive is this market?
Due to the presence of multiple players, the market is very competitive I’d say.
Now, say you are a Product Manager at Steam. What product strategy would you pursue in light of the discussion
we had so far?
If I was a Product Manager at Steam, my strategy would be to do nothing and wait out the competition.
ROUND
Why would that work? Can you elaborate more on this?
PM
TYPE
PRODUCT
FAV PRODUCT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
EASY
When one looks at the market through Porter’s Five Forces Analysis, which is used by managers to find the strong and
weak points of a company in relation to their competitors, the following can be observed:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Buyers: They are price sensitive.
Suppliers: There are a huge number of suppliers.
Threat of new entrants: Since the number of products and users needed to sustain a platform is high, the threat of
new entrants are low.
Product differentiation: Low
Substitutes: Not a lot
From the following observations, it can be seen that Epic’s business model, which is based on heavy promotions is not
financially sustainable as it either leads to heavy losses or losing market share and other competitors don’t have a good
product catalogue. Hence, it makes sense to do nothing and wait out the competition
That’s an excellent analysis. We can close the discussion now
MEDITATION IS THE KEY
COMPANY
Tell me about your favorite tech product. If that product wishes to launch into India, what strategies will you use
(GMT) and what new features would you introduce for the Indian market?
Okay. Before we begin with the case, I have a question in mind.
Please go ahead.
ROUND
PM
What is the type of industry that we are looking into?
There is no restriction to it. We can go ahead with any industry of your choice.
Okay. So let’s assume we consider a meditation app and solve the case for it.
My approach would be as follows :
TYPE
Product
Design
FAV
PRODUCT
1.
2.
3.
To identify the target audience
To figure out all the pain points
To find out all the possible solutions
That sounds good. Please go ahead.
DIFFICULTY
EASY
The target audience for this product can be segregated into three different groups based on their age:
1.
Students (15 - 25 years): Do meditation as a hobby and to stay fit and healthy
2.
Working Professionals(25 to 50 years): Do meditation for stress release and calmness
3.
Elderly people(50+ years old): Do yoga / meditation for healthy life or social gathering
Are we going well?
MEDITATION IS THE KEY
COMPANY
Yes, this is a good approach. Which segment would you want to focus on?
We can focus on working professionals because of the large market size and paying capacity. Let us identify the pain
points:
1.
Less time due to busy schedule
2.
Same monotonous meditation every time
3.
Nothing visibly rewarding to sustain the habit
ROUND
PM
TYPE
Product
Design
PRODUCT
FAV
PRODUCT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
EASY
Possible Solutions :
1.
A feature in which a person can select how much time he has for meditation today and fills in how
he / she is feeling. We will recommend meditation to him/ her accordingly.
2.
Uber for meditation - A new expert will be connected to the user every time he/ she opts to
meditate, who will guide you through meditation and listen to your feelings post meditation like a therapist.
Moreover, this can be monetised like the Onlyfan business model, where you can subscribe to whichever teacher
you like.
3.
Creating a group feature where a user can meditate with his / her friends. This can serve as a reward. I used
cue-action-rewards framework here.
This is great! What pain points can you think of for the students segment?
The possible pain points are:
1.
Boredom: Students are used to a dynamic lifestyle and might not appreciate the essence of Yoga
or Meditation.
2.
Not fancy enough: This age group likes putting all their activities on social media and might not
consider yoga to be cool enough for that. In fact they might view this as something old people do.
Good. Do you have any solutions for these problems?
MEDITATION IS THE KEY
COMPANY
Sure, here are 2 solutions :
1.
2.
ROUND
PM
TYPE
Product
Design
PRODUCT
FAV
PRODUCT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
EASY
Gamification of Yoga where the instructor teaches yoga/meditation in a fun way or with some nice
music. We can have specific courses for this age group.
We can have a social media campaign where youngsters post their daily fitness goals as
instagram stories with unique hashtags and tagging us along. This will provide them incentive to
do yoga daily and improve the perception among other students as well.
Yes. We can close the case. You did well
LACK OF SLACK
COMPANY
Hi, let us start with the case. Tell me about your favorite product.
When you say product, I’m taking it as a digital product. Slack is one of my personal favorites. It’s a messaging platform
generally for businesses. It facilitates closed group conversations for people within an organisation to connect.
Nice. What features attracted you the most to Slack?
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
FAV PRODUCT
I will walk you through the user journey and highlight the features that made me stick to this product for so long.
Account creation
Joining servers using invite link
Accessing various channels & features
→ It has a very well-organised user interface with conversations grouped into specific channels
→ Notifications: There is an option to mute each channel independent of the other channels on the same or different
servers. Additionally, users can set up a specified time during which notifications will appear
→ Users will have access to all old messages when they join a group/channel newly. This feature helps new members to
know the previous works and progress of their team
→ Many other applications and features are integrated with slack. These applications can aid in tracking metrics of
importance like new users, total signups of the product being developed
→ The online-offline status update controls are very user-friendly and customizable
→ It has an audio channel feature similar to the voice channel of discord but it also has a video recording option similar to
Whatsapp and not found on discord
That’s interesting. Now, let’s say you are a product manager at Slack. What additional features would you like to
bring in?
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
I would like to get one thing clarified here. What kind of features do you want me to think about? Should it lead to an
increase in revenue, user acquisition, improved user experience & engagement or user retention
As it’s a messaging platform, you can look at features to increase user engagement and retention.
LACK OF SLACK
COMPANY
Sure. I would like to focus our discussion on a particular customer segment of slack, which is a community-based group.
Tell me more about this community-based group.
Many learning platforms use slack as their primary medium of knowledge transfer. An example would be Product School.
The learning community is organised by having separate channels for particular goals like providing resources, peer
learning and doubt-solving
ROUND
SENIOR PM
Interesting. You can continue with this.
So these community workspaces on slack have a huge number of users and hence an even larger number of messages
daily. So new and inexperienced users don’t know which of these messages is helpful because of the information overflow.
Many of the features I suggest will revolve around this pain point.
User engagement on slack = Total # users * avg time spent on slack per user
TYPE
FAV PRODUCT
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
EASY
Hence, to increase engagement, we can either expand our user base or increase the average time a user spends on our
platform. Based on this understanding, I’d like to group my suggestions into the following two buckets :
To expand the customer base
User acquisition :
→ Having the product for two customer segments :
→ For general public usage: Same features as now. Free
→ For businesses : Including business-friendly features like those on Whatsapp. Paid version
User retention :
→ Personally, I have observed that people shift to other apps like zoom or google meet when online meets and
calls are scheduled. We can integrate a video conference tool on our platform or have video channels that
allows people to schedule online calls at a minute’s notice.
LACK OF SLACK
COMPANY
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
FAV PRODUCT
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
EASY
To increase usage per customer
→ Upvote and downvote options: To prioritise the messages and channels based on individual user discretion
→ Adding filters: Users can read messages with a higher upvote or sort them according to their needs. They can also use
time filters like the ‘last 24 hours’ or ‘last 7 days’
→ A whiteboard option to note down minutes of the meeting and essential notes while on a call will add value and hence
increase customer retention.
→ Adding a calendar feature will help schedule meets on the aforementioned video channels. It will also help users
organise their day by blocking off time slots for specific tasks
These are excellent suggestions. What metrics will you track to measure the success of these changes?
As my suggestions are related to adding new features to all or a selected group of people, the metrics that we have to look
into will only be activity based
# new users in each segment :
→ After introducing the product for the two customer segments, we can track the number of new logins to the
free segment and the conversion rate of free users to the paid services
# daily active users :
→ By tracking the upvote-downvote counts, we can track the total number of viewers/interactions and hence
arrive at an approximate number of active users of our platform
→ Total number of sessions per user per day to track the number of times they are coming on the platform
# users utilising meet features :
→ Average time spent by a user will enable us to know the amount of engagement we are creating on our
platform
→ We can track the total number of video calls happening daily and based on the weekly stats, we can include
more related features
→ Total number of actions a user takes on the calendar tool per day
That was great. Thank you.
PRODUCT DESIGN
PEOPLE & PANDEMIC
COMPANY
Hi, let us start the case. During lockdown, due to covid a lot of people got emotionally and financially weakened.
Suggest an idea to help those people.
I want to clarify whether the idea should be for emotional well-being or financial or both.
For now consider any one of these two.
ROUND
PM
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
EASY
Ok, so I will go with emotional well being.
I would like to divide people into different age groups and then find out the reasons for a particular group.
Students:
●
Not able to socialize and go out-of-doors
●
Couldn’t complete courses or degrees
●
Not able to study in online scenario
●
Death of a relative
Adults:
●
Lost their employments
●
Isolated from their family and society
●
Death of a relative
Old :
●
Isolated from their family and society
●
Death of a relative
Great, you can move ahead.
As per my knowledge, people who seek counselling/treatment from a certified person for their emotional issues will
generally face the following hurdles:
●
They are expensive and not everyone can afford them. Moreover many people are currently facing financial issues
as well.
PEOPLE & PANDEMIC
COMPANY
●
People will be having privacy concerns.
●
Finding a good psychotherapist is not an easy task.
Based on these observations, I would like my product to be pocket-friendly, to respect privacy of the customer and to
ensure a proper feedback mechanism.
That’s fine. Can you list some features that you would like to have?
ROUND
PM
TYPE
I would like to have the following features:
1.
Price: Our main goal will be to reduce the cost of consulting a psychotherapist. We can mitigate the cost by
grouping people into groups of 4-5 with one therapist per group.
2.
Problems: Categorise people having similar issues into the same group.
3.
Privacy: Anonymous users for privacy
4.
Interaction:
●
Certified psychologist with cost and time
●
Text, call features with therapist
5.
Feedback: Rating / feedback for therapist as well as patient
This is a good idea. We can close the case now.
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
EASY
BLIND TESLA
COMPANY
Build a transport service for the blind using an autonomous fleet.
I would like to know our place in the value chain. Are we a service provider like Uber or do we build the fleet?
We are the service provider. The fleet comprises cars only.
What is the geography and timeline to analyze?
ROUND
PM
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
Based in India and on a quarterly basis. Assume the blind person is travelling alone.
Let me look at the user journey currently in Uber.
● Pre journey: Booking the cab by the blind user by entering the destination.
● During the journey: In transit to the location. Authentication of the right cab via OTP. Ingress into the cab from the side of a
road. Emergency numbers accessible in case of a breakdown.
● Post journey: Getting down, crossing the road etc. as that is a safety issue and finally payment.
In the pre journey, most modern phones have advanced accessibility features so we only need to ensure the app is
compatible with these features. For example : Just open the app and voice enter the destination where you want to go and
confirm by saying 1. The driver can call once to confirm the address and destination.
For the in-journey part, The app will automatically announce once the car reaches the user address.The car can produce a
low volume siren to guide the user towards the car. As soon as the user opens the door, the siren will go off. There can be
updates on the location every 15 minutes and emergency numbers must be accessible. In fact there can be a button inside
the car that when pressed would automatically announce the live location and distance from destination. Similarly there can
be a button for emergencies.
MODERATE
For post-journey, there can be a prepaid wallet from which money is deducted as the only option for this service. An
automatic voice can ask for rating out of 5 stars and the feedback.
BLIND TESLA
COMPANY
To measure this, we need to see the user adoption rates as this is a new service. This can be measured by number of
signups, monthly usage rates etc.
Good. How can we have a trial run for such a product?
ROUND
PM
There are 2 ways in my opinion :
1. Collaborating with a blind society - Take blind people on independent rides across the city and try to identify possible
bottlenecks at all stages of the ride.
2. Identifying localities / cities with highest blind concentration and trying free rides there during peak traffic hours.
Fair enough. What are some possible risks associated with this service?
1. User adoption : Gaining the trust of blind people on driverless cars will be the biggest challenge and given that it is a high
fixed cost business, less user adoption can lead to losses.
TYPE
2. Accidents : Even a single accident or poor user experience can lead to extremely negative PR and damage our services.
As it is a very sensitive service, 100% accuracy is required. Similarly excellent emergency handling would be required as
blind people might need even more support during an emergency.
PRODUCT DESIGN
3. Location : As there is no visual verification of the address entered but rather a voice input, the app might incorrectly
interpret the location at times and the user might reach a different location leading to a lot of inconvenience.
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
OK. Good enough. We can close the case. Thank You!
ZOMATO FOR SENIORS
COMPANY
Okay, let’s start with a case. How do you design Zomato for senior citizens?
I have a few clarifications before we move ahead. What exactly is the objective this initiative?
As you know, the population of senior citizens in India in expanding. We need to be prepared to capture this
growing market.
ROUND
Understood! May I know what is the targeted age group of this population?
Yes, let’s look at those who are 50 years and above.
SENIOR PM
Do you want me to assess the impact or revenue opportunity from them?
You can assume that it is an opportunity of significant size.
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
Right, so what exactly do you mean by design? Is it any changes in UI/ UX or reformations in marketing strategies or even
building a separate platform?
In this context we can consider modifications in UI/ UX.
Are there any geographic constraints to the target population? As in India specific?
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
Yes, as our goal is for immediate implementation. So let’s focus on the Indian diaspora.
Since we are considering the UI/ UX scenario, shall I assume that the target audience already has access to technology or
should we explore it a bit more in detail?
ZOMATO FOR SENIORS
COMPANY
You can go ahead and consider that everyone we ought to target have access to the current technologies.
Okay, so I would now prefer to analyse the problem further by going through their user journey (with regards to this
particular age group)
ROUND
1.
2.
3.
4.
SENIOR PM
5.
6.
7.
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
They find out about our service through electronic or print media or through word of mouth.
Installing the application and signing in
Assuming they are looking out for something healthy but not a specific item with no preference over chains/
restaurants, they browse for the item and a list of sellers are displayed.
These are ordered by reviews, better ratings that guarantee better quality and taste of the food item. However, there
is no mention on healthiness of the food.
The next dilemma is narrowing down on a food item of choice and comparing reviews and the options available.
Apply offers/ coupons, select drop off address and initiate payment.
Track delivery and collect the order on arrival
Am I right in assuming these divisions and if yes shall I go ahead to extrapolate these steps involved into pain points in
order to arrive at a conclusive solution?
Yes you are right in doing so, please proceed…
So the list of all pain points compiled after going through the user journey are:
1.
Awareness: The knowledge of the existence of the app/ service and its offerings
2.
Technical familiarity: their comfort level towards using apps on mobile phones, filling in personal information and
payment channels (card registration)
3.
Health concerns/ disabilities: like poor eyesight, parkinson's etc
4.
Language barriers: Low English proficiency to follow up on basic instructions
5.
Multitasking: switching between apps to pay, providing permissions.
6.
Post order modifications: connecting with restaurant in case of late delivery etc.
ZOMATO FOR SENIORS
COMPANY
Solutions:
These are formulated after careful consideration of all the points explored above
1.
2.
ROUND
3.
SENIOR PM
4.
5.
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
6.
Advertising on the platforms like popular newspapers and radio channels that are read/ watched by majority of the
customer segment.
To reduce the friction in signing in, we can connect the app to users’ Aadhar card by simply taking their phone
number. This way we can automate the process of filling in the address, assuming that majority of the users’ live at
their permanent address.
Phone’s voice assistant like Siri can be integrated to directly take commands from the users about their choices and
lead them to the payments page. An alternative approach could be to set up call centres for phone based ordering
where the users’ can place their order with the support executive of Zomato.
The application should contain senior friendly filters like ‘healthiness rating’ of the restaurant.
The application should be made inclusive of the persons with health concerns/ disabilities. Therefore, the gesture
control system can be integrated with the app along with colour blind theme and an option to change font size.
The application should automatically redirect the user to the payment portal/application and auto detect the OTP so
that the pain of switching apps is reduced.
Great work! We will end the case now
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY
This case is a continuation of “I HATE FAKE” case from RCA section.
Now that we have decided to solve the problem. Would you help us highlight the key challenges and some solutions?
Sure. Before diving into the case, I would like to ask a few clarifying questions
ROUND
SENIOR PM
Go ahead
A. Regarding the Company:
● What does it do? → Social media company
● What is the Business Model? → Ads and Marketplace
● Market share? → Market leader
● Which Geographies are we targeting? → Only India
B. Competitors:
● Market share, Business model? → Standard ones (incumbents + new companies), Ads + marketplace
● Are they facing a similar fake news problem? → Most likely, Industry wide problem
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
C. Product
● Which FB product? → FB app, News Feed
● Objective/vision of this product? → Engage people and keep them coming back to FB over and over again. Monetize
this with various BMs
● Success metrics of this product → Engagement: Time spent on app per user. Revenue: Ads revenue/ GMV per user
● ‘Fake news’ definition → Misinformation that is spread via social media
● Scale of the fake news problem → Unknown
● For how long have you experienced the fake news problem? → Noticed it a couple of months back
● Any metric that got affected due to fake news? → No RCA available readily
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY
D. Objective
● What is the objective? → Identify key issues and propose high level solution to solve for fake news in FB india news
feed
● Why should we solve this problem? → In previous case
Alright, I think I have a good background knowledge of our client. So now I will break down the PS to get a better overview of
the process.
ROUND
Sure, go ahead
SENIOR PM
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT
DESIGN
The core entity is the Fake news FB posts in the news feed as discussed in the previous case.
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
EASY
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY
Okay so now I will analyse the actors in this ecosystem.
Sure, go ahead.
Source of Fake news → Off Platform
Publisher of Fake news → On platform
Consumer of Fake news → On Platform
Society → Off platform
There is nothing much we can do to control the off platform actors. So we will focus on the activities of on platform actors
ROUND
SENIOR PM
Fair enough, go ahead.
So this is the basic classification for the publishers and consumers or the on platform actors for our case
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
I will analyze each of these in detail now
Sounds Good.
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY
ROUND
SENIOR PM
A. Originators:
● Could be malicious or unintentional originators of fake news on the platform
● Persona:
1. Ground level Party workers
2. Polarised opinions
3. Easily manipulated/ brainwashed
4. Mid 20s, aspirational
5. Broken english, basic understanding of social media and tech products
B. Spreaders:
1. Politically active and vocal about thoughts
2. Mid 40-50s
3. New to social media
4. Victims of confirmation bias
5. Lot of free time on hand
Can I move ahead with these assumptions about originators and spreaders of fake news?
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
Yes, this is exactly what we are looking at. You can proceed.
Now, I will come up with granular problem statements which can be addressed along with the priority order.
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY
ROUND
SENIOR PM
I would like to analyse the key issues for addressing these problem statements.
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
Sure, go ahead.
According to me the major key issues would be:
1. Lot of off-platform nuances and variables that control the fake news spreading ecosystem
2. Identifying absolute truth (fake vs real) is difficult
3. Impact prediction of fake news on society and FB is difficult
Great, now that you have understood the root cause and the problems to be addressed,
Can you please give some recommendations?
DIFFICULT
EASY
Sure, so I propose a high level solution:
ELIMINATING FAKE
COMPANY
ROUND
SENIOR PM
We should keep a check at each step in this funnel.
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
EASY
A. Fake news originator checks
● Real or fake
● Pages/people followed
● Posts liked or shared
● Previous posts history
B. Image political fake news check
● Classification ML model:
1) Inputs - image pixels of posts shared via image medium in the region
2) Output - Fake news or not fake news (basis number of ‘reports’ to the post etc + verified by moderators)
C. Potential Impact on society
● Simple ML model with three classifications: Benign, medium, dangerous
Sounds good, we can close the case here.
PRODUCT IMPROVEMENT
MADE IN WHATSAPP
COMPANY
Hi ! Let's start with a case. Whatsapp was recently acquired by Facebook. How do you think the experience of
whatsapp can be improved?
Alright, I have a few clarifying questions. Are we looking at a specific timeline?
We can look at one year.
What exactly do we mean by improving experience in Whatsapp?
ROUND
PM
Here, it means improving ease of communication.
Are we looking at personal users or business users?
We can look at personal users.
Can I consider it to be a mature product?
TYPE
Yes.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
Difficult
EASY
I have enough information to start the case now. First, I would like to run you through the basic functionality of Whatsapp to
see if there is any scope of improvement here. The basic features are → Texting people
→ Putting statuses
→ Audio and video calling
Do you think any of these basic functionalities can be improved further?
No, here I don’t see any scope for immediate improvement . All these basic functionalities have been optimised and reached
their saturation point as of now.
MADE IN WHATSAPP
COMPANY
So, where else can we tap in?
We can look at adjacent features in Facebook and Instagram and include them in Whatsapp to level up the experience..
Some features I can think as of now are → Talking to people outside one’s contact list
→ Introducing a marketplace.
→ Improving ease of joining communities
ROUND
PM
That’s great. Is there any specific feature you want to focus on and why?
I would like to focus on launching a new marketplace because Facebook and Instagram have been experimenting with a
similar model. And given that Whatsapp already has a payment feature, introducing a marketplace can be highly rewarding.
That is a good observation. We can proceed further.
TYPE
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
To proceed further I would like to break this into two interfaces. We can look at the seller and user flows.
The user flow would be Scouting for businesses
Looking through the catalogues
Transacting online
So while customers scout for businesses who would appear on the searches?
DIFFICULTY
I would like to make it hyperlocal. We can include a feature of setting up a radius.
Difficult
EASY
Why would you like to keep the feature hyperlocal? Do you think there is any specific benefit?
MADE IN WHATSAPP
COMPANY
It acts as a soft power in a way and gives the customer a feel good that the money they are spending is going to elevate
local communities. And I feel given recent talks regarding ONDC this move has great growth potential. On the other hand it
is an extremely cost effective option as well.
That is a valid argument. Let us move to the sellers side now .
ROUND
PM
TYPE
Yes. So, the sellers would include small business owners for example - a baker selling cakes or a small scale fashion
designer selling clothes.
This would include onboarding sellers and ensuring they provide good service.
Since we have a one year timeline what should the focus be on?
Technology can be built within a month or two after testing and piloting. We need to focus on onboarding verified sellers on
the platform and enabling transactions.
Once we get a basic idea about the traction we can onboard more people and do more pilots and eventually building up a
marketplace from scratch.
Great ! That concludes our case. Thank you.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
EASY
BETTER UBER RIDE
COMPANY
Assume you are a PM at Uber. Improve the rider’s experience during the ride.
Sure. Before diving into the case, I would like to ask a few clarifying questions.
Go ahead.
Why does this metric matter to us?
ROUND
It would help us in customer retention.
SENIOR PM
Do you have any specific locations in mind?
Let’s go ahead with Bangalore.
TYPE
Product Design
IMPROVEMENT
Is it for Uber pooling or UberGo?
You can continue with UberGo.
First we can dive into the major customer segments who are using UberGo.
The users can mainly be divided into three segments based on their travelling distances :
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
1.
2.
3.
Cabs going long haul mainly from the city to the airport.
Employees from home to workplaces.
Local travellers travelling around the city.
BETTER UBER RIDE
COMPANY
Due to the high travelling time and thus high-paying capacity, I’d like to focus on improving the rider experience of
users who are going long hauls majorly to the airport.
That sounds good. Let us dive into the case
ROUND
Alright, we can look into the journey of a user and see various points at which interaction happens and how we can
improve the same
●
SENIOR PM
●
●
●
TYPE
Booking a cab (Time taken, Ride cancellation by drivers)
Talking to the driver and coming to the location (Soft skills of driver, language spoken)
Inside the car (Seat comfort, smooth driving - Some users use laptop/phone or may prefer sleeping)
Interactions inside car (Attached tablet, Music and Videos)
Can we look forward to analysing the data collected from the riders ?
According to my knowledge, these are the kind of data we collect as a measure of rider’s experience:
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
The possible metrics are rider’s rating, driver’s rating, travelling path, travelling time and the destination.
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
We can also collect the interaction data of the users with our target. This could be done by the data analytics team
of the company.
BETTER UBER RIDE
COMPANY
Most importantly, if a rider is giving a two star rating to a driver we can tend to analyse the root cause on why
exactly is he/she giving that rating and accordingly we could take necessary actions.
That’s Good enough. We can close the case.
Do you have any questions for me ?
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
{ - I discussed a few points regarding Groww from a trading perspective. I also explained to him about three new
features like Simplified Demat account portability just as Jio did to mobile number portability.}
FLIPPIN FLIPKART
COMPANY
Hi, let us start with a case. Say you were the Product Manager at Flipkart, which is looking to improve their product
to stand up better to their competition. How would you go about this?
So Flipkart is an e-commerce store, and is a buyer-seller marketplace that deals in a wide variety of products like
electronics, groceries, and fashion, to name a few. To improve the business, the various stakeholders, i.e., the sellers,
buyers, logistics arm and advertisers would have to be considered. Is it okay if I consider it to be a mature product in India?
Yes, you may consider so.
ROUND
PM
Okay. As for the business objectives to be focused on for product improvement, I have chosen two - retention and
acquisition. Is there any particular area I should focus upon as in any particular demographic or product or just stick to this
non-differentiating level?
Such a differentiation is not needed. What approach do you have in mind to approach this case? Could you provide
me with a general outline?
TYPE
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
For starters, I would like to look at the three major stages a Flipkart user could be on:
→ Downloading and logging in
→ During the first couple of uses
→ Uses after becoming a core user.
I would like to focus on how to retain the users at each stage, and also on encouraging them to move on to the next.
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
Sounds good.
So for this, a customer segmentation is required, I would like to do this on the basis of:
→ An understanding of the tech-savviness and digital literacy
→ Gender and age dimensions
FLIPPIN FLIPKART
COMPANY
This will help build an accurate customer persona. On the basis of this persona I will then move on to identifying the
problems faced by the customer.
Alright, let’s take the case of a Tier-3 city middle-class female without a steady source of income, dependant on
another for the same. How will you identify the needs of this customer?
Assuming the target is in the age group of 25-45. I would trace their product user journey as follows:
ROUND
PM
TYPE
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
EASY
Awareness
Accessibility
Navigation
Purchase
Delivery
1.
Awareness of the service: She could learn of Flipkart through TV/print/social media advertisements, word of mouth
or the uniform of delivery partners on duty.
Once the product has registered in her mind 2.
Accessibility to it comes next. For this she would require a smartphone and good internet connection. There would
also be the question of literacy in her language of convenience as well as basic digital literacy.
3.
Navigation comes into the picture now that the user is on the platform and is trying to buy a product off the platform.
Considering a typical day and possible usages, some possible product categories could be: General toiletries,
Stationery, Books, Kitchen groceries, Footwear, Clothing. Ease of navigation is needed in filtering the desired
‘product zero’ by sorting out through parameters like reviews, ratings, price range, etc.
4.
Moving on to the Purchase aspect. Our target customer might be reliant on another’s income to make the purchase,
and this may pose a restraint which leads her to keep an eye out for deals and offers.
5.
Once the purchase has been made comes the Delivery stage. The navigation system has to accurately detect the
delivery drop off point, and the delivery staff be able to make assured and timely delivery. Of course, the question
also arises about the availability of an accessible drop-off point for the delivery staff.
That’s great for tracing the product journey. Assuming a customer has passed points 1 and 2 in your mapping.
What pain points could arise during the rest of their experience using Flipkart?
FLIPPIN FLIPKART
COMPANY
Navigation: The element of digital literacy could be one aspect. For example, she could be stumped at the download and
sign in stage, which could result in this being a turn-back point. This also extends to using filters and selecting the right
product, as well as availing good deals. Further, if the user is not comfortable with English, the language of convenience for
her not being offered on the app could be another pain point.
Payment: Sometimes, the Cash on Delivery option could be unavailable, making it difficult for users unversed in digital
payments.
ROUND
Delivery: Finally, in case of failure of the navigation system, or unavailability of delivery points in proximity, delivery time and
product condition may be compromised, affecting the user experience.
PM
That is a very comprehensive look into our friend’s problem here. Finally, to wrap it up, how would you build a
bridge across to a user who is facing a steep learning curve with the app? Also suggest an incentive that could
encourage the user to keep using the service.
TYPE
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
EASY
To avoid the first possible roadblock of a steep curve, Flipkart could use push advertisements on channels such women
frequent in general which could showcase how easy it is to download and sign in. Easy and simple tutorials could also be
made readily accessible.
As for repeated purchases, we could incentivise the seller through referral coupons and random discount vouchers. Another
way of roping in online purchase traffic could be by introducing a resale option on Flipkart, where users can make money by
reselling products, on a zero investment charge-platform.
Great. That sounds like a good plan. Well, that wraps up our product sense case. Thank you.
(Doesn’t go into how to address these problems, as the interview was only to test the product sense of the interviewee)
WHAT’S THE RATING?
COMPANY
Hey, let's get started shall we? Here is your case: How can you improve Flipkart reviews?
I have a few clarifications before we move ahead. What exactly is the objective of such an initiative?
We are looking at a better interpretation of reviews by the users, converting more of them into buyers/ more
checkouts.
ROUND
Just confirming, is it (increasing sales) from a Flipkart seller perspective or for the company in general, improving the overall
customer experience.
PM
Let’s assume you're consulting on behalf of the company, aiding our product team to set up new features to ensure
a better user experience.
Are we looking at reviews on the official website and apps or even other sources like quora, blogs, affiliates etc.
TYPE
We can restrict ourselves to those appearing in our webpage and app.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
Sure, are we going for better quality reviews or are we focussing on increasing the numbers?
We shall look at a quantitative increment in this context.
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
Let's explore the purpose that reviews serve in the first place and later understand the current layout of Flipkarts review
pipeline.
As I understand, reviews serve as word-of-mouth testimonials from satisfied customers providing unbiased opinions and
concerns regarding a product and dictating a customers choice whether or not to buy it.
WHAT’S THE RATING?
COMPANY
Currently the layout of Flipkart displays detailed written reviews on the bottom, with an indicator providing rations of reviews
split on the basis of stars awarded and an overall rating. (more reviews implies more purchase which in turn direct to the
popularity and trust for the product/ brand). I've also considered all categories to be valid and equally weighted*. Am I right
in assuming these statements?
Yes, you may consider these assumptions to be valid and proceed.
ROUND
PM
Let us now consider two factors posing a challenge to better reviews, one being the lack of in-built features and the second
being the of unwillingness of buyer to review
(Category-1) Firstly let's consider the user’s journey once the app is installed and signed in.
●
TYPE
●
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
●
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
●
●
●
Assuming they are looking out for a specific product with no preference over brands, firstly, they search for the
product and a list of sellers pops up.
These are ordered by decreasing popularity/ total no of sales, better reviews and F-assured tags for credibility
(guarantee stamp for having undergone additional quality checks). Assuming that the number of reviews are
proportional to the sales, the most reviewed ones show up on the top.
The next dilemma is narrowing down a price range/ a cap on maximum budget to be spent followed by narrowing
down a set of products to be compared.
After comparing reviews and features they reach a final conclusion and proceed to add it to cart/ checkout.
Apply offers/ credits, selects drop off address and initiates payment.
After receiving the delivery and use some shall post their experience as reviews
WHAT’S THE RATING?
COMPANY
Solutions:
●
●
ROUND
PM
●
From the above sequence we can infer that if a “paradox of choice” does exist it might actually reduce conversions
and a comparison mechanism is essential for the same as it complements the decision making process of a buyer.
Therefore reviewer counts on the top must be displayed for buyers to distinguish the product from the entire lot.
Also, an additional feature to compare similar products within the same price range must exist (similar to that
implemented in Amazon).
The overall rating can be further split into differentiating feature wise ratings providing more clarity to customers on
deal-breaking differences.
(Category-2) Rating is different from Reviews as the latter demands more time and effort from the user. Hence, the vast
majority of the buyers skip reviews. Also, one negative (1 star) review needs four positive (5 star) reviews to negate its
effects on the overall ratings. But assuming the same scenario for all the products we can disregard this disparity in general.
TYPE
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
Solutions: Incentivising reviews with Flipkart credits/ points can be a suggestion. Also, adopting a strategy of pop up
requests for reviews on subsequent visits prove to be beneficial.
Great work! Let’s end the case here.
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
LEARNING PROPERLY ?
COMPANY
You are the PM at an ed-tech startup which has a platform that offers hard and soft skills training. It is currently a B2B
service. Programs are self-paced, but there is a deadline of 3-4 months within which they have to complete it. However,
people were only focused on the courses in the first 1 week and last 1 week where users rushed to complete it. Can
you improve this situation?
Firstly, who are our customers? Are they doing blue collared jobs or desk jobs in these companies?
ROUND
SENIOR PM
Mostly white collared job employees.
Do they belong to a particular industry?
There is a mix of people from across industries. There are also some students from campuses.
TYPE
IMPROVEMENT
IMPROVEMENT
I see that this is a push-based learning program rather than a pull-based. Are the courses completely individual or are there
batches of people who take it together and see the videos/ classes themselves.
The programs are batch based and they are provided video content with some live sessions. The company
recommends certain people to take up the course and they are a part of the batch.
Are the courses customizable? Do the companies choose from a list of courses? Also, could you elaborate on the type of
training, who creates the courses and content delivery.
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
The company chooses from a list of programs.The chosen employees in these companies further have a freedom to
choose from the list made by the company. Content delivery varies across courses- some have more reading material,
some have more live sessions etc. There is a hybrid model where some courses are created by internal subject experts
and some of them are created by people who are outsourced (professors, speakers, industry experts etc.)
LEARNING PROPERLY ?
COMPANY
Let me look at the user journey to identify the relevant points. Firstly, you said that the user chooses the courses. Is there
a decision fatigue where they have to check a lot of different courses before they choose and end up choosing
something sub optimal?
This is not the case as the choices are limited by the company shortlist too.
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
Root
IMPROVEMENT
Cause Analysis
IMPROVEMENT
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
Next in the journey would be registering for the course. I do not think that would be a problem as the problem lies in them
not being enthusiastic enough to finish consistently. So considering their time learning the course, I would like to make
the following observations:
● Notifications for some people: Most people need some sort of a nudge to get back to the platform, but not all.
Identifying those people who need it based on user activity is important. Self-goals can be set by users to
complete.
● Attention span: Making smaller nuggets of information content would be better than longer videos in a
self-paced course.
● Gamification: A leader board based on interaction and test scores with some rewards for the top performers
on a weekly basis. Since it is batched based, this brings in a social element. Badges for milestones can also be
given, which can be shared on social media or with the batch.
Remarks by the interviewee: This was a little confusing because the business was B2B. We are exposed to B2C
platforms like udemy/ coursera and because of that, the bias seeps in and it becomes difficult to identify the problem. It is
important to clarify the user journey thoroughly.
PAY WITH GPAY
COMPANY
Let’s start with the case. Analyse e-bill payment feature in Gpay and suggest some improvements.
I have not used this feature previously. But, I think it should be a feature that fetches all the bills at a single place, and can
be paid for with GPay.
Yes, You got it right. It is a feature to pay all your bills at a single place, to make your life a bit easier.
Great, Let me ask some clarifying questions so that I can get a hang of the e-bill feature.
ROUND
Sure
SENIOR PM
TYPE
There are two stages of usage here. First time payment (linking the accounts) and using the feature after linking. Can you
please explain the user steps involved currently in both of these stages?
Yes, For first time setup, the user has to link the account, let’s say electricity account to GPay by entering some
relevant data. Using this information GPay fetches all pending bills under that electricity account. The next step is
common for both first time user and recursive users. They can just pay the bills with existing GPay payment
methods.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
Great, So currently the feature works only for paying to an established organisation which has an API to access customer
bill data
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
Yeah that’s right
Thank you for the inputs, I have got a pretty good idea of the functionality.
Let me go through the user journey and try to look for any improvements at each step.
Good, Go Ahead
PAY WITH GPAY
COMPANY
First time payment:
Go to Bill section
Select Company/Service
Recurring payment:
Go to Bill section
Pending bills
Add Details
Pending bills
Payment
Payment
Now analysing each step in both these user journey,
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
Increasing no. of customers checking bill payment section:
→ Intimate users about pending/new bills for users who have saved info
→ When a user pays with GPay in the electricity website, a pop up message should appear asking permission to
store their data for future use. With this we can migrate users to this feature
Companies/Services available:
→ Adding subscriptions like Netflix, Prime and other platforms
→ Adding more options like Kirana store, newspaper, milk payment. A feature where these shopkeepers can send
the bill to their customers, and customers in turn pay them with GPay
→ Catalogue the services available with respect to location, as each state has their own services.
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
DIFFICULT
Adding Details:
→ Important step, as this determines the transaction. Display the customer details before saving the data, so that
they can rectify any typing mistakes.
→ OTP / website password to check for authenticity/correctness of data entered
→ As suggested before, pop up window in website payment to store data
Pending Bills:
→ Users should not miss out on payment date, so by default pending bills should be ordered chronologically.
Additional filter/sorts can be provided to aid users in making financial decisions
PAY WITH GPAY
COMPANY
Payment:
→ Users typically pay with debit card, credit card, netbanking, UPI. The edge this feature has over the traditional
one is aggregation and recursiveness. To improve the recursion, we can motivate users to store money in GPay
wallet for transaction in a click or automated transaction.
→ New possibility might include creating bank mandate for automated payment. (Not sure of the govt. laws)
These are the list of improvements that will enhance the purpose of the feature. Should I look into any other field or area?
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
DIFFICULT
This is great! Can you prioritise these suggestions? Pick the top 3 suggestions
Sure, I will create a impact vs effort matrix to prioritise them
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
New Feature
Pending bill reminder
Pop up to store data
Subscription payments
Shopkeepers
Catalogue services
Check page on saving data
OTP/password on saving data
Pending bill display order
Automate transaction
Impact
Medium (User retention)
High (New users)
High (New users)
Low (cash/on spot payment)
Low (Just a filter)
High (Safety & accuracy)
HIgh (Safety & accuracy)
Low (Payment reminder is better)
High (Only diff. Between other modes)
Effort
Low (Addition of notification feature)
Medium (Collaborate with payment sites)
Medium (APIs for many companies)
High (Create features to add recipients)
Low (create filter)
Low (Display details to verify)
Medium (Collaborate with companies)
Low (Sorting/order of display)
High (Adding new software changes)
The top 3 would be
1.
Automate Transaction - As it is the key difference between normal UPI & this feature
2.
Check page / OTP - As accuracy of data entered is very important
3.
Pop up to store data - This brings in new customers
Great insights! Let’s end the case here
DO YOU WANT A JOB ?
COMPANY
How would you retain customers for Naukri.com/ LinkedIn job search?
Retention is a big problem for the companies that have a transactional product. I want to know what customers we are
talking about, those who are already using the product to search for jobs or attracting new people. Also, can you
elaborate on retention?
ROUND
SENIOR PM
Let us consider those who are using the product. We want them to use the platform the next time they are
searching for a job. By retention, we want customers to return to this platform for the next time and also keep
them engaged in the platform for some time after they find a job for monetary reasons.
May I assume that we are only considering job seekers and not those who are looking to network, find leads etc. ?
Sure, that is fair.
TYPE
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
Also, how long do we want to retain these customers and keep them engaged after they get their job?
A couple of months.
I have come up with a 3-pillar structure that I want to discuss with you.
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
Difficult
● Use case/ feature strategy: How would one layer on additional use cases for people to compel them to use the
product.
● Frequency strategy: How do you increase the frequency with which a user logs in to the application. For
example, if he checks updates once every 7 days, how do you make it once every 3 days?
● Intensity strategy: Time spent on the platform per use. Additional and useful activities can be thought of to
increase the time spent once the user logs in.
DO YOU WANT A JOB ?
COMPANY
ROUND
Okay that looks good, let us dive into the use case first.
Let me divide use case into 2 parts based on the user journey:
●
During the job search/ just after applying
●
After finding a job
For the first one, one important aspect could be group recommendations based on the user’s school and current job. For
example, discussion forums for people looking for similar jobs or a group with alumni from the same institute could be
recommended. Speaking to others can be important in such situations. For the second one, we could make use of
learning courses/ certifications to keep them engaged. Does this sound good?
SENIOR PM
Fair enough, keep in mind that we are targeting customers who are already engaged. Let’s look at frequency
strategy next.
TYPE
Let me list what we can do here:
●
Notifications: Active notifications and updates on their job application, new messages in the groups you are a
part of, hot article on the topic you follow.
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
Let me stop you there. How will you identify which user gets what notification and their frequency? Many
notifications can be detrimental.
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
Difficult
As a first experiment, we need to collect data on which user prefers what notification. Then we can build a mapping
towards which user gets what notification using ML and similar techniques by building a dataset of users and preferences
over time.
That makes sense, you may continue.
DO YOU WANT A JOB ?
COMPANY
Let us move to the third pillar of intensity strategy. Basically, I want to see how the user interacts, whether they are just
viewing the platforms for updates in a few seconds or are they actually spending more time commenting, interacting with
some items?
Currently, they are only viewing updates.
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
Difficult
To tackle that, we can make use of the article section I mentioned before. We can build a recommender of short articles
based on the user’s search history and interactions.
Can you define metrics to measure the success of everything you have mentioned?
For the use case part, we can measure the correlation between a user interacting with the various items presented
previously like short articles, courses, groups etc. and him returning for a job search in the predicted period of time. For
the frequency part, we can calculate how many more days is the user logging in per month as compared to the previous
month. If this is above some threshold, it is a success. Lastly, we can measure the intensity by the average total time
spent per log for a week.
These are good points, but how would you change the strategy if we want to engage the user for a much longer
period of time like 1 year?
I would focus on the courses part mentioned previously. Since we are not an ed-tech company, we could have tie-ups
with other ed-tech companies for the sake of offering premium/ SOTA courses. We can also look at the monetization
strategy where we can allow people to pay only if they get a job. This creates a gratitude feeling and they will be willing to
pay some more money.
DO YOU WANT A JOB ?
COMPANY
Are you sure about the last point?
I think it has potential. Some of the hurdles I can think of are that the Indian market is very price sensitive which could be
a problem. Also, it would be difficult to identify whether they did get a job from the platform as they could have applied
through a post of an opening.
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
Product Design
PRODUCT
IMPROVEMENT
DESIGN
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
Difficult
Remarks by the interviewee: The crux of the case was to recognize that users were just spending a couple of seconds to
see updates and they were not using the app for anything else. This made engaging them further difficult. The
interviewee luckily chose a framework he had read which led directly to the solution. It would have been slightly more
difficult to find this had he chosen the standard user journey . There was a variant of this question asked, which is listed
next.
ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS
USERS EVERYWHERE, SUBSCRIBERS NOWHERE
COMPANY
Hey! Let’s start this interview with a case. We have observed that the number of people subscribing to our classes
on the platform has reduced in the past one year. What do you think is the reason?
There could be two reasons why the number of subscribers have fallen on the platform. Either the number of users using
the platform has fallen or the pricing structure has changed. Has either of this happened?
No, the number of users has actually increased and the pricing structure has been the same for the past year
ROUND
PM
So, the user increase is from the existing customer base and the decrease in subscribers is caused by something within the
application. So, I’d like to know more about the user journey from watching the tutorial to buying the product, since the issue
lies somewhere within this journey.
We give a small free tutorial video to the users interested in subscribing to the platform, based on that, users
decide whether to subscribe to our product or not
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
So, to clarify,
User watches the tutorial
Chooses products
Adds it to cart to subscribe
Checks out and subscribes.
Yes, that’s what they generally do.
Going through this process step-by-step, has the number of people watching the tutorial reduced?
No, it has roughly remained the same.
DIFFICULTY
EASY
Okay, is there any decrease in the number of people adding products to their cart?
No, it has remained constant.
USERS EVERYWHERE, SUBSCRIBERS NOWHERE
COMPANY
Alright, has there been any decrease in the number of people checking out?
Yes, there is a steep and unusual fall in the number of people who are checking out
Has there been any changes in the process between adding to cart and checking out in the platform in the past year?
Yes. A new technical update has been launched which changed the process between adding to cart and check-out
ROUND
PM
1
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
EASY
This could have lead to technical glitches like system crashes making it difficult for users to proceed forward from adding
items to cart
Right, this must be the reason the subscriptions have went down. It went great, we can close the case here
USERS EVERYWHERE, SUBSCRIBERS NOWHERE
COMPANY
ROUND
PM
1
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
EASY
CYCLE MECHANIC
COMPANY
Hey! Let’s start the case. Your client is a company which has an app offering cycle mechanics on the spot. They
have observed a 20% decline in the number of users. Analyse the possible reasons for the same.
I have a few questions in order to get to know our client better. Firstly, can you please elaborate on how exactly this product
works?
Sure. Let us say a cycle rider faces a problem with their cycle during a journey. They can use our product to book
for a cycle mechanic and someone will be sent to the rider’s current location for repair
ROUND
PM
Interesting. I would also like to know the regions where this product is offered.
We can consider that your client operates within the IITM campus only.
I would also like to know whether the decline has been observed in the app or website, if it exists, and also whether the
decline has been gradual or spontaneous.
The product is available only in the app version. The decline is seen over the last 2 days.
TYPE
Ok that’s a very spontaneous drop. I would like to take a moment here to come up with the user journey of this app and then
we can list down the possible reasons of user decline under each step.
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
Sure go ahead.
DIFFICULTY
EASY
Here is how the user journey will look like as far as my understanding of the app goes :
→ A cyclist faces an issue with his cycle within the IITM campus.
→ He needs to take out his phone and connect it to the internet.
→ In case he doesn’t have our updated app, it should be installed or the existing app should be updated and opened
→ He should navigate through the app and book a mechanic after adding his current location
→ I’m assuming that after a small wait, the mechanic arrives and repair work is carried out
→ Payment will be done through the app I presume
Does this sound good ?
CYCLE MECHANIC
COMPANY
Yes you are right. The payment is done through the app itself.
I’d now like to list down the possible things that could go wrong in each of these steps of the user journey
ROUND
PM
1
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
EASY
→ Rider having problem with his cycle:
The factor to consider under this step is the total number of riders assuming that the number of cycle mishaps is still
the same as no major change has been brought into force on campus to avoid such scenarios
The number of riders on campus could have reduced due to the following reasons:
→ A covid wave has spread suddenly and hence lockdown has been imposed throughout the campus / Chennai
→ In case it’s a weekend or a govt declared holiday, many students are either not on campus or are just holed up in
their hostel rooms because most of the students use cycles extensively for attending classes or labs
→ Accessing the phone and internet:
As we are talking about the year 2021, I’m assuming that everyone carries their phone along with them wherever
they go.
So one concern here, although it sounds improbable and far-fetched, is that there has been a campus wide network
disruption and hence cyclists are unable to access internet services
→ Having an up-to-date version of the app and navigating through it:
Here we move on to the problems that can exist from our product’s end
→ Play store/ app store don’t display the app anymore due to some certification issues
→ Our app’s server is down and under maintenance
→ A new UI has been introduced and searching for options here is more complicated than on the earlier version
→ Wait for mechanic and payment :
→ Due to bad user experiences involving the service provided and payment method previously, users might have
started avoiding the app. But this cannot be the case because the decline has been spontaneous and not gradual
That’s an exhaustive breakdown of the root causes. You’ve covered everything I was expecting. I think we can
close the case now
CYCLE MECHANIC
COMPANY
Sudden decline in
number of users
Looking at user journey
Cyclist faces an
issue
Reduction in number of cyclists on campus
due to various reasons
ROUND
PM
1
Accessing
phone & internet
App availability
& navigation
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
EASY
Wait, repair &
payment
Campus wide network description hence
cutting off access to internet
App unavailable or server down due to
maintenance.
New, complicated UI
Wait for mechanic high. Hence low retention of
users
YOUTUBE HACKS
COMPANY
Hey, let’s start the case. You are a Product Manager for YouTube. There has been a 10% drop in engagement over
the past 2 weeks. What will you do?
Youtube is a video sharing platform whose primary source of venue are ad campaigns. Am I right?
Yes, please proceed.
ROUND
PM
I would like to ask a few questions to understand the product and our problem better. Firstly, can you tell me in which
geography we are seeing this problem?
The drop in engagement is being seen across India.
Interesting. Can I know what are the metrics used by YouTube to measure engagement?
The primary metric we use is the time spent per user per day on YouTube.
TYPE
RCA
Makes sense. I would like to take a moment to list down the different stakeholders involved here. They are:
→ Viewers
→ Creators
→ Companies that advertise on YouTube
Can you tell me which of these category of users has contributed the most to the drop in engagement
DIFFICULTY
It has been observed that there has been a drop from the creators’ end. The creators aren’t uploading as many
videos as before. However, there has been no change in the viewership.
MODERATE
Interesting. I would like to list down the possible reasons why this could be happening.
YOUTUBE HACKS
COMPANY
User-specific reasons:
To have a better understanding of these, I would like to do a rundown of the user journey followed by a creator on YouTube:
Sign-in on YouTube
Content ideation
analytics on content engagement.
Content production
Content upload on YouTube
Receive
Has there been any changes to this?
ROUND
PM
1
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
No change.
Interesting. I would now like to take a look at other possible reasons.
Product-specific reasons:
→ Changes in metric measurement method
→ The engagement calculator tool may be malfunctioning
→ App updates or UI changes
→ Any new strategy adopted/ announcements made by YouTube
External reasons:
→ New competitors or new product offerings made by existing competitors
→ Covid-related fall in usage patterns
→ Negative publicity about YouTube
→ Government regulations.
The possible reasons you’ve listed down seem exhaustive. The issue was caused by a new update made to the
Copyright policy by the government. The regulation prohibits the use of audios without the permission of their
respective owners. This has lead to a decrease in content uploaded. We can close the case.
I HATE FAKE !
COMPANY
Your client is Facebook. They have been facing a problem of fake news. You have to understand why this is
happening and is it worth solving.
Sure. But before diving into the decision of whether it should be solved, I would like to ask some clarifying questions
Go ahead
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
A. Regarding the Company:
● What does it do? → Social media company
● What is the Business Model? → Ads and Marketplace
● Market share? → Market leader
● Which Geographies are we targeting? → Only India
B. Competitors:
● Who all? Market share? Business model? → Standard ones (incumbents + new companies), ads + marketplace
● Are they facing a similar fake news problem? → Most likely, Industry wide problem
C. Product:
● Which FB product? → FB app →News Feed
● Objective/vision of this product?
→ Engage people and keep them coming back to FB over and over again. Monetize this with various BMs
● Success metrics of this product
→ Engagement: Time spent on app per user. Revenue: Ads revenue per user/ GMV per user
● ‘Fake news’ definition → Misinformation that is spread via social media
● Scale of the fake news problem → Unknown
● For how long have you experienced the fake news problem? → Noticed it a couple of months back
● Any metric that got affected due to fake news? → No RCA available readily
I HATE FAKE !
COMPANY
Alright, I think I have a good background knowledge of our client. So now I will be following this approach
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
The situation being comprehended well, I would like to analyse deeper into what is the root problem and will it be worth solving.
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
Sure, go ahead
Okay so I would like to get into the process of how exactly fake news spread.
I HATE FAKE !
COMPANY
ROUND
SENIOR PM
This is a high level abstract view of the process. Should I include any more sub-steps?
No, this looks good, you can proceed with this.
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
EASY
Okay so now I will list down the stakeholders at each step in this process.
1. FB
2. Ads suppliers
3. End users
● Fake news supply i. Originators ii. Spreaders
● Fake news consumers i. Detractors of FB ii. Spreaders
4. Sellers
5. Society
Is there any particular segment I should be focusing on?
Let’s look into Fake news suppliers
I HATE FAKE !
COMPANY
Okay so here we need to understand which topics of fake news are being circulated
ROUND
Is there any category which dominates? And by how much margin?
SENIOR PM
The major source of fake news is from Political Images & let’s consider only that for now.
Okay so the majority is political images & we can ignore the rest for now
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
EASY
I will dive deeper into analysing how the news exactly spreads.
Any particular data on which segment does the fake news belong? (Original vs Shared posts)
The massive spread is due to the shared content.
Okay so now I would like to analyse the effect of the PS on various entities and how it will affect the business and ethical goals.
I HATE FAKE !
COMPANY
Sure, go ahead.
ROUND
SENIOR PM
TYPE
Root Cause
RCAAnalysis
DIFFICULTY
DIFFICULT
EASY
So from all these considerations my final recommendation would be that the problem is worth solving.
The estimate for the priority we should be giving to solve this problem is high considering all the parameters (Reach, Impact,
Confidence and Efforts)
PRODUCT METRIC
INSTAGRAM INFLUENCE
COMPANY
Hey there! Let’s talk about Instagram. Do you use it?
Yes, I spend a considerable amount of time on the platform.
Great. Let’s do a case then. You are the Director of Product at Instagram. What metrics will you use to measure the
app’s success?
ROUND
ProductPM
Manager
Instagram is essentially a social media service that is also used for messaging and influencing. Can I consider these as its
major features?
Sure, go ahead.
Can I know the business goals of Instagram?
Instagram aims to increase revenue, engagement and user acquisition rate.
TYPE
PRODUCT METRIC
Interesting. I would like to draw the customer journey before defining the metrics. The different stages in the user journey
are:
Customer sign-in
Creating content (stories, posts, reels)
Viewing content
Reacting and commenting on
content
Messaging/ Video call
Follow/Unfollow
Looks good, you may proceed.
DIFFICULTY
EASY
Okay. Now I’d like to split the metrics into different categories so as to make sure that every aspect of the app is covered.
The key Focus metrics would be:
→ Daily active users - Time of usage of the app per person in a day
→ Weekly active users - Time of usage of the app per person in a week
→ Ratio of daily and weekly active users
INSTAGRAM INFLUENCE
COMPANY
ROUND
ProductPM
Manager
TYPE
Alright sounds good.
Next I would like to divide the metrics into 3 buckets:
User level metrics:
→ Number of sessions per user per day
→ Number of interactions per user per day
→ Number of posts per user per week
→ Number of stories put per user per day & number of stories viewed per user per day
→ Followers and following count
Post-related metrics:
→ Average interaction per post - likes, comments on average
→ Number of photos per post
→ Number of photos per post viewed
Messaging-related metrics:
→Number of people a user chats with
Based on the metrics defined so far, I would now like to define Level 1 and Level 2 metrics relevant to Instagram:
PRODUCT METRIC
Level 1: Directly influences focus metrics
→ Number of sessions
→ Number of photos
→ Interactions per post
DIFFICULTY
Level 2: Drives Level 1 and Focus metrics
→ Followers and following count
EASY
Great, thank you. We can close the case
BECOME AN INDIAN IDOL
COMPANY
Hi, let us start the case. Can you suggest some Instagram features to aid artists with revenue generation
Before I start I have a few questions. Is increase in revenue the only objective?
Yes, new features for revenue generation is the only objective.
Ok, What type of artists are we targeting?
ROUND
PM
Could you list out all the types of artists according to you?
Okay, Let me start by evaluating potential user personas.There are many types of artists such as painters, musicians,
designers, actors etc. Should I narrow down to one of these categories?
Let’s focus on musicians.
TYPE
PRODUCT METRIC
DIFFICULTY
EASY
Great. So, musicians use instagram mainly to gain more popularity and reach, which can in turn lead to money.
But for this case, I will focus on revenue generation solely from the Instagram platform.
When a musician uses Instagram, they login to their account and upload content regularly along with relevant hashtags.
Posting stories, creating reels, going live and setting up advertisements are some other frequent activities.
First, for the login stage, a simple feature to identify if the account is a real artist or not. We have the “verified” feature for
this. This would help identify the true artist and eliminate other dummy accounts that might be trying to take advantage.
OK, can you now focus on the revenue generation aspects
For revenue generation, we have 3 options :
(i) Advertisements
(ii) Actually sell the music
(iii) Some sort of subscription
BECOME AN INDIAN IDOL
COMPANY
Artists can be given royalties when their music is used by others in their posts.
(Note: The following feature didn’t exist during the time of this interview) [Giving credits for using a song in a reel]
That’s interesting. What are the metrics that you’ll track to measure the success of the changes implemented
●
●
●
ROUND
PM
TYPE
PRODUCT DESIGN
METRIC
DIFFICULTY
EASY
For the advertisements, we can check the dropout rate.
For the success of the platform and the new features implemented, we can check churn rate.
MAU (Monthly Active Users) is also an important metric that can be monitored, based on which we can judge the
engagement and prioritise on the features further.
What is your personal opinion on these features
When an artist’s music is used to promote something, I believe the artist should also receive credits and royalties as
proposed.
Since Instagram is one of the best platforms for brand promotion, it makes sense to have this feature integrated in it.
This can really increase an artist’s revenue by a lot, tif the song used becomes really popular.
These features can really boost opportunities for revenue generation
Great. Thank you.
ENGAGE TO GROW
COMPANY
How familiar are you with investment platforms and apps like Groww and according to you how do they stand apart
from the conventional process?
I have decent experience in investing but not necessarily through apps like Groww but I'm certain that their USP is the
hassle free approach towards investing, taking away most of the friction from onboarding someone with no prior experience
whatsoever and catering to their curiosity around the current hype that exists around investing.
ROUND
SENIOR PM
Great! You seem to be pretty familiar with the subject. We shall move onto the case then. Groww has been seeing a
considerable dip in their user engagement despite their highly successful efforts in user acquisition. Map out the
reasons why.
I hope to run over a few clarifying questions before I attempt the case. Just to be on the same page, how exactly is the
product marketed/ what does it offer?
TYPE
PRODUCT METRIC
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
The Groww app was marketed to be a 2-in-1 online trading platform including a Demat and a trading account where
the broker offers an online onboarding experience with Zero account charges.
Okay, so from what I understand, Groww offers an interface to sell/ buy Mutual funds, Indian and US stocks through a
simplified and intuitive UI experience for the user where people could scout the market and can carefully consider their
investment choices.
Moving on, can the same problem be assumed to affect both the website and app or is there a specific one I must target?
And by user acquisition shall I consider the “number of app downloads” or” total number of visitors/ sign-ups” as possible
metrics?
For this particular case you can consider the “Groww App” to be the service platform and yes we shall consider
the number of App downloads to be a relevant metric for user acquisition.
ENGAGE TO GROW
COMPANY
Alright, so what exactly are we considering to be user engagement here? Is there something particular that I must look into?
Maybe like:
●
Number of sign ups (In a stipulated time period)
●
Amount of time spent on using the app
●
Total amount invested per user
●
Number of sessions per day or per week
●
Number of transactions per day or per week
ROUND
SENIOR PM
All of the above mentioned metices are relevant in this context but for the sake of this case we can proceed onto
exploring the number of signups as a criteria to judge engagement.
May I inquire if there has been any changes to the UI or the general functioning of the platform as of recently?
TYPE
PRODUCT METRIC
Yes, there has been a significant update over the past few months.
Then I guess we can proceed to scope out the user journey where you shall guide me on any recent changes that might
have triggered the actual problem.
Sounds fair enough. We can proceed now.
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
●
●
●
Firstly, once the application is installed, the user registers themselves
Then they proceed onto exploring the features of the app, possibly guided by a self initiated app tour.
Once they've been familiarized with the UI, they navigate through the verification procedure (KYC) and update
personal details
ENGAGE TO GROW
COMPANY
●
●
Some do prefer to go through in house beginners material to get themselves acquainted with trading and its
subsidiaries.
Once all these are done, generally, a beginner proceeds on to deposit a trivial amount into their account and carries
out their first trade!
What are your inputs on the chronology of the user journey I've proposed? Is it any different after the recent update that
you've just mentioned?
ROUND
SENIOR PM
Yes, there's a change, the company had figured to move up the KYC verification process as a preliminary step to
allow the users into using the application, only after which they are let to use the apps features.
Then would I be accurate in assuming that the users won't have access to the trading interface or market fluctuations before
verifying themselves through the KYC framework?
TYPE
PRODUCT METRIC
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
Yes, you would appear to be right in saying so.
Conclusion: A huge chunk of the population lacks proper financial backing and foundations in investing principles. Therefore
many tend to lose money over such platforms and are aware of those risks. The recent trends have rekindled their interest
towards investments and have set many on the path of figuring out the process and techniques involved on a self taught
basis. Therefore the preliminary service offered by apps like Groww as in market statistics, dummy trading interface,
technical analytical tools etc help them satiate their curiosity. The recent updates have hampered this very curiosity that had
motivated people to check out and interact with the app by putting an added layer of friction onto their rather smooth
onboarding experience. The detailed process involved in KYC updation in the very beginning would have reduced fresh
registrations/ sign ups hence lowering the overall engagement rate of the platform.
GUESSTIMATES
THE TERMINAL
COMPANY
Hello! Let’s start the interview. Can you estimate the number of Planes leaving Chennai Airport in 24 hours.
Okay. I would like to start off by getting to know more about the types of planes we are talking about, for example
passenger/cargo, domestic/international, government/private/defence.
Sure. We want to know total number of planes leaving the airport so take all of them into account.
ROUND
INTERVIEW
PM
Got it. So i have to estimate number of Planes leaving chennai airport in 24 hours.
# Planes leaving Chennai airport = (# Functional Runaways X % Utilization of runways X time) / Time for which one
plane will use the runway.
Is this approach alright?
Yes, go ahead.
TYPE
PROFITABILITY
PROFITABILITY
GUESSTIMATE
GUESSTIMATE
GUESSTIMATE
Okay, so i will like to split the timing into peak and non- peak hours.There will be 10 peak hours and rest will be non-peak
hours. For peak hours I am assuming percentage utilization as 90% and for other it will be around 60%.
Okay.
Also there are two runaways in chennai and it will take approx 5 min for one plane to clear off the runway.
# planes = # planes in peak hour + # planes in Non-peak hour
DIFFICULTY
EASY
EASY
EASY
# planes in peak hour = (2*0.90*10*60)/5 = 216 Planes
# planes in non-peak hours = (2*0.60*14*60)/5 = 202 Planes
Does this sound reasonable?
Yes. We can conclude the case.
THE TERMINAL
COMPANY
ROUND
PM
INTERVIEW
TYPE
PROFITABILITY
GUESSTIMATE
DIFFICULTY
EASY
MESSY MESS
COMPANY
Find out number of food plates used on a normal working day in IITM mess.
Sure, Just a few clarifications. Are we talking about number of food plates served in mess? Also, are we taking into account
of plates served in other eateries?
Yes, estimate number of plates served in mess. To make things simple let’s consider plates served in messes only.
ROUND
PM
Great! I have sufficient information to start on the problem. My basic approach is to look into number of people eating in the
mess by analysing occupancy of tables with time.
Sounds good, Go ahead.
There are three main mess buildings in IIT M namely, Himalayas, Nilgiri and Vindhya. With a total of approximately 12
dining halls operating.
From my experience there are about 30 tables in a dining hall and each table can accommodate 8 people.
TYPE
GUESSTIMATE
Number of people eating = Occupancy X No.of tables X Capacity of a table
Can we look into the %occupancy per hour?
Yeah, sounds good.
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
All mess operate for 2.5 hrs in all 3 sessions in a day,
1.
Breakfast(7-9:30 am)
2.
Lunch(12-2.30 pm)
3.
Dinner(7-9:30pm).
Splitting this into 50 mins slots to analyse the occupancy of mess. We will have 3 slots in a session and totally 9 slots.
Can I assume that all dining halls have same occupancy at any given time?
MESSY MESS
COMPANY
Yes, You can.
Great, moving on to estimating % of seating occupied
ROUND
% seats occupied
Breakfast
Slot 1
20% (Early Risers)
Slot 2
50% (Way to class)
Slot 3
50% (Way to class)
INTERVIEW
PM
TYPE
GUESSTIMATE
Lunch
60% (Breakfast skippers)
50% (Way to hostel)
60% (Way to class)
Dinner
50% (Lunch skippers)
60% (After sports)
60% (Night Owls)
# of seats occupied = Occupancy X No.of tables X Capacity of a table
Slot 1
Slot 2
Slot 3
Breakfast
550
1500
1500
Lunch
1700
1500
1700
Dinner
1500
1700
1700
On an average let’s take a person eats for 25 mins => In every slot 2 people would have eaten for every occupied seat
# of food plates consumed = # of seats occupied X 2
DIFFICULTY
Slot 1
Slot 2
Slot 3
Breakfast
1100
3000
3000
Lunch
3400
3000
3400
MODERATE
So totally 26,700 plates are consumed on a normal day in IITM mess
Dinner
3000
3400
3400
MESSY MESS
COMPANY
Good.
I would like to do a sanity check here. There are about 10000 students eating in mess, so a maximum of about 30000 food
plates are served per day. 26,700 implies around 90% of the meals are consumed in the mess. Looks like it is slightly on
the higher side.
Taking my case as a general one, I skip 3-4 meals in a week. So around 80% of the meal consumption would have been
ideal which is around 24000 plates per day.
ROUND
Great! Let’s end the guesstimate here.
INTERVIEW
PM
TYPE
GUESSTIMATE
DIFFICULTY
MODERATE
ALL THE BEST!
“The best thing about feedback is that both a negative and a positive feedback lead
to an improvement in product, either by the need created or the motivation.”
For queries/feedback, reach out to us on