Brainstorming Solutions in Product Sense Interviews

As a product manager, you'll constantly face difficult trade-offs—balancing short-term customer needs with long-term innovation. In this unit, you'll develop the skills to prioritize user pain points, generate impactful solutions, and push the boundaries of product thinking. By mastering these areas, you'll be well-equipped to tackle complex product strategy and design questions with confidence.

A strong product manager knows that not all customer problems are created equal. Some are minor annoyances, while others directly impact retention, revenue, or a company’s reputation. The key is to prioritize the most critical pain points first before thinking about solutions. Three factors to consider when prioritizing customer pain points are:

1. Urgency – How severe is this issue for customers? Does it prevent them from using the product effectively?
2. Frequency – How many users experience this pain? Is it a niche complaint or a widespread frustration?
3. Business Impact – Does this pain affect key metrics like retention, engagement, or revenue?

• Chris: I've noticed a lot of users are complaining about the app's battery consumption. It's leading to a spike in uninstalls.
• Victoria: That’s a big problem. Do we know how widespread the issue is?
• Chris: Yes, it's one of our top complaints in app store reviews and support tickets.
• Victoria: Then we should prioritize it. If we don't address this, we could lose long-term users and hurt our ratings.

In this dialogue, Chris and Victoria focus on urgency, frequency, and business impact to determine whether a pain point needs immediate attention.

By evaluating pain points through this lens first, you ensure that you're addressing the biggest problems for the most users—laying the groundwork for impactful solutions.

Once you've identified and prioritized customer pain points, the next step is to brainstorm potential solutions. Instead of jumping straight to a solution, frame the problem as an opportunity by using a "How might we..." question like "How might we reduce battery consumption without sacrificing performance?" or "How might we give users more control over power settings?" By asking multiple HMW questions, you open the door to a range of possible solutions rather than fixating on a single idea too early.

In an interview, listing 3-5 possible solutions shows that you can think broadly and consider different approaches before making trade-offs. When brainstorming, don’t self-edit too early—list a variety of approaches, including quick fixes and more ambitious ideas. Later, you’ll refine and prioritize based on feasibility and impact.

By structuring your response with HMW questions and generating multiple potential solutions, you’ll demonstrate a thoughtful and methodical approach to problem-solving—key traits of a strong product manager.