Resource Planning and Prioritization Questions

Covers managing limited resources and competing priorities across teams and projects. Topics include capacity planning, resource leveling, allocation of shared resources, handling resource constraints, negotiating for required capabilities with functional leaders, and resolving resource conflicts. Candidates should be able to explain prioritization techniques such as value versus effort trade offs and prioritization scorecards including reach impact confidence effort, how to sequence work across multiple projects, and how to maintain team morale and productivity when resources are tight. Also includes communication strategies for explaining prioritization decisions to stakeholders, working with resource managers, and balancing short term delivery pressures with longer term roadmap goals.

MediumTechnical

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A release date is fixed in 10 weeks, but team capacities vary across sprints and several features are mid-development. Describe a resource-leveling plan across upcoming sprints to meet the release without causing excessive overtime. Include re-sequencing options, quick mitigations, and how you'd communicate trade-offs to stakeholders.

EasyTechnical

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Prioritize the following five features using RICE. Compute the RICE score for each and rank them. Provide your calculations and final ranked list.

| Feature | Reach (users/mo) | Impact (0-3) | Confidence (%) | Effort (person-weeks) || --- | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: || A | 5000 | 2.0 | 80 | 4 || B | 20000 | 0.5 | 70 | 6 || C | 3000 | 2.5 | 60 | 2 || D | 15000 | 1.0 | 90 | 8 || E | 1000 | 3.0 | 50 | 1 |

MediumTechnical

0 practiced

Your roadmap depends on a third-party vendor, but vendor work requires platform engineers who are already committed to core features. How would you coordinate priorities, manage expectations with the vendor and internal stakeholders, and mitigate timing risks if the vendor is delayed?

EasyTechnical

0 practiced

Explain the difference between resource leveling and resource smoothing in project planning. Provide a practical example from product development where you would choose one approach over the other and explain the trade-offs (e.g., timeline shifts vs. overtime).

MediumTechnical

0 practiced

Recommend a capacity buffer percentage to protect the roadmap against unexpected work (bugs, outages, urgent requests). Explain what data sources you would use to calculate the buffer, how the buffer impacts throughput and predictability, and provide examples of conservative vs. aggressive buffer choices for different team types.

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