How do you prioritize features on your engineering team?

This question is seeking to understand how you go about determining the order in which tasks should be done in your work. It's important to remember that interviewers are interested in an individual’s thought process and decision-making skills, as much as the specifics methodologies you use for prioritizing tasks on a team. When providing your answer, be sure to:

1. Describe an established framework or strategy you use for project prioritization.
2. Demonstrate how you take multiple factors into consideration such as the business goals, user needs, technical constraints, and product strategy, when prioritizing.
3. Show that you are collaborative and communicative, and include team members in the prioritizing process.

In prioritizing feature development with my engineering team, I usually adopt the MoSCoW method. This divides everything into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have.

Primarily, the highest priority is accorded to features that are crucial to the product functioning, the "Must have" ones. Then, I consider the "Should haves" which are important but not vital. Lower down the ladder are features that we "Could have" if resources are available. And lastly, we find the "Won't haves" that we agree not to work on. To ensure a fair process, I involve all team members in this categorization, which also helps us in better understanding the product as a team.

I also meld this with a risk management approach where I assess the possible risks associated with each feature, which further helps in prioritizing.

The prioritization of tasks in my team is a combination of the product strategy, business needs, and customer impact. One technique used often is the RICE Scoring method. Here, factors like Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort are scored to determine priority.

For instance, features touching a larger part of the user base or likely to bring a higher profit margin or efficiency are ranked first. Following that, mid-level features and then the ones that are nice-to-have or are primarily aesthetic enhancements. While it's a guiding principle, we are flexible and willing to make changes based on collective feedback and brainstorming sessions. This also encourages innovation and team cooperation.

In addition, incorporating a risk/reward assessment in the process helps distinctively determine the features that offer high value versus those that could potentially lead to roadblocks or extended timelines.