E-Commerce Development Product Management 4

Question 1

What is 'technical debt' and how does it affect e-commerce product velocity?

Accepted Answer

Accumulated shortcuts in code that slow future development and increase bug risk

Answer

Technical debt refers to suboptimal code choices made for speed that must eventually be refactored, progressively slowing a team's ability to ship new features.

Question 2

A product team is debating whether to build a custom recommendation engine or use a third-party SaaS solution. Which factor most favors building in-house?

Accepted Answer

Proprietary data and differentiation make custom logic a strategic competitive advantage

Answer

Custom builds are justified when unique data or differentiated algorithms would be impossible to replicate with a standard third-party solution.

Question 3

What does 'north star metric' mean in e-commerce product management?

Accepted Answer

A single metric that best captures the core value delivered to customers

Answer

A north star metric (e.g., weekly active buyers) aligns the entire team around one number that best represents sustainable value creation for customers.

Question 4

In agile product development, what is the difference between a 'sprint' and a 'release'?

Accepted Answer

A sprint is a fixed development timebox; a release ships features to end users

Answer

A sprint is a time-boxed work cycle (typically 1–2 weeks), while a release is a deployment of completed features to production that may span multiple sprints.

Question 5

What is 'opportunity scoring' in product discovery?

Accepted Answer

A framework that surfaces gaps where customer importance is high but satisfaction is low

Answer

Opportunity scoring, from Tony Ulwick's ODI, identifies underserved needs by comparing how important an outcome is to customers versus how satisfied they currently are.

E-Commerce Development Practice Test

E-Commerce Development Practice Test

E-Commerce Development Product Management 4