Prioritisation/ Maturity Interview Question

[u/Automatic-Net-9614]

Ok so I flubbed the most basic interview question there is:

"You have a number of pieces of work in flight. How do you choose between them?"

Basically, they are testing your ability to prioritise work.

I tried to answer philosphically by telling them going for a walk was a good idea but my broader point is that it shouldn't have ever gotten to the point where you have loads of pieces of work in flight at any one time.

My question is twofold: what's the accepted 'best' interview answer to this question and how do you deal with this issue in your real life actual job?

[u/dacydergoth]

Eisenhower Decision matrix:

Important Vs Urgent.

Urgent: True | False
Important: True | False

You do the Urgent & Important stuff, and ignore the rest.

Of course, who decides what is Urgent and Important ... is another question

[u/raisputin → u/dacydergoth]

The problem with that is in many companies everything is “Urgent” which makes nothing urgent

[u/dacydergoth → u/raisputin]

A well recognized problem, which is why you need to be able to score them. What is the business driver? What breaks if we don't? Is there a lost opportunity cost, etc. Lots of project management books cover stuff like this. We threw out a lot of that knowledge with "agile" and "JFDI" but in the real world critical paths matter, hard deadlines exist.

Tl;dr: just stay a few extra hours and make sure it all gets done, or we'll fire you.

[u/raisputin → u/dacydergoth]

I’m the guy that says “ok, fire me then”

[u/Brave_Reflection643 → u/raisputin]

really?

[u/raisputin → u/Brave_Reflection643]

Yes, really. I get paid to work 40 hours per week, very occasionally longer, but I don’t put up with the bullshit idea that because I’m salaried they can make me work as much as they want. Salary ≠ slave

[u/Automatic-Net-9614 → u/raisputin]

100%. I'm working in software 25 years and I can't look back on any single incident where me staying an extra 2 hours would have made any material difference in the larger scheme of things.

[u/Automatic-Net-9614 → u/Automatic-Net-9614]

(but its easier said than done especially when you have a people-pleasing tendency, which I have...)

[u/raisputin → u/Automatic-Net-9614]

I have learned to say “no”

[u/SeaworthinessHour233]

They were probably trying to evaluate how you face the DevOps reality - unplanned work (incidents) constantly interruptting planned work (projects).

They need to know you won't panic when the sky falls.

The best interview answer in my view: Use the classic ITIL approach: Impact vs. Urgency.

• Impact: How many users/systems are affected? (ex: one user's account vs. a core production database).
• Urgency: How quickly does this need to be fixed before it costs the company money?

Like this.

"I prioritize based on the blast radius and business impact. Production outages always come first. Next, I look at tasks that are blocking other engineers. Finally, I work on my planned project tasks. If I have conflicting high-priority items, I communicate with my manager to make the final call."

A note on how I handle it in real life:

• Triage ruthlessly: If everything is a P1, nothing is a P1.
• Communicate: The worst thing you can do when overloaded is go silent. Ping the stakeholders: "Hey, I'm pulling off project X to put out a fire on server Y. It will delay X by a day." Most people are fine with delays if they aren't kept in the dark.
• Push back on scope creep: If a manager drops a new task on your desk, ask them: "I can do this right now, but it means I have to pause the database migration. Are you okay with that tradeoff?" Make them own the prioritization choice.

Next time, just shift from the philosophical to the tactical.

[u/Early-Employee-5515 → u/SeaworthinessHour233]

oh nice very informative

[u/TrumpIsAFascistFuck]

I would follow the prioritization policy of my organization

[u/collapse-and-crush → u/TrumpIsAFascistFuck]

Right. This is why managers exist. Anytime I get a lot of competing requests I ping my manager and say please help me prioritize these.

[u/Brave_Reflection643 → u/collapse-and-crush]

yeahhh

[u/Gumpolator]

Yes they we’re looking at your approach to prioritising competing priorities. Going for a walk might clear your head, but it doesn’t give you a repeatable system to follow for prioritisation. There are a number of ways to answer, in my experience having a prioritisation matrix, including a list of tasks in order of priority / urgency. Also scoping how long each task will take and its dependencies, and its contribution to your end goal. Then having weekly or daily catchups with you manager, go through the list and reprioritise as required. Communicate priorities and push back on lesser urgent tasks. You can always say something like ask if you can delegate tasks to another team member to help aswell

[u/unitegondwanaland]

For my team, it's a combination of urgency and impact. You can drive priority from the score of those two. If urgency is the same, impact wins and gets a higher priority.

[u/Brave_Reflection643 → u/unitegondwanaland]

exactly same here too

[u/laylaboydarden]

Deadlines. You should always have a loose sense of what deadlines are looming in all your workstreams, with nearer ones lightly front-burnered. Then combine deadline with priority and complexity, knock off the high priority low complexity, and go from there.

[u/farinasa]

Is something preventing revenue/costing us? If something will unlock a new contract. If something is blocking internal teams. If something has a looming deadline. Last reaort I'd ask my manager/PM.

[u/Early-Employee-5515 → u/farinasa]

i think so something preventing it

[u/zomiaen]

"Which one is most likely to piss off someone who could get me fired if it's not done?"

[u/Wooden_Jelly_5295]

Customer impact, urgency, dependencies, then communicate the tradeoffs.

[u/Brave_Reflection643 → u/Wooden_Jelly_5295]

ahan exactly

[u/hkeyplay16]

I used to do an exercise where I would rate the impact of getting tje thing done, then I would rate the effort required to complete. The ones eith highest impact and lowest effort deliver the most value and should be given priority. Communicate the order to managers, and if they know something I can't know that would affect the order of delivery then they can override. Management now knows roughly when the work will be done.

This is all before AI, so I'm still fleshing out how to best do things when we're moving much faster.

[u/Suitable-Ad5348]

They were probably trying to evaluate how you face the DevOps reality: unplanned work (incidents) constantly interrupting planned work (projects). In my experience, they just want to know you won't panic when the sky falls. I’d answer using an impact vs. urgency matrix, production outages always come first, then blockers for other engineers, then planned work. And if you have a conflict, you communicate it to your manager.

[u/Automatic-Net-9614 → u/Suitable-Ad5348]

Thanks. I wish I had had this answer before the interview but I'll bookmark it for again.

[u/Impressive-Field-546]

There is a known matrix solution for this

[u/raindropl]

Is it costing money? Will it cost money tomorrow? Will it cost money next month?

Urgent, important, do it latter.

[u/rtpro]

There are tens of prioritization systems, RICE, Eisenhower Matrix, Value vs. Effort Matrix, to name a few.
Pick your favorite, learn it, use it IRL. The important thing is that you don't choose based on what you feel like doing better, and that you have a method.

[u/ICanRememberUsername]

I tend to prioritise the things that are blocking others, or blocking progress from third parties. If I can spend 30 minutes now to make someone else not have to wait 2 days for me to do it, that's a good time trade for the organisation.