Three Stakeholders, One Quarter, Nothing Fits
You have capacity for two of five things. Decide, and tell the person who loses. It takes 60 minutes, the full rubric is published below before you start, and AI tools are allowed.
The brief
The situation. You own a B2B analytics product. The quarter has capacity for roughly two significant projects. Five are on the table.
1. Enterprise SSO. Sales says three deals worth £400k combined are blocked on it. Engineering estimates 6 weeks. Sales has said 'deals are blocked on this' about four other features in the past year; two of those deals closed anyway.
2. Dashboard performance. Your largest customer (£180k/yr, renewal in 5 months) has complained three times about 20-second load times. Support tickets show 14 other accounts have mentioned slowness. Engineering estimates 4 weeks and says the fix is real but unglamorous.
3. The AI insights feature. The CEO saw a competitor demo it and wants it this quarter. No customer has asked for it. Engineering estimates 8 weeks and is visibly unenthusiastic. The CEO has mentioned it in three consecutive all-hands.
4. Onboarding rework. Data shows 40% of new accounts never complete setup. Nobody is asking for it. Estimated 5 weeks. It is the only item with a clear quantitative case, and it has no champion.
5. The compliance audit fix. Legal flagged a data retention gap. Not currently blocking anything. 2 weeks. Legal has not escalated it.
Your task. Choose what you will do this quarter and what you will not. Then write the message you would actually send to the CEO — the person whose item you are most likely cutting.
What you hand in
Your decision with reasoning, an explicit list of what is being cut and the cost of cutting it, and the actual message you would send to the CEO (write it as you would send it, not as a description of what you would say).
Any tools. Note that an AI assistant will produce a reasonable-sounding balanced answer that refuses to cut anything decisively — that pattern scores at Level 2, so read what you submit critically.
How is this challenge scored?
Every criterion, with its weight and the skill it produces evidence for. Nothing else is measured — not writing quality, not grammar, not length. You see this before you start, and there are no hidden criteria.
Names what is not happening and states the specific consequence of each cut. 'We'll revisit next quarter' with no cost stated scores 1.
Distinguishes the item with quantitative evidence and no champion from the item with a loud champion and weak evidence. Notices the sales claim has a track record.
Leads with the decision, states the trade-off honestly, and gives the CEO something to decide or push back on. Avoiding the conflict or burying the cut scores 0–1.
Reasons about which decisions can be revisited cheaply and which cannot — renewal timing, compliance exposure, deal cycles.
A clear commitment, not a proposal to gather more information first. Deferring the decision to more research caps the overall level at 2.
Which skills does this prove?
Makes and defends cuts under conflicting pressure, names the cost of each decision, and communicates it to the person who loses.
Leads with the decision needed, states trade-offs honestly including the unwelcome ones, and delivers bad news without losing trust.
Designs research that could disprove the hypothesis, triangulates qualitative and quantitative evidence, and changes the plan when it should change.
Questions people ask
- Is there a correct answer?
- No single correct set. Several combinations score fully. What does not score is refusing to cut anything, or cutting without stating the cost.
- Should I ask clarifying questions?
- You can state assumptions, but the challenge is designed to be decided on the information given. Real quarters do not come with complete information either.
- Why is the CEO message weighted highest?
- Because the decision is worthless if it cannot survive the conversation. Most candidates make a defensible choice and then write a message that hides it.