Product sense framework: a repeatable structure for 'how would you improve X'
Open-ended product questions don't reward improvisation. A simple, repeatable structure, walked through out loud, outperforms a great idea with no visible process.
A "product sense" question, "how would you improve Spotify's onboarding?", isn't really testing whether you have a great idea. It's testing whether you can turn an open-ended question into a clear, visible thought process, under time pressure.
🎯 Explain Like I'm Hired Jumping straight to "I'd add a tutorial video," without first asking which users, what problem, and what success looks like, reads as unstructured, even if the idea is decent. Example: that exact same idea, introduced after two minutes of clarifying questions and a clear success metric, reads as genuinely strong product thinking. Same idea, very different impression, because the process is what's actually being evaluated.
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