Align with PM on ranking goals

A PM asks to “rank products on the home page,” but requirements are vague and time is short. How do you align stakeholders and de-risk delivery? Specify: (1) Clarifying questions to elicit the true goal (acquisition vs. cross-sell vs. LTV), eligible product set, compliance/legal constraints, and success metrics. (2) A negotiation plan for MVP scope (e.g., rules-based baseline + logging) vs. a V2 ML model, with a 30/60/90-day roadmap. (3) Communication artifacts you’ll produce (PRD addendum with metrics, decision log, risk register), and how you’ll handle pushback when the PM’s preferred metric conflicts with risk/compliance. (4) A decision framework for trade-offs (speed vs. accuracy vs. fairness/diversity), including explicit no-go criteria. (5) How you’ll run a blameless postmortem if V1 underperforms and maintain trust with the PM.