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Tesla In-Car Software Prioritization

Feature Prioritization · intermediate

As a Senior PM on Tesla's in-car software team, you're faced with a tough decision: your engineering resources are constrained to one major initiative next quarter. You can either deliver a highly requested 'smart summon' enhancement for complex parking scenarios or dedicate the entire team to fixing long-standing performance bottlenecks in the core navigation and media system. Which do you prioritize and why?

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Community approaches

Pavlo’s approach

To answer the question we need to understand company's long term goals. If the performance improvement can open an opportunities for future development towards achieving company's goals, then I would choose that one. Another perspective could be understanding how both of the directions can contribute to the main metrics, like customers satisfaction, reliability, performance, etc. Since the 'smart summon' is highly requested that means that user feedback leans toward that feature and can beat the performance improvement in the space of customers satisfaction. Conclusion: if the company goals don't clearly set which direction to move, then I would go with the "smart summon" for the next quarter.