Project Manager Interview Questions

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Project Manager Interview Questions

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Date of Publication: mm/dd/yyyy

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Table of Contents

Project Management Skills and Knowledge......

On-the-Job Experience......

Communication

Management / Team Skills......

Answer Key......

Revision History

Version / Date / Author(s) / Revision Notes
1.0 / (Original author)

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Copyright© 2007-2008 TenStep, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Project Manager Interview Questions

Interviewing and evaluating job candidates is never an easy task. The initial interview, whether conducted in person or via telephone, is not only critical to assessing a candidate's relevant job skills and experience, but also to determining whether the candidate possesses the interpersonal competencies needed to be successful.

Experts recommend that an interview include questions relating to these areas:

  • Experience and accomplishments
  • Teamwork and management
  • Work style

We've arranged the questions in this document to follow along with the Candidate Assessment spreadsheet that's included in this hiring package. Questions are grouped into four categories:

  • Project management skills and knowledge
  • On-the-job experience
  • Communication
  • Management skills

The answers to many of the definition questions are at the end of this interview packet.

Project Management Skills and Knowledge

A key with general answers to these questions is provided at the end of this interview form.

  1. What are some of the general roles and responsibilities of a project manager?
  1. What are some of the things that are important to have in place before you begin the actual execution of the project?
  1. Describe the process you would use to manage scope on your project.
  1. How do you manage risk on your project?
  1. Can you give a brief definition for some of the following terms?
  2. Assumption
  • Critical Path
  • Deliverable
  • Issue
  • Milestone
  • Sponsor
  • Steering Committee
  • Triple Constraint

6.What do you do to determine if a project is progressing as planned or getting off track?

On-the-Job Experience

The following questions provide more information on an interviewee’s experience. There is no right or wrong answers.

1.What are some details of your current responsibilities?

2.Tell me about a project of which you are particularly proud and describe your contribution?

3.As a project manager, how do you interact with clients on your project?

4.What tools do you use to manage projects? Why and what are the benefits they provide you?

5.What are your project management strengths?

6.What are some areas of project management that would you like to improve?

7.Do you have your PMP certificate?

Communication

The following questions provide some insight into the interviewee’s communication philosophy. There is no right answers but make sure the interviewee’s answer is reasonable and makes sense. Describe your preferred communication style.

  1. Give an example of a time when you improved communications within your current team.
  1. Describe a time that you had conflict with a coworker, manager, or customer. How did you resolve the situation?
  1. How do you communicate project status to your client and sponsor?

The interviewee should provide some information on status reports and status meetings. If they are really good they may discuss Communication Plans.

  1. How do you resolve conflict on a project team?

Management / Team Skills

The following questions provide some insight into the interviewee’s general management background. There is no right answers but make sure the interviewee’s answer is reasonable and makes sense.How do you start a project to ensure all participants are working well together?

  1. Describe how you would give work assignments to your project team?
  1. Describe the project or situation that best demonstrates your management/supervisory skills.
  1. How do you provide performance feedback to members of your team?
  1. How would you turn around a team that had poor morale?

Answer Key

Project Management Skills and Knowledge

This section is used to validate that the candidate understands general project management processes and terminology. There is not always a right and wrong answer for the questions asked. However, the candidate should be able to provide a solid answer approximating the answer given.

Be aware of different terms that are used in different companies. For instance, in the questions below, you will see the terms “Project Definition” and “Charter” used to name the up-front planning document. However, in another company these might be called a Statement of Work, Project Scoping Document, Project Initiation Document, etc. These terms can all be equivalent as long as the general concepts are the same.

  1. What are some of the general roles and responsibilities of a project manager?

There are two aspects of a project manager’s responsibilities. First is the ability to manage the project management process. In general, the project manager is 100% responsible for the processes used to manage a project. This includes (but is not limited to). T

  • Defining the project (scope, risk, objectives, estimated cost, estimated duration, assumptions, etc.)
  • Building a project workplan (schedule)
  • Managing the overall workplan to ensure work is assigned and completed on time and within budget
  • Identifying, tracking, managing and resolving project issues
  • Proactively disseminating project information to all stakeholders
  • Identifying, managing and mitigating project risk
  • Ensuring that the solution is of acceptable quality
  • Proactively managing scope to ensure that only what was agreed to is delivered, unless changes are approved through scope management

This does not mean that the project manager physically does all of this, but they must make sure it happens. In addition to process skills, a project manager must have good people management skills. This includes:

  • Having the discipline and management skills to make sure that everyone follows the standard processes and procedures.
  • Leading people so that they willingly follow your direction. Leadership is about communicating a vision and getting the team to accept it and strive to get there with you.
  • Setting reasonable, challenging and clear expectations for people and holding them accountable for meeting the expectations. This includes providing good performance feedback to team members
  • Team-building skills so that the people work together well, and feel motivated to work hard for the sake of the project and their other team members. The larger your team and the longer the project, the more important it is to have good team-building skills.
  • Communicating proactively using good verbal and written communicator skills, and good, active listening skills.
  1. What are some of the things that are important to have in place before you begin the actual execution of the project?

Before the project lifecycle begins (analysis, design, construct, etc.), a number of items need to be in place. For smaller projects, many of these conditions are met informally or implicitly. However, the larger a project gets, the more important it is that these criteria be met formally and explicitly.

  • Project is formally defined. This is documented in the Project Definition (Charter), which contains objectives, scope, assumptions, deliverables, budget, etc.
  • Project workplan (schedule) is created. A workplan must be prepared and used to manage the effort. This includes checkpoints, or milestones, when the project can be evaluated to ensure that it is appropriate to continue.
  • Client gives approval to begin project. This is signified through an approved Project Definition. The Sponsor should sign the document to ensure agreement.
  • Project Management Procedures are defined and approved. Procedures must be in place to describe how the project manager will manage issues, communication, risks, quality, scope, etc. This is especially true for large projects and less important as a project gets smaller.
  • Project team resources are assigned. You must have the right people to staff and execute the project. Sometimes valid, approved projects must be delayed because people with the right skills are not available.
  1. Describe the process you would use to manage scope on your project.

The following process is an example of the types of activities that would be utilized in scope change management. The interviewee may have a different process, but it should still be logical and follow the general ideas below.

  1. First of all, make sure that you do a good job of defining scope to begin with. The scope definition is done in the Project Definition / Chartering document.
  2. Solicit potential scope change requests from any project stakeholders, including the project team, clients, sponsors, etc. The scope change can be surfaced through verbal or written means, but it will be formally documented.
  3. Enter the request into the Scope Change Log for tracking purposes.
  4. The person making the scope change request should define the business value to the project. The sponsor will need this information to make a final decision.
  5. The project manager must determine the impact to the project in terms of effort, cost and duration.
  6. Take the scope change request, alternatives, business value and project impact to the project sponsor for a resolution. (This is a key point in the process – making sure the client approves (or declines) the scope change request.)
  7. Document the sponsor’s resolution on the Scope Change Log. If the Sponsor does not agree to the change request, then the request should be closed and with a status of 'not approved' on the Scope Change Log.
  8. If the scope change request is approved, the appropriate activities are added to the workplan to ensure the change is implemented. The project budget and deadline should also be updated, if necessary.
  1. How do you manage risk on your project?

The following process is an example of the types of activities that would be utilized in risk change management. The interviewee may have a different process, but it should still be logical and follow the general ideas below.

  1. Risk Assessment. Perform a complete assessment of project risk. The risk assessment is done in two parts. First look at inherent risks. These are the risks that are inherent to your project based on its general characteristics. For example, a project that is estimated to take 10,000 effort hours is inherently more risky than one that is estimated at 1,000 effort hours. A project that is using new technology is inherently more risky than one that is using technology your team is comfortable with. Inherent risks are based on the characteristics of the project – regardless of the specific deliverables being produced.

Second, look for risks that are specific to your project. These risks normally cannot be identified on a checklist since they are specific to your project and may not apply to other projects. For instance, you may identify a risk of a key supplier going out of business or perhaps weather problems causing shipping delays or perhaps you will have difficulty finding resources with a specific set of skills.

  1. Risk Analysis. Assign a risk level to each risk identified. The risk level should be high, medium, or low, depending on the severity of impact and the probability of the event occurring. Use the following table as a starting point. For instance, a highly likely / high impact event is obviously a high risk.

Severity of Risk Impact / Probability of Risk Occurring / Overall Risk Level
High negative impact to project / Highly likely to occur / High
High negative impact to project / Medium likely to occur / High
High negative impact to project / Not likely to occur / Medium / Low
Medium negative impact to project / Highly likely to occur / Medium
Medium negative impact to project / Medium likely to occur / Medium / Low
Medium negative impact to project / Not likely to occur / Low
Low negative impact to project / Highly likely to occur / Low
Low negative impact to project / Medium likely to occur / Low
Low negative impact to project / Not likely to occur / Low
  1. Risk Response. Create a response plan for each high-level risk that you identified to ensure the risk is managed successfully. This plan should include activities to manage the risk, as well as the people assigned, completion dates and periodic dates to monitor progress. There are five major responses to a risk - leave it, monitor it, avoid it, move it to a third party or mitigate it. Evaluate the medium-level risks to determine if the impact is severe enough that they should have a risk response plan created for them as well. Look at any low-risk items and see if they should be listed as assumptions. In this way you recognize that there is a potential for problems, but because the risk is low, you are 'assuming' that the condition will not occur.
  2. Risk Monitoring. The project manager needs to monitor the Risk Management Plans to ensure the risks are managed successfully. New risk plan activities should be added if it looks like a risk is not being managed successfully.
  1. Can you give a brief definition for some of the following terms?

The following terms should be familiar to a project manager. The interviewee may not know all of the terms but the more they know the more familiar they are with project management discipline.

  • Assumption - There may be external circumstances or events that must occur for the project to be successful. If you believe such an event is likely to happen, then it would be an assumption (contrast with the definition of a risk). (This is a simple definition for an assumption.)
  • Critical Path – This is the sequence of activities that must be completed on schedule for the entire project to be completed on schedule. It is the longest duration path through the workplan. If an activity on the critical path is delayed by one day, the entire project will be delayed by one day (unless another activity on the critical path can be accelerated by one day).
  • Deliverable - A deliverable is any tangible outcome that is produced by the project. These can be documents, plans, computer systems, buildings, aircraft, etc.
  • Issue - An issue is a major problem that will impede the progress of the project and cannot be resolved by the project manager and project team without outside help
  • Milestone - A milestone is a scheduling event that signifies the completion of a major deliverable or a set of related deliverables. A milestone, by definition, has duration of zero and no effort. There is no work associated with a milestone. It is a flag in the workplan to signify that some other work has completed.
  • Sponsor - The person who has ultimate authority over the project. The sponsor provides project funding, resolves issues and scope changes, approves major deliverables and provides high-level direction. He or she also champions the project within their organization.
  • Steering Committee - A Steering Committee is usually a group of high-level stakeholders that are responsible for providing guidance on overall strategic direction. They do not take the place of a Sponsor, but help to spread the strategic input and buy-in to a larger portion of the organization.
  • Triple Constraint. At the end of the planning process you should have an agreement with your sponsor on the work that will be completed and the cost (time) and duration that are needed to complete the work. These three items then form a concept called the “triple constraint”. They key aspect of the triple constraint is that if one of the three items change, at least one, if not both, of the other items need to change as well. For instance, if the client requests more work, the cost (time) and/or schedule must increase as well.
  1. What do you do to determine if a project is progressing as planned or getting off track?

There are a number of areas that the project manager should check to be sure that the project stays on track. Some examples are as follows:

  • Activities that should be completed by today are not done yet. (This is the most obvious sign that you may be running behind schedule).
  • Activities starting to trend overbudget or behind schedule early in the project. There is a tendency to think you can make it up, but usually this situation is a warning that you will get further and further in trouble.
  • A small variance starts to get bigger, especially early in the project.
  • You discover that activities you think have already been completed are still being worked on.
  • You need to rely on unscheduled overtime to hit your interim deadlines, especially early in the project.
  • Team morale starts to decline.
  • Deliverable quality or service quality starts to deteriorate.
  • Quality control steps, testing activities and project management time starts to be cut back from the original schedule.

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Copyright© 2007-2008 TenStep, Inc. All Rights Reserved