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Project Management Scenario Interview Questions
and Answers
ProjectManagement
How will you initiate your new project?
As a PM, I need to understand the objectives and the goals of the project clearly. I need to establish a formal
understanding with my sponsor and other key stakeholders about the project needs to be fulfilled,
objectives and final goals to be achieved. I will seek formal authorization for starting the new project. I also
need to start identifying all the stakeholders of the project, both within our organization and also from the
client side.
Two documents namely project charter and stakeholder register are prepared during project initiation.
1. Project charter is initiated by the sponsor to officially appoint the PM and also to establish the
agreed project objectives and goals.
2. Stakeholder register is prepared to capture the detailed list of all project stakeholders, with all
relevant information about the stakeholders.
Will you need more information about the project? If yes, how will you find out more details of the
project at this stage?
Since this is the initial stage of the project, I will seek more information about the project from the sponsor
and business development team of our organization. If needed, I will also plan discussions with other key
stakeholders to understand the reasons for doing this project and to understand the business needs and
expected outcomes from the project.
Which documents you will like to refer to in order to have a clear understanding of the project?
Since this project is to be done for an external client, there must be an agreement/contract already signed
between the client and our organization. I will request to get access to a copy of the contract. I will also
request to see a copy of our proposal and internal estimation done by our team before signing the contract.
The contract/agreement will provide more information about the expected goals of the customer. From the
contract I can understand about the scope of the project, and other constraints such as time and cost which
are being agreed.
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What will be your expectations from your sponsor at this stage, which will facilitate a smooth
initiation of the new project?
As a PM, I will need support from senior management from time to time with regards to mobilising
resources, getting the funding in time, coordinating with other functional groups for project work and
making various project decisions in a timely manner etc. I will look forward to my sponsor for his/her
support on above matters as needed. I will explain about the importance of his/her timely and unstinted
support for the project success and request for the same.
Will you need to know who all will be your stakeholders?
Yes, very much. I will need to know about all the stakeholders in the project in hand.
Why you need to know about the stakeholders?
Stakeholders are the real people or groups or organizations whose interests have to be fulfilled through the
project. Project is being undertaken to fulfil stakeholder expectations and needs. Hence knowing them and
engaging them through the project right from initiation will be critical for project success.
How will you identify your stakeholders? Who are they?
Stakeholders are all the people or organizations or groups who are directly involved in the project, whose
interests may be positively or negatively impacted by the outcome of the project, who can influence and
impact the project with their power and money.
A stakeholder register is prepared. We can identify the stakeholders by asking the following questions to
ourselves –
1. Who will use the end product/solution created from the project
2. Who will help with their skills and knowledge in developing the final product of the project
3. Who will give the requirements for the project
4. Who will provide funding for the project
5. Who will provide other kind of support
6. Who will provide resources for the project
7. Who will provide any kind of special guidelines or regulations to be followed/complied to while
working in the project
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What is a stakeholder analysis and Power-Interest Grid used for?
We need to make an exhaustive list of all stakeholders who will be somehow connected with the project.
Once the list of stakeholders is prepared, there is a need to prioritize the stakeholders in terms of their
significance in the project.
One of the practical and popular methods for analysing the stakeholders is analysing and assessing their
level of power and interest in the project. The stakeholders are classified into different groups such as:
1. How Power – High Interest,
2. High Power – Low Interest,
3. Low Power – High Interest and
4. Low Power – Low Interest groups.
This helps in prioritizing their positions in the project, which in turn will be helpful in devising appropriate
stakeholder engagement strategies for each group.
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What do the following documents contain and what is the significance of these documents during
project initiation?
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Business case document:
Understanding the financial feasibility and reasons of doing a new project is important. Business case
provides a detailed financial analysis of investments to be made and benefits to be reaped from the project
with a final justification either to do or not do a project. Business case document is one of the first
documents to be referred for an internal project to be initiated.
•
Agreement:
A document which is a contract siged with an external customer and is used for initiating a new project.
This document will lay the boundaries of the new project with regard to the scope, time and cost and the
agreed terms and conditions between the requesting organization and performing organization. It is one of
the initial documents the project manager will like to refer to understand about the project.
•
Project charter:
This is the very first initial document of any new project getting initiated. Project charter establishes the
formal authorization for the new project. This document will lay down the objectives of the project, the
name of the PM and will be approved by the initiator/sponsor. The business case and/or the agreement
will be referred while preparing the project charter document.
Please refer to the link for more details on this: Project Charter
•
Stakeholder register:
This is a very important document which is used to list all the stakeholders and all the relevant information
about each stakeholder. This document is also used to include the information about their interest and
power towards the project, their current levels of engagement such as resistor, neutral or supporter of the
project. This is one of the first documents created during the project initiation. This is a live dynamic
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document. As new stakeholders are identified through the project life cycle,
their relevant information will be added into the stakeholder register.
Understanding detailed requirement is fundamental to a successful project.
How will you collect requirements for the project?
.1
From whom will you collect requirements?
.2
List few techniques you will use for collecting requirements. .3
Different classification of requirements .4
•
The detailed project requirements will have to be collected from the various stakeholders. In the
case of an ERP, we need to collect requirements from all levels of stakeholders. We need to
understand the expectations of CXO level stakeholders, department head level stakeholders,
departmental experts, end users of the solution in each department, from their IT department who
later on will own the solution.
•
The requirements will have to be collected and understood through different mode of interaction
with the stakeholders. Stakeholders initially may not know very clearly about all their
requirements. Some cases stakeholders may find it difficult to explain and articulate their
requirements. The project manager and the team will have to drive this process of requirements
gathering by facilitating and driving the process.
•
Requirements are collected from groups of stakeholders and the final concurrence and agreement
of requirements are also done with the group of stakeholders. Business Analysts and functional
experts may be involved in this process. Below are some of the techniques which are used for
requirement gathering
o
Data Gathering (Brainstorming, Benchmarking, Focus Groups, Interviews, Questionnaires
and Surveys)
o
Data Analysis (Analysing various existing documents of the project such as business case,
agreement, regulatory documents, proposals etc.)
o
Observation (Shadowing and observing how people are working)
o
Categorizing and grouping of ideas and requirements (Affinity Diagram)
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o
Prioritizing the requirements (Nominal Group Technique – Voting
with the group. Using MuScoW and other techniques of prioritization )
o
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Prototyping
A detailed requirement document is prepared using the above techniques as applicable. The
requirements thus gathered can further be classified in various categories such as functional, nonfunctional, reliability, security, user interface related, quality, and regulatory, transition etc. Such
classification will make it easier for the team to visual different aspects of the requirements and
accordingly give appropriate focus in addressing them.
•
For more detailed understanding of this process, please refer:Requirement collection
What is a requirement traceability matrix? What is the utility and significance of maintaining a
requirement traceability matrix?
The requirements are collected in consultation with various stakeholders. Once the requirements are
agreed, the project team will have to develop the end product/solution and make sure that all the
requirements are fulfilled and nothing is missed.
When the project team is finally ready with the product and will be seeking final acceptance from
stakeholders, it is often observed that few requirements may be missing. Having missing requirements at
this stage will become a serious issue. The missing requirement will have to be immediately addressed and
completed. It may require huge amount of rework in some cases and lot of unnecessary embarrassment for
the team.
A requirement traceability matrix is used to address this phenomenon of missing requirements. Mostly
requirements may be missing because of human error and oversight. A well designed traceability matrix
will track each requirement in every phase of development. And will ensure a phase cannot be closed
unless all the requirements initially collected have been successfully taken care of in the phase. This way,
the team will track every requirement before closing each phase. This enables the team to ensure that no
requirement misses the attention of the team and goes unnoticed to the next phases.
This is a very simple mechanism, but a powerful and effective mechanism to ensure that every requirement
gathered initially gets delivered finally without any miss during the development phase.
Developing a comprehensive project management plan is very important.
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What is a project plan? •
•
What do you plan during project planning?
•
What are the details that will be there inside the project management plan?
•
Who will prepare the project management plan?
•
What is a project baseline?
•
A project plan is a comprehensive document which contains detailed information about how the
project will be executed, how the project will be monitored and finally how the project will be
closed. A project plan is similar to a blueprint or a guideline for the team to be followed during the
project.
•
Project planning is a structured approach to develop an integrated project plan by developing and
integrating the subsidiary plans of scope, schedule, cost, resources, quality, communication, risk,
procurement and stakeholder.
The final project plan will include the above subsidiary plans. It will also include the detailed project scope,
detailed schedule and detailed cost estimates and expenditure plan. These are referred as the scope,
schedule and cost baselines.
The project plan also will include the project life cycle and the associated phases, change management plan,
configuration management plan etc.
•
The project planning will be carried out by the project manager by taking the help of the core team
members who will assist in developing the different components of the plan. The core team will
also assist in estimating. The team will refer to the project charter document to understand the
initial constraints of scope, time and cost as laid down. The detailed plan will be prepared to meet
these constraints or goals.
The team will first start with elaborating the project scope, developing estimates for duration, cost and
resources for each activity or work package in the project scope. In addition the team will also prepare a
risk management plan, risk responses, communication management plan, quality management plan,
stakeholder engagement plan, and procurement management plan to complete the overall project plan.
•
Once the detailed project plan is prepared by the team, the plan finally gets approved by the
sponsor or by the customer. The approved plan will have the scope, time and cost baselines
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approved. The project baselines will be used as a reference for measuring
performance once project execution begins. Any deviation from these baselines will be treated as
project variances. These baselines form the boundary of the so called triple constraints.
WBS is an important part of the project plan. What is a WBS? How does a WBS help in preparing a
good plan?
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WBS (Work breakdown structure) is the most important tool & technique for understanding and
organizing the complete project scope. The WBS later is used for developing a more robust and
clear project plan.
•
The project scope is the most fundamental aspect of the project. During project initiation, the
project scope will be defined in very high level as an objective statement such as “Implement the
HR, Finance and Inventory modules of ERP within 12 months”.
•
It is important to define and refine the project objective and project requirements. Thereafter the
team needs to elaborate the project scope in detail. Project scope will include all the deliverables of
the project and all the associated work that needs to be done to fulfil all the requirements.
•
WBS is a hierarchical decomposition of project work into smaller and more manageable
components (called work package) to include all the project work to complete the project
successfully. A WBS helps the team not only to understand the project scope in detail; it also is used
by the team for the following:
o
Estimating the duration, cost and resource for each smaller component with higher
accuracy
o
Clearly assign roles and responsibilities of different work components among the team
members
o
Develop an Organization Breakdown Structure (OBS) based on the WBS
o
Monitor and track each work package with clarity
o
Identify project risk much more comprehensively for each group of work packages
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•
The above points are the benefits of making a WBS. A good WBS leads
to a very credible and accurate project plan, which will facilitate smooth execution of work and
meaningful tracking of progress. If there is no WBS, essentially there is no meaningful and credible
project management. Hence WBS is the most fundamental part of the overall project management
plan.
•
For more clear understanding refer:Work breakdown structure
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Also refer to this to know more on scope planning, Project scope definition
What is a critical path? Is this important in project planning? How does it help?
Once the project scope of work is well understood and captured in the form of a work breakdown structure,
then all these work packages will have to be scheduled to complete all the work as per an overall time
deadline. All the work packages (which are smaller deliverables) are further decomposed into activities, all
the activities are sequenced based on the dependencies between them, duration estimation of each task is
done and finally a project schedule is prepared.
The project schedule will look like a network diagram connecting all the activities from the beginning till
the end. There will be multiple paths in the network diagram, since there will be many parallel tasks also
running (where there is no dependency), with different scheduled activities. Activities in all the paths of the
project network will have to be completed to complete the project.
The overall minimum project duration to complete all the work will be the duration of the path having the
longest duration. This path with longest duration is the minimum time to complete the project as a whole.
This longest path is referred as “critical path”.
“Critical path” is the most important path to monitor. All the activities on the critical path must be
completed in time to complete the project in time. Hence the only rational and clear method for completing
the project in time is to ensure that all the critical activities (all activities on critical path) must not be
delayed and must be completed in time.
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Hence identification and management of the “critical path” is a must for
completing the project in a timely manner. There is no flexibility as such on the critical path.
For more detailed understanding of critical path, refer to: critical path method cpm
What is the difference between cost estimating and cost budgeting?
Cost estimating is the process of identifying all the cost drivers and arriving at the total monetary amount
needed to be provisioned for completing the project. The resources to be used for developing the ERP
solution will cost money. Cost estimation will take into account all the resource cost (man power, machine,
material, facilities etc.).
Cost budgeting is the process of identifying the cumulative expenditures at major milestones of the project
by aggregating the individual cost estimates over a time. This process includes dividing the total project
estimate against the project schedule and prepares an expenditure plan and arrives at the funding
requirements at different stages of the project. Cost budgeting will help the management to accordingly
arrange for funds in a timely manner for the project.
What kind of resources you will need for the project?
The project will require various kinds of resources such as:
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Human resources (Business analysts, Technical Experts, Developers, Testers etc.)
•
Machines (Equipment, Hardware, Software etc.) (Development and Test Environment)
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Materials
•
Facilities (Office space, Labs, storage and warehouse etc.)
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Resource needed for the project have to be estimated diligently. Typically
resource estimation will be done at the activity level and the entire resource requirement for all activities
will be aggregated to arrive at the total resource requirement.
Project resource estimate (quantity and duration) will become the major input for completing the project
cost estimate.
What is a RACI matrix? How does this help in resource management?
Once the project execution begins, it will be important to clearly assign roles and responsibilities among the
various team members. Multiple people and stakeholders may be involved in every task. Hence clarity on
who will be doing what is very important to eliminate all kinds of ambiguity.
RACI is a matrix based responsibility assignment chart for the above purpose. The possible roles include
“responsible”, “accountable”, “consult”, and “inform” as per this chart. RACI charts are used extensively as
this is one of the most popular matrix based responsibility chart.
For more detailed understanding, please refer: Raci chart tool
You are aware that various risks may occur during the project. What are project risks? How do you
plan for the project risks? What steps do you take in risk planning?
Risks are uncertain events which may occur during the project bringing about a positive or negative impact
on the project objectives of scope, time, cost and quality. If the event brings a positive impact, they are
referred to as positive risks or opportunities, and if the event brings a negative impact, they are referred to
as negative risks or threats.
Risks are potential future events or situations which may occur during the project life cycle. Managing such
events proactively is critical to manage the project successfully. Risk management will thus include
maximising the opportunities and minimising the threats.
Risk management steps will include the following:
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Identify risks
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Analyse risks (their probability and impact)
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Prioritize risks
•
Develop risk responses proactively for opportunities and threats
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A risk register document is prepared which contains all the risk events, their
probability and impact, ranking and response plan for each of the risk event. The risk register document
becomes an important reference for completing the overall project schedule and cost estimates.
For better understanding of Project Risk Management, refer: Project risk management
What is cost of quality?
Cost of quality includes all the cost incurred to ensure that the customer has a quality product. It includes
the cost of conforming to quality and cost not conforming to quality.
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Cost of conformance includes cost of all the proactive steps taken to ensure quality. It includes
prevention and appraisal cost.
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Cost of non-conformance includes all the cost incurred in rework, scrap, replacement, warranty,
failure cost etc.
•
Cost of conformance is the investments made to ensure the cost of non-conformance to be very
minimal.
You have to ensure quality of the final deliverables. You have heard about Quality Assurance and
Quality Control which are used for managing quality. What is the difference between QA and QC?
Managing the quality of the project deliverables is extremely important. Quality of the deliverables is
ensured by doing both Quality Assurance and Quality Control.
Quality Assurance comes from the laid down processes and standards to do the project work. Adherence to
the processes and standards assures that the final deliverables will meet the expected standards of quality.
This is done proactively through the execution and development.
Quality Control is the process of monitoring the final deliverables and results created by the team after
adhering to the chosen processes and standards. Quality Control uses inspection to check if the final
deliverable is correct in all respect and meets all the expected specification or not.
For more detailed understanding on the above topic, refer: Qualty assurance and quality control
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If your project will require, procuring man power, goods or services or even outsourcing some part
of development to third parties.
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How do you plan for your procurements?
We will quickly do a make or buy analysis. We check our existing resource pool and capabilities to decide if
we can do the entire development or we will need some kind of assistance from third parties. IF we will
realize that we need to outsource some development work or if we realize that we may have to augment
our team by hiring some expert staff members contractually for the project, we will need to plan for
procurement. We need to clearly decide and define what we need to procure.
To know more about procurement management, refer our article at: procurement management
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What are the different types of bid documents you may be preparing for procurement
management?
Once we decide what we need to procure, may it be man power or may it be outsourcing a chunk of work,
we will have to develop a statement of work. We also will have to identify other terms and conditions which
we expect the suppliers to fulfil. We also need to identify clear criteria for selecting the suppliers. We than
need to put all these information in a formal document referred as a bid document.
Some of the popular bid documents include request for proposal (RFP), request for quote (RFQ), request
for information (RFI), request for bid (RFB) etc.
The above documents as appropriate then will be floated and shared with prospective bidders/suppliers so
that they can understand our requirements and can prepare a proposal for us.
To know more about them, refer our article at: procurement documents
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•
What contract types you will be using for engaging with suppliers and contractors for
different procurements?
There will be a need for getting into a formal agreement with the selected suppliers. These agreements will
be legally binding agreements for safeguarding the interests and rights of both sides, while defining the
obligations of both sides as well.
There are a number of contract types which exist, and can be appropriately selected in different situations.
Broadly the contract types include the following:
1. Fixed Price Contract
2. Time and Material Contract
3. Cost Reimbursable Contract
To know more about contract types, you can refer our article at: project contract types
Stakeholder engagement is very important for project success.
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How do you plan for stakeholder engagement?
Once the stakeholders are identified and listed in the stakeholder register, we also do a stakeholder
analysis using power-interest grid to segregate them into different groups so that we can develop
appropriate engagement strategies for each group of stakeholders. Below are the high level strategies we
adopt to engage them:
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High Power – High Interest - Manage closely
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High Power – Low Interest - Keep satisfied
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Low Power – High Interest - Keep informed
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Low Power – Low Interest - Monitor
The above helps us to prioritize our attention and efforts accordingly.
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What are a stakeholder engagement matrix and the usage of the same?
While developing the stakeholder engagement strategies, it is also important to quickly check the current
level of engagement of each stakeholder and the desired level of engagement of each of them for project
success. Once we identify the current level and desired level of engagement for each stakeholder, we can
then define very specific actions which will help us to move the stakeholders to the desired level of
engagement.
The stakeholders may fall in one of five levels of engagements such as “unaware”, “resistant”, “neutral”,
“supportive” and “leading”.
Stakeholders
Unaware
Stakeholder
1
C
Stakeholder
2
Stakeholder
3
Resistant
Neutral
Supporting
Leading
D
C
D
C
D
Below is a matrix:
The above matrix once prepared, provides clarity to the team to define right actions and strategies for
moving each of the stakeholders from their “Current” level to “Desired” level of engagement.
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Communication management is central to project success, ensuring right information flows to each
stakeholder for effective engagement.
How do you plan for communication?
Communication is the only way of engaging with stakeholders. Right information should be sent to the right
stakeholder at the right time in a manner preferred by the stakeholder. A communication approach should
be developed for effective and efficient information sharing to attain the required level of stakeholder
engagement.
There are various types of communication such as written, verbal and non-verbal. Information can be
shared using different technologies or medium. Information can be shared using various methods such as
interactive, push and pull. Each stakeholder may have specific information need and may have specific
preference in terms of how the information should be shared with them. We need to understand their
preferences and accordingly prepare a communication plan.
A communication plan will include:
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Who needs information?
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What information do they need?
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When the information is needed including frequency?
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How the information will be sent to them?
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Who in the team will be responsible for sending the needed information?
Please refer this link for more information on communication planning,communication management
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What are the first few things you will have to do to start project execution?
Once the plan is ready, the immediate first things to be done during execution will be to identify and
acquire the right resources for the project and also select the appropriate contractors/suppliers for the
project work. It is the team and the suppliers who will be actually doing the project work. Assigning
responsibilities to different team members and suppliers for different pieces of the project work is
extremely important.
During the project execution, the project manager will have to act as a leader, working closely with the
project sponsor, other stakeholders, with team, with other peers in the organization. The project manager
will have to use mostly the inter personal skills, communication skills during project execution.
What are some of the key activities you will have to do as the PM during project execution? What
are your responsibilities as the PM during execution?
During project execution stage, the project manager will be doing the following important activities, which
are some of the core responsibilities of the project manager:
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Acquire the right resources for the project
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Select and bring on board the most suitable suppliers and contractors as needed
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Assign roles and responsibilities among the team
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Lay down the Quality Management processes and standards to be followed by the team for creating
the final deliverables
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Implement all the risk responses
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Initiate and ensure constant communication with all stakeholders as per the communication
management plan
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Start engaging with all stakeholders understanding their needs and expectations and building
relationship with them ensuring their support for the project
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Do team building, maintain team motivation
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Ensure that the team is using all existing knowledge and also documenting new lessons learnt
through the development of project work
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Keep conducting audits to check process and quality standards compliance
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You are aware that you will have to acquire various resources (man power and physical resources)
for your project.
How will you acquire all the necessary resources for project execution?
.1
How project resource acquisition may be influenced depending upon your organization structure
.2
(projectized, functional, matrix)?
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The project will require both man power and other physical resources to be acquired for the
project work. The man power resources will be acquired from within the organization, from
different functional groups and common resource pools. If the man power resource needs are
completely fulfilled from internal sources, then the PM will have to initiate the process of acquiring
them from outside agencies on a contractual basis.
The PM will be responsible for actively negotiating with various resource owners within the
organization and select the best possible resources for the project. The same selection mechanism
should be exercised while selecting man power from outside agencies. The team members
possessing the required skills and competencies need to be carefully selected.
The project manager will also have to ensure other resources such as material and machines are
made available either from internal sources or through procurement. The PM will have to plan
really well for procurements by working closely with the procurement department of the
organization.
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Resource acquisition first will happen from internal sources and later from external sources. IF the
organization is a functional or a matrix organization, resource acquisition from internal sources
will be quite challenging for the PM, since the resources by default will be part of other groups. The
PM will have to actively negotiate with the functional managers and other resource owners for
assigning the right man power resources to the project. The PM may need to take the help of the
project sponsor also in this regard.
If it is a functional or a weak-matrix organization, the PM will definitely have a challenging task in
getting the right resources assigned to the project. If it is strong-matrix organization, the PM will
have more authority and will have a stronger say in resource allocation. If it is a projectized
organization, then the project manager will have lot of authority to select the resources of choice
with full authority and freedom. But in case of projectized organization, most of the resources may
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have to hired from outside, which may take a good amount of lead time for
hiring. Hence good upfront planning for hiring will have to be put in place to ensure the resources
come on board well in time as per the project plan.
You are aware that you have to build a new team and also have to manage the team for execution
through the project life cycle.
What is team building .1
What is managing team? .2
How do you do this? .3
Project teams are always new teams, as each project is a new project. The PM will start forming the team by
selecting and acquiring the right team members, either from internal sources from external sources. It is
important for the project manager to ensure that this newly formed team works as a great team, with
immense trust and cohesiveness to achieve the project goals. The project manager also have to ensure that
each team member is giving 100 % of their efforts to the project work and all are happy and motivated.
When we form a new project team, initially the team will not behave as a great team. The team spirit will
not be present initially. It takes time for the team to evolve into a great team. Typically every new team will
evolve through the stages of forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning as per Tuckman
ladder. This is where the project manager will have to act as a leader helping and guiding the team to
evolve to its peak performance stage. The PM plans various team building activities providing an
opportunity to the team members to start knowing each other well and developing a better team spirit and
trust.
The project will also have to ensure that each team member is giving his/her best for the project. The PM
will have to monitor the performance of each team member, give feedback as needed to ensure their best
performance. Ensure that every member in the team is motivated and inspired.
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Is motivation of the team important during execution? If yes, then how do you motivate your team?
What formal techniques and motivation theories you may be making use of for this?
Motivation of the team is one of the most important aspects for project success. The PM will have to ensure
that the team as a whole is inspired and motivated. Each team member is also motivated to give his/her
best performance for the project success.
Motivation is a psychological phenomenon. Different things may motivate different person. The PM will
need have clear understanding about this phenomenon and how motivation works and how we can
motivate different individuals.
There are many formal theories on motivation each one explaining a very important aspect of motivation.
Generally fulfilling the needs of people, providing them a challenging and invigorating environment to
work; providing them appropriate rewards in a timely manner are critical factors in motivating people.
Some of the important theories include Maslow’s Theory, McGregor’s Theory, Hertzberg’s Theory,
McClelland’s Theory, Vroom’s Expectancy Theory. As a PM one need to understand the underlying concepts
and philosophies behind is theories and use them effectively for motivation.
For more information on this, you can refer: rewards and recognition
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During project execution, when work will start happening, there will be conflicts between team
members and also stakeholders.
What is a conflict? What are the reasons of conflict in projects? .1
How will you manage conflicts? What are the different conflict management techniques
.2
which are used and their application?
1. Conflicts are differences in opinion or disagreements between team members or stakeholders. Few
points about conflicts
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Conflicts are natural and inevitable when multiple people start working together.
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Conflicts are seen as a means of encouraging diverse views and ideas within the team.
Hence they can be constructive too.
•
Conflicts in project happen because of differences and disagreements related to:
o
Schedule
o
Resources
o
Priorities
o
Cost
o
Administrative issues
o
Technical opinions
o
Personality
2. Conflicts can be best resolved by the parties involved in the conflict. The PM should create an
environment of trust and respect within the team. The team members should be encouraged to
resolve conflicts among themselves.
The manager can intervene if the conflicts are not getting resolved by the team members. While resolving
conflicts, the care should be taken not only to resolve the conflict, but also to ensure that the team dynamics
and harmony is maintained.
Some of the conflict management techniques used include the following:
1. Confront/Problem Solve/ Collaborate (Best method - win – win outcome)
2. Compromise (lose-lose outcome)
3. Force (win-lose outcome)
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4.
Avoid/Withdraw
5. Smoothing/Accommodating
For more detailed information in conflict management, please refer our article: Conflict-management
How do you manage geographically distributed virtual or international team? How do you maintain
team spirit while you have distributed virtual team at different location?
Virtual teams and international teams are a common phenomenon presently. Projects are global consisting
of team members from across the globe. Project teams are geographically distributed, having the members
operating from different locations.
Managing such distributed teams, it will be important to use technology effectively. Regular communication
will be very important. Communication purpose, frequency and mechanism should be planned upfront.
Colocation can also be used effectively as and when needed. These days it is possible to keep the team
connected with proper communication planning
You will be acting as a leader during execution. What are the different leadership styles you are
aware of? What is your leadership style?
The PM also acts as a leader. Leader’s role will be to guide the team, show direction, develop team spirit,
motivate to achieve greater performance, help the team in case of adversity etc. There are different
leadership styles. Some of the important leadership styles include:
•
Autocratic
•
Democratic
•
Liaises Faire
•
Servant leadership
For more details on leadership, please refer: Management styles
( TOI ) TEAM ORG IRAQ
How will you manage underperforming team members?
There will be situations; the PM may find some of the team member’s performance is not up-to expectation
and not meeting the expected performance needed for project success. The PM has to keep a very close
observation about the performance of each team member. The moment the PM finds any kind of
underperformance, the PM needs to immediately have some conversation with the team member.
The PM needs to be careful and use empathy to understand the reason of underperformance. The PM
should first try to provide all kinds of meaningful help, training and encouragement to the team member to
improve his/her performance. The PM should also explore the possibility of changing the role of the team
member within the project team based on his/her capability to see if that helps the member as well as the
project. Initial discussion should be done somewhat informally.
The PM should be judging the performance of the person, not the person itself. But if the underperformance
still persists, then the project manager may have to have some formal discussion and try to see if the
resource can be changed with some other resource and the resource under consideration may be deployed
into a more suitable role where his/her capabilities will fit the best. The PM must keep in mind that
ultimately project is most important. Hence a delicate balance between ensuring project success and
helping the underperforming team member to improve performance has to be done by the PM.
During execution you will also have to select contractors and third party suppliers for some part of
your project work. How do you select the suppliers?
For some of the project work, there always may be a need for engaging some third party suppliers,
contractors. During planning, the team would have already decided what to procure, and would have
developed detailed specification of the procurement item or service. An RFP or RFQ is generally prepared
during the procurement planning stage.
Before beginning execution, it will be important to share our detailed requirements through the RFP or
RFQ document with potential suppliers. We need to request their response, proposal, and quotations.
Upon receiving the proposal, response and quotation from various suppliers, we need to evaluate their
responses in an objective manner. We then need to invite the bidders with best proposals for final
negotiation. After negotiation, the best seller/supplier is selected and an agreement is signed with them.
Negotiation is a difficult process. It should be kept in mind to ensure that the negotiations are done in a
win-win manner ensuring the considerations and interests of both the sides are equally taken care of. After
( TOI ) TEAM ORG IRAQ
all, the selected supplier/seller becomes part of you extended team. Hence it
should be seen more as a relationship rather than a transaction while negotiating the terms and conditions.
For more details you can refer our tutorial at,procurement management
What is Gold Plating and how do you prevent this?
Gold plating is a common phenomenon observed during execution. The development team may work on
delivering more than what has been asked for or what is actually needed. The general thought behind gold
plating is that it will make the customer feel happy since we are delivering more. But in the contrast a
matured customer will not be happy. Instead may have doubts on our management capability as to how the
team is able or willing to deliver more. In addition to this, gold plating if done, will lead to scope creep,
which in turn will impact the project schedule and cost. The whole plan can go awry.
Hence it is highly recommended that the PM should be aware about this phenomenon and tendency of the
team, and should discourage and prevent gold plating in a project scenario.
How do you assure quality during execution?
During quality management planning, the team decides the relevant standards and processes to be
followed during product development including the reviews, testing etc. The PM will have to ensure that
the team actually follows the chosen processes and standards for development. The PM also plans for
regular quality audits for ensuring process compliance. Complying to the processes and standards ensures
the team ends up developing the desired product without any defect. This method of ensuring quality
through adherence to standards is known as quality assurance.
How do you engage all your stakeholders, especially the ones who hold high interest and high
authority?
Project stakeholders are identified during the project initiation stage itself. All the identified stakeholders
are also analysed in terms of their power and interest with regards to the project in hand. Different
strategies are planned for engaging the different groups of stakeholders.
Stakeholders with high authority and high interest in the project such as the sponsor, the customer and
may be few other stakeholders need to be “Managed Closely”. The PM need to plan and use more frequent
communication and engagement with such stakeholders in order to ensure that their authority is used
effectively for the project decision making process and their interests are also best fulfilled.
The PM generally will plan a daily or weekly communication with such stakeholders with different agenda
for each such communication. Face-to-face meetings, telephonic conversations are the best. Sharing
important project information such as a plan, change requests, project documents and all kind of approvals
must be done using formal written communication.
( TOI ) TEAM ORG IRAQ
It will be important to ensure that such stakeholders are being constantly and
closely managed. The PM will have to use excellent communication and interpersonal skills for such
engagement.
During project execution, your team will be working on all the work as per the project baseline. But
you are aware that, new change requests may keep coming up during the project.
What are change requests? Why do we get change requests? .1
What will be the steps and processes for change management? .2
What will be some of the typical challenges you will face in handling change request? .3
Knowledge Area: Project Integration Management
•
Change requests are very common in a project. Change request is a request for changing some
aspect of the project plan such as the scope, timeline, cost, resources, technology, requirements etc.
Any change to the project baseline, is treated as a potential change request. Change requests in
project context are also referred as “CR”. A CR may originate from any of the project stakeholders
including the project team and project manager also.
The reasons for change requests in the middle of the project includes below points:
1. The stakeholders realize that a new feature or requirement or new technology will be beneficial for
the project
2. Sometimes new regulatory requirements may come up and the project needs to comply to them
leading changes in an already planned project
3. Stakeholders may suddenly feel the need for changing the project time lines, project budget leading
to change requests.
4. Very often in the midst of the project, the team or stakeholders may feel the need for taking up
some corrective or preventive actions if variances, issues and problems are faced by the project
team. These are recommended for keeping the project on track and ensuring the project’s final
outcome will remain relevant.
5. Change requests are normal in the project. But it is important to adopt a discipline approach for
handling all change requests. For that, a change management plan may be developed which will
enlist the change management procedure. This can be shared with all relevant stakeholders.
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Change management process should be done in the most formal manner. All
stakeholders must be educated and informed about the procedure during the project planning
stage itself.
A change request can impact the project baselines and various other project documents and already
developed project deliverables.
Typical steps to be followed will include the following:
•
Conduct a thorough impact analysis of the change request. The impacts could be on multiple
aspects of the project.
•
The findings from the impact analysis should be presented to the appropriate impacted
stakeholders. And a discussion with the appropriate stakeholders which may include the sponsor,
customer must be done. Idea is to make all the stakeholders aware about the impact and seek their
approval after they understand the impacts.
•
IF the stakeholders approve the change request with the impacts, then the project manager need to
work on updating the project management plan ensuring the impacts are properly reflected in the
updated plan.
•
The updated plan should be approved by the sponsor.
•
Upon approval of the updated plan, the PM should execute the project as per the updated project
plan and should start implementing the change.
•
In the process of implementing the change, various existing project artefacts will undergo change. It
will be important to maintain the versions of such artefacts to maintain the history of changes in
happening in each of the artefacts. These are known as configurable items and the process is
known as configuration management.
•
Some of the common challenges in handling change requests will include the following:
o
Formal change management plan may not be present
o
Stakeholders may tend to raise change requests in an informal manner
o
There may be conflict very often. What the project team will say is actually a change
request, the customer and stakeholders many times may say that it is part of original scope.
The project manager will have to discuss and resolve such situations and bring all
stakeholders to a common understanding.
o
Frequent changes will be a challenge.
o
The project manager and team sometime may find it difficult to say “NO” to a change.
( TOI ) TEAM ORG IRAQ
o
Accepting or rejecting a change request with their associated impacts
will require immense negotiation between the PM, team and other stakeholders including
the customer and sponsor.
What is project monitoring and controlling mean?
Once the project execution begins, the work should progress as per plan. Hence it is important to track and
review the progress, compare the actual performance with project baseline and find out the variances, if
any.
If variances will be found, then the team needs to look for ways to not only correct the variances and but
also see how similar variances will not occur in future.
How often project monitoring and controlling should be done? Should this be planned as part of
project management plan?
Monitoring the progress and checking for variances should be done at a planned interval. The frequency of
monitoring is also planned as part of project management plan. Various different kinds of monitoring
activities at different levels of project hierarchy can be planned. There may be daily, weekly status meetings
within the team planned for clear objectives for each such status meeting. There may be status meetings
planned with customer and sponsor also.
What is the difference between monitoring and controlling?
Monitoring involves finding variances between actual project performances against the project baseline.
Controlling means identifying recommended corrective, preventive actions and defect repairs for managing
the variances.
What specific aspects of the project will you be monitoring as a project manager?
The project performance will be monitored against the project baseline. Monitoring is done against the
project scope baseline, schedule baseline, cost baseline, quality baseline to check if the project performance
is matching the planned baseline in these areas. Variances in scope, schedule, cost and quality are
identified. Monitoring is also done to compare actual performance in other areas of the plan such how the
communication happening, how the procurement happening, how is the stakeholder engagement, how are
the resource performing etc.
The on-going project monitoring will also focus on successful work completion and acceptance of the
project work. How much of the project scope of work is getting successfully delivered and accepted is a
very important part of the project monitoring. This helps the team to keep checking off the completed
work.
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What are the basic performance reports which will be prepared by the team?
As part of monitoring and controlling, the project team will be preparing various reports. Some of the basic
reports which are prepared include:
•
Status report
•
Progress report
•
Forecast report
What is the difference between progress report and status report?
Progress report focuses on work completion in the project so far. Status report focuses on variances in
project performance so far.
What is a forecast? Is this important during monitoring?
While progress report and status report tell us where the project stands as of now, the Forecast report will
tell eth details about the expected completion of the project based on actual performance so far.
Forecast report is very important which keeps informing the stakeholders about the expected completion
time, cost of the project.
What variance means? What are the different project variances to be measured during the project
execution?
Variance is the difference between the actual project performances with the project baseline.
Mathematically it can be explained as Plan – Actual.
Variances will be measure for time duration (on schedule, ahead of schedule or behind schedule), cost (on
budget, over budget or under budget). These variances can be measured numerically using different
techniques. Variances in other knowledge areas can be checked, but may not be measured numerically.
( TOI ) TEAM ORG IRAQ
Your sponsor mentions that Earned Value Management technique has gained immense popularity
in recent years and you should consider using this in the current project.
What is Earned Value Management (EVM)?
•
What is the use of EVM? •
EVM is a technique which is used for numerically calculating the schedule and cost variance in a project. It
is used for calculating the schedule and cost performance index of the project. This is also used for creating
new cost and performance forecast for the project.
This technique used quantification of planned value (PV) of work at different points in project schedule,
earned value (EV) of work (work actually completed) and actual cost (AC) of work completed.
It is simple, yet a very practical and effective technique for ascertaining the variances and performances of
the project numerically so that the team can make meaningful forecast and also identify appropriate
corrective actions for managing the variances.
What is difference between trend analysis and variance analysis?
Variance analysis is the method for calculating the variance between current performances of the project
with the baseline. It will be done regularly to keep a track on the variances so that timely corrective actions
can be taken.
Trend analysis is also done at regular interval but no so frequently as variance analysis. The idea is to
identify if any patterns or trends are emerging in the project performances and variances over time. If
trends will be spotted, then we need to understand the reasons for the trends and identify suitable
preventive actions.
What is the difference between corrective actions and preventive actions? Give example of some
corrective actions and preventive actions.
Corrective action is to correct the existing variance. Preventive action is to ensure that similar current
variances should not occur in future.
For example, if we identify that the project is running behind schedule, then the corrective action will be
something that can help to expedite the remaining work so that we can make up the schedule variance.
After doing a root cause analysis, if the team realizes that the schedule variance happened because of lack
of clear management direction to the team, then the preventive action will include providing clear direction
and information to each team member for their corresponding work so that similar variances will not occur
in future.
( TOI ) TEAM ORG IRAQ
What is the difference between project monitoring and project evaluation?
Project monitoring is done by the project manager and the team internally to check periodically how the
project is doing.
While project evaluation is done by the project sponsor, customer to check how the project is doing.
Evaluation is done by someone from outside the team.
While monitoring your project, you discover that your project is behind schedule? What can you do
to bring your project back on track with regards to schedule?
If the project is behind schedule, we first need to understand the extent of variance. If the variance is very
small and the team will feel this variance can be managed easily without much change, then in that case, we
may not do any alteration except keeping a very close watch on further progress.
Project schedule variance means some of the tasks on the critical path are having variances. Some of the
critical tasks are running behind. If the variance requires intervention, then the team will identify means to
expedite the remaining project work. Priority has to be given on expediting the work on the critical path
without unduly neglecting the non-critical tasks.
Some of the common actions may include adding more resources on the critical path tasks appropriately or
exploring to do some of the future tasks in parallel which are currently scheduled in sequence. These two
methods can help in making up the schedule variance and help in expediting so that the project can be
completed as per original timeline.
How do you ensure that the project gets delivered as per agreed project timelines?
We know that the critical path duration defines the project completion timelines. Hence if we can monitor
the critical path activities more closely and see that they are on time, we can ensure that the project will get
completed as per agreed timeline.
More focus has to be given to monitoring the critical tasks and also ensuring that the non-critical tasks are
not unduly delayed so that they become critical.
( TOI ) TEAM ORG IRAQ
How are Fast Tracking and Crashing techniques used for project control? Explain.
Fast tracking and Crashing are techniques for expediting the project activities. They are applied when there
is schedule variance observed. As explained in above question, adding more resources is termed as
“Crashing” and doing tasks in parallel is termed as “Fast Tracking”.
Crashing may add more cost to the project, whereas Fast Tracking may add additional risk of rework since
tasks will be performed in parallel.
When can one start closing the phase or the project?
The team will be developing the various project deliverables. When some significant deliverable will be
ready by the team, the team will seek acceptance of the completed deliverables from stakeholders. Once the
team will receive acceptance of major deliverables, typically at the end of phase or at the end of the project,
the team will prepare for logically closing either the phase or the project depending upon where we are.
Hence the pre-condition for initiating phase or project closure is successful acceptance of project
deliverables by the customer or stakeholders.
Prepare the list of various activities that will have to be performed during closing of phase or
project.
Closing of phase or project logically is very important. All loose ends of the project or phase must be closed.
Some of the important activities that will happen during closing of phase or project will include the
following:
•
Analyse and ensure that all the acceptance criteria of the project and product have been met
•
Prepare and consolidate the final deliverable for handing over to the appropriate stakeholder or
customer.
•
Handover all documents such as training manuals etc. to the customer
•
Close all financial dealings with suppliers and vendors of the project
•
Formal sign off from customer
•
Prepare a final project report which should detail out the story of the complete project for future
reference
•
Consolidate all lessons learnt and ensure that they are shared across the organization
•
Archive all project records
•
Do appraisal of performance of all team members and provide feedback to their respective
functional managers and HR
•
Recognize and reward all contributors of the project
•
Release all equipment and resources
•
Celebrate
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What is the significance of project or phase closing? How does proper closing help the project and
the organization?
Closing time is an opportunity for introspection for the project team. All lessons learnt are consolidated. It
is ensured that the new learning gets institutionalized. They are used in the current project and also across
the organization. We build new process assets for the organization. Proper phase closing helps in deciding
to move to the next phase. Project closing brings the project to an orderly end by consolidating all assets &
learning.