a recent study shows that over 88 million project management related job roles will be created by 2027. so where does that leave an aspiring project manager with everlasting competition in the job market one can always stay ahead with the best of knowledge this is ryan from invensis learning and i welcome you all to this session in which we will learn about the top 50 project manager interview questions to prepare you for the interview let's take a look at the agenda for this session we will start with the project manager's basic job role and responsibilities and
then we will start with the interview questions watch this video until the end for some exciting scenario based questions i hope you guys are clear with the agenda let's start with the project manager job role and responsibilities a project manager is a professional in the field of project management who will be responsible for the following roles in an organization planning executing monitoring controlling and closing a project from scratch their roles and responsibilities will include activity and resource planning organizing and motivating a project team controlling time management cost estimating and developing the budget for the project
ensuring that the project requirements are fully understood and fulfilled in the end planning project risk management issue and bug tracking systems monitoring the project's progress managing reports etc these were a few responsibilities that are associated with the project manager now let us take a look at the top 50 interview questions for project managers the first question is how do you define an ideal project a project is nothing more than a combination of several tasks that work together to finish the project these tasks include collaboration requirements gathering project delivery within a specific deadline and most importantly
the expenses that will occur during the whole project an ideal project is a project where there are no extra expenses involved during the whole project the communication between the teams is smooth there is no confusion in the requirements given by the stakeholders each role and responsibilities are clear to the resources no confusion in the deadlines and the deliverables and most importantly the project deliverables and finished within the specified deadline the next question is how do you make a project plan a project plan is a structured and systematic approach to a project there are certain factors
that are insured before you can start making a project plan all the stages in the project life cycle will be thoroughly analyzed and taken into consideration for the whole project plan to work efficiently and effectively the following steps can be taken for making a project plan define your project defining the project will also include making sure that you have analyzed the project scope objectives requirements deliverables and project schedule define project scope quality this will cover the necessary measures that must be taken before the project begins so that any setbacks can be handled identifying risks dependencies
and how they would affect the project is basically handled in the project scope quality it basically ensures a standard or equality for the project organize the people for the project in this you will basically create a structure where each role and responsibilities is clearly defined and there is no confusion in the project define project resources defining project resources is basically identifying all the required resources that will essentially complete the project project communications and change management plan ensure the effective communication plan among the teams and stakeholders along with an effective change management plan you can follow
these steps to create a project plan for any project question number three is what factors do you consider while making a project plan the following factors are considered when you're creating a project plan project estimation while making a project plan one must consider the project scope requirements objectives etc project team managing the teams and assigning tasks to them to get the project running defining roles and responsibilities for the project to avoid any confusion and hassle-free progress of the project project schedule the next important factor is to consider the schedule of the project and align it
with the project timeline so that the project falls within the budget project deliverables the other factors are the dependencies and the changes that may hamper the project delivery this is one of the most important factors while making the project plan you make sure that the dependencies and any project delay that may occur during the project are already taken into consideration and plans are in order to take care of them the next question is what is a project charter the project charter is a document that contains the details of the project in its entirety as brief
as it can be the project charter basically consists of the following components project scope project goals and objectives project requirements project description project team project timeline etc all in all the purpose of the project charter is to define the whole project in a brief document question number five is how do you make a work breakdown structure work breakdown structure or wbs and project management is a method of breaking down a complex project into smaller components so that it becomes easier to manage and get the deliverables the tasks are divided into levels where the project goals
are kept in the first level and then the subsequent levels contain the subtasks and other manageable components while creating a work breakdown structure for a project consider the following make sure that the entire work is included in the structure follow the 880 rule include three levels of detail focus on deliverables not the actions the next question is how do you identify the stakeholders in your project a stakeholder in a project is any person or organization that can get affected or affect a project they may or may not be a part of the project they can
be a member of the team or the whole team or they are involved in the outcome of the project or just change the outcome of the project as it pans out all in all stakeholders play an important role in project success it is crucial to identify the stakeholders before the project begins you can identify the stakeholders in a project in the following ways one way to identify the stakeholders is by identifying them organizationally or by what kind of role they play in the project since not all stakeholders are equally invested in the project another way
of identifying stakeholders is by analyzing who all will be affected by the project both directly and indirectly while all the stakeholders are identified they are documented in the project stakeholder register with their details like name contact details roles organization etc the next question is what are the stages involved in the project management life cycle there are five stages involved in the project management life cycle initiation in this stage the project feasibility and business value are determined planning the planning stage involves the project plan scheduling etc execution working and finishing the project deliverables are covered in
the execution phase of the project management lifecycle monitoring and control while executing the deliverables it is important to monitor the progress of the project creating a rigid quality assurance plan in place these activities are covered in the monitoring and control phase of the project management life cycle closure it is the phase in which the deliverables are accepted and documented before submission the retrospect at the end of the project to make sure that all the good is taken from the project and the bad makes for the lesson learned for the next project the next question is
how will you prioritize the tasks in your project before you can prioritize your tasks in your project you have to consolidate your tasks in a single source where you can monitor the progress of each task for example a kanban or a scrum board after that you must decide which tasks need to be done which tasks you can do later and which tasks you can assign to others and which tasks you can remove from the task list after this you can prioritize tasks using the following approaches pareto principle the pareto principle states that you can get
80 of the results from twenty percent of the work so applying this principle to your tasks you can choose the tasks that will cover up the majority of your results priority matrix you can use the priority matrix to assign each task a priority based on the matrix the matrix will segregate the task according to importance and priority but can cause confusion in the case of multiple tasks relative prioritization for relative prioritization you add the numbers to each of the tasks in the priority matrix most important tasks last but not least you can focus on the
tasks that are the most important tasks on your list and move forward with decreasing importance the next question is why is a critical path important for your project the critical path method is a resource utilization algorithm in project management it follows a detailed process in which you make a list of all the tasks that are involved in the project you assign the dependencies of all the tasks whether they are dependent on each other or not after this you will find out about the time duration that will be required for each task to be finished after
this we create the longest stretch of tasks considering the dependencies from the starting of the project until the finish and this is known as a critical path for a project since we have the critical path we will then find the total float which is nothing but the time duration for each task that can be delayed without making the project any longer the critical path is important for the project because it basically creates a timeline where without hampering the project delivery we are able to finish the project the 10th question is how relevant are the knowledge
areas for your project there are 10 knowledge areas that are listed in the pmi pmbok and since the pmbok is a standard in the project management industry with more than one million pmp-certified professionals in the world the knowledge areas ensure all-around knowledge and best practices in project management the 10 knowledge areas are project integration management project scope management project time management project cost management project quality management project human resources management project communications management project risk management project procurement management project stakeholders management all the knowledge areas cover the five stages in the project management life cycle
and ensure an efficient project management plan the next question is how do you choose a project management methodology there can be several factors that decide which methodology you should actually go for here are a few that particularly play a very crucial role in choosing the correct methodology size of the team the size of your team is a very important factor in deciding which methodology you're going to for your project the kind of communication that would be required from the members of your team or if they are going to be dependent on each other at all
and all sorts of things play a major role in deciding the correct methodology for your project allocated budget for the project the budget allocated for the project also plays a very crucial role in deciding the methodology for the project you have to be certain that no unprecedented expenses would be added to the budget in the end you have to be certain about any changes that may occur in the duration of the project any unsolicited expenses can really hamper the overall performance of the project so budget is another important factor for choosing the project management methodology
flexibility if there are any changes in the project after the initial phase begins it may cause a lot of damage to the project delivery so while choosing the project management methodology we have to make sure that there is a scope of flexibility during the project or even if there is no scope for changes we have to be aware of it beforehand and choose the methodology accordingly timeline a much more important aspect is when do you want your project to end what kind of commitment is required from the team based on the deadline it is crucial
in order to decide which methodology will ensure the project delivery in the specified time so the project timeline is one more factor that adds a lot of relevance to whichever project management methodology is chosen for the project collaboration another aspect is the kind of collaboration that is required between the various stakeholders we will learn about the stakeholders in the later section where we will discuss all the important project management terminologies coming back to the topic according to the project each project will have their requirements where they need specific stakeholder collaboration and sometimes it is not
required at all and it also adds a relevant bias towards choosing the correct methodology for your project scalability one more factor is the scalability of the project the methodology chosen for the project should align with the scalability of the project and provide the maximum efficiency for it project risk the risk associated with the project is also one of the driving forces while deciding the methodology for the project the methodology will have to be efficient enough to manage the risk associated with the project without hampering the overall efficiency of the project resources and then comes to
the resources associated with the project it is crucial to make sure that the resources that are linked to the project are available during the project and how they would be managed for the overall efficiency of the project resistance to change in various situations the resistance to change can be really exhausting so while choosing the methodology for the project one must make sure they will be able to manage any resistance to change during the project and maintain full efficiency throughout the project duration the next question is how can you use the project management tools for your
project the project management tools can benefit a project manager in a lot of ways we have listed down a few benefits that a project management tool can provide improved planning the project management tools that provide full visibility and project planning assistance can be very useful for the project managers the already ready template designs visual boards and less complexity while planning the project gives an edge to project managers and eventually lead to better and effective project plans enhanced collaboration communication channels and the project management tools can be very useful for collaboration across teams the communication barrier
that may hinder the project's performance is reduced to none with their all-inclusive communication channels the stakeholders are able to convey their project needs with the teams efficiently with the project management tools effective risk management constant progress analysis can also help in identifying risks and producing solutions to handle the risks as well the project management tools have risk assessment functionalities that can reduce the damage caused by the wrists to a very minimum they are able to identify any vulnerabilities based on the information provided in the project plan improved productivity with improved collaboration project planning and effective
risk management the projects are bound to reach improved productivity when we eliminate the roadblocks from the collaboration planning and other factors it obviously creates a lot of improvements in the project delivery work remotely hassle-free there are tools for project management that offer assistance in measuring the progress of work for remote teams the boards that contain the work-related tasks and give a full view of the progress of the project give a wider perspective on how the team is performing and thus the teams are able to identify any shortcomings even working remotely progress of the project the
timelines and the various tools like scrum board and kanban boards give a full visual representation of the progress of the project with these tools you can easily identify which task requires more attention and how it will be completed without making any major changes in the original project timeline sharing files and docs the various communication channels from a project management tool also open a safe and secure way to share the files and documents related to the project with the tools you can easily manage your project files and store them in a secure location as well cost
management the project management tools offer features that will curb the cost management issues for any project they will identify the over expenditure point so that you can easily mend a few processes to cover the costs of shortcomings resource allocation resource allocation becomes a very easy task for any project manager with a project management tools they are able to assign any work to the most relevant resource since everyone is connected to the same network or tools flexibility the project management tools do not necessarily require the project to bend its way the project management tools are flexible
and offer multiple features although some of the features may be common for some tools every tool offers specific features for different projects let's take a look at a few features that a project management tool offers the next question is how will you make an effective risk management plan a risk management plan is basically how any organization or individual tackles the impact of risk both positive and negative it is how the project manager manages any unprecedented risks and shortcomings to save the project from any delay the various components of the risk management plan are as follows
risk analysis you identify the risks associated with the project analyze the impact of the risks on your project's outcome along with consolidating information about the project so that it becomes useful in other similar projects as well risk evaluation evaluating the impact of the risk on your project so that you can understand both the qualitative and quantitative impact of the risks associated with the project plan risk response after identifying and evaluating the risks you must plan a response to the risk to minimize the negative impacts that may cause any delay to the project contingency plan planning
or creating a contingency slash backup plan in case a risk is encountered during the project is one of the most important aspects of the risk management plan you must understand what factors could trigger the risk and map out specific milestones in the project where specific risk owners will take care of the response then and there measure risk threshold risk threshold is basically a measure that tells us how expensive the risk would be in terms of cost time and outcome or which risk would land the project in serious jeopardy monitoring and reporting planning a monitoring stage
where each risk is monitored and reported the next question is how will you do the risk assessment for your project the most important factors when dealing with risks with your projects are risk event risk duration risk probability risk impact based on the above factors the assessment revolves around who and how will they get affected when risk is encountered in any project the components or steps followed in a risk assessment are as follows risk identification in the identification process each of the tasks is evaluated and any risk that may be associated with the task is identified
usually the team members brainstorm on various risks that may be associated with the projects probability of occurrence you have to calculate the probability of each risk and understand at what point in time the issue may be encountered so that you can create a contingency plan as a countermeasure impact on the project each risk will have a different impact on the project in this stage we basically understand the impact of each risk on the project in terms of project delay budget etc the next question is what is the difference between the project manager and program manager
a project manager is responsible for managing a single project at a time a program manager will have to oversee various projects at a time a project manager's objectives are precise and concrete in terms of what sort of deliverable they have to finish a program manager always has long-term strategic business objectives a project manager manages a project from start to end with considerably smaller teams and budgets program managers work in an ongoing process that they do with considerably larger teams and immense budgets the next question is how would you create an effective change management plan a
change management plan is basically put in place so that any organizational change can be coordinated so that everything including a budget scope resources vigil is unaffected or least affected the change management plan can be created by following a few simple steps as follows identifying the reasons for the change creating change management scope process automation for smooth deliverance of tasks change management communication plan to collaborate with efficiency define role and responsibilities for a change management team milestones and change management budget the next question is why does a project fail project failures can happen due to numerous
factors but there are a few general factors that are usually overlooked in the projects that face failure in the later stages some of the factors are poor management lack of effective communication poor documentation and tracking the fear among team members a dearth of trained professionals inexperienced project management overlooking project warning symbols the next question is what was the problem with the conventional waterfall approach the waterfall model follows a linear and sequential breakdown of project activities each stage in the project cycle cannot start before the previous tasks have been completed this basically causes the following problems
in any project if the project is too complex the changes that may occur during the project are impossible to deliver and may take a lot of time and resources for it to be fulfilled the errors can only be fixed during the particular stage this is the only reason that gave rise to the agile methodology and continuous development and improvement the next question is how would you collaborate with the teams and stakeholders collaboration in project management is as important as project deliverables effective communication between various team members and stakeholders to reach the finish line can be
as efficient as it can be disastrous for the project any miscommunication regarding the requirements or sensitive information can put the whole project in jeopardy and can hamper the project delivery along with increased budgets there are a few principles one can follow to efficiently collaborate within the projects getting a project owner to manage and keep the team up to date meaningful meetings that reach a conclusion user-friendly communication channels so that each of the members of the team is able to effectively communicate open constructive discussions for all-round participation and healthy relationships among the team members trust respect
and willingness among teams etc the next question is how can you create an effective resource management plan an effective project resource plan consists of the plan to manage the resources associated with the project for an effective project resource plan you can follow the following steps determine the available resources for the project assign the relevant resources to specific tasks based on their nature plan the time duration of each resource that would be involved in the project resource scheduling based on availability tracking the project progress and that of resources room for adjustments during the project retrospect for
making future resource management plans the next question is how would you create the team motivated and lift the team's morale keeping the team motivated at all times can yield tremendous results from any team by boosting the morale of the team a project manager sends a clear message that they care about the well-being of the team and want to see them excel in their respective fields some of the ways in which you can lift your team's spirit are as follows self-development opportunities to team members compensate them according to their actual worth build trust in a healthy
environment with effective collaboration a pleasant working environment to lift their spirits set clear goals and handle failures with a sense of improvement rather than punishment avoid a relevant wastage of work time in pointless meetings and micromanagement going beyond my door is always open and encouraging team's interaction outside the office supporting the initiatives taken by the team members keeping the team motivated is an ongoing process it is extremely important to look out for your own team and understand where they might be facing any issues the next question is how can a conflict affect the project's progress
how will you resolve a conflict a conflict can affect the progress of any project in terms of the increased budget increased project delivery time etc the conflict in a project can arise due to the following reasons conflict due to budgets miscommunication and misunderstandings lack of trust in team members conflict of interest and perceptions ego and personality clash anyway to avoid any conflict during a project we can focus on the following factors exercising authority can lead to managing conflicts quite firmly you can call a meeting to acknowledge the problems and solve them instead of reacting to
the reactions calling in for help when the conflict is beyond a certain point a compromise between both the parties by listening to their ordeals and benefiting each of them you can delegate a conflict using a mediator to get to the bottom of the situation and resolve the matter as soon as possible apart from the above mentioned points a conflict will never serve the project any better it is always better to be well prepared for unprecedented situations be it any issue conflicts risks etc the next question is what is the best leadership approach every project manager
learns from their own experiences and a set of principles and best practices that they have acquired over the years but there are still certain leadership approaches such as visionary leadership style affiliative leadership style participative leadership style coaching leadership style pace setting leadership style and directive leadership style these approaches can really help a project manager in the long run provided that you understand how each of the leadership style suits your own agenda and nature as a project manager regardless of what style you may be following there are certain skills that a great leader always entails some
of the leadership skills are as follows cool and calm composition at all times a proactive approach to making decisions positive attitude and enthusiasm excellent problem solving communication and interpersonal skills competence and integrity an excellent delegator and team builder ability to envision goals and inspire the team to reach its conclusion the next question is how will you manage the underperforming assets in the team an underperforming asset in any team can delay the project and eventually reduce the overall efficiency of the team as a project manager you can approach this situation with caution so that the asset
remains productive without hampering the progress of the project some of the ways that you can follow are making a roadmap for improvements make the expectations clear to the asset constant reviews and constructive feedback for the ongoing tasks introspection for any project management behaviors that may have led to the underperforming assets reduced productivity making sure that the underperforming asset isn't lacking any necessary tools required for the task to be finished the next question is what do you know about gold plating how would you prevent it in a project when the work was done after a point
of time becomes irrelevant to an extent where neither the customer is happy nor the work put in yields any returns this phenomenon is known as gold plating it is basically where the team is putting in efforts in the project to the point of diminishing returns we can take care of certain factors during the project to avoid gold plating at any point in time establishing effective communication between team members to avoid any miscommunication as a project manager avoid any new tasks started by the team members without approval the next question is how to deal with difficult
stakeholders managing the stakeholders is a tricky business they often end up creating a lot of difficult situations for the project manager to deal with difficult stakeholders you can follow a few simple steps first of all the project goals have to be clearly communicated with the stakeholders identify and document each stakeholder so that you can monitor their activities related to the project you have to be very clear and precise while communicating with the stakeholders don't make the stakeholders wait too long before they can see the value constant communication with each stakeholder by scheduling meetings will give
you a clear perspective on their vision and requirements the next question is what is the difference between kanban and scrum scrum and kanban are two agile methodology frameworks scrum is a framework set of processes and tools that achieves the project goals with specified roles and responsibilities kanban emphasizes continuous development while making sure that there is no burden on the development team let's take a look at the differences between scrum and kanban in scrum the work is divided into sprints where the deliverables must be finished in a specified time frame for kanban the work is continuously
delivered whenever a process or product is required in scrum there are pre-defined job roles in the scrum methodology like product owner scrum master etc for kanban there are no pre-defined job roles in the kanban methodology scrum uses a pull system in the workflow although an entire batch is pulled for each iteration kanban uses a pull system where each member can pull new tasks once the previous tasks are completed in the scrum any changes while the sprint is in progress are strongly discouraged in kanban the changes are encouraged to allow continuous improvements lastly scrum is best
for teams where the requirements may not change drastically whereas kanban is best for projects where the requirements will keep varying the next question is what is scrumpin methodology how does it help your project's efficiency scrumban is an agile project management methodology that is nothing but the combination of two other agile methodologies scrum and kanban using the very best of the two methodologies the scrumban methodology provides the best of both worlds by making use of the pull system in the workflow and structure with scrum tools for a more efficient project management experience the scrumpin methodology is
best for projects that are looking for more flexibility in a scrum environment the next question is what is the difference between project monitoring and project control there is a very slight difference between project monitoring and project controlling while project monitoring involves the processes where you are watching or basically keeping track of the progress of the project project control on the other hand is the process where the information that is obtained from the monitoring phase is used to maintain the control and bring the performance on par with the actual project plan the next question is how
will you measure the progress of your project managing a project involves monitoring the performance of the project here are simple steps you can follow to measure the performance or the actual progress of your project the unit's completed method can give a clear perspective of the actual performance and progress of the project incremental milestones for your project will tell you where you have reached in your project the 50 50 rule or the start to finish rule cost ratio that involves the overhead and cost that can help the project managers to calculate the progress of the project
experience or opinion where the expertise and experience of the project manager can be useful to measure the progress of the project weighted or equivalent units of various subtasks in a project to measure the progress of the project the next question is what is evm and how would you use it evm or earned value management is basically a project performance estimation process where we use the project schedule cost and scope to predict the performance of the project to use the evm method for your project you will need the following plan value this is the budgeted amount
for the current reporting period actual cost the real cost to date earned value the product of the total project budget and the percentage of the completed project after this you will need to calculate the the schedule performance index if less than one indicates that the project is behind schedule the cost performance index if less than one indicates that the budgets were higher than the budget estimated at completion this will tell you how much the project will actually cost the next question is what are fast tracking and crashing techniques fast tracking and crashing in project management
are schedule compression techniques and project management in fast tracking the overall timeline is compressed and the project schedule is shortened this is done by performing the tasks together at the same time instead of approaching them sequentially on the other hand crashing basically shortens the project schedule by reducing the time for a few of the tasks this is done by adding more resources to the project to reduce the time taken to complete it the next question is how would you close the project closing the project is the last stage of the project management lifecycle you can
follow the steps below to make sure you have documented everything related to the project and the deliverables transfer all the deliverables to the client verify project completion taking into account each and every stakeholder review the documentation related to the project requirements release the resources associated with the project conduct a retrospective review of the project archive the project documentation for future references celebrate the accomplishment with the teams to boost their confidence the next question is what is project portfolio management portfolio management is the prioritization selection and controlling of an organization's programs and projects the goal here
is to maintain and establish change management initiatives without any effect on business making sure a constant return on investment as well the various types of project portfolio management include active passive discretionary non-discretionary project portfolio management etc project portfolio management is often needed at organizations to brace for any impact that could come with unprecedented changes in the organizational structure goals etc the next question is how would you create the budget for the project making a budget for any project can be summarized into the following steps first of all you will need to break down the project
into smaller tasks on the milestones analyze each item in the task list add your budget estimates together add contingencies and taxes get approval from the concerned authority with these simple steps you can create a budget for your project although several tools and practices can be used to either analyze or to create estimates for your project the next question is what measures would you take to ensure the budget is not affected creating a budget for your project also needs to be monitored to check if the project is in fact going as planned or the budget might
get affected or not you can follow the following steps to ensure the budget is not affected during the project the budget should be comprehensive with the details of everything that is included in the project the instances where any budget cuts have been implemented must be highlighted in the project budget detailed information about any consequences that may be associated with the project due to the cuts should be considered progress mapping techniques like evm to calculate if the project is going over budget to constantly measure the performance of the project budget reassign resources and use technologically advanced
software for effective project management review similar projects and plan for similar failures or shortcomings with contingency plans the next question is how to manage project dependencies project dependencies if not managed efficiently can put the whole project in jeopardy you can follow the following steps to effectively manage project dependencies there has to be a clear understanding of what kind of dependencies will affect the project creating a plan to manage dependencies in a structured all-around manner identifying and analyzing the dependencies associated with the project the validation of dependencies between both parties via meetings or proper communication channels
to avoid any miscommunication continuously managing the dependencies until the project goals are met the next question is what are milestones how can you use the milestones for your project milestones in project management terminology are used to mark an event it is basically marking a specific event in the timeline like a project kickoff meeting project start date project end date or any other significant slash insignificant event that must be highlighted in the project timeline to use the milestones effectively in our projects we can do the following planning a schedule with project milestones to stay on track
monitor the progress of the project with milestones create important events in the project timeline with milestones the next question is what are wip limits how can you use wip limits for your projects wip limits or work in progress limits is a project management strategy to prevent any bottlenecks in the project's progress by setting a limit on the total workflow verified and facilitated by the team makes sure that the resources are not overburdened vip limits can help any project to reduce the waste incurred in excessive meetings context switching rework duplicate effort missed deadlines etc the next
question is how will you deal with the bottlenecks during your project a bottleneck is an area in the project where the work is held up and causing the delay similar to what we experience at construction sites on highways where the car has to slow down and wait for the vehicle in front of them to move first to deal with the bottlenecks in the project we can follow the following steps identify and detect bottlenecks in a project by visualizing and monitoring the progress of tasks a bottleneck shouldn't be left idle and reduce the strain on the
bottleneck by adding more resources wip limits to manage the possible bottlenecks organize process work in batches to reduce time the next question is what are the advantages of stand-up meetings for your projects the benefits of the stand-up meetings for any project can be summarized as follows stand-up meetings keep the meetings short precise and to the point which makes them more productive and less time-consuming the attentive approach induces an active attitude within the team the team's involvement is increased stand-up meetings also make up for any shortcomings or roadblocks that may be troubling the efficiency of the
project stand-up meetings make up for the health benefits that are gained from standing up during the meetings the next question is how do you create a resource breakdown structure a resource breakdown structure is a breakdown of resources that will be required to finish the project the resources are categorized based on the function and type for creating a resource breakdown structure for any project the following steps are followed analyze every task in the project and identify each resource that will be required to fulfill the tasks gather information from other processes including risk management cost management schedule
management to make sure that the task list aligns with every resource that will be required the resource breakdown structure is a tree diagram like structure in which the top level indicates the final deliverables and after that the resource types and the teams that are finishing the tasks are represented on the leaf nodes the next question is what do you know about issue management and bug tracking systems the process of identifying and resolving any issue related to the project comes under issue management the bug tracking system on the other hand monitors the project and reports any
bugs that will be encountered with every bug the analysis is done to identify the impact on the project and based on it the response is given the various benefits of using a bug tracking system are as follows improved quality management reduced cost of production early detection of bugs to safeguard from damages better service and customer satisfaction the next question is what are the different types of issues faced in a project an issue can be as trivial as the simple unavailability of a resource but in the long run it can still cause serious damage to the
project and its efficiency so here are some of the issues that are faced in a project lack of clarity in deciding the goals and objectives of the project ineffective communication lack of precise budget for the project and adequate skills lack of accountability among the team members scope creep inadequate issue management reduced efficiency due to lack of schedule management these are only a few of the issues that may occur in a project there are different issues with each project since each project is unique in its own way the next question is how do you plan effective
quality assurance for your project quality assurance ensures that the project deliverables are at the highest quality mark and align perfectly with the project requirements some of the ways that can perfectly plan effective quality assurance for your project are as follows define and commit to the quality that you desire from the project be consistent and updated with the project requirements manage and perform quality assurance practices to keep the project on track and on par with quality standards now let's move on to a few scenario-based questions where the interviewer might want to see the approach that you
would take the first question is if you suddenly notice a traffic drop on a website how would you do the root cause analysis root cause analysis or rca is the systematic process of finding out the main problem or the event and how to resolve them in a project in order to do the rca to understand the traffic drop on a website we can do the following check the google search console for any irregularities in the traffic analyze the start date for the traffic drop and site analytics to narrow it down a little further check the
authenticity of the tracking data and analyze if there is anything abnormal there regarding the tracking data check for any changes in the google algorithm that may have resulted in the traffic drop on your website losing inbound links may result in reduced traffic as well check whether there is a drop in the referrals site redesign issues may lead to reduced traffic these steps will narrow down the root cause for the traffic drop on the website and help you work on the solutions the next question is how will you manage an overconfident member of your team who
always wants more responsibilities but isn't that efficient while working on them as project managers we must channelize positive energy in the right direction and always try to save the project from shortcomings an overconfident member of the team who takes responsibility and cannot fulfill it poses a lot of challenges for the team in the future to deal with this a project manager could use the following ways their shortcomings should be communicated to them immediately be patient with the problem but do not oversee the problem never lose your calm while dealing with such team members set a
few boundaries and communicate the consequences of such actions appeasing such team members may lead to even bigger disasters always try to give them constructive feedback to reflect upon while giving a chance for an explanation counter their arguments with a positive approach the next question is what will you do if somebody from the team fell ill and there is an important project deliverable needed the next day an effective project plan will have room for contingency plans for critical tasks such as project delivery in case a team member falls ill we can always go for the backup
plan in place another option is to keep a buffer in capacity planning to avoid such situations what is your favorite product why and how would you improve it this is a kind of question where the interviewer is trying to understand the following perspective from your end your ability to understand product design your ability to give constructive feedback and your ability to understand a product normally in such situations you can follow an approach where you frame your response based on the following a user's perspective problems for the user solutions for the user last but not least
how would you manage a client when you have encountered an issue just before the uat user acceptance testing can be managed by properly planning the whole process these issues will not be encountered if the preparation is done efficiently to efficiently plan a wat you can follow the following steps preparation for testing you will need to identify the resources create a schedule and establish a process standardizing the process by clearly communicating the next steps in the process organizing feedback and tracking progress etc user-centric effective collaboration keeping the project objective on top priority with this we have
come to the end of the session we wish you good luck in your future endeavors for any project management related worries reach out to us we offer basic to advanced level project management certification courses if you are new here don't forget to subscribe to invensyslearning and press the bell icon to get the latest updates tell us in the comments about your project manager interview experience and some of the questions you remember we'll see you guys in another session until then keep learning thank you
