Project manager interview questions microsoft

Here, the interviewer is trying to understand your mediation skills and how impartial you are while resolving conflicts. You can explain why there is a necessity to listen to both the parties and understand both perspectives. Your answer should include how you convince both the parties to come to a conclusion that works best for the project at hand and delivers a win-win situation. Also, it would help if you communicate how you ensure that both of them are not benefitting at the loss of the other.

This project management interview question aims to understand your domain knowledge. In a project management framework, processes refer to the defined way of doing tasks for completing the project successfully. On the other hand, process groups are a collection of processes that are carried out at various stages during the project. Risks refer to an uncertain event or situation in the future that would bring a negative or positive impact on the project goals. Issues apply to any event or situation that currently impacts the project objectives.

In other words, risk focuses on future events while issues are more of present occurrences. Issues are often considered negative, say a team member suddenly resigns from the organization. Risks would be either positive or negative. You can include a couple of examples to show the difference between issues and risks.

As you know, RAID is a critical tool for any project manager. It stands for Risks, Actions, Issues, and Decisions. To define it, RAID is a tool used by project managers to track risks, actions, issues, and decisions in an organized way. While answering the project management interview question, you should include the definitions of these four concepts as well. With this question, the interview panel is trying to understand your knowledge in the concerned domain.

A project manager should possess knowledge about the various stages that a team goes through during the project; hence, this is one of the common questions asked in interviews and exams on project management. Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning comprises the five development stages in team formation. While you answer this project management interview question, you should describe each of these steps with clarity of thought.

Enroll Now. A good project manager should have 2 features—experience, as well as an in-depth understanding of project management theories. While one without the other hinders performance, to be the ideal project manager, you must have a solid foundation in project management principles.

This question will test your knowledge about the project management industry. Not only should you describe three relevant challenges, but possible solutions as well. Think about the top challenges of the industry in which the organization operates.

Your response will reveal your understanding of the industry, the market, current challenges, and possible solutions. This knowledge is critical to the success of any project manager, as you will be tackling these challenges inside the organization if you get hired. One of the essential skills for project managers is communication. Without this, everything else fails.

Communication is the life and blood of any project. In today's siloed organizations, communication happens between various groups and levels, including internal as well as external groups of stakeholders. Here are two communication-related questions asked to candidates:. It needs to be evident that even with communication issues, you were still able to work with your team effectively. For example, perhaps instead of being able to have face-to-face meetings when necessary, you were able to put together webchat meetings.

Think of a time when something like this happened and how you dealt with the communication challenges efficiently to ensure that the project outcome was still a good one. Not only should good project managers be encouraging when delegating to their team, but they should also be clear in their expectations.

Make sure you point out that you understand the significance of being an effective communicator as a project manager. While the first question helps the interviewer assess how effectively you can handle communication in challenging situations, the second question helps understand how you engage with others, whether you demonstrate good sense and judgment, and are able to use language effectively. We were working on an online learning portal project of an oil company. Deadline of the project was Feb 15, Although we completed our development tasks and internal tasks on time, customer could not complete their acceptance test on time.

Executive management of the customer was pushing to deliver the project on time. However, since customer could not complete their acceptance tests, it was risky. First, I called my manager. I wish we could have spoken face-to-face but she was in a business trip at that time.

I told her the situation. She agreed with me to speak about the risk of the situation with the customer. Then, I organized a meeting with the project team. I told the team that they did all they have to do. I added in the meeting that, we, as project team, met our deadlines and objectives. However, customer could not complete their acceptance tests on time. Therefore, we will be postponing the project launch for one month. This made some of the project team members upset because we were working hard to complete the project on time but the project was postponed because of a customer-sourced delay.

Finally, I organized a meeting with executive management of the customer. During the meeting, I told to the project sponsor and executive managers of the customer that, customer acceptance tests are not complete yet. In addition, if we launch the project, we might face critical problems on live environment and this can cause dissatisfaction and lose of reputation. At the end of the meeting, executive managers were agreed to wait till customer acceptance tests completion.

This answer shows that the project manager approaches the failure of communication systematically. First, he reports to his manager. If his manager would not accept the situation or propose alternative ways with the project team and customer, he could have changed the approach to the team and customer respectively.

After getting the approval of the manager, he speaks with the team first and then communicates to the customer respectively. Project team motivation is crucial for the success of a project. If a project team is not motivated, it will be impossible to reach project objectives.

Or, even if you reach your project objectives, project quality will suffer. This project manager interview question is critical to get insights about the people management skills of the candidate. After I create the project baseline, I mark the milestones of the project. Then, I send this project plan to all project team members. Whenever we pass a milestone successfully, I organize an event to celebrate this.

This can be a picnic, a weekend trip or a dinner depending on the project budget or amount of the allowance provided by the company for these celebrations. Additionally, I try to celebrate birthday of each project team member. I organize a 30 minutes break for celebration and invite all project team members to this break.

Moreover, if a project team member over performed during the project, I send a special email to his manager to appreciate his efforts. I know that these kinds of emails will be important for the line managers of project team members when they are doing annual performance evaluation of the employees. My appreciations will bring additional points and opportunities for promotion or bonuses for the project team member respectively.

This answer shows that the project manager candidate does not do only regular celebration activities like milestones and birthday celebrations. He can also speak or contact to the functional managers of the project team members to appreciate project resources for promotion or better annual performance evaluation. Managing outsource personnel or supplier is a different project management skill.

If you are applying to a company that works with outsourcing personnel or suppliers, this project manager interview question will be an elective one. If you have a project management experience in a vendor, most probably, you will have outsource and supplier management experience as well. Let us first define what outsource and supplier is.

Outsource personnel is hired or acquired by a company only for a limited time or for a specific project. For instance, assume that you are installing a database for a utility service provider in the scope of your project. You need a database administrator for this work. However, your company does not have a full-time database administrator. You have to hire or outsource the database administrator for a limited time to work for your project. Suppliers are material, equipment, tools, etc.

In your project, if you need database servers, and if these servers will be provided by a 3 rd party company, this company is the supplier of your project. I was working for a billing system project for a telecom operator. Our company was not having a SDP product expert. Therefore, we had to outsource two SDP product experts for three months to work in our project.

I managed the communication with Ericsson to outsource these two consultants and planned their start and end dates in the project. To do this, we have negotiated with a server installation company, Servus. I was in the process of negotiation with this supplier. I managed the SDP consultants and Servus, server installation company, throughout the project. The answer clearly shows the outsource and supplier management of the project manager interview participant.

If the company you applied for is a multinational company, the international project team management will be a critical evaluation factor. You might not have this experience. In this case, say no honestly. This question might be followed by additional questions asking about how the experience was and whether you have any strange story about your international project team management experience.

I have managed a team of 15 project team members from five different nations. We were working in a natural gas implementation project in Brazil. There were natural gas engineers, environmental engineers and civil engineers in the project team. Five members were from Brazil, three members were from UK, three members were from Spain, two members were from India and two members were from Qatar. It was a great experience to learn from different cultures when working with them.

It was the first time for me to work with project resources coming from a Muslim country, Qatar. While most of the project team members were having Monday syndrome, engineers from Qatar were performing better than other project team members on Mondays!

After some time, I asked these engineers why they are more willing to work on Mondays. I learnt that, their official weekends are on Friday and Saturday. Therefore, Sunday is their first weekday. Therefore, they were performing better on Mondays in our project since it is 2 nd day of their workweek. It was a strange experience for me to see people better motivated on Mondays.

The project manager candidate answers the question with numbers through a real project he managed. Besides, he gives a strange experience he faced with his international project team management experience. This project manager interview question assesses your technical knowledge and scope management skills. Gold plating is a technical term in project management.

Gold plating is delivering more than what is required in the scope. If the project team performs an extra activity and delivers extra work, which is not in the scope of the project, this is called gold plating. A good project manager must prevent gold plating in a project. Because gold plating can cause delays and extra cost in the project. When I am assigning a task to a project team member, I clearly define the KPIs, requirements and scope of the task. Then, I work closely with the technical leaders of the project whether the project team member is doing gold plating.

We were working for an e-commerce website development project in US. The requirement of the customer was loading the homepage in less than three seconds across US. Developer of the homepage was a very skilled resource. Although he completed the homepage development before the deadline of the task and with a loading time less than three seconds, he was trying to lower the homepage loading time.

Project technical noticed this during a weekly meeting and notified me about the situation. Developer was a skilled and motivated resource. I had to speak with him but not demotivate him. I called him for a coffee in a break. First, I appreciated his efforts in the project.

Then, I explained him what the gold plating is. After that, I have expressed him that, we have a project scope to finish first and we have to deliver what is required first. I told him that, If we deliver a website project with missing web pages, this will be unacceptable. However, if we deliver a homepage with a loading time less than three seconds, this will be accepted. Microsoft PMs tend to be more technical than average, usually having a degree in computer science or significant previous experience with software and engineering.

As a consequence, you'll typically need to answer a few technical questions during your interview process. As you can see below these questions are not a test of coding expertise in a particular language. They are centered on whether or not you understand and can offer simple explanations of certain technical concepts — especially algorithms. For more information, check out our article on how to answer technical interview questions.

PMs are responsible for setting the product vision and roadmap to deliver it. In other words, they're in charge of product strategy. In your interviews you'll therefore be given strategic questions to discuss with your interviewer. These questions assess if you're comfortable thinking about the wide range of aspects good PMs need to take into account when making product decisions.

This includes competition, pricing, marketing, time to market, etc. Thinking through all these aspects requires creativity and a structured approach. For more information, check out our article on how to answer strategy interview questions. Good PMs are critical thinkers and can make confident and swift decisions. Making these decisions often requires analytical and estimation skills which Microsoft will test you on in the recruiting process.

For more information, check out our articles on how to answer metric questions and estimation questions in PM interviews. Now that you know what questions to expect, let's focus on a few key preparation steps. Here are the five most important things you can do to get an offer as a Microsoft program manager. As you've probably figured out from the example questions listed above, you can't become a PM at Microsoft without being familiar with the company's products and its organization.

You'll therefore need to do some homework before your interviews. If you're already an experienced PM then this step doesn't apply to you. But if you're more junior or if you're trying to break into product management then it's worth spending some time refreshing your memory about basic product management concepts. As mentioned previously, Microsoft will ask you questions that fall into certain categories: design, strategy, estimation, behavioral, technical, and data analysis.

Approaching each question with a predefined method will enable you to build strong interview habits. Then, when it comes time for your interviews, these habits will reduce your stress and help you to make a great impression. Here is a list of our free guides on different types of PM interview questions to help you prepare:. You also need to be able to communicate your answers clearly, under the pressure of interview conditions.

In our experience, practicing by yourself is a great way to prepare for PM interviews. You can ask and answer questions out loud, to help you get a feel for the different types of PM interview questions. Practicing by yourself will help you perfect your step-by-step approach for each question type. It also gives you time to correct your early mistakes. If you have friends or peers who can do mock interviews with you, that's a great option too.

This can be especially helpful if your friend has experience with PM interviews, or is at least familiar with the process. I try to eliminate waste in time and budget in all of my projects and always find ways to improve the process. An essential part of project management is making sure a project stays within the original budget and deadline.

Scope creep includes anything that changes within the project that could cause you to miss your targets. Your answer will help the interviewer gain insight into the way you manage resources and handle obstacles. You can use an example of how you were able to manage scope creep in one of your projects. I once had a massive project that included building an entire website, plus applications that would work on all phone and tablet operating systems.

We needed to deliver everything in a year, and it was a multimillion dollar project. I decided to split the project up into small portions that we could work on month by month. I planned weeks ahead as we approached a new month based on client feedback from what we had already presented to them.

The project constantly changed based on needs and feedback, and it could have easily gone far over budget and time. With strict time management and communication, we were able to deliver a complete project in 12 months.

Managing a team is an important part of project management. You must ensure your team can work together to deliver a product or service. Try to answer this question with an example of how you were able to successfully handle a conflict. Letting my team work things out together helps them build up their relationships and improves their communication.

Sometimes it is necessary for me to intervene. I once managed a team where a business analyst and developer were having trouble agreeing on a solution to a problem. I had a meeting with just the three of us where we spent about 30 minutes discussing the solutions and how they would affect the project. Eventually, we decided to go with the business analyst's solution since it would take the least amount of time and money.

It is important to both communicate and actively listen when resolving conflicts. If a team is struggling, it is the project manager's responsibility to help.

This question is an opportunity to demonstrate your management and leadership skills. You can show how you are committed to the success of your team. I tried to give him time to work on a solution, but eventually, we started missing deadlines. I scheduled a meeting with him so we could discuss what was going on. Since I am not an expert developer, I had one of our senior integration developers join us. Instead of doing the part herself, the senior member helped my developer work out a plan to extract the data so he could learn the process.

He ended up completing the task the next day and never had issues with it again.