Why do you want to work with this company?
You need to go prepared for this interview question. If their working style suits yours, you can discuss it. If the job you are applying for is the next logical step for your current job, tell them that. Or, even something like you being attracted to their work culture or vision, can be a good response. Better yet, you can say how the job and the company align with your personal growth. This shows that you are looking for a long-term collaboration with the company.
What are the techniques you may use to define the scope of a project?
With this question, the interview panel is trying to understand your knowledge in the concerned domain. You can explain these various concepts involved in defining the scope of the project that include – Product Breakdown, Requirement Analysis, Systems Engineering, Systems Analysis, Value Engineering, Value Analysis and Alternatives Analysis.
What’s your preferred project management methodology?
There are almost as many ways to manage a project as there are projects. From traditional methods like waterfall to hybrid methodologies, you want a project manager who understands the many ways to work. And more importantly, can they use the project management methodology that best suits the work at hand?
Give a few examples of proactive decision-making in your past projects and your life in general.
It’s always important to take the initiative as a project manager, and your interviewer wants to see just how you do that. Think of specific project examples that included a lot of proactive decision-making, but don’t also be afraid to include examples that don’t include the workplace.
Which project management tools have you used before?
Tell them about some important and commonly used tools like –
• Gantt Chart
• Work Breakdown Structure
• Product Breakdown Structure
• PERT Chart
• Logic Network
What is a critical path in schedule network diagram?
When activity scheduling is done there will be activities whose start time and/or end times are not critical. It may be possible, due to dependencies, to start a task later than the date on the schedule, similarly an activity could be completed later as there are no other activity waiting for its completion. These time pads are called floats. There is always a path from start to finish, which does not have any floats. Not only all the activities in the path must be carried out in planned time, but also there cannot be any delays. Any delays will directly reflect on project completion time. This chain of activities or the path from start to finish is known as the critical path.
What’s your ideal project?
The ideal project is the one that you’re hiring for of course! But seriously, try to get them to answer honestly. It will let you know what sort of projects they prefer to work on. In doing so you’ll get a better feel for what kind of work excites them and maybe even what they excel at. This can help you place the project manager with the right project, or help them adapt to the project you’re hiring them to manage.
What are the tools mostly used for improving the process activities?
Majorly used tools in the industry:
- Comparing and Baselining a Process
- Flow-charting
- Value-Stream Mapping
- Cause and Effect Analysis
- Hypothesis Testing
What do you understand by plan baselines?
Baselines are the final version of all plans before the project execution starts. Project baselines are the starting versions of all related plans of a project, be it the time schedule, the quality plan, the communication plan or whatever. This acts as the reference against which project performance is measured.
What is a risk register?
This is a register/document that contains all the identified risks of a project. List of actions of potential actions are also included.