Mike Jacobsen

What is a Project Planner?

A Project Planner is the member of the project team who is responsible for maintaining the schedule of events or the timeline (i.e. the plan). This is often completed using a scheduling application of some kind such as Microsoft Project or Primavera P6. The planner ensures that the timeline is always up-to-date and that any deviations are reported immediately.

Project Planner salary

A project planner is a member of the project team, and often is the most junior member. As such the role should be seen as more of a stepping stone into a Project Coordinator or Project Manager role (and later Program and Portfolio management). Due to the junior nature of the role you should not expect to earn as much as the other members of the project team.

The average project planner in the UK earns £30,000. While in the US the average project planner can expect to earn $50,000.

This article is geared toward landing that Project Planner (PP) job. The trickiest part of any job application is the interview stage. This is where a lot of applicants fail to truly sell themself.

That is why in this post we are going to look at how you can nail the interview and land the job. Firstly we will look at some tips for the Project Planner interview, then we will discuss the BEST (and WORST) ways to answer Project Planner questions. And finally we will look at some of the most common Project Planner questions and see some example answers.

Ready? Let’s get to it…

Project Planner Interview Tips

Learn all areas of project delivery – The role of a Project Planner is going to differ within each organisation. The responsibilities will range from being responsible for scheduling tasks all the way to taking ownership of the project plan. I have even seen Project Planners take on all of the responsibilities of a Project Manager – albeit on smaller projects than the PM would undertake. With that in mind you should be prepared to answer questions across the whole project cycle.

Lean heavily on your experience – Follow the B-STAR process (discussed further below) and refer back to your previous role regularly. Show the interviewer that you are very well acquainted with projects and can apply good project management techniques in your work.

Name drop the processes, systems and tools you have used – If you are telling a story about a sprint or a project you worked on name drop the software you used (MS Projects, JIRA, etc.). If you are explaining how you did stakeholder management discuss how you utilised a RACI Matrix. Basically pepper your answers with Project Management vernacular. Make sure it comes across naturally though. don’t just shoehorn in any phrase just because.

Tailor your answers to the organisation – Learn all you can about the organisation that is interviewing you. You particularly want to know:

• What are their current, past and future projects?
• What is the level of their PMO, what processes/methodologies do they use, what are they looking to use going forward?
• What software and tools do they use day-to-day?

When answering your questions try to showcase your experience that you have in the above areas. For example if you learn that they are looking to move into an Agile delivery then you talk about how you have experience with Agile and in planning with Agile project teams.

How Best To Answer Project Planner Interview Questions

Unless the question you are asked is a straight ‘up or down / yes or no’ style question then you are going to need to learn to describe, expand and elaborate on your answers. The best way of doing this is to follow the B-STAR technique for answering interview questions.

Answers using this method follow the below structure:

B – Belief – What are your thoughts and feelings with regard to the subject matter? – As a Project Planner you should have your own work-style and processes that you tailor to each situation.

S – Situation – What was going on? Briefly explain the scenario that was taking place. – Try not to spend too much time describing the situation. The bulk of your answer needs to be about you and what you did so keep the situation simple to understand and even simpler to describe.

T – Task – What was your role in the action? Most of the time it is best that you are taking an active rather than passive role in the encounter – You are going for a Project Planner role (presumably) so the situation you describe should have you coordinating some activity to do with the project plan.

A – Activity (or action) – What did you do? Detail the steps you took and why you took them. – This should take up the bulk of your time answering the question.

R – Result – How did everything end up? Try to use figures if possible (e.g. we cut costs by $3m, customer satisfaction scores increased 25%, failures reduced to zero, ice cream parties increased ten-fold etc.).

Remember though that the B-STAR technique is descriptive not prescriptive. You do not need to follow this flow strictly, go with what is best for your answers and that will allow you to put your point across and show your experience the best.

Project Planner Interview Question & Answers

What are you good at?

“As you can see from my CV I am an experienced project coordinator and I do believe I am very good at my role. I am a very good planner, I am quick to adapt to changing business environments but I believe my best attribute is my communication skills.

Being a project coordinator is all about being able to communicate effectively and to all different types of stakeholders – something I learned recently when we released a new software upgrade and I was communicating with front-line customer service colleagues all the way up to the CEO of the whole group! – It is this experience and others that have moulded me in to the skilled communicator I am today“

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What are your weaknesses?

“I have never worked with <insert tool or software> before and I see that it plays an integral role in your organisation. I have worked with <insert other tool> before and from what I hear it lacks a number of features present in <tool>. I look forward to the opportunity to use this new tool as I hear great things about it, I have also found a crash course online that I would look to take to get up to speed as quickly as possible…should I be offered the job”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question (and see more example answers)

When you are given a new project what do you do first?

The first thing I do when given a new project is to seek out the project sponsor and ensure that we are both on the same page. I prefer to do this face-to-face but will settle for a call or video conference if that is all that is available. I feel that at the start of a project it is crucial to make sure that nothing is lost in translation and that all expectations are clear.

In my current organisation the sponsor for most of my projects is the Chief Technology Officer. Just recently I was given a new project that would deploy a major upgrade to one of our core systems. I made sure that I caught a coffee meeting with the CTO so that we could discuss the project.

I enquired as to what the expectations were from both the business and from him personally. I find asking this is key as my CTO has higher expectations than the wider business so while the business was expecting delivery by the end of the year my CTO was expecting it much earlier.

Similarly with regard to quality and budget, the business had minimum quality requirements and a budget restraint. My CTO however had higher quality requirements and made me aware that the budget could be expanded if I needed it – something that was not in the project presentation provided by the business!

Finally I confirmed with the CTO which project members were available and made a mental note to which colleagues I had worked with before and which were new to me (for the new ones I tried to pry information from the CTO as to their skills and work style)

As far as first steps goes I feel like getting the project sponsor, in this case the CTO, to have a frank and open discussion as to the aims and expectations is the best thing to do. After my conversation with the CTO I was in a really good space to start my planning, with the next step being to bring the project members into the loop.

In the end we managed to deliver the upgrade within the timelines and meeting the quality expectations set by the CTO – something that might not have been given the proper attention had I not taken that first step.“

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What Project Management methodology do you believe is better?

“My preference is for Agile. I find that it is the most adaptive methodology meaning that we can pivot on a dime and be able to deliver quickly and often. Something that I don’t believe is possible when working with a Waterfall or even a Hybrid model.

That is not to say though that I believe Agile is better. I think all of the methodologies have their place in an organisation. I have worked Waterfall before and believe that it is better adapted for complex projects with a single one time delivery, like the time I helped coordinate the opening of a new call centre wing. That was better suited to Waterfall as there were defined stages and a handover to the business.

Contrast that with the time my firm performed a software deployment (to the same call centre in fact). This was better suited to an Agile-based deployment as we initially delivered a MVP of the software and then deployed multiple releases that introduced new features as we went. Agile was the better choice in this instance as it allowed us to deliver a working product much earlier than we would have done had we used Waterfall.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

How do you assess and monitor risk within a project?

“Managing risk is one of the most important tasks that I undertake as a project manager. It is crucial to success that risks are appropriately identified, assessed and monitored throughout the project lifecycle.

In order to achieve this one of the first project artefacts that I create when forming a new project is the RAID log. Within this log I record all potential risks to the project (as identified by the project team and stakeholders).

Within the log risks are assessed as to the likelihood and severity and an appropriate plan is put in place, usually looking to reduce or eliminate the risk or to mitigate the impacts should the risk crystallise.

Within the log I include a date for review. When this date comes around the item is re-examined to determine if all the underlying logic still holds true.

I have found that the on-going monitoring of the risks is the most difficult to get people engaged with. It is easy to explain the need for the initial session but slightly more persuading is needed to get people involved in continually updating the risks.“

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Suppose the project has gone off the rails. What steps would you take to get it back on track?

“The first step I would take is to confirm if the project is still viable in its current state. I would do this by re-confirming the business justification and seeing if the same assumptions still hold true now. Assuming the project is still viable I would investigate the issues with the team and prioritise remediation or mitigation of each item, re-scoping or re-defining the project plan as need be. Once the new plan was ready I would re-issue to the project stakeholders for review and approval. Later on I would lead an investigation as to why these issues were not catalogued in the RAID log already, but that investigation would be held once the project was back on track.

I actually have some recent experience with a wayward project. COVID-19 had caused a number of our internal projects to stall out. I was brought onto a project when the previous PM had left the business. The aim of the project was to offshore one of our business processes. The project had stalled after our offshore office had been closed due to a lockdown.

The first thing I did was to re-confirm the business justification. In doing so I found that the project was no longer viable. The main aim of the project was to offshore a particular process (and therefore save on the labour costs), however the process itself was to be discontinued in around 18 months time anyway in favour of a new automated process. Given this, and the delays realised by COVID, the assumed cost savings were no longer accurate and the revised cost savings were negligible. I presented my findings to the Change Committee and requested I be allowed to take the necessary steps to close the project.

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Tell me about a time you had to manage a difficult stakeholder

“Difficult stakeholders are unavoidable when you have been in the industry for any amount of time. It is just one of those things that you need to be aware of, not everyone is going to be on the same page or have the same goals as you and you will need to handle these people appropriately in order to deliver on your goals.

Whenever I find someone being difficult or not giving me the level of support I require in my projects I tend to do 2 things. Firstly I make sure that I fully understand the issue and therefore my colleague’s concerns and secondly I approach my colleague to discuss potential remedies to get things back on track.For example, recently I was working on a project that would automate a key data gathering task within the process. This task was performed by 2 teams within the organisation and the lead SME of the teams was assigned to my project

After some time I found that the SME was not participating in project meetings and any actions they would pick up would go incomplete or be delivered very late. I spoke to the rest of my team individually as well as some contacts I had in the wider department. I learned that there was a rumour going through the two teams that once the project was delivered that the organisation was going to fire the 2 teams as they would no longer be needed with the new automation process going live.

This was not true however. Our actual plan once we delivered the project was to train these colleagues on a different process where more resources were required. I approached my senior manager to discuss a change to our communication strategy so that a notice could be sent to all impacted parties.

Once the communication was confirmed I approached the SME to explain the situation and remind them that the project still required their 100% focus. Thereafter the SME was much more involved in meetings and all actions were delivered on time. The project ending up a success and the teams were successfully trained on the new project with no colleagues being let go.“

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

How Do You Manage Frequent Changes Made to a Project?

“If this was one of my projects then there would be a clearly defined change request process that should be followed for all requests. This will have been discussed with all stakeholders and approved by all. Given this I would speak to the stakeholder in question and guide them through the Change Request process so that their request could be reviewed and actioned if necessary.

When these type of requests occur I find it best to gently remind the stakeholder that there was a process agreed at the beginning of the project and to remind them of that process and how changes are reviewed and progressed. I had a similar request recently where a senior stakeholder wanted to increase the scope of the software product we were deploying in a month’s time, the stakeholder reached out to me directly and requested it was added for the first release.

I gently reminded my colleague that all change requests needed to be raised to the CR portal and would be triaged by a member of the project team, as his change was above the agreed small change limit it would need to be approved by the Change Board. The colleague was content with this and progressed his item through the proper channels were the request was approved for deployment in second release.

Of course this all assumes that the project was being deployed using waterfall methodologies, if we were following a more agile approach the change request would have been prioritised and added to the sprint plan where appropriate.“

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Tell us about a time when you had to manage a difficult or unhappy client. What was the result?

“I believe that good customer service is key to the long term success of any business, keep customers happy and they will come back. That is why whenever a customer expresses displeasure in our service I immediately jump at the chance to make things right.

There was one occasion back when I was working at [redacted] flooring company. We had recently taken up a contract with a national chain to re-fit the flooring in all of their stores nationwide – so it was a really big customer for us. During one of the project update calls one of the store managers expressed concern regarding one of the floor fitters we had on site. The number of hours he was supposed to be on site did not tally with actual hours he was on site and the manager had concerns this would impact the quality of the work completed.

My primary responsibility for this project was to recruit and direct the sub-contractors in each of the areas that our customer had stores, so the responsibility for sorting this fell directly to me.

I immediately took action and confirmed that the manager was correct that the fitter was in fact shaving hours. I then enlisted the help of one of our most experienced and longest servicing fitters. We both travelled to the store in question to inspect the quality of the floor that was being worked on. While a serviceable job had been made on the floor it was not to the high standard that was expected from our organisation.

The floor fitter was let go and we brought in an experienced outfit to re-do the floor to the correct standards. In order to still make our deadlines we paid extra for this new outfit to work evenings and nights – extra costs were taken out of our end not the customers.

In the end the customer was extremely pleased with how we handled the issue and how quickly we acted to correct the problem. Once we finished the refitting of all the stores the firm actually picked up a bigger contract from the customer’s parent company.“

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

How do you feel about deadlines?

“Obviously having a future date that something is due looming over you can be daunting, especially when it is a hard deadline. It is quite easy for people to get overwhelmed and get stressed. But I feel differently. I hold a begrudging respect for deadlines. I appreciate their importance as they force you to provide more structure to your work and can act as a motivator. Without deadlines I feel like a lot of work would just not get done.

To give you an example, last year I was brought in as Project Manager on an infrastructure upgrade project. This project had been ongoing for 3 years with no end in sight. There was no urgency within the team to get their work completed as there was no deadline to meet. Instead the team would prioritise other pieces of work over this project.

Eventually this pushed on long enough that a hard deadline did appear. This infrastructure upgrade became a dependency for another project of mine and it needed to be completed before I could go-live with my project.

Immediately on taking ownership of the project I created a project plan using the new deadline to create a work breakdown structure. Then I spoke with all project team members and stakeholders to advise them of the new deadline and the new plan that everyone was to adhere to.

In the end the infrastructure upgrade was deployed successfully. As a result I was able to deploy my other project on time also. So to circle back to the question I truly believe that deadlines are important as otherwise I do not believe a lot of work would get completed.“

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What was your most successful project?

How do you prioritize tasks in a project?

Tell us about a time something went wrong in a project you were managing.

Can you tell us about the last project you worked on?

What’s your experience with budget management?

How would you describe a project plan?

How would you create an environment of collaboration on your team?

What tools do you use to plan a project?

Describe your experience in this industry

One of your team members is asking for more time to complete a task. How would you handle this situation?

Work from home has become the new normal in the post-COVID-19-world. How well are you prepared to manage a remote team?

What is your strategy to deal with internal conflicts among the team members?

How do you manage multiple tasks and projects at once?

What are the most important qualities for a project planner to have?

What would you do if you noticed a discrepancy in the budget for a project?

When was a time you had to adapt your original project plan?

Describe your process for creating a project charter.

Which project management methodology do you prefer?

What do you think is the most important thing project planners can do to ensure the success of a project?

How often do you update your project plan?

Do you have any questions for us?

10 Questions To Ask At The End Of An Interview (And 6 That You Shouldn’t!)

What is a PMO Analyst?

A Project Management Office (PMO) Analyst is usually responsible for the maintenance of project, programme and portfolio processes and procedures. It is usually the analyst that creates and updates the Project Management templates that are used by all of the PMs across the organisation. The analyst will also provide support to the project teams in following project management best practices.

PMO Analyst is a great ‘stepping stone’ position. It allows the person to move into any number of related fields both within management and within the project space.

In the UK the average PMO Analyst can expect to take home between £45000 and £50000. This can vary depending on how developed the PMO office is, analysts that are brought on as contractors to establish a new PMO office can be paid day rates of £500.

In the US the average salary for a PMO Analyst is higher, in the States they can expect to pick up anywhere in the region of $95000. Again this rate will vary based on the industry and how developed the PMO is.

A PMO analyst role is therefore a highly sought after position and most job adverts will have tens of qualified applicants that you will be competing with.

In this post we are going to look at how you can stand apart from these applicants when it comes to the interview process. First we will look at some PMO specific interview tips, then we will look at how you should (and how you should NOT) answer PMO analyst questions. And finally we will look at some of the most popular interview questions you may face when interviewing for a PMO analyst position.

Ready? Let’s get started…

PMO Analyst Interview Tips

Lean heavily on your experience. This applies even if you have never held a position within a PMO before. A PMO Analyst is responsible for numerous things but primarily ensuring that projects are ran using project management best practices. You don’t need to have held a PMO Analyst title previously to have participated in similar activities. Perhaps you have worked in a role before where you ran projects using best practices? Or maybe you have instituted changes to processes to make projects run more smoothly? When answering questions lean heavily into these experiences.

Know your audience. You should always research the organisation you are interviewing for. But what people don’t think to do is also research the interviewer and the hiring manager (if these are different persons). You want to impress the person making the hiring decision so you should research them specifically trying to understand what makes them tick and what they are looking for in a new employee.

Pepper your answers with technical terms. PMOs have a number of technical terms, processes, systems, tools etc. For example when answering a question you can talk about how your team uses MS Project for creating project plans. Or you might talk about how you used JIRA instead. These little things show the interviewer that you are well versed in the area and are not just full of fluff.

How Best To Answer PMO Analyst Interview Questions

Unless the question you are asked is a straight ‘up or down / yes or no’ style question then you are going to need to learn to describe, expand and elaborate on your answers. The best way of doing this is to follow the B-STAR technique for answering interview questions.

Answers using this method follow the below structure:

B – Belief – What are your thoughts and feelings with regard to the subject matter? – As a PMO Analyst you should have your own set of processes and methodologies that you tailor to each situation.

S – Situation – What was going on? Briefly explain the scenario that was taking place – Try not to spend too much time describing the situation. The bulk of your answer needs to be about you and what you did so keep the situation simple to understand and even simpler to describe.

T – Task – What was your role in the action? Most of the time it is best that you are taking an active rather than passive role in the encounter – You are going for a PMO Analyst role (presumably if you are reading this) so the situation you describe should have you involved with project management.

A – Activity (or action) – What did you do? Detail the steps you took and why you took them. – This should take up the bulk of your time answering the question.

R – Result – How did everything end up? Try to use figures if possible (e.g. Over 100 templates created, Project failures reduced 50% etc.).

Remember though that the B-STAR technique is descriptive not prescriptive. You do not need to follow this flow strictly, go with what is best for your answers and that will allow you to put your point across and show your experience the best.

What You Should Not Do When Answering PMO Analyst Questions

Do not avoid the question.

Do not describe a failure (unless specifically asked).

Do not downplay the situation.

Do not overhype the situation.

Do not say you have no experience with the subject matter.

Do not reject the premise of the question.

Do not have a passive role in the situation.

Do not give a one-sentence answer.

Do not overly describe the scenario and miss the action.

PMO Analyst Interview Question & Answers

How Did You Prepare For This Interview?

“I believe that it’s incredibly difficult to overcome a bad first impression. Because of this I always strive to never make one. That’s why for important meetings, or interviews like this, I make a clear plan of what I want to get from the meeting and outline the steps I need to take to achieve that goal.

So when I received the call about scheduling this interview the first thing I did was research your offices. As you are based in an area of town I am not familiar with I drove by here after work one evening just to make sure I knew the way. I also checked Google Maps to see what the traffic would be like at this time. Nothing worse than being late sitting in traffic after all.

I actually have a contact who works in your finance department, Claire, we were colleagues in the place I am currently working. I reached out to her to see if there was anything she could tell me about the interview process. We had spoken before about the company as a whole and how she talks about the company is one of the reasons I applied.

Following our chat I went through all of my work achievements and made sure they fully encompassed everything I have accomplished in my career.

I’m glad I took the time to prepare as I did because there was a lot of traffic so it was good I knew to expect that. Also talking with Claire helped jog my memory on a project we both worked on a few years back delivering a piece of financial software that I believe your company is in the process of deploying.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Tell me about a new skill or qualification you have learned over the last 6 months?

“In my current role I use Microsoft Projects extensively for scheduling tasks when working with certain clients. A few months ago I learned that one of our newer clients used Primavera as their preferred PM tool.

Even though the new firm were content that we continue to use Microsoft Projects I thought it would be best to upskill myself on Primavera so that I at least could understand what the client was used to versus what we would be providing.

I started by following some courses on LinkedIn and eventually I asked my employer if they would support me in attaining the certification – which they did.

I passed the qualification on the first go and was able to successfully amend our MS Project reports so that they more closely resembled what the client was used to”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Tell Me About A Time You Helped A Co-Worker Learn A New Skill

“I love working in a team. I truly believe that when a team is functioning correctly that it is greater than the sum of its parts. More work just seems to get done than would be if we were working independently. That’s why whenever I see a team member struggling I always reach out and try to help for the good of the team. I also adore the feeling when someone learns something as a result of my help. In a different walk of life I might have been a teacher!

There was one occasion when our company was adopting a more Agile approach to our projects. Moving away from waterfall and into a sprint based delivery approach.

I noticed rather early on that one of my colleagues, Jayne, was not grasping the fundamental idea behind the change and was still trying to operate in a waterfall approach.

I approached my manager to ask if we could support some additional training for the team on Agile so that we could all understand the philosophies. He agreed and we all began taking LinkedIn courses in the afternoons.

I reached out to Jayne during these sessions so that we could share notes and discuss what we had learned. I even offered that we should work together on a project so that we could bounce the ideas we had learned off each other.

That was all it took really. After we delivered a couple sprints in our project Jayne was a full Agile convert. She has actually moved out of the team now and has taken a SCRUM master position in a different department.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

How do you ensure that you have considered all stakeholder needs when undertaking a new initiative?

“I think getting input from stakeholders is crucial when undertaking any new initiatives. As a project manager I am often asked to lead projects in areas that I have no experience, and even if I am leading a project where I know the subject matter well it is always good to get a diverse range of thoughts on the project and its deliverables. After all ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’.

That’s why whenever I start a new project I complete a full stakeholder analysis. This begins with a deep dive session to identify everyone that will be impacted by the project, both during delivery and with the end result.

The next step is to produce a key stakeholder list. For example in a recent project I managed we had deduced that the finance department would be stakeholders, but it would have been irresponsible to include every member of the department in our communications so we consulted with the Finance Chief and assigned one key stakeholder for the department (and one backup). We did the same or similar for all the stakeholders previously identified. If we came to a stakeholder group that we couldn’t feasibly include then we assigned an advocate. In the same project our PMO analyst would act as a representative for the customer (as she actually was a customer!).

Once I have finalised this list of key stakeholders I formalise everything by creating a RACI matrix and a communication strategy. This way we have all of the stakeholders listed, their responsibilities toward the project and how/when they will be contacted with updates. This is approved by each stakeholder.

Overall when these steps have been followed correctly I have never had a complaint from a stakeholder to say that they felt their needs were not being met.

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What new skills do you hope to learn over the next 6 months?

“I am always looking to learn new things. I believe that once we stop learning we stop growing, both as individuals and as a business. Sooner or later someone will come along and overtake us. That’s why I always keep my ear to ground, as it were, and make sure I am always up to date with all the latest advancements in my area.

Within the change and project space I can see the shift to Agile methodologies growing even further and reaching into industries and firms that would previous move at glacial speed using Waterfall projects. My previous role at a Top 4 Bank showed me that even in a traditionally cautious moving firm they were slowly adopting to more agile mindsets, that is where I was working when I studied for, and attained, my PRINCE2 Agile qualification.

For me in the next 6 months I wish to expand my knowledge further from this qualification and undertake learning for the Certified Scrum Product Owner qualification. While I have been a Product Owner in my previous role I believe formal training will allow me to further develop my understanding of the role.

I think by learning more about the Product Owner position I will be able to further enhance this organisation’s release strategy and hopefully open up further progression opportunities for myself within the firm when the time comes (assuming I get the role of course!).

After Product Owner I think I will want to get further acquainted with Programme and Portfolio management skills, but let’s just take it 6 months at a time for now.“

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Describe a situation when you were responsible for other team members learning a new skill?

“I’m a big believer in learning new things. I’m the person on the team who is always first in line whenever new training sessions are available for the team. I just think that the more you know the better you can produce.

There was one occasion where a training seminar was held for a new software that had been introduced within our department. The core functionality of the software was the same as what we used already so we were told that the seminar was voluntary.

I of course went along. And while a lot of the features were the same – as was expected – there was some new advanced functions that I thought could be great for our team.

I spoke to the training lead after the seminar and he sent me across some documentation and guidance on the new functionality. I studied through all the documents and realised that if our team was trained on this new reporting methodology that we could save quite a bit of time each week.

I positioned this to my manager who was delighted with the idea. And the next week I trained all of my team in this new skill. Some were reluctant at first because there was an element of coding involved – we needed to use SQL queries for the reports, but once they got the hang of it they were amazed at how much could be done.

The results were immediate. Our team was getting work done in twice the time. Time spent manually pulling reports was no longer. Some of the team went even further and started to develop more and more complex reports that would never have been possible without knowing this new skill.“

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What Project Management Methodology do you believe is better?

“My preference is for Agile. I find that it is the most adaptive methodology meaning that we can pivot on a dime and be able to deliver quickly and often. Something that I don’t believe is possible when working with a Waterfall or even a Hybrid model.

That is not to say though that I believe Agile is better. I think all of the methodologies have their place in an organisation. I have worked Waterfall before and believe that it is better adapted for complex projects with a single one time delivery, like the time I oversaw the opening of a new call centre wing. That was better suited to Waterfall as there were defined stages and a handover to the business.

Contrast that with the time I managed a software deployment (to the same call centre in fact). This was better suited to an Agile-based deployment as we initially delivered a MVP of the software and then deployed multiple releases that introduced new features as we went. Agile was the better choice in this instance as it allowed us to deliver a working product much earlier than we would have done had we used Waterfall.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What would you do if a Stakeholder approached you with a change midway through a project?

“If this was one of the projects run within my current PMO then there would be a clearly defined change request process that should be followed for all requests. This will have been discussed with all stakeholders by the relevant PM and approved by all. Given this I would speak to the stakeholder in question and guide them through the Change Request process so that their request could be reviewed and actioned if necessary.

When these type of requests occur I find it best to gently remind the stakeholder that there was a process agreed at the beginning of the project and to remind them of that process and how changes are reviewed and progressed. I had a similar request recently where a senior stakeholder wanted to increase the scope of the software product we were deploying in a month’s time, the stakeholder reached out to me directly and requested it was added for the first release. I gently reminded my colleague that all change requests needed to be raised to the CR portal and would be triaged by a member of the project team, as his change was above the agreed small change limit it would need to be approved by the Change Board. The colleague was content with this and progressed his item through the proper channels were the request was approved for deployment in second release.

Of course this all assumes that the project was being deployed using waterfall methodologies, if we were following a more agile approach the change request would have been prioritised and added to the sprint plan where appropriate.“

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What are your weaknesses?

“I have never worked with <insert tool or software> before and I see that it plays an integral role in your organisation. I have worked with <insert other tool> before and from what I hear it lacks a number of features present in <tool>. I look forward to the opportunity to use this new tool as I hear great things about it, I have also found a crash course online that I would look to take to get up to speed as quickly as possible…should I be offered the job”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What are you good at?

“As you can see from my CV I am an experienced project manager and I do believe I am very good at my role. I am a very good planner, I am quick to adapt to changing business environments but I believe my best attribute is my communication skills.

Being a project manager is all about being able to communicate effectively and to all different types of stakeholders – something I learned recently when we released a new software upgrade and I was communicating with front-line customer service colleagues all the way up to the CEO of the whole group! – It is this experience and others that have moulded me in to the skilled communicator I am today

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What services should the PMO provide?

As a PMO analyst, what has been the most successful project you’ve managed?

What methods would you use to set up a PMO?

How would you resolve a project halt due to budgetary restrictions?

How would you ensure that project members understand the needs and expectations of a client?

How would you optimize a project to ensure timely completion?

How do you determine the organization’s resource capacity?

How would you manage new project requests in the PMO?

What do you consider the primary objectives of a PMO?

How Do You Share Best Practices Within A Team?

What’s Your Experience With PMO And Different Project Management Tools?

What Do You Do When You Are Met With Resistance From Your Team Members?

What Project Management Software Are You Familiar With?

How does your current job fit into the overall business?

Interview Question: How does your current (or previous) role fit into the organisation’s wider goals? – Answer Tips

Tell Me About A Project That Failed

Interview Question: Tell Me About A Project That Failed – Answer Tips

Tell me about a time when you have identified an opportunity for improvement within your processes?

Interview Question: Tell me about a time when you have identified an opportunity for improvement within your processes? – Answer Tips

Have you ever had to work to an extremely tight deadline? How did you navigate that?

Interview Question: Have you ever had to work to an extremely tight deadline? How did you navigate that? – Answer Tips

How do you handle disagreements within your team?

Interview Question: How do you handle disagreements within your team? – Answer Tips

Tell me about a time when you were late delivering a piece of work?

Interview Question: Being Late / Missing a Deadline – Answer Tips

Tell Me About A Time Someone Challenged Your Decision

Interview Question: Tell Me About A Time Someone Challenged Your Decision – Answer Tips

Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision without all the information you needed

Interview Question: Tell me about a time when you have had to make a decision using only limited information? – Answer Tips

Tell me about a time when you have challenged the usual way of doing things

Interview Question: Tell me about a time when you have challenged the usual way of doing things – Answer Tips

Describe a time when you communicated effectively in a difficult situation

Interview Question: Describe a time when you communicated effectively in a difficult situation – Answer Tips

Have You Ever Needed To Change Someone’s Mind?

Interview Help: Have you ever needed to change someone’s mind? – Answer Tips

Tell Me About A Time You Improved A Process

Interview Question: Tell Me About A Time You Improved A Process – Answer Tips

Do you have any questions for us?

10 Questions To Ask At The End Of An Interview (And 6 That You Shouldn’t!)

What is a Product Manager?

A Product Manager (PM) is the person who thinks ‘big picture’. Within Product Development they are the person who is responsible for identifying customer needs and wants and creating a road-map for the development team to follow.

The role is often combined with the Product Owner (PO) position, but in organisations that have clearly defined and separate responsibilities it is important to not get them confused. The Product Owner is responsible for the sprints and the backlog whereas the Product Manager is responsible for understanding the user needs and creating the product road-map (The PM focuses on the ‘what’ and the ‘why’, the PO focuses on the ‘who’ and ‘how’ – both come together to discuss the ‘when’)

Product Manager salary – A PM is a challenging role that has the occupant mixing it with the C-suite level staff regularly. As such it commands a high salary. In the UK the average salary of a Product Manager in the UK is around £50,000. Our American readers can expect a much higher salary however, with the average salary of a Product Manager in the USA being $110,000.

Because of the highly sought after nature of the job you can expect fierce competition when applying for roles. To stand apart you need to have everything going for you, a great CV, a fantastic application and a nailed on performance in the interview.

It is this last point we are going to discuss today. Firstly we will look at some Product Manager specific interview tips. Then we will talk about how to answer interview questions (and importantly how NOT to answer interview questions). Then finally we will look at some of the more popular questions you can be asked in your Product Manager Interview.

Product Manager Interview Tips

Lean heavily on your experience. This applies even if you have never held a PM position before. A Product Manager is responsible for numerous things but primarily ensuring that the right activities are being worked on at the right time (i.e. managing the product strategy and road-map). You don’t need to have held a PM title previously to have participated in similar activities. Perhaps you have worked in a role before where you had to make strategic decisions for your organisation? Or maybe you have performed customer research where you needed to spot trends? When answering questions lean heavily into these experiences.

Talk about how important quality is to a firm. Working in a agile fashion is great for pushing out product updates quickly, but often it can result in quality taking a back-seat. Hiring managers will want to see how you balance the need for frequent and rapid deployments with the need to produce a high quality product.

Know your audience. You should always research the organisation you are interviewing for. But what people don’t think to do is also research the interviewer and the hiring manager (if these are different persons). You want to impress the person making the hiring decision so you should research them specifically trying to understand what makes them tick and what they are looking for in a new employee.

How Best To Answer Product Manager Interview Questions

Unless the question you are asked is a straight ‘up or down / yes or no’ style question then you are going to need to learn to describe, expand and elaborate on your answers. The best way of doing this is to follow the B-STAR technique for answering interview questions.

Answers using this method follow the below structure:

B – Belief – What are your thoughts and feelings with regard to the subject matter? – As a Product Manager you should have your own set of processes and management techniques that you tailor to each situation.

S – Situation – What was going on? Briefly explain the scenario that was taking place. – Try not to spend too much time describing the situation. The bulk of your answer needs to be about you and what you did so keep the situation simple to understand and even simpler to describe. Try to make sure the scenario directly relates to one of the responsibilities in the job you are applying for.

T – Task – What was your role in the action? Most of the time it is best that you are taking an active rather than passive role in the encounter – You are going for a Product Manager role (presumably if you are reading this) so the situation you describe should have you involved with setting the direction of your product.

A – Activity (or action) – What did you do? Detail the steps you took and why you took them. – This should take up the bulk of your time answering the question.

R – Result – How did everything end up? Try to use figures if possible (e.g. sales increased 50%, customer churn reduced from 30% to 10%, End user feedback scores went from 4.3 to 4.8, etc.).

Remember though that the B-STAR technique is descriptive not prescriptive. You do not need to follow this flow strictly, go with what is best for your answers and that will allow you to put your point across and show your experience the best.

What You Should Not Do When Product Manager Answering Questions

Do not avoid the question.

Do not describe a failure (unless specifically asked).

Do not downplay the situation.

Do not overhype the situation.

Do not say you have no experience with the subject matter.

Do not reject the premise of the question.

Do not have a passive role in the situation.

Do not give a one-sentence answer.

Do not overly describe the scenario and miss the action.

Product Manager Interview Question & Answers

How Did You Prepare For This Interview?

“I believe that it’s incredibly difficult to overcome a bad first impression. Because of this I always strive to never make one. That’s why for important meetings, or interviews like this, I make a clear plan of what I want to get from the meeting and outline the steps I need to take to achieve that goal.

So when I received the call about scheduling this interview the first thing I did was research your offices. As you are based in an area of town I am not familiar with I drove by here after work one evening just to make sure I knew the way. I also checked Google Maps to see what the traffic would be like at this time. Nothing worse than being late sitting in traffic after all.

I actually have a contact who works in your finance department, Claire, we were colleagues in the place I am currently working. I reached out to her to see if there was anything she could tell me about the interview process. We had spoken before about the company as a whole and how she talks about the company is one of the reasons I applied.

Following our chat I went through all of my work achievements and made sure they fully encompassed everything I have accomplished in my career.

I’m glad I took the time to prepare as I did because there was a lot of traffic so it was good I knew to expect that. Also talking with Claire helped jog my memory on a project we both worked on a few years back delivering a piece of financial software that I believe your company is in the process of deploying.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

How do you handle disagreements within your team?

“As Product Manager at X company it was my responsibility to prioritise the product roadmap. The way things worked in our organisation was that any stakeholder could raise an item to add to the backlog, then as a team we would discuss in which order it would be best that they were worked and deployed.

Ultimately however the final decision on priority lay with myself and even though items were added to the backlog I would have to inform the Product Owner of what was actually in scope and relevant to our goals..

As you can imagine with so many different areas of the business raises items, each with their own agendas and goals the backlog meetings would often end with a lot of disagreement

One such occasion we had two business areas both asking us to deploy a change to our product and both were asking for the change to be deployed in the next sprint. Unfortunately we only had the dev resource to implement the one change in this cycle.

The backlog call became heated between the two representing colleagues and I was forced to cut the meeting short to let cooler heads prevail.

After the meeting I sat with both colleagues to further understand the urgency behind both changes. Asking them to describe the benefits of the change and also the drawbacks of waiting until the next cycle.

Once I had this information in hand it was clear to me which change would be most beneficial to the business. I invited both colleagues into a meeting where I had compiled the information into a presentation deck with a few charts showing the resources available within the product team and the relative benefits of each change.

Explaining it this way allowed both colleagues to fully appreciate the restrictions that were on my team and also the comparative benefits of each change.

Both colleagues left the meeting happy with the outcome and both changes were pushed into production in the next 2 sprints”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Tell me about a time you were late delivering a piece of work

“I was given the task of producing a spec delivery report for a very important potential client. This was on top of my regular workload but I was happy to pick it up as the client would bring a lot of business to our firm if we were able to secure the contract.

During the week that I had to complete the report a number of unforeseen events happened; my work laptop died, the office I worked in flooded and someone stole my car. It really was one of those weeks!

I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to meet the deadline so I looked at the piece of work that I had been given and the reasons why the firm wanted it. From my conversation with the firm I knew they were more interested in the capacity my team could deliver within each sprint rather than the specifics of the product itself.

So I focused my efforts so that I was working only on the capacity portion of the report. I communicated this with the client and with my colleagues. Everyone seemed largely happy with this and I delivered the report in 2 stages, the first at the agreed upon date and the full report just 2 business days later.

Luckily this delay did not upset the clients and we did bring them onboard. After this fiasco I petitioned the firm to provision VPN access on personal devices (with the relevant security software added) so that if this confluence of events were to repeat I would suffer no downtime…except for the time spent wondering where my car was.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Tell me about a time when you needed to communicate bad news to a colleague or stakeholder?

“I believe that bad news is best delivered in person and discretely, where it is responsible to do so. I don’t particularly relish giving bad news (I suppose not many do) so I often try to resolve the situation in advance so the bad news never needs to be given.

Obviously though that isn’t possible all of the time. For example in a previous role I managed a team of developers working in a agile fashion when word came down from senior management that we were offshoring a large part of our process and this meant layoffs of nearly 40% of the department.

I tried to go to bat for my team and show how our quality and production scores were the highest around and unlikely to be replicated using our offshore colleagues, but the decision had been made and was purely cost driven.

It was my job to determine which members of my team would be let go and which would stay.

We had all joined the department together on the same contract so there was no element of seniority that needed to be accounted for. Instead I devised a balanced scorecard type of approach, ranking each team member against the department’s relevant KPIs (quality, production, skills).

Once I had my list I booked one-on-ones with all of my team members as close together as possible, starting with the colleagues who would be staying. With the colleagues who were being let go I got straight to the point and told them the company would be terminating their contract. I allowed them to ask any questions they wanted and informed them that I would be around for any help they needed in looking for a new role.

During the meetings 2 of the colleagues I wanted to keep informed me that they were planning to leave soon anyway and suggested that they would leave now instead freeing up room for other colleagues to stay.

In the end I had to tell 6 members of my team that they were being let go. They were all understanding of the situation and were grateful that I offered to help them look for new roles.

Going forward if I were to be in the same position I would have gone to the meetings with some open positions that I would recommend the colleagues apply for”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Have You Ever Needed To Change Someone’s Mind?

“We had two options for a supplier; supplier A who we had used before and supplier B who we had not used but who were cheaper. As my target was to reduce costs for our department I thought that we should go with supplier B.

I approached my other colleagues, informally over coffee, to understand more about their concerns with supplier B. Learning that the principal worry was that supplier B was an unknown quantity whereas with supplier A we knew the quality to expect. It was then that I came up with a solution to quell any worries.

I approached supplier B and negotiated for them to provide sample products and also to agree to a trial/probationary contract that could be ended fairly easily should the quality not be up to scratch. Once I had this proposal in hand I went back to my colleagues who were now in agreement that supplier B was the correct option for the company.

With all colleagues in agreement we pitched the idea to the director together, ultimately we went with supplier B and enjoyed a high quality product for a lower price”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Tell me about a new skill or qualification you have learned over the last 6 months?

“In my current role I use Microsoft Projects extensively for scheduling tasks when working with certain clients. A few months ago I learned that one of our newer clients used Primavera as their preferred PM tool.

Even though the new firm were content that we continue to use Microsoft Projects I thought it would be best to upskill myself on Primavera so that I at least could understand what the client was used to versus what we would be providing.

I started by following some courses on LinkedIn and eventually I asked my employer if they would support me in attaining the certification – which they did.

I passed the qualification on the first go and was able to successfully amend our MS Project reports so that they more closely resembled what the client was used to”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What does a product manager do?

What do you see as a Product Manager’s main role within product development?

Pretend you’re talking to a stranger. How would you explain product management?

Please explain your approach to monitoring performance and success?

Explain the key to a good user interface

To be successful in a product management role, what do you need from your manager?

What’s your favourite product and why?

Tell me about a time you had to make a decision to make short-term sacrifices for long-term gains?

Tell me about a time you made a mistake?

Tell me about a time when you dealt with a technical challenge?

Why do you want to work as a product manager?

Estimate the number of restaurants in San Francisco / estimate the number of traffic lights in New York city / Estimate the total internet bandwidth needed for a campus of 1000 graduate students etc

Tell me about a time you handled a difficult stakeholder

What was your biggest failure as a product manager?

Tell me about a decision you made based on your instincts

Tell me about a time you convinced someone to change their minds

Tell me about a time you handled a difficult stakeholder

What are the top 3 technology trends that will change the landscapes in the next decade?

How would you explain cloud computing to your grandmother?

How do you determine what customers want and need?

How do you communicate your product strategy?

What’s one of your favourite products, and what’s something you’d change about it?

Tell me about a time you had trouble building consensus and how you overcame it.

What’s your approach to prioritizing tasks?

Describe a scenario that required you to say no to an idea or project.

Please try to recall a situation in which you had to say no to an idea or project.

Have you ever had to make a difficult decision while considering the input from many different sources (customers, stakeholders, team members). How did you make your decision?

Have you ever made an unpopular decision on the job? What happened?

Tell me about a time you worked well as part of a team

Interview Question: Tell me about a time you worked well as part of a team – Answer Tips

How does your current job fit into the overall business?

Interview Question: How does your current (or previous) role fit into the organisation’s wider goals? – Answer Tips

Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision without all the information you needed

Interview Question: Tell me about a time when you have had to make a decision using only limited information? – Answer Tips

Do you have any questions for us?

10 Questions To Ask At The End Of An Interview (And 6 That You Shouldn’t!)

What is a Product Owner?

A Product Owner (PO) is one of the key members of an Agile development team. The primary responsibilities of a PO is to define the stories, maintain the product backlog and define the length and workload within a sprint.

This role is often combined with that of the Product Manager (PM) but in organisations that clearly delineate between the two it is important to not get confused. The Product Owner is responsible for the sprints and the backlog whereas the Product Manager is responsible for understanding the user needs and creating the product road-map (The PM focuses on the ‘what’ and the ‘why’, the PO focuses on the ‘who’ and ‘how’ – both come together to discuss the ‘when’)

Product Owner salary – A Product Owner is a highly skilled and challenging role. As such it commands a high salary. Those in the UK can expect to pick-up an average of £60,000 working as a Product Owner. For our American readers you can expect to command a much higher salary, the average Product Owner in the USA picks up around $100,000.

With such [relatively] high wages the competition for each role can be fierce. That is why in this post we are going to look at applying for PO jobs, in particular how to handle the interview portion of the application.

Product Owner Interview Tips

Lean heavily on your experience. This applies even if you have never held a PO position before. A Product Owner is responsible for numerous things but primarily ensuring that the right activities are being worked on at the right time (managing the product backlog). You don’t need to have held a PO title previously to have participated in similar activities. Perhaps you have worked in a role before where you had to choose which features to deploy at which time? Or maybe you have instituted changes to processes when there were multiple options available? When answering questions lean heavily into these experiences.

Talk about how important quality is to a firm. Working in a agile fashion is great for pushing out product updates quickly, but often it can result in quality taking a back-seat. Hiring managers will want to see how you balance the need for frequent and rapid deployments with the need to product a high quality product.

Know your audience. You should always research the organisation you are interviewing for. But what people don’t think to do is also research the interviewer and the hiring manager (if these are different persons). You want to impress the person making the hiring decision so you should research them specifically trying to understand what makes them tick and what they are looking for in a new employee.

Pepper your answers with technical terms. Agile deployment has a number of technical terms, processes, systems, tools etc. For example when answering a question you can talk about how your team uses JIRA for defect tracking. Or you might talk about how you used Selenium for automated browser testing. These little things show the interviewer that you are well versed in the area and are not just full of fluff.

How Best To Answer Product Owner Interview Questions

Unless the question you are asked is a straight ‘up or down / yes or no’ style question then you are going to need to learn to describe, expand and elaborate on your answers. The best way of doing this is to follow the B-STAR technique for answering interview questions.

Answers using this method follow the below structure:

B – Belief – What are your thoughts and feelings with regard to the subject matter? – As a Product Owner you should have your own set of processes and management techniques that you tailor to each situation.

S – Situation – What was going on? Briefly explain the scenario that was taking place. – Try not to spend too much time describing the situation. The bulk of your answer needs to be about you and what you did so keep the situation simple to understand and even simpler to describe. Try to make sure the scenario directly relates to one of the responsibilities in the job you are applying for.

T – Task – What was your role in the action? Most of the time it is best that you are taking an active rather than passive role in the encounter – You are going for a Product Owner role (presumably if you are reading this) so the situation you describe should have you involved with overseeing and managing the delivery of a product going to launch.

A – Activity (or action) – What did you do? Detail the steps you took and why you took them. – This should take up the bulk of your time answering the question.

R – Result – How did everything end up? Try to use figures if possible (e.g. 99% of issues were resolved in first instance, End user feedback scores went from 4.3 to 4.8, etc.).

Remember though that the B-STAR technique is descriptive not prescriptive. You do not need to follow this flow strictly, go with what is best for your answers and that will allow you to put your point across and show your experience the best.

What You Should Not Do When Answering Product Owner Questions

Do not avoid the question.

Do not describe a failure (unless specifically asked).

Do not downplay the situation.

Do not overhype the situation.

Do not say you have no experience with the subject matter.

Do not reject the premise of the question.

Do not have a passive role in the situation.

Do not give a one-sentence answer.

Do not overly describe the scenario and miss the action.

Product Owner Interview Question & Answers

How Did You Prepare For This Interview?

“I believe that it’s incredibly difficult to overcome a bad first impression. Because of this I always strive to never make one. That’s why for important meetings, or interviews like this, I make a clear plan of what I want to get from the meeting and outline the steps I need to take to achieve that goal.

So when I received the call about scheduling this interview the first thing I did was research your offices. As you are based in an area of town I am not familiar with I drove by here after work one evening just to make sure I knew the way. I also checked Google Maps to see what the traffic would be like at this time. Nothing worse than being late sitting in traffic after all.

I actually have a contact who works in your finance department, Claire, we were colleagues in the place I am currently working. I reached out to her to see if there was anything she could tell me about the interview process. We had spoken before about the company as a whole and how she talks about the company is one of the reasons I applied.

Following our chat I went through all of my work achievements and made sure they fully encompassed everything I have accomplished in my career.

I’m glad I took the time to prepare as I did because there was a lot of traffic so it was good I knew to expect that. Also talking with Claire helped jog my memory on a project we both worked on a few years back delivering a piece of financial software that I believe your company is in the process of deploying.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

How do you handle disagreements within your team?

“As Product Owner at X company it was my responsibility to prioritise the backlog of tasks. The way things worked in our organisation was that any stakeholder could raise an item to add to the backlog, then as a team we would discuss in which order it would be best that they were worked and deployed.

Ultimately however the final decision on priority lay with myself.

As you can imagine with so many different areas of the business raises items, each with their own agendas and goals the backlog meetings would often end with a lot of disagreement

One such occasion we had two business areas both asking us to deploy a change to our product and both were asking for the change to be deployed in the next sprint. Unfortunately we only had the dev resource to implement the one change in this cycle.

The backlog call became heated between the two representing colleagues and I was forced to cut the meeting short to let cooler heads prevail.

After the meeting I sat with both colleagues to further understand the urgency behind both changes. Asking them to describe the benefits of the change and also the drawbacks of waiting until the next cycle.

Once I had this information in hand it was clear to me which change would be most beneficial to the business. I invited both colleagues into a meeting where I had compiled the information into a presentation deck with a few charts showing the resources available within the product team and the relative benefits of each change.

Explaining it this way allowed both colleagues to fully appreciate the restrictions that were on my team and also the comparative benefits of each change.

Both colleagues left the meeting happy with the outcome and both changes were pushed into production in the next 2 sprints”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Tell me about a time you were late delivering a piece of work

“I was given the task of producing a spec delivery report for a very important potential client. This was on top of my regular workload but I was happy to pick it up as the client would bring a lot of business to our firm if we were able to secure the contract.

During the week that I had to complete the report a number of unforeseen events happened; my work laptop died, the office I worked in flooded and someone stole my car. It really was one of those weeks!

I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to meet the deadline so I looked at the piece of work that I had been given and the reasons why the firm wanted it. From my conversation with the firm I knew they were more interested in the capacity my team could deliver within each sprint rather than the specifics of the product itself.

So I focused my efforts so that I was working only on the capacity portion of the report. I communicated this with the client and with my colleagues. Everyone seemed largely happy with this and I delivered the report in 2 stages, the first at the agreed upon date and the full report just 2 business days later.

Luckily this delay did not upset the clients and we did bring them onboard. After this fiasco I petitioned the firm to provision VPN access on personal devices (with the relevant security software added) so that if this confluence of events were to repeat I would suffer no downtime…except for the time spent wondering where my car was.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Tell me about a time when you needed to communicate bad news to a colleague or stakeholder?

“I believe that bad news is best delivered in person and discretely, where it is responsible to do so. I don’t particularly relish giving bad news (I suppose not many do) so I often try to resolve the situation in advance so the bad news never needs to be given.

Obviously though that isn’t possible all of the time. For example in a previous role I managed a team of developers working in a agile fashion when word came down from senior management that we were offshoring a large part of our process and this meant layoffs of nearly 40% of the department.

I tried to go to bat for my team and show how our quality and production scores were the highest around and unlikely to be replicated using our offshore colleagues, but the decision had been made and was purely cost driven.

It was my job to determine which members of my team would be let go and which would stay.

We had all joined the department together on the same contract so there was no element of seniority that needed to be accounted for. Instead I devised a balanced scorecard type of approach, ranking each team member against the department’s relevant KPIs (quality, production, skills).

Once I had my list I booked one-on-ones with all of my team members as close together as possible, starting with the colleagues who would be staying. With the colleagues who were being let go I got straight to the point and told them the company would be terminating their contract. I allowed them to ask any questions they wanted and informed them that I would be around for any help they needed in looking for a new role.

During the meetings 2 of the colleagues I wanted to keep informed me that they were planning to leave soon anyway and suggested that they would leave now instead freeing up room for other colleagues to stay.

In the end I had to tell 6 members of my team that they were being let go. They were all understanding of the situation and were grateful that I offered to help them look for new roles.

Going forward if I were to be in the same position I would have gone to the meetings with some open positions that I would recommend the colleagues apply for”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Have You Ever Needed To Change Someone’s Mind?

“We had two options for a supplier; supplier A who we had used before and supplier B who we had not used but who were cheaper. As my target was to reduce costs for our department I thought that we should go with supplier B.

I approached my other colleagues, informally over coffee, to understand more about their concerns with supplier B. Learning that the principal worry was that supplier B was an unknown quantity whereas with supplier A we knew the quality to expect. It was then that I came up with a solution to quell any worries.

I approached supplier B and negotiated for them to provide sample products and also to agree to a trial/probationary contract that could be ended fairly easily should the quality not be up to scratch. Once I had this proposal in hand I went back to my colleagues who were now in agreement that supplier B was the correct option for the company.

With all colleagues in agreement we pitched the idea to the director together, ultimately we went with supplier B and enjoyed a high quality product for a lower price”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Tell me about a new skill or qualification you have learned over the last 6 months?

“In my current role I use Microsoft Projects extensively for scheduling tasks when working with certain clients. A few months ago I learned that one of our newer clients used Primavera as their preferred PM tool.

Even though the new firm were content that we continue to use Microsoft Projects I thought it would be best to upskill myself on Primavera so that I at least could understand what the client was used to versus what we would be providing.

I started by following some courses on LinkedIn and eventually I asked my employer if they would support me in attaining the certification – which they did.

I passed the qualification on the first go and was able to successfully amend our MS Project reports so that they more closely resembled what the client was used to”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

How would you characterize your role as Product Owner? Are you a facilitator, a coach, a manager, a visionary, a tactician, a coordinator, or a “driver?”

What is the purpose of being agile in the first place?

To what extent is the Product Owner a “product manager”?

When was the last time you told a stakeholder “No”? How did you approach this situation, and what was the reason for it?

What “labels” come to your mind when you think of your role as Product Owner?

How do you collaborate with the other Scrum Team members?

What roles would you deem necessary for a cross-functional Scrum Team delivering software?

In what Scrum events shall the Product Owner be participating?

How do you know that you are a good Product Owner?

How do you include user research in the product discovery process?

How would you design a process to handle product ideas from stakeholders and other members of the organization?

At what stage do you involve the Scrum Team in the product discovery process?

How do you determine whether an idea is a worthwhile investment?

How do you avoid misallocating resources on features or products that no one wants?

During which stages are Product Owners participating in planning activities?

Your organization has recently decided to become agile and product-driven. How do you educate your stakeholders about the implications?

How do you organize the collaboration with stakeholders and improve it over time?

How do you communicate with uncooperative stakeholders?

In your opinion, how often should product roadmaps be planned?

Who shall participate in the product roadmap planning?

How much of your time do you spend talking with customers and researching industry trends?

How much time should you spend on Product Backlog refinement?

How would you organize the “refining” process of Product Backlog items?

At what level do you include other team members in the refinement process?

How do you handle bugs and technical debt when many valuable new features are competing for resources?

What shall a good user story look like? What is it structure?

When would you remove a feature?

Do you recommend that a Product Owner shall assign work items to individual members of the Scrum Team?

Tell me about a time you worked well as part of a team

Interview Question: Tell me about a time you worked well as part of a team – Answer Tips

How does your current job fit into the overall business?

Interview Question: How does your current (or previous) role fit into the organisation’s wider goals? – Answer Tips

Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision without all the information you needed

Interview Question: Tell me about a time when you have had to make a decision using only limited information? – Answer Tips

Do you have any questions for us?

10 Questions To Ask At The End Of An Interview (And 6 That You Shouldn’t!)

What is a Quality Assurance (QA) Analyst?

A QA analyst is responsible for completing the last step in production – testing the final product meets the requirements of the user/business. This role is usually found in software development projects but you can also find positions in any industry where the final output needs to be tested for quality.

The QA analyst is usually tasked with the actual testing aspect whereas the Test Manager will oversee the testing strategy and the Test Analyst will create the test cases.

Salary for a QA analyst varies quite drastically. It differs greatly depending on the industry and the level of technical, domain or analytical skills that are required in order to test the end-product. That said though the average salary for a Quality Assurance Analyst in the UK is around £30,000 to £40,000. For our American readers you can expect to earn slightly higher (even accounting for exchange rates), the average salary for a Quality Assurance Analyst in the USA is around $50,000 to $55,000.

It is common that QA analysts are trained on the job as the role requires technical knowledge of the firm’s product which is not usually publicly available. Therefore with just a rudimentary understanding of testing processes anyone is capable of landing an analyst role in QA. This is why some roles can be very challenging to land as the competition is fierce.

That is why in this post we are going to look at the QA Analyst interview. Firstly we will look at some tips for you in your next interview, then we will go through the best (and worst) way to answer interview questions. And finally we will round off by looking at the most common interview questions you can expect to receive when applying for a QA Analyst position.

Ready? Let’s get started then…

Quality Assurance Analyst Interview Tips

Lean heavily on your experience. As mentioned before QA analysts often do not hold any QA experience when they are hired. Firm’s regularly ‘promote from within’ colleagues who show excellent industry or product knowledge. If you hold any experience within the industry or with the product type then lean on this when answering questions. Ensure that the interviewer knows that you are aware of what makes a quality product in their industry.

Talk about how important quality is to a firm. This applies even if you have never held a QA position before. A QA Analyst is responsible for numerous things but primarily ensuring that products are not released when they do not meet the required standards. You don’t need to have held a QA title previously to have participated in similar activities. Perhaps you have worked in a role before where you stopped defective products from going out? Or maybe you have instituted changes to processes that increase overall quality? When answering questions lean heavily into these experiences.

Know your audience. You should always research the organisation you are interviewing for. But what people don’t think to do is also research the interviewer and the hiring manager (if these are different persons). You want to impress the person making the hiring decision so you should research them specifically trying to understand what makes them tick and what they are looking for in a new employee.

Pepper your answers with technical terms. Quality Assurance has a number of technical terms, processes, systems, tools etc. For example when answering a question you can talk about how your team uses JIRA for defect tracking. Or you might talk about how you used Selenium for automated browser testing. These little things show the interviewer that you are well versed in the area and are not just full of fluff.

How Best To Answer Quality Assurance Interview Questions

Unless the question you are asked is a straight ‘up or down / yes or no’ style question then you are going to need to learn to describe, expand and elaborate on your answers. The best way of doing this is to follow the B-STAR technique for answering interview questions.

Answers using this method follow the below structure:

B – Belief – What are your thoughts and feelings with regard to the subject matter? – As a Quality Assurance Analyst you should have your own set of processes and testing methodologies that you tailor to each situation.

S – Situation – What was going on? Briefly explain the scenario that was taking place. – Try not to spend too much time describing the situation. The bulk of your answer needs to be about you and what you did so keep the situation simple to understand and even simpler to describe. Try to make sure the scenario directly relates to one of the responsibilities in the job you are applying for.

T – Task – What was your role in the action? Most of the time it is best that you are taking an active rather than passive role in the encounter – You are going for a Quality Assurance Analyst role (presumably if you are reading this) so the situation you describe should have you involved with the testing of a product going to launch.

A – Activity (or action) – What did you do? Detail the steps you took and why you took them. – This should take up the bulk of your time answering the question.

R – Result – How did everything end up? Try to use figures if possible (e.g. 99% of issues were resolved in first instance, End user feedback scores went from 4.3 to 4.8, Project failures reduced 50% etc.).

Remember though that the B-STAR technique is descriptive not prescriptive. You do not need to follow this flow strictly, go with what is best for your answers and that will allow you to put your point across and show your experience the best.

What You Should Not Do When Answering QA Analyst Questions

Do not avoid the question.

Do not describe a failure (unless specifically asked).

Do not downplay the situation.

Do not overhype the situation.

Do not say you have no experience with the subject matter.

Do not reject the premise of the question.

Do not have a passive role in the situation.

Do not give a one-sentence answer.

Do not overly describe the scenario and miss the action.

Quality Assurance (QA) Analyst Interview Question & Answers

How Did You Prepare For This Interview?

“I believe that it’s incredibly difficult to overcome a bad first impression. Because of this I always strive to never make one. That’s why for important meetings, or interviews like this, I make a clear plan of what I want to get from the meeting and outline the steps I need to take to achieve that goal.

So when I received the call about scheduling this interview the first thing I did was research your offices. As you are based in an area of town I am not familiar with I drove by here after work one evening just to make sure I knew the way. I also checked Google Maps to see what the traffic would be like at this time. Nothing worse than being late sitting in traffic after all.

I actually have a contact who works in your finance department, Claire, we were colleagues in the place I am currently working. I reached out to her to see if there was anything she could tell me about the interview process. We had spoken before about the company as a whole and how she talks about the company is one of the reasons I applied.

Following our chat I went through all of my work achievements and made sure they fully encompassed everything I have accomplished in my career.

I’m glad I took the time to prepare as I did because there was a lot of traffic so it was good I knew to expect that. Also talking with Claire helped jog my memory on a project we both worked on a few years back delivering a piece of financial software that I believe your company is in the process of deploying.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Tell Me About A Time You Helped A Co-Worker Learn A New Skill

“I love working in a team. I truly believe that when a team is functioning correctly that it is greater than the sum of its parts. More work just seems to get done than would be if we were working independently. That’s why whenever I see a team member struggling I always reach out and try to help for the good of the team. I also adore the feeling when someone learns something as a result of my help. In a different walk of life I might have been a teacher!

There was one occasion when our company was adopting a more Agile approach to our projects. Moving away from waterfall and into a sprint based delivery approach.

I noticed rather early on that one of my colleagues, Jayne, was not grasping the fundamental idea behind the change and was still trying to operate in a waterfall approach.

I approached my manager to ask if we could support some additional training for the team on Agile so that we could all understand the philosophies. He agreed and we all began taking LinkedIn courses in the afternoons.

I reached out to Jayne during these sessions so that we could share notes and discuss what we had learned. I even offered that we should work together on a project so that we could bounce the ideas we had learned off each other.

That was all it took really. After we delivered a couple sprints in our project Jayne was a full Agile convert. She has actually moved out of the team now and has taken a SCRUM master position in a different department.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What do you like to do in your spare time?

“I am a big reader of both fiction and non-fiction. I always like to have at least 2 books on the go; one for entertainment – most often some kind of science fiction (I am currently reading the Expanse series) and one for learning. I always like to be learning new things, I find it fun and also incredibly rewarding to learn a new skill. I even find it rewarding when I fail miserably – as I do often – as I always learn something from the experience, I suppose this desire to learn new things and improve is why I was drawn to testing, as I am constantly learning new processes and new systems in order to learn how best to test them.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What motivates/energises you?

“Success is what energises me. This is why I prefer project testing roles. The ability to say that a project has been successfully deployed is what drives me during the more mundane run of the mill day-to-day activities. Recently I was able to close the book on a 30-month IT infrastructure deployment. This was a project that had been completely re-scoped 3 times just during the time I was attached to the project. But knowing that the project would eventually be deployed is what drove me throughout.”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What are your weaknesses?

“I have never worked with <insert testing tool or software> before and I see that it plays an integral role in your organisation. I have worked with <insert other testing tool> before and from what I hear it lacks a number of features present in <testing tool>. I look forward to the opportunity to use this new tool as I hear great things about it, I have also found a crash course online that I would look to take to get up to speed as quickly as possible…should I be offered the job”

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

Describe a situation when you were responsible for other team members learning a new skill?

“I’m a big believer in learning new things. I’m the person on the team who is always first in line whenever new training sessions are available for the team. I just think that the more you know the better you can produce.

There was one occasion where a training seminar was held for a new software that had been introduced within our department. The core functionality of the software was the same as what we used already so we were told that the seminar was voluntary.

I of course went along. And while a lot of the features were the same – as was expected – there was some new advanced functions that I thought could be great for our team.

I spoke to the training lead after the seminar and he sent me across some documentation and guidance on the new functionality. I studied through all the documents and realised that if our team was trained on this new reporting methodology that we could save quite a bit of time each week.

I positioned this to my manager who was delighted with the idea. And the next week I trained all of my team in this new skill. Some were reluctant at first because there was an element of coding involved – we needed to use SQL queries for the reports, but once they got the hang of it they were amazed at how much could be done.

The results were immediate. Our team was getting work done in twice the time. Time spent manually pulling reports was no longer. Some of the team went even further and started to develop more and more complex reports that would never have been possible without knowing this new skill.“

Check out our full post on how to answer this question

What QA process do you use in your project and why?

What will be your criteria for hiring team members?

What do you think is the best approach to start QA in a project?

What soft/people skills should a QA Manager have?

What is a bug?

What is bug leakage and bug release?

Explain the steps for Bug Cycle?

What is the difference between severity and priority?

What is the difference between Quality Assurance, Quality Control and testing?

When should QA start?

What is the QA testing life cycle?

What is a test plan?

What does a test plan include?

What would you include in an automation test plan?

What is a Test Strategy?

Are test strategies and test plans the same document?

What do you think are some advantages of manual testing?

What is the difference between functional and nonfunctional testing?

What did you do in your last project?

How do you prioritize when you have so many tasks?

Tell me about your most difficult project.

What are important characteristics for leaders in QA?

What do you think is the most important test metric, and why?

What is the difference between the QA and software testing?

What are the automation challenges that SQA(Software Quality Assurance) team faces while testing?

What is data driven testing?

What is Agile testing and what is the importance of Agile testing?

What is Ad Hoc testing?

Explain what should your QA documents include?

Tell me about a time when you have identified an opportunity for improvement within your processes?

Interview Question: Tell me about a time when you have identified an opportunity for improvement within your processes? – Answer Tips

Tell me about a time you worked well as part of a team

Interview Question: Tell me about a time you worked well as part of a team – Answer Tips

How does your current job fit into the overall business?

Interview Question: How does your current (or previous) role fit into the organisation’s wider goals? – Answer Tips

Tell me about a time when you had to make a decision without all the information you needed

Interview Question: Tell me about a time when you have had to make a decision using only limited information? – Answer Tips

How do you handle disagreements within your team?

Interview Question: How do you handle disagreements within your team? – Answer Tips

Tell me about a time when you have challenged the usual way of doing things

Interview Question: Tell me about a time when you have challenged the usual way of doing things – Answer Tips

Tell me about a new skill or qualification you have learned over the last 6 months?

Interview Question: Learn Something New – Answer Tips

What new skills do you hope to learn over the next 6 months?

Interview Question: What new skills do you hope to learn over the next 6 months? – Answer Tips

Have you ever had to work to an extremely tight deadline? How did you navigate that?

Interview Question: Have you ever had to work to an extremely tight deadline? How did you navigate that? – Answer Tips

Tell Me About A Time You Improved A Process

Interview Question: Tell Me About A Time You Improved A Process – Answer Tips

Do you have any questions for us?

10 Questions To Ask At The End Of An Interview (And 6 That You Shouldn’t!)