Basics of project management

Define project?
Who is a stakeholder?
Can you explain Scope triangle?
Can you explain what s a vision and a goal?
What is ROI?
Can you explain project life cycle?
You have people in your team who do not meet there deadlines or do not perform w
hat
are the actions you will take?
Are risk constant through out the project?
Explain SDLC (Software development Life Cycle) in detail?
Can you explain waterfall model?
Can you explain big-bang waterfall model?
Can you explain phased waterfall model?
Explain Iterative model, Incremental model, Spiral model, Evolutionary model and
VModel?
Explain Unit testing, Integration tests, System testing and Acceptance testing?
what s the difference between system and acceptance testing?
Which is the best model?
What is CAR (Causal Analysis and Resolution)?
What is DAR (Decision Analysis and Resolution)?
Can you explain the concept of baseline in software development?
What is the software you have used for project management?
What does a project plan consist?
When do you say the project has finished?
Can you explain what a PMO office is?
How many members in your team you have handled?
Is GANTT chart a project plan?
Two resources are having issues how do you handle the same?
What is a change request?
How did you manage change request in your project?
Can you explain traceability matrix?
what is configuration management?
What is CI?
Define stakeholders?
Can you explain versioning?
Can you explain the concept of sign off?
How will you start a project?
what is an MOU?
What where the deliverables in your project?
Can you explain your project?
Do you also participate in technical activities?
How did you manage code reviews?
you have team member who does not meets his deadlines how do you handle it?
did you have project audits if yes how was it handled?
What is a non-conformance report (NCR)?
How did you estimate your project?
How did you motivate your team members?
did you create leaders in your team if yes how?
how did you confirm that your modules are resource independent?
Was your project show cased for CMMI or any other project process standardizatio
n?
what are the functions of the Quality Assurance Group (QAG)?
Can you explain milestone?
How did you do assessme nt of team members?
What does entry and exit criteria mean in a project?
How much are you as leader and how much are you as PM ?
How can he handle the conflicts between peers and subordinates?
In your team you have highly talented people how did you ha ndle their motivatio

n ?
How can you balance between underperforming and outperforming people ?
You need to make choice between delivery and quality what s your take ?
Risk Management
Define risk?
What is risk break down structure?
How did you plan your risk?
what is DR, BCP and contingency planning?
Schedule Management
Can you explain WBS?
Can you explain WBS numbering?
How did you do resource allocation?
Can you explain the use of WBS?
Can you explain network diagram?
What are the different types of network diagram?
What is the advantage of using network diagrams?
Can you explain Arrow diagram and Precendence diagram?
What are the different types of Network diagrams?
Can you explain Critical path?
Can you define EST, LST, EFT, LFT?
Can you explain Float and Slack?
Can you explain PERT?
Can you explain GANTT chart?
What is the disadvantage of GANTT chart?
What is Monte-Carlo simulation?
Costing
Can you explain PV, AC and EV?
Can you explain BCWS, ACWS and BCWP?
What are the derived metrics from Earned Value?
Can you explain earned value with a sample?
Estimation, Metrics and Measure
What is meant by measure and metrics?
Which metrics have you used for tracking purpose?
What are the various common ways of estimation?
Can you explain LOC method of estimation?
How do we convert LOC in to effort?
Can you explain COCOMO?
Can you explain Intermediate COCOMO and COCOMO II?
How do you estimate using LOC?
Can you explain in brief Function points?
Can you explain the concept Application boundary?
Can you explain the concept of elementary process?
Can you explain the concept of static and dynamic elementary process?
Can you explain concept of FTR, ILF, EIF, EI, EO , EQ and GSC ?
How can you estimate number of acceptance test cases in a project?
Can you explain the concept of Use Case s?
Can you explain the concept of Use case points?
What is a use case transaction?
How do we estimate using Use Case Points?
Can you explain on what basis does TPA actually work?
How did you do estimation for black box testing?
How did you estimate white box testing?
Is there a way to estimate acceptance test cases in a system?
Can you explain Number of defects measure?
Can you explain number of production defects measure?
Can you explain defect seeding?
Can you explain DRE?
Can you explain Unit and system test DRE?
How do you measure test effectiveness?
Can you explain Defect age and Defect spoilage?

Software process
What is a Software process?
what are the different cost eleme nt involved in implementing process in an orga
nization?
What is a model?
What is maturity level?
Can you explain the concept of process area in CMMI?
Can you explain the concept of tailoring?
CMMI
What is CMMI?
what s the difference between implementation and Institutionalization?
what are different models in CMMI?
Can you explain staged and continuous models in CMMI?
Can you explain the different maturity levels in staged representation?
Can you explain capability levels in continuous representation?
which model should we use and under what scenarios?
How many process areas are present in CMMI and in what classification do they fa
ll in?
What the difference between every level in CMMI?
what different sources are needed to verify authenticity for CMMI implementation
?
Can you explain SCAMPI process?
How is appraisal done in CMMI?
which appraisal method class is the best?
Can you explain the importance of PII in SCAMPI?
Can you explain implementation of CMMI in one of the Key process areas?
Explanation of all process areas with goals and practices?
Can you explain the process areas?
Six Sigma
What is six sigma?
Can you explain the different methodology for execution and design process in SI
X
sigma?
What does executive leaders, champions, Master Black belt, green belts and black
belts
mean?
What are the different kinds of variations used in six sigma?
Can you explain the concept of standard deviation?
Can you explain the concept of fish bone/ Ishikawa diagram?
What is Pareto principle?
Can you explain QFD?
Can you explain FMEA?
Can you explain X bar charts?
Can you explain Flow charting and brain storming?
Agile Development
What does Agile mean?
Can you explain Agile modelling?
What are core and supplementary principles in Agile modeling?
What is the main principle behind Agile documentation?
What are the different methodologies to implement Agile?
What is XP?
What are User Stories in XP and how different are they from requirement?
Who writes User stories?
When do we say a story is valid?
When are test plans written in XP?
Can you explain the XP development life cycle?
Can you explain how planning game works in Extreme Programming?
How do we estimate in Agile?
On What basis can stories be prioritized?
Can you point out simple differences between Agile and traditional SDLC?

Can you explain the concept of refactoring?

What is a feature in Feature Driven Development?
Can you explain the overall structure of FDD project?
Can you explain the concept of time boxing?
When to choose FDD and when to choose XP?
What is SCRUM?
What does product owner, product back log and sprint mean in SCRUM?
Can you explain how SCRUM flows?
Can you explain different roles in SCRUM?
Can you explain DSDM?
Can you explain different phases in DSDM?
Can you explain in detail project life cycle phase in DSDM?
Can you explain LSD?
Can you explain ASD?

======================
How to tell the team about his past work performance?
As a project Manager you can provide feedback to your team in following way
Provide positive Feedback First
just the good news. One of the fa
Make sure that you first focus on achievements
ctors that make working together so difficult is our habit of focusing on issues
and problems to the exclusion of achievements and successes. In such an environ
ment people feel undervalued and unmotivated and a feeling of Why bother? Shapes
the culture.
Review Failures
Next take time to review failures, asking the team to make a full list of disapp
ointments. Let them know that this exercise has nothing to do with pointing fing
ers and everything to do with creating a realistic picture of the current status
of the team and the business.
Take the Lessons
Finally ask each team member to consider what can be learned from what happened.
Discuss the potential lessons and align on the top three guidelines that would
make the most difference to your success. Keep these alive throughout the year b
y regular review and public display with news of the difference the lessons are
making to performance.

What are the functions of Project Management Tool?

Following are some functions of Project Management tool
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Task management
File storage
Reporting functions
Commenting and message boards
Client access
Subcontractor task assignment
Time tracking

James Said..
Basically the functions of PM tools are to keep track/Progress report of the mil
estones achieved, project completion, reporting status, time line for the projec
t to end, gives you each and every details as to how and where should the projec
t status be and at what given point of time, giving proper clarity who is respon
sible for what.
How do you assign tasks to the team?
AS a project Manager or Team Lead what is best way to assign the tasks to team s
o that they get the things done quickly and willingly.
By telling your team what to do, you at some level are telling them that what th
ey ve done has not been successful. That s probably not what you mean. However, tell
them why you want something, and ask for their help, and the underlying message
is you ve done well in the past, so here s something new. Even when you put rules in
place (governance rules, if you will), you can still educate as to the why and get
more acceptance than you would otherwise. And, if you have the opportunity to g
et input, and adjust your rules with feedback, even better. Much better.
How to judge technical skills of developer
As a project manager when you conduct interview of any tech person or developer,
how you can judge his/ her tech skills and ability?
To judge a technical ability of programmer ask about his past technical work, as
k some general tech questions and If you can, try to give him/her a little chall
enge where he/she can prove some of the skills he/she have enumerated on his/her
CV and that he/she will need for the job. In a further interview you may ask hi
m/her how he/she solved some problems. If it is the case, ask him/her how he/she
did certain aspects of items listed in his/her portfolio.
What project management software you use to manage your project
As a project manager which project management tool or project management softwar
e you prefer to perform common project management tasks like set milestone, set
tasks, add new discussion and upload new documents etc.
AS a Project Manager How to add value to your project?
How to be a successful project manager and how to deliver successful products .
This is not only a project management interview question but a great skill too.
Please answer.
I am telling you few ideas in my mind that as a project manager how you can add
value to project & real customer.
Feel the real need of customers. Don t act as a sales person. Work as consultant.
Which can add much more value to them and hence people will trust you and that t
rust will help you to grow your business.
Prepare a presentation of their relevance in simple way and with few words. Prov
ide the satisfied references.
Another concern: As a project manager How to justify the time & human resource c
ost to other persons with different skills like Sales Manager? So Idea is divide
all tasks in micro tasks and try to explain all these in detail. Try that he be
comes a part of the team and able to realize the facts.
Dropping price doesn t make any sense. Because if you do it, you have to do it aga

in & again to sell your product. Instead of that increase your product quality.

Harshad Gohil Said..

Give innovative and realistic solution in project, and get cost benefit by using
the project and based on it other projects get signed.

raja mohana reddy Said..

1) Proper,realistic, scalable and performable solution
2) Ontime/early and qualitative deliverables which meet project objectives
3) Innovative/automate tools and support to reduce the risks and to lead early c
ompletion which results const benefit leads to win other projects
4) Optimal use of resources(Men/Machine) and resource loading ( very important i
n Fixed price bids)
Continuous feature delivery benefits in Agile Software development?
Can anybody tell me what are benefits of delivering product continuously to cust
omer? And why to deliver partial version of product first?
To get the customer feedback early. Iterations allow you to manage risk sooner you
do not have to build the whole product to find out if you can meet a particular
specification.
Another benefit of continuous feature delivery is that for some products, softwa
re being a good example, incremental releases can provide early benefits. Rather
than wait 12 or 18 months for new software features, incremental delivery can p
rovide quarterly or even more frequent ones. Incremental releases can favorably
alter ROI calculations because they allow product managers to address opportunit
ies that would be lost in 18 months. However, even though some products can be d
eveloped iteratively using simulations or prototypes, they are very difficult to
release incrementally. As the battle over Web browsers showed in the late 1990s
, customers often can't assimilate new product releases every three to four mont
hs.
How you can deliver the product fast to costumers?
As a project manager how you can deliver the product in less time means as soon
as possible?
simple solution is Keep away your team from non-value adding tasks
Customers need working product not documentation. Project managers need to relie
ve the project team from as much compliance work as possible, even if that means
taking on the tasks themselves. So that the development team can concentrate on
the real work.
Agile frameworks do need minimal documentation and a mechanism to convey knowled
ge about project success and failure to others in the organization. The answer i
sn't eliminating either documentation or process, but approaching both from a si
mplified, lean, barely sufficient, just-enough perspective.

Vish Said..
You can't deliver the project fast... you can deliver the project on Time. If yo
u are able to deliver the project fast shows your project management goes wrong.

If the client is asking to deliver the project fast then you have to check the
triple constraint... scope, time and cost

senthil Said..
motivate your team members this is the right oppurtunity show organization about
their value to organization.Introduce the challenge on daily basis with reasona
ble gaps - work breakdown in different way.mistake occuring oppurtunity should b
e reduced with our project evaluation skill definetly make product out with our
effort done on timely basis

Ashish Mukhi Said..

a. Add more resource as long does not adversely impact on
ost increase is under acceptable limits).
b. Rework the schedule and task dependencies/relations to
of shrink project duration.
c. Explore possibility of scope reduction (like mentioned
k) by eliminating some tasks all-together or by deferring
nt projects or to post project exercise.

project cost (or the c

explore possibilities
documentation like wor
such tasks to subseque

Why customer developer partnership is important?

There is a concept of customer-developer partnership in Agile Project Management
. What is it? and why we need it?
The success of any product involves meeting expectations those of the ultimate cus
tomer, those of management stakeholders, and those of the project team itself. W
hile delivering something useful to the customer remains paramount, keeping all
the participants informed and involved is critical to success.
If we want products that deliver outstanding customer value, then we must have a
customer-developer partnership, one with responsibilities and accountability on
both sides (and similar relationships with key suppliers). Agile teams constant
ly seek customer involvement and are always asking the question, "Is what we are
doing useful to you in meeting your business goals?"

Project Manager Interview Questions about Motivation?

If you want to judge a person appearing in project management interview that how
motivated he/ she is? You can ask following questions
How do you feel about your present workload?
What motivates you to do your best work?
What do you find most frustrating at work?
How can we best help you get your job done?
How do you define doing a good job?
What makes a job enjoyable for you?
Under what conditions do you work best?
Tell me about a work task you enjoy.
What is your greatest strength/weakness or deficiency?
Can you all give me satisfying answer of these project management questions?

What is Project Planning?

What is Project Planning? As a Project Manager how do you pan the project? What
activities are performed in project planning phase?
Project Planning
ill be produced,
Project Planning
sary to complete
l.

defines in detail the project activities and the product that w

and describes how the project activities will be accomplished.
defines all major tasks, estimates the time and resources neces
them, and provides a framework for management review and contro

Project Planning activities include defining and documenting the following:

Work to be performed,
Project goals,
Estimates for planning, tracking, executing, and controlling the project,
Commitments of the affected groups, and
Project alternatives, assumptions, and constraints
Planning is a process that includes activities to estimate the size of the proje
ct, the scope of the effort, and the resources required to complete the project,
as well as steps to produce a project schedule, identify, assess and manage ris
ks, and negotiate commitments. Several iterations of the planning process may be
performed before the
Project Plan is completed.
The planning process consists of the following basic steps:
1. Define the process for specifying, documenting, and controlling project requi
rements,
2. Define the technical approach used to solve the problem,
3. Identify all deliverables associated with the project,
4. Define and sequence all tasks to be performed,
5. Define the dependencies between tasks,
6. Estimate the resources required to perform each task,
7. Schedule all tasks,
8. Establish a budget for performing the tasks,
9. Define organizational structure (e.g., roles and responsibilities),
10. Identify and assess initial risks to successful project completion,
11. Define the process that will be used ensure product quality (e.g., reviews,
walk-throughs, inspections, or independent Verification and Validation).

Why Quality assurance of software is important at its early stage?

Generally Quality assurance or software testing is done after whole development.
But is it important from its first day?
What are the drawbacks if we start testing after development team finished its w
ork?

Projects that don't set up processes to eliminate defects in early stages fall i
nto extended test-debug-re-implement test cycles that seem interminable. So many
defects are reported by testing that by the end of the project, the "change con
trol board" or "feature team" may be meeting as often as every day to prioritize
defect corrections. Because of the vast number of defects, the software has to
be released with many known (albeit low priority) defects. In the worst case, th
e software might never reach a level of quality high enough for it to be release
d. That s why software testing is important from day one.

Ashish Mukhi Said..

Quality should not be targeted through corrective actions at the project end .. a
s this can be very costly and time taking. Instead the quality should be built i
n as much as possible by preventing defects to occur. Quality assurance and soft
ware testing in early stages of project helps in taking such preventive measures
in timely manner.
What are the rights of customer in Project life cycle?
Client is owner of the project. In software development life cycle what is the r
ole of client. What rights he has through out the project?
In Project/Software life cycle client has the rights:
To set objectives for the project and have them followed
To know how long the software project will take and how much it will cost
To decide which features are in and which are out of the software
To make reasonable changes to requirements throughout the course of the project
and to know the costs of making those changes
To know the project's status clearly and confidently
To be apprised regularly of risks that could affect cost, schedule, or quality,
and to be provided with options for addressing potential problems
To have ready access to project deliverables throughout the project
Project Management: What is a successful project?
As a Project Manager How would you say that Your Project is Successful?
If you have provided the project on time; is it successful? Please provide the d
efinition of successful project?
First of all it should satisfy all the repurpose of itself and requirements of c
lient. A successful project should be one that meets its cost, schedule and qual
ity goals within engineering tolerances and without padding its schedule or budg
et. Project Manager should balance between all objectives so that a high-quality
product can be delivered according to an efficient schedule at moderate cost.
After finishing it should be easy to operate, maintain & expand.

it should be completed within plus or minus 10 percent of its schedule and budge

t targets
How to handle non-productive team members?
In project Management sometime you meet with the non productive team. As a proje
ct manager how do you get the task done from this type of team. Means how do you
handle non-productive team members?
It is the responsibility of the project manager to ensure that the team's output
meets the performance requirements stated in the project definition and deliver
s the goals of the project.
Why a team member would be a non productive? Either he is not up to that level o
f his work means his skill set is weak. So the answer is coaching/mentoring. Ask
Tech Lead to communicate with him frequently & face to face. Don t wait for the t
ask to complete go to his seat, talk friendly, ask indirectly what he is doing a
nd give your suggestions. Don t point him forward some good article to whole team.
Give your feedback early to the member. Indirectly share your experience about
the problems he is facing. Realize him that he the important valuable member of
the project team and you have lot of expectations from him.
Second thing is , some team members are careless or your environment is not prod
uctive. The solution is, explain clearly what is expected from the team. Don t wai
t for status report, communicate frequently with team and remind their goals ste
p by step goals.
Appreciate the members who are doing good work. Involvement is the key to handle
non productive members. Don t assign them work through mail. First meet with team
, explain the goals, divide the goals into parts & Let the team members pick tas
ks of their own choice. That will make them more responsible for their task. I t
hink in this way you can change their professional attitude.

Manoj Kumar Gupta Said..

First of all I want to say that I am customer care excutive in Back-office and M
y point of veiw that
first of all you check yourself where are you wrong or
right if you don't have any feedback than sortout the problem because of your te
am is non-productive where is your chain is week sortout and do work on that fir
st mantra that is you behave to yr member whichtypes behave like you make behavi
er they feavor of you sometimes be strik and all the time
very good with them. Secondthings want to say most of the members do politics be
casue of that they don't be productive so break them always be successful.

manoj kumar Gupta Said..

thirds things always make comptetive environment.

A.varalakshmi Said..
Its really very usefull for the TL, TM , GL

D I C K Y
As per my
ow his or
ou should

Said..
point of view the person who is not performing well than you should kn
her problem directly or indirectly. After knowing his or her problem y
meet him personally and give him motivation. Find some plus point in h

im and appreciate on his plus point and make him habitual to listen this so he w
ill 100% try to give his best where he is lacking.

Narendra Said..
My openion is if the team member is a under performing then reason needs to be f
ind as he may be technically weak where mentoring is required or he may be havin
g personal problems due to which his performance is affected hence first try to
understand him and then take a decision/ act on the action.

Aparna Said..
It is PMs responsibilty to understand why a team member is not performing. There
could be various reasons : 1. He may not be able to understand the goals of the
project - in this case we need to sit and tell him what are the goals of the pr
oject. 2. he may be underqualified for the work, then training might help him.He
re micromanagement may also be required.3. Some enviornmental factors that might
be impacting his work. PM needs to understand and work on same accordingly.
Why project manager take care of his project team?
Customer or Development Team. Which one is important for a project manager?
How can you balance between two?
Dev Turk Said..
You ve to accept that the customer comes first. The customer is always right. You
can't take care of the customer if you first aren't taking care of your project
team. It's a challenge. While there are some things you can do for the whole tea
m, it comes down to taking care of each team member as the individual that he or
she is. And to make it more difficult, then you must bring their various intere
sts into coherence.

Narendra Said..
Its always good for a project manager to take care of team under him to deliver
the project effeciently to his custmer. It will always make the strong bonding b
etween team as well as project manager.
What is MPMM
MPMM is a Project Management Methodology which provides a complete "framework" f
or managing projects. This framework provides you with a step-by-step walkthroug
h of the phases, activities and tasks to be undertaken to complete a project. By
following the Project Life Cycle framework for your project, you will greatly e
nhance your chances of project success.
How to handle stress.
I'm not the type of person that becomes stressed very easily. However, if in an
extreme circumstance I did start to become stressed, I would look to the cause o
f it and attempt to identify a solution. I would certainly not be afraid to look
to others for their input and assistance. In a working environment I think stre
ss comes around from pressurized situations. In such cases the best solution is
often one of situation management until the crisis abates.

I hardly ever get stressed; however, I do encounter different kinds of challenge

s. The recipe for me to overcome those challenges is to get to the bottom of the
problem and deal with it immediately before it becomes a disaster.

Posted by: Archiebald Mdladla

Contact Archiebald Mdladla
I always go with planning and monitor the execution as per planning. if my plann
ing deviates,then i will take necessary steps to close on time.
Invite as many queries as possible when we execute a project.
There is no chance if we follow the above pattern

Posted by: Ravi Sankar

Contact Ravi Sankar
Stress will be there no matter you Plan perfectly, especially during execution p
hase some unknown risks will popup. To handle those usually we should not react
immediately rather take some deep breadth and think about twice thrice for the s
olution no matter the problem it looks so easier & COOL:)

Posted by: raghu

Contact raghu
As responsible person for project it is bound to happen that stress would be the
re, but to overcome the stress one should attack that issue on priority to reslo
ve it by discussing with team and expert. defenetly there would be solution and
you are relived from stress.

1.
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5.
6.
to
ch
7.

How do you handle non-productive team members?

How do you motivate team members who are burned out, or bored?
How do you handle team members who come to you with their personal problems?
What are your career goals? How do you see this job affecting your goals?
Explain how you operate interdepartmentally.
Tell me how you would react to a situation where there was more than one way
accomplish the same task, and there were very strong feelings by others on ea
position.
Consider that you are in a diverse environment, out of your comfort zone. How

would you rate your situational leadership style?

8. Give me an example of your leadership involvement where teamwork played an im
portant role.
9. Tell me about a situation where your loyalty was challenged. What did you do?
Why?
10. In what types of situations is it best to abandon loyalty to your manager?
11. In today s business environment, when is loyalty to your manager particularly
important?
12. Why are you interested in this position?
13. Describe what you think it would be like to do this job every day.
14. What do you believe qualifies you for this position?
15. What have you learned from your failures?
16. Of your previous jobs, which one did you enjoy the most? What did you like t
he most/least? Why? What was your major accomplishment? What was your biggest fr
ustration?
17. Tell me about special projects or training you have had that would be releva
nt to this job.
18. What are some things that you would not like your job to include?
19. What are your current work plans? Why are you thinking about leaving your pr
esent job?
20. Describe an ideal job for you.
21. What would you do if you found out that a contractor was in a conflict of in
terest situation?
22. If I were to contact your former employee, what would he say about your deci
sion-making abilities?
23. Give me an example of a win-win situation you have negotiated.
24. Tell me about your verbal and written communication ability. How well do you
represent yourself to others? What makes you think so?
25. Give me an example of a stressful situation you have been in. How well did y
ou handle it? If you had to do it over again, would you do it differently? How d
o you deal with stress, pressure, and unreasonable demands?
26. Tell me about a tough decision you had to make?
27. Describe what you did at your work place yesterday.
28. How would you solve the following technical problem? (Describe a typical sce
nario that could occur in the new position.)
29. What strengths did you bring to your last position?
30. Describe how those contributions impacted results?
31. What are the necessary steps to successful project management?
32. How do you plan for a project?
33. What is important to consider when planning a (your type of project)?
34. What are things that you have found to be low priority when planning for (yo
ur type of project)?
35. What distinguishes a project from routine operations?
36. What are the three constraints on a project?
37. What are the five control components of a project?
38. What qualifications are required to be an effective project manager?
39. What experience have you had in project management?
40. Name five signs that indicate your project may fail.
41. Tell us about a project in which you participated and your role in that proj
ect.
42. When you are assigned a project, what steps do you take to complete the proj
ect?
43. As you begin your assignment as a project manager, you quickly realise that
the corporate sponsor for the project no longer supports the project. What will
you do?
44. Your three month project is about to exceed the projected budget after the f
irst month. What steps will you take to address the potential cost overrun?
45. Tell us about a successful project in which you participated and how you con
tributed to the success of that project.
46. You are given the assignment of project manager and the team members have al

ready been identified. To increase the effectiveness of your project team, what
steps will you take?
47. You have been assigned as the project manager for a team comprised of new em
ployees just out of college and entry-level consulting staff. What steps can you t
ake to insure that the project is completed against a very tight time deadline?
48. What is a project milestone ?
49. What is project float ?
50. Your project is beginning to exceed budget and to fall behind schedule due t
o almost daily user change orders and increasing conflicts in user requirements.
How will you address the user issues?
51. You ve encountered a delay on an early phase of your project. What actions can
you take to counter the delay? Which actions will have the most effect on the r
esult?
52. Describe what you did in a difficult project environment to get the job done
on time and on budget.
53. What actions are required for successful executive sponsorship of a project?
54. How did you get your last project?
55. What were your specific responsibilities?
56. What did you like about the project and dislike about the project?
57. What did you learn from the project?
58. Tell me about a time when you ran into any difficult situations. How did you
handle them?
59. Tell me about the types of interaction you had with other employees.
60. Tell me of an accomplishment you are particularly proud of and what it entai
led.
61. Do you have people from your past consulting services who would provide a pr
ofessional reference?
62. What other similar consulting or independent contractor services have you re
ndered?
63. Discuss how you would envision working as an independent contractor or consu
ltant for us.
64. What conflicting responsibilities will you have?
65. What would be your specific goals for this new role as a consultant or indep
endent contractor?
66. What experience do you have that you think will be helpful?
67. This assignment will require a lot of [describe]. Will that be a problem for
you?
68. This assignment will require interacting with [describe the types of people]
. What experience do you have working with such people?
69. What would you like to get from this new assignment?
70. What are two common but major obstacles for a project like this? What would
you do in the face of these obstacles to keep your team on schedule?
71. What is project charter? What are the elements in a project charter?
72. Which document will you refere for future decisions?
73. How will you define scope?
74. What is the output of scope definition process?
75. What is quality management?
76. Do you inspect or plan for quality ?
77. What is EVM? how will you use it in managing projects?
78. What is a project? and what is program?
79. What are project selection methods?
80. Which tool would you use to define, manage and control projects?
81. What is risk management and how will you plan risk response?
82. What are outputs of project closure?
83. What are the methods used for project estimation?
84. What methods have you used for estimation?
85. How would you start a project?
86. If you were to deliver a project to a customer, and timely delivery depended
upon a sub-supplier, how would you manage the supplier? What contractual agreem
ents would you put in place?

87. In this field (the field you are interviewing for), what are three criticall
y important things you must do well as a project manager in order for the projec
t to succeed?
88. What metrics would you expect to use to determine the on-going success of yo
ur project?
89. How are your soft skills? Can you sell the project to a team?
90. You have a team member who is not meeting his commitments, what do you do?
91. Companies have historically looked at technical skills, but more and more bu
siness managers are realizing that not have people skills tend to cripple projects
.
92. How many projects you handled in the past? Deadlines met? On time/ within bu
dget? Obstacles you had to overcome?
93. Do you understand milestones, interdependencies? Resource allocation?
94. Do you know what Project Software the new company uses and is there training
for it?
95. Tell me about yourself. (To avoid rambling or becoming flustered, plan your
answer.)
96. What are your strengths? (Make an exhaustive list and review it exhaustively
before the interview.)
97. What are your weaknesses? (What you say here can and will be used against yo
u!)
98. How would your current (or last) boss describe you?
99. What were your boss s responsibilities? (Interviewers sometimes ask this quest
ion to prevent you from having the chance to claim that you did your boss s job. B
e ready for it!)
100. What s your opinion of them? (Never criticize your past or present boss in an
interview. It just makes you look bad!)
101. How would your co-workers or subordinates describe you professionally?* (Re
member, now is not the time for modesty! Brag a little bit.)
102. Why do you want to work for us?
103. Why do you want to leave your present employer?
104. Why should we hire you over the other finalists?
105. What qualities or talents would you bring to the job?*
106. Tell me about your accomplishments.
107. What is your most important contribution to your last (or current) employer
?
108. How do you perform under deadline pressure? Give me an example.
109. How do you react to criticism? (You try to learn from it, of course!)
110. Describe a conflict or disagreement at work in which you were involved. How
was it resolved?
111. What are two of the biggest problems you ve encountered at your job and how d
id you overcome them?
112. Think of a major crisis you ve faced at work and explain how you handled it.
113. Give me an example of a risk that you took at your job (past or present) an
d how it turned out.
114. What s your managerial style like?
115. Have you ever hired employees; and, if so, have they lived up to your expec
tations?
116. What type of performance problems have you encountered in people who report
to you, and how did you motivate them to improve?
117. Describe a typical day at your present (or last) job.
118. What do you see yourself doing five years from now?
119. What is project management?
120. Is spending in IT projects constant through out the project?
121. Who is a stakeholder?
122. Can you explain project life cycle?
123. Twist :- How many phases are there in software project?
124. Are risk constant through out the project?
125. Can you explain different software development life cycles?
126. What is triple constraint triangle in project management?

127. What is a project baselines?

128. What is effort variance?
129. How is normally a project management plan document organized?
130. How do you estimate a project?
131. What is a fish bone diagram?
132. Twist:- What is Ishikawa diagram?
133. What is pareto principle?
134. Twist:- What is 80/20 principle?
135. How do you handle change request?
136. What is internal change request?
137. What is difference between SITP and UTP in testing?
138. What is the software you have used for project management?
139. What are the metrics followed in project management?
140. Twist: - What metrics will you look at in order to see the project is movin
g successfully?
141. You have people in your team who do not meet there deadlines or do not perf
orm what are the actions you will take?
142. Twist :- Two of your resources have conflicts between them how would you so
rt it out?
143. What is black box testing and White box testing?
144. What s the difference between Unit testing, Assembly testing and Regression t
esting?
145. What is V model in testing?
146. How do you start a project?
147. How did you do resource allocations?
148. How will you do code reviews?
149. What is CMMI?
150. What are the five levels in CMMI?

151. What is continuous and staged representation?

152. Can you explain the process areas?
153. What is SIX sigma?
154. What is DMAIC and DMADV?
155. What are the various roles in Six Sigma implementation?
156. What are function points?
157. Can you explain steps in function points?
158. What is the FP per day in your current company?
159. Twist :- What is your company s productivity factor?
160. Do you know Use Case points?
161. How do you estimate maintenance project and change requests?
162. What are all the skills you will be looking at if you have to hire a projec
t manager?
163. Why are you looking out for a job?
164. What is your current role and responsibilities? What did you like most in y
our current job?
165. How does your day normal look like? What are some of challenges you face on
a daily basis?
166. What makes you exciting about Project management?
167. Why should we hire you as a Project manager?
168. How do you handle pressure and stress?
169. Your team is following agile practices. You have to hire a resource for you
r team. What are all the skills consider when you hire a new resource.
170. You are starting a new project, which includes offshore/onsite development.
How do you manage communications?
171. Your project team does not have hierarchy. You have couple of good techies
in your project that has same skills and experience. There is a conflict between
two of them. Both are good technically and very important to the project. How d

o you handle conflict between them?

172. Have you done performance appraisals before? If yes, how do you appraise pe
ople? 173. How do you estimate? What kind of estimation practices do you follow?
174. Your customer is asking for an estimate. You do not have time do FP. But yo
u do not want to give a ballpark estimate. What kind of estimation will you give
?
175. Your company is expert in providing solutions for a particular domain. You
are appointed as a project manager for a new project. You have to do Risk manage
ment. What will be your approach?
176. How do you improve your team s efficiency?
177. You are joining as project manager for a team, which already exists. How do
you gain respect and loyalty of your team members?
178. You are going to be the project manager for a web-based application, which
is targeted towards Insurance. Your gut feeling is that it would take 5 resource
s and 8 months to deliver this application.
What kind of resources you will hire for this project?
If you are asked to deliver the project in 6 months. Can you accelerate the deve
lopment and deliver it in 6 months? What will be your approach?
179. What kind of release management practices do you follow?
180. Your application is in testing for the last 2 weeks and you are supposed to
deliver the application at the EOD. Your testing team has found a major flaw in
your application in the afternoon. You cannot miss the deadline and your develo
pers cannot fix the bug in couple of hours. How do you handle this situation?
181. You have a resource that who is not happy with his job and complains all th
e time. You have noticed that because of that the team morale is getting spoiled
. How do you handle that resource?
182. Your team is into the 6th Iteration of 8 Iteration project. It s been really
hectic for the team for the last couple of months as this project is very import
ant for your customer and to your company. You have started noticing that some o
f your key resources are getting burnt out. How do you motivate these resources?
183. Yours is a dedicated team for a customer and it s been a dull period for you
and your team. You are not actively involved in any development activities. Your
team is providing support to the application, which you have delivered earlier.
Your team is getting bored as the application stabilized now. Due to budget iss
ues, customer is not going to give you work for another 3 months. How do you mot
ivate the resources?
184. There was a situation where more than one-way to accomplish the same task.
Your onsite tech lead and offshore tech lead has different opinions about doing
this and the feelings were very strong. Both are very important to you. How do y
ou react to this?
185. What are the practices you follow for project close out? Assume you are int
o a product customization for a customer and the application has gone live. How
do you close this project?
186. Your team is in between iteration. Your customer wants few more items to be
delivered in that iteration which you are working now. How do you react to your
customer?
187. You are at the customer s place and your application is in UAT/stabilization
phase. Your customer comes up with a change request and says that it s a minor one
and he wants to see it in the next release. What will be your response/approach
to your customer?
188. What is velocity? How do you estimate your team s velocity?
189. What is earned value management? Why do you need it?
190. Describe the type of manager you prefer.
191. What are your team-player qualities? Give examples.
192. How do you prioritize your tasks when there isn t time to complete them all?
193. How do you stay focused when faced with a major deadline?
194. Are you able to cope with more than one job at a time?
195. In your opinion, why do software projects fail?
196. Your customer wants a bug to be delivered at EOD. You have got the BUG/CR i

nformation in the morning. It will not be possible to develop, completely regres

s this issue and deliver it at EOD. How do you approach this issue?
197. You are following Waterfall as your development methodology and you have es
timated X days for design phase. Your customer is not ready to accept this. How
do you convince your customer to have X number of days for design phase?
198. You have to sell agile practices (XP/Scrum) to your organization. Your mana
gement is very reluctant to change. You are sure that if you do not change to ag
ile, it will be very tough to survive. What will be your approach?
199. How do you set and manage expectations (with customers, your managers and y
our team)?
200. For some reason you ve encountered a delay on an early phase of your project.
What actions can you take to counter the delay?
201. What is Function point analysis? Why do you need it?
202. What is the difference between EO and EQ? What is FTR?
203. You are estimating using Function point analysis for a distributed n-tier a
pplication. How do you factor the complexity for distributed n-tier application?
Does FP Provides support for it?
204. You are getting Adjusted Function point count. How do you convert it into E
ffort?
205. How do you manage difficult people/problem employees?
206. How do you build your teams morale?
207. How do you estimate your SCRUM/XP Projects? How do you define velocity for
the first couple of iterations? What is a load factor?
208. What is team building? What are the stages in team building? Do you conside
r it as an important thing? Why?
209. What are some of your lessons learnt with your previous iteration delivered
? How do you use your lessons learnt in your iteration planning?
210. Can you describe this position to me in detail, why you believe you are qua
lified for this position, and why you are interested in it?
211. Can you describe this company to me as if I were an investor?
212. How do you get your team working on the same project goal?
213. What do you do when a project is initiated and given to you and you have a
gut feeling the scope is too large for the budget and the timeline?
214. What formal project management training have you received, where did you at
tend, and what have you learned from it?
215. We are very siloed, can you explain how you operate interdepartmentally?
216. Consider that you are in a diverse environment, out of your comfort zone. H
ow would you rate your situational leadership style? Give me examples.
217. You may also be presented with a couple of case studies. For instance, What
if a key employee falls sick at a critical time of project delivery? and etc.
218. My favorite questions are the Tell me about a time when
questions. Make sure y
ou have stories about projects you participated in or managed. Especially share
stories of those that had a difficulty to overcome (eg: budget or time constrain
t blown) and how the difficulty was managed in order to bring the project to a s
uccessful conclusion, or how the project was closed down before damaging the sta
keholders.
219. How stakeholder expectation is managed?
220. How internal and external project risk is managed (quantitatively if possib
le)
221. How organizational change is managed (involving the stakeholders that will
experience change in their lives as a result of the project),
222. How scope management is done, when the project has not been scoped properly this is not scope creep I am talking about, merely the fact that the user, clie
nt and management learns what they really want as the project progresses nine ti
mes out of ten - incidentally, glib answers like We use RAD, spiral models, proto
types only indicate that the candidate knows of such things, and not that they k
now how to use them,
223. What needs to be reported to stakeholders, when and how the data is collect
ed - I normally focus on financial management techniques here - does the PM know
how to use the GL, does the PM understand signing powers, how is overtime manag

ed and used, etc.

224. How does delegation work - you don t want a PM that does technical work(domai
n specific work) - the PM should manage the project (not always practical, but i
t sounds nice anyway),
225. How does the interface between line management and the Project work - Can t
he PM negotiate with Middle and Senior resource managers when interests conflict
,
226. How is project progress measured - Anyone that tells me that the %complete
calculation function in MS Project works is ignorant!! - I can prove to anyone w
ho is interested that the algorithm is faulty, and
227. How project team communications, stress and conflict is managed.
228. Describe a time when you had to give bad news on a project to a customer. T
here are a lot more approaches to this than you would think, and answers can be
insightful.
229. What did you learn from your first job (like flipping burgers at McD s)? The
idea here is to see if they can glean useful information out of simple situation
s, can they reflect and learn from any situation. I think this form of continuou
s learning is key for PMs.
230. How good are you at MS Project (or whatever tool you use)? This is almost a
trick question from my perspective. I believe that most of a PM s job is people,
so if someone knows a piece of software forwards-and-backwards, they probably do
n t have the people skills required to do the job.
231. Describe how you motivate and manage a matrixed team where the people on your
team do not work for you. Since this is often the mode, they must be able to do
it.
232. How would you go about organizing a project that had enterprise wide implic
ations?
233. What is your approach to managing projects and how does it vary based on th
e size and complexity or the project?
234. Who should lead projects?
235. Who should be accountable for the project s outcome?
236. What was the budget for the largest project you have managed?
237. What is the project management structure in your project? Is a PL assigned
to the project?
238. How do you know that a particular individual is the project leader (or) how
do you know that you are the Project Leader?
239. What and where are the policy statements for software project planning?
240. Explain the various activities you do (as a PL) when the project is started
up.
241. How do you know what you need to deliver or do in your project?
242. How do you create the Software Project Management Plan (SPMP)?
243. What training have you undergone in project planning?
244. How do you ensure that your project plan is available for others to see? Wh
ere will you find the plans of other projects executed (in the past or currently
) in the center?
245. How did you choose the appropriate lifecycle for your project?
246. What are the documents that you will refer to create the plan?
247. How do you estimate the effort for your project? Where is the estimation pr
ocedure documented?
248. What procedures do you follow to arrive at the project schedule?
249. Where and how are the risks associated with your project identified and doc
umented?
250. When you come in to the office, how do you know what you have to do during
the day?
251. How do you report the status of your project?
252. How are team members kept informed about the current status of the project?
253. How do the audits cover planning activities?
254. How does the senior management review your project s progress?
255. How do you track the technical activities in your project? How is the statu
s of the project communicated to the team?

256. How do you track the size or changes to size of the work products in your p
roject?
257. When do revise your project plan? When do you know you have to revise your
project plan? Where is the plan revision frequency documented?
258. How do you ensure that you and all the other team members in your project h
ave the required technical skills to execute the project?
259. How do you assign tasks to your team members?
260. What is the document that should be consulted to know about your project, t
he activities you do, your schedules and milestones?
261. How do you handle disruptive team members?
262. How do you handle non-productive team members?
263. How do you motivate team members who are burned out or bored?
264. How do you motivate people?
265. How do you handle team members who come to you with their personal problems
?
266. How do you start a project?
267. If you are teaching the ropes to a new Project Manager, what would you say
are the most important things he needs to look for?
268. What would be the key artifacts needed in a project?
269. How do you manage change?
270. How do you manage conflict in the project team?
271. How do you deal with a difficult team member?
272. What qualifications are required to be an effective project manager?
273. What is the difference between a project plan and a project schedule?
274. What do you include in a project schedule?
275. How do you track a project?
276. How do you track risks? Tell me about the risks that your last project had.
277. What is the difference between a risk and an issue?
278. How do you define quality in project management?
279. What would you say if a team member asks why project management is needed?
Why do we have to do all this documentation ahead of the real work?
280. What have you learned in obtaining your PMP that you are using in real-life
projects?
281. What do you do if a team member presents a work product that you know for a
fact is flawed or incomplete, but the team member insists it is completed and s
ound?
282. What would you do if a manager whose resources you are using keeps saying t
hat all the documentation required by the project is getting in the way of actua
l progress?
283. What was your role in your last project?
284. What was the most interesting role you played in a project?
285. What do you do when a team member does not complete his/her assignment and
has gone to another project?
286. Have you used Microsoft Project? How do you like it?
287. How do you verify that the requirements identified for a project are actual
ly included in the final delivery to the users?
288. How do you verify that the requirements are correct and that they reflect w
hat the users want?
289. What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses in the Project Management a
reas of knowledge?
290. What are the risks you had in your last project?
291. What are the main objects of a project manager?
292. How do you perform Function Point Analysis?
293. What are project management tools? Mention some of them?
294. What are the main attributes to be possessed by a project manager?
295. How must the project manager react under pressured projects?
296. In what percentage or ratio must a project manager possess technical and ma
nagerial skills?
297. How often is learning process important for a project manager and why?
298. Explain the managerial features that must be possessed by project manager?

299. Mention some of the steps to be taken by project manager to reduce stress i
n the project and among.
300. What are the induction processes a project manager must plan for team membe
rs?