Project management is recognised by senior executives and HR managers as critical to business success. They recognise that qualified project managers are among their most significant assets. According to a survey conducted by the Project Management Institute, about $122 million is squandered in the United States for every $1 billion invested due to inadequate project performance. Things get a little complex when it comes to selecting talented project managers, and candidates are evaluated in a variety of ways.
Here are the Top 20 IT Project Manager Interview Questions and Answers to help you out for the preparation of the IT Project Management Interview.
1. Why are You Interested in This Role?
Interviewer wants to know your calibre, passion, and interest for the opened position to evaluate your motivation level first because apart from skills and everything else, interest comes first!
“I’ve gone through the job details and I’ve been performing duties as an IT Project Manager in the past as well. So I am interested in this role as I am aware of the duties and responsibilities attached to this role and they are fine for me. They match my career, profile, and education. Furthermore, the environment, organization, and the nature of work, they all are those things that are found over here and I was looking for such firm. From the start I wanted to become part of your organization.”
2. What are the Roles of an IT Project Manager?
Define all the roles of IT Manager. The interviewer wants to know your knowledge as well. So be concise over here and answer in points like in a sequence defining all the roles involved in IT Manager Post or the position.
“IT project managers are in charge of planning, organizing, and integrating large-scale, cross-functional information technology initiatives. To create a new piece or system of software, they coordinate the efforts of other IT specialists and administrative workers. The most important aspects of the work are organizing people and time resources, as well as seeing a project through from start to finish. Project managers are ultimately responsible for achieving the needs of the company or the client.”
3. What are the Qualities That an IT Project Manager Need to Be Successful?
The interviewer here needs to know your knowledge apart from the technical end. IT Manager requires having other skills as well apart from technical knowledge like communicating with team members and executing meeting as well. So describe all the skills that an IT Project Manager should have.
“An IT Project Manager should have Effective communication skills, Strong leadership skills; He should be good in decision making. He should also have technical skills, should be dedicated towards the work, and inspires a shared vision.”
4. What Major Challenges Did You Face During Your Last Role? How Did You manage Them?
Interviewer here wants to know about your past job or any project that you have made and faced challenge during it. Try to be more objective oriented over here like, you faced the challenge but you also managed to get out of it and the challenge should be in general terms.
“The most common challenge that I faced during my last job was to coordinate with other team members of different departments to execute and deliver the final results. This was little bit tough for me as coordinating with teams and understanding different people of various groups was something that was not technical. So somewhere I had to be polite and somewhere I had to be little bit aggressive but ultimately deliver the project. This was my challenge and by communicating in a large group it automatically helped me out to get grip over the communication skill and make the work done.”
5. Describe Your Daily Routine as an IT Project Manager?
Describe the core IT Project Managers daily routine as you cannot state over here that you get up early in the morning and grab a cup of coffee because an IT Project Manager has to perform lots of activities due to the position. Describe about what generally an IT Project Manager performs and that would be sufficient.
“As an IT project manager, my daily routine consisted of gathering requirements, deliverables, and timelines from stakeholders, complying on preferences with clients, scheduling out the resources, creating project plans, communicating major objectives, communicating the project plan internally and with the client, creating management reports, and coordinating with team members to execute and deliver the final results.”
6. Describe Briefly About Your Experience
Interviewer here wants to know about everything you have done in the past but related to the field. Try to mention your education and the Final Year Project and then, if you have done any job in the past at the current post, mention that as well. The answer will include a long statement which will describe the entire career progress.
“I studied in (College, University) and graduated in (Year). Due to my subject, Computer sciences, it gave me a lot of strength in the practical field. My first project was to deliver software that can counter or inform about any threats that are entering into the system of my client’s database. It was a huge project and from there I was promoted to different levels and finally got a chance to work as an IT Project Manager where I had to now monitor my juniors and make the things done”
7. What Kind of Strategies and Mindset is Required for This Role?
Interviewer wants to check your knowledge regarding the Role. Describe all the strategies that IT Manager acquires and the mindset with which he takes the firm towards the success.
“Project managers are in charge of project planning, execution, monitoring, control, and closure. They are in charge of the overall project scope, as well as the project team and resources, the budget of the project, and the project’s success or failure. As a result, they must remain engaged and active throughout their work and think in new ways. They are the heart and soul of any business owner, as their success or failure is dependent on them. He should be active, plan ahead of time, handle work in a variety of sheets and papers, monitor team members’ performance, and interact with the client on a regular basis to deliver every last detail about the project.”
8. What Is the Biggest Challenge That You Foresee in This Job?
Interviewer wants to know that what you are expecting from the firm and how much tough it can be if you are hired as an IT Project Manager in their firm. Try to give a general answer over here because at this post you should not be stating that “I don’t know the work structure so it will take time for me to learn new things” as this is the place where they need an experienced person.
“Every company has its own sets of challenges. Of course it’s not like that I’m not going to face any challenge over here, I will but as far as my skills and my education is concerned, I will not face any challenge regarding the post or the role as I mentioned before that I had issue in working as a team but now I have countered that as well. The major challenge that I foresee in this job can be environment, and understanding my superior mindsets, because this thing takes time, understanding the natures take time apart from this I don’t think I’ll ever face any challenge.
9. How Do You Stay Motivated in Your Work?
Interviewer here wants to know either you feel tired or exhausted during your work or not. You can reply to this question in any way you like. Like, you can quote here that when you get tired you grab a cup of coffee and get back to work with more energy or even give a general answer. The best answer would be:
“First of all, my interest keeps me motivated. I always wanted to become IT Project Manager and for that I worked hard day and night. When you have interest in something you work hard without worrying about the time and other things. Plus work makes me happy, I normally enjoy my work and grow my skills to such extent where I can handle any issue that demands more concentration and focus because I prepare myself for that before. In this way it never makes me uncomfortable and keeps me motivated as well.”
10. Describe a Time When You Failed in This Role and The Lesson You Learnt?
Learning from mistakes is a good thing. Interviewer wants to know that it can never happen that anyone just keeps growing without mistakes and tells that I never failed. There are many things that we learn during our career journey. Share some common and honest example of your problem and from which you learned the lesson.
“My biggest mistake that I remember I made during my last role was I did not manage my sheets properly. I just took it like this that I will manage it after working hours and that lead me towards a panic when I forgot some important tasks that I had to mentioned on the sheet and show the performance. This lead to a delay and we did not meet the deadlines of the project for the first time and I learned to keep things up-to-date from time to time.”
11. Why Do You Feel You are The Most Suited for This Role?
Strengths! More education and skills you have, more you are suited for different roles. Interviewer wants to know about your strengths and wants to see your confidence. Try to be honest and don’t become over-confident. Simply, try to give reasons that why you are or you can be beneficial and important for the firm.
“I am not saying that I’m the perfect in the world but, I have prepared myself to such extent where I can understand the challenges and issues of the firm and behave accordingly. Handling the entire project is not an easy thing to do and it is also important that entire organization performance rely upon you. Your bosses and owners look towards you. So it is a thing of responsibility. So to meet that, I have managed to get all those skills that any owner usually looks for it. Furthermore, my education and past experience also support me for this position.
12. Share with Us Your Greatest Achievement.
You can share all your certificates and achievements over here that can benefit the organization in one way or another. But it’s often more better if you mention those things that show your love, affection, and sense of responsibility towards your work and your team fellows.
“According to me, my greatest achievement is not getting the highest education and climbing ladder towards this post. My greatest achievement, according to me, is winning the trust and confidence of my superiors. Get myself ahead of the challenges by increasing my education and putting myself into different competitions is my greatest achievement as fulfilling the responsibility is my only objective and not letting anyone down.”
13. What is Stakeholder Analysis and Power-Interest Grid used for?
Now it’s time for technical questions and answers. Prepare to give answers according to your experiences and education.
Stakeholder analysis involves preparing a list of all the potential stakeholders who will be associated with the project in some way or the other. A power-interest grid is used for categorizing stakeholders and prioritizing them based on significance and impact. Stakeholder analysis and power-interest grid help in prioritizing the positions of the stakeholders in the project for developing relevant stakeholder engagement strategies for different groups.
14. How Would You Describe an Ideal Project?
For me, an ideal project is one that comes with a reasonable budget and timeline to complete it. It also offers me a chance to work with talented people who are self-reliant but know how to communicate and work collaboratively. The project should also have the full support of all stakeholders, and those stakeholders should share a common vision of the project’s goals, which can make it easier to resolve issues.
At the same time, I like a project that introduces me to new technologies and methodologies and offers enough challenges so I’m learning and improving my skills, while having the opportunity to explore creative solutions.
15. What are the Basic Stages of the Project Lifecycle?
There are basically six stages of project lifecycle but do not mention the names only. Try to elaborate them a little bit.
A project typically begins with a initiation stage where information about the project is gathered from the stakeholders. It then moves into planning stage where milestones are set and risks are calculated. After assigning tasks to different team members, it moves onto execution stage where execution for the project is made. And finally Management and Review stages are embedded to evaluate the performance and calculate what things worked well and what did not.”
16. How Do You Prioritize Tasks?
This is often important question that is asked during the interview but most of the people try to answer it in a general form. The best way to answer it is to tell little bit about the software end as well.
“In my experience, prioritizing tasks is the rule instead of exception. I frequently use Microsoft Project to organize my overall schedule, but I also like to be able to quickly access the activities I need to finish that day, week, or in some other interval.
I compile a list of the chores I need to complete that day at the start of most days, sorting them by importance. I use “Evernote” or something similar to keep track of my projects and can access them from any device.”
17. How Do You Handle Unexpected Changes in a Project?
“On a previous project I managed, the customer requested a tweak that would expand the reporting capabilities of the programme. My initial step was to understand everything I could about the additional features that had been demanded, and then to assess how they might affect the project. I discussed the proposed adjustments with a few team members, and we came up with a plan for implementing them. I next met with the appropriate parties, explaining how the adjustment will affect the budget and timeline. I modified the project plan after receiving their approval and notified the rest of the team that we were moving forward with the additional features.”
18. How Do You Motivate Team Members?
“I have a few basic procedures for promoting engagement, such as conducting regular planning meetings and checking in with team members on a regular basis. I attempt to remain on top of what each person is concentrating on throughout the project and provide opportunity for them to exchange ideas and voice concerns. My goal is to make individuals feel that they’re a full participant in the decision-making process and that they’re a part of the team. I aim to give opportunities to improve team communication wherever possible.”
19. What is Your Experience Like in Budget Management?
I started my project management career solely on time management and team member management, and over the years, I have gained an expert understanding of the fiscal side of projects. My previous jobs required me to create estimates, budgets and final expenditures for a project’s cost, and I can create and manage budgets for any project. If a project begins to require more money than initially stated, I understand the procedures for requesting budget changes as well as managing resources to stay on budget throughout the project.
20. How Can You Tell When a Project is not Working up to its Potential?
“At my previous job, there was a project that was moving slower than expected. I started by supervising the tasks of each team member and found out that there were additional tasks that were unforeseen in the initial strategy. Finding out about these additional tasks early was essential to fixing them so the project could be completed on time. I believe that having a strong strategy from the beginning with clear communication from all team members is important, and keeping track of time and budgets throughout the project is critical to a successful project.”
Conclusion
Getting hired at such post is not easy. The bench will choose the best person that will stand up to their standards. So these were the top 20 IT Project Manager Interview Questions and Answers that will help you out for the interview preparation. If you have any question related to the interview, feel free to write it down in the comment section.
