Delivery manager Interview Questions

When working with larger organizations that require detailed requirements at the onset of a project, the fact that Agile is intended to be an iterative process, a full Agile approach may not be the best solution for client-driven development. Before work begins, clients want to know everything an application will do and how it will work. Agile starts with requirements at the 30,000' level and gets more granular as iterations are built and refined. Thus, the initial requirements are sometimes too vague for clients. Agile tends to work much better with software development that has a definitive release cycle, where features can be concepted early and refined through the iteration process, without the need to say exactly how it will work prior to building it.

In my experience, there was no truly Agile process going on in the company anyhow. I would expect they were just sour on hiring another PMO from a UX background after the massive professional conflicts I had as a PMO from a UX background there. There's no real UX work to speak of, it's all just design in my experience. Worse, it seems you're expected to be a proxy for the partner, so brush up on your mind-reading skills. No judgment calls on how to approach team management unless you're deciding to lean hard or harder on your team to meet deadlines that are set based on a sales pitch rather than a meaningful understanding if the work to be done.

I said I was very comfortable, I like changed. Interviewer continued to press, saying things change constantly and you never know why.

I don't want to leave you hanging here, but the goal is to show your thought process and how you understand the core business and the complex issues with increasing sales leads. But keep in mind your dealing with an ex-McKinsey Consultant who is over educated and the question is ambiguous, therefore no right answer exists. He just wants to see how you think and compare your skill for data snooping to his hot shot Stanford grad. At any rate, this is still a blue collar implementation gig that requires a PM, data scientist, and technical consultant to solve, not a high priced consultant.

truthfully

Such an open question. I responded on policies around PMO governance and then about how I manage my projects to meet PMO guidelines. The answer expected was, how do you as a program manager manage multiple projects.

Answered them with stocked answers the way any professional would.

I had founded a new service offering group, led the development of the processes and procedures. Established the budget, managed the engineers and service delivery. I worked with people in the application development group, technical field, and project management teams as well as "C" level management. I developed the program and the project plans used to implement our services from transition through life cycle phases. I led by example and mentored team members to build a very effective team.