The interview was with a group of people from tech and scrum side. They had good questions and were engaged. It was interesting though that it seemed if any answers were in the benefit of the company as a whole and not just the IT department that it did not meet their needs. Ultimately, I did not receive an offer and it was because I was too focused on the health of the overall business rather than the tech side of the house. I understand the need but felt this odd as I said that the two have to meet in the middle with this role ensuring they speak for the IT department but provide collaboration. I wish them luck!
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How do you handle with the business wants something but IT disagrees? Questions very tailored along these lines.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Frontdoor (Pune)
Interview
Began with a call from the talent acquisition team.
The first round was scheduled very quickly. It was with a senior person working in the same role. The first interview was a detailed discussion about my current roles and responsibilities. The type of projects/ programs I have handled so far. The methodology I am aware of. The structure of my current team. Situation based questions like handling situations of missing deadlines, resource bandwidth issues etc. Risk management strategies used in the projects I worked on so far.
The second round was with the hiring manager and the hiring manager just asked about "what is my style of managing a program/ project?"
I guess I cleared that round as well because I was invited to talk to the Product Owner and the Engineering Manager in the successive rounds.
Discussion with the product owner was focussed on daily interaction between product owner and program manager along with practical implementation of Agile Scrum practices for task estimation, discussion on requirment followed by the process to track and report progress of work done in the release. All the discussion happened through situational questions.
Discussion with Engineering Manager also focused on interaction between the resource manager and project manager. This round was to judge the skills to ensure that the ideal candidate will be able to justify the estimates and raise risks at the right time. Safeguard the time of development and QA team by being that central point of contact .
Interview questions [4]
Question 1
What was the most difficult situation you have handled in a project as a project manager?