Interview Questions for IT Project Managers

Sample Interview Questions for IT Project Managers

1. Say you are the Project Manager for a team which gets an order to implement the company's flagship product to a new country/region for the very first time. What attributes would you consider to successfully establish this product in the region?

I understand the interviewer for looking for an answer which was aroung ROI (Return on investment)


2. A project is implemented, you being the project manager , how would you find that the all requirements stated in the Requirements document have been satisfied ?

Using Tracebility Matrix one can track the requirements.

3. Say you have a team for 4 members, out of these 2 team members are suppose to travel for implementation at a customer site next week. Say these 2 team members resign a day before they are about to travel? How would you handle such a situation?

4. Say you are gathering requirements at a customer site. For one such requirement you are suppose to get the requirements from a vendor who is going to lose his job after this project is implemented and thus this vendor is not cooperating while defining the requirements ? What would be your approach for tackling this situation?

5. What would you be your reaction when a project sponsor adds or keeps adding new requirements during System Integration testing?

6. What key attribitues would you be tracking while implementing a project?

http://infosys-project-manager-interviews.blogspot.com/search/label/Interview%20Q%27s%20for%20Project%20Managers

• Define Project?

A project is a temporary endeavor that is unique with a definite start and an end time with a desired result.

Define Plan?
A plan defines –
• Risks, Resources , Communication
• Scope, Budget, Schedule, Quality

What are the principles of Prince2?
The principles are –
• Manage by stages
• Focus on products
• Manage by exception
• Tailor to suit the project environment
• Continued business justification
• Learn from experience
• Defined roles and responsibilities

https://dvq2z39rr5ipe.cloudfront.net/interview-question/prince2-interview-questions/

Software Project Management Interview Questions

What is project management?

Why are project managers required?

What all activities come under project planning?

Who all are the stakeholders in a project?

How do you initiate projects? What all groups are involved? Is there any formal process adopted in your organization?

What all documents created for the project and their significance?

How do you identify the number of resources required for the project?

How are the efforts estimated in the Project?

What methodology is used for estimations?

What do you understand by project risks?

How are project risks identified? How would you mitigate the same?

How to take care of hardware and software requirement for the project?

What are quality plans? What are the key objectives?

What are SCM plans? What are the key objectives?

What is meant by deviation?

What status reporting mechanism was used in the Project?

Explain project life cycle ?

How many phases are there in software project ?

Explain different software development life cycles ?

What are the contents of project management plan document?

What is a fish bone diagram ? What is Ishikawa diagram ?

What is pareto principle ? What is80/20 principle ?

What tools were used for configuration management?

How do you handle change request? What is internal change request?

What is the software you have used for project management?

What activities are performed while project closure?

What do you understand by defect prevention?

How is software shipment managed in the project?

http://infosys-project-manager-interviews.blogspot.com/search/label/Interview%20Q%27s%20for%20Team%2FProject%20Lead%20and%20Managers

PMBOK guide - Project Management Certification

PMBOK guide - Project Management Certification

The PMBOK guide defines the project management processes as follows

Initiating Process: Defines and authorizes the project

Planning Process: Plans the course of action required to attain project objectives and define the scope of the Project.

Executing Process: Integrates people and other resources to carry out the project plan for the project.

Monitoring and Controlling Process: Regularly measures and monitors the activities of the project so that corrective action can be taken when needed.

Closing Process: Formalize the acceptance of the Project and brings the Project to an orderly end


The responsibilities of a Project Manager across Processes.

Planning Process

· Spend 90% of your time here. Do not rush this phase.
· Prepare to run meetings with various Stakeholders
· Ensure that potential Project Risks/Issues identified and create a
· Risk Management Plan
· Identify Key Project constraints/Assumptions
· Identify and Define Project Team Organization Structure
· Identify list of all the Activities of the Project
· Construct Activity Sequences (Predecessor, Successor relationship)
· Identify the Duration of the each activity
· Determine the Skill requirements by type of work and identify suitable resource for it
· Determine the Costs for Individual Activities
· Define the Customer Quality Expectations
· Define Quality Management Plan for your Project
· Ensure that the Quality Activities of the Project are not overlooked
· Define Communication Management Plan to disseminate Project Information to stakeholders
· Define Procurement Management Plan for software/hardware requirements for your project
· Construct a comprehensive Project Plan by including Communication management/ProcureManagement/Risk/Assumptions/Constraints/Issues/Activities

Executing Process

· Approve all the Change Requests
· Approve the Project Plan
· Direct the technical Team to execute the work as defined in the Project Plan
· Direct the other Organizational interfaces to execute work as defined in the Project Plan
· Acquire Project resources and assign them
· Collect data/Metrics about the Project

Monitoring & Controlling Process

· Monitor Risks and see their Progress using Risk Management Plan
· Monitor each Project activity using the Project plan
· Disseminate Project status information to Stakeholders
· Produce Performance report with regard to Scope, Schedule, Cost, Resources, Quality and Risk
· Look for potential Change Requests and implement them using Change Control Procedure
· Control the Cost (possible using EVA(Earned Value Analysis ))
· Control the Quality by implementing quality review techniques and standards identified in the Quality Management Plan
· Manage the Project Team Members performance, Providing feedback, resolving issues to enhance Project performance
· Manage Stakeholders Expectations and resolve issue

Closing Process

· Formally terminate all activities of the Project
· Hand off the completed Deliverable/Product to Customer
· Release all the Project resources including software/hardware
· Create Lessons Learnt Document and share your experiences
· Archive all the Project Documentation




General Guidelines

· Always “Communicate, Communicate, Communicate”
· Understand Customers Language and give what they want. “No more, No less”
· Provide “True status” of the Project all the times
· Use Tools and Techniques to increase your Team Productivity
· Use Microsoft Project Plan for better planning
· Closely monitor Project Critical Path
· Identify Risks in every Project Phase and discuss them in all the Meetings
· Create a Daily Log for all your activities
· Mentor your Team members
· Success or Failure, You are Accountable


http://infosys-project-manager-interviews.blogspot.com/

nested,inner queries, subqueries

• Nested,inner,subquery, Sql Queries

select *
from Customers
where CustomerID in
    (select customerID
    from Orders
    where OrderID in
        (select orderID
        from [Order Details]  
        where ProductID = 1
        )
    )
   
   
   

• How subqueries work

Subqueries, also called inner queries, appear within a where or having clause of another SQL statement or in the select list of a statement. You can use subqueries to handle query requests that are expressed as the results of other queries. A statement that includes a subquery operates on rows from one table, based on its evaluation of the subquery's select list, which can refer either to the same table as the outer query, or to a different table.


For example, this subquery lists the names of all authors whose royalty split is more than $75:

select au_fname, au_lname
from authors
where au_id in
   (select au_id
    from titleauthor
    where royaltyper > 75)

select statements that contain one or more subqueries are sometimes called nested queries or nested select statements.

Multiple levels of nesting
"Find the names of authors who have participated in writing at least one popular computing book:"

select au_lname, au_fname
from authors
where au_id in
   (select au_id
    from titleauthor
    where title_id in
       (select title_id
        from titles
        where type = "popular_comp") )
       
       
Subqueries in update, delete, and insert statements

The following query doubles the price of all books published by New Age Books.
update titles
set price = price * 2
where pub_id in
   (select pub_id
    from publishers
    where pub_name = "New Age Books")
   

You can remove all records of sales of business books with this nested select statement
delete salesdetail
where title_id in
   (select title_id
    from titles
    where type = "business")
   
An equivalent delete statement using a join is:
delete salesdetail
from salesdetail, titles
where salesdetail.title_id = titles.title_id
and type = "business"

http://manuals.sybase.com/onlinebooks/group-as/asg1250e/sqlug/@Generic__BookTextView/13332;pt=13262



the name of every song by Metallica that contains the lyric “justice” with the following subquery
SELECT song_name FROM Album
WHERE band_name = ‘Metallica’
AND song_name IN
(SELECT song_name FROM Lyric
WHERE song_lyric LIKE ‘%justice%’);

all Metallica songs in the “And Justice for All” album that do not contain the word “justice” by way of the following code:
SELECT song_name FROM Album
WHERE album_name = ‘And Justice for All’
AND band_name = ‘Metallica’
AND song_name NOT IN
(SELECT song_name FROM Lyric
WHERE song_lyric LIKE ‘%justice%’);


a list of Metallica songs performed by Damage, Inc. from my Cover table
SELECT Album.song_name FROM Album
WHERE Album.band_name = ‘Metallica’
AND EXISTS
(SELECT Cover.song_name FROM Cover
WHERE Cover.band_name = ‘Damage, Inc.’
AND Cover.song_name = Album.song_name);


For example, I want to verify Album table entries for every Metallica song. Also, I want to return the album names that have missing tracks. Conveniently, the AlbumInfo table contains a column (album_tracks) signaling how many tracks there should be.
SELECT AlbumInfo.album_name FROM AlbumInfo
WHERE AlbumInfo.band_name = ‘Metallica’
AND album_tracks <>
(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Album
WHERE Album.album_name = AlbumInfo.album_name);


The next example will return every Metallica album, the number of tracks it should contain, and how many entries are included in the Album table:
SELECT AlbumInfo.album_name, album_tracks,
(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Album
WHERE Album.album_name = AlbumInfo.album_name)
FROM  AlbumInfo
WHERE AlbumInfo.band_name = ‘Metallica’;


changing the album_tracks value in the AlbumInfo table to the actual number of entries in the Album table:
UPDATE AlbumInfo SET album_tracks =
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM Album
WHERE AlbumInfo.album_name = Album.album_name)
WHERE AlbumInfo.band_name = ‘Metallica’;


Subselect comparison keywords (ALL, SOME, ANY)

SELECT * FROM AlbumSales
WHERE album_gross >
ALL (SELECT album_costs FROM AlbumProduction);

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/use-sql-subselects-to-consolidate-queries/1045787

The Rule of Seven

The Rule of Seven

A control chart is a line graph that represents measurements of a process performance. The chart also contains the Target Value for the attribute being measured, the upper control limit (UCL) and the Lower Control Limit (LCL).

Rule of seven : In control charts, if there are seven points on one side of mean, then an assignable cause must be found.

http://www.preparepm.com/notes/quality.html

Rough Order of Magnitude

Rough Order of Magnitude
the Rough Order of Magnitude estimate = -50% to +50%.


Rough Order-of-Magnitude (ROM) Estimate of costs and time when Requirements are not specified in the early stages of the project.

he ROM Estimate includes the following project parameters which are the foundation for estimation:
Parameter Explanation
Interval, staff-hours Project may be completed within this range if all Requirements will be within the scope specified by Vision document.
Accuracy, % ROM Estimate is created by three estimators. Accuracy equals to 100% minus the biggest difference between one individual estimate and the mean.
Time estimate, weeks Minimum and maximum duration of the project in weeks.
Retainer Amount of staff-hours required to complete Inception Phase in order to produce detailed Specification and exact project Budget.
KSLOC estimated An estimate of Kilo Software Lines Of Code to be written in the project. We calculate and estimate only hand-written, non-empty, non-comment lines of code.
Unadjusted FPs Function Points as an output parameter from COCOMO-II estimate method. In a simplified approach, function points could be compared with software functions or class methods.
Features, BC/WC/ML List of Features from Vision document that were used by estimators. Best Case (BC), Worst Case (WC), and Most Likely (ML) are the output numbers of three-point estimate method. The numbers are just programming staff-hours by the estimate of programmers.


http://www.technoparkcorp.com/process/cost/rom

plan–do–check–act

PDCA (plan–do–check–act or plan–do–check–adjust) is an iterative four-step management method used in business for the control and continuous improvement of processes and products. It is also known as the Deming circle/cycle/wheel, Shewhart cycle, control circle/cycle, or plan–do–study–act (PDSA). Another version of this PDCA cycle is OPDCA. The added "O" stands for observation or as some versions say "Grasp the current condition."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA