Program and Project Management

How would you start a project?

1. Define goals 2. Identify team members 3. Define scope 4. Develop plan 5. Execute 6. Test

How do you evaluate success or failure of a project?

1. Schedule 2. Scope 3. Cost 4. Team satisfaction 5. Client/Customer satisfaction 6. Quality of work

How would you balance and prioritize multiple projects of varying complexity?

1. Understand strategic goals 2. Identify project drivers (competitive advantage; cost savings; operational efficiency; tax implications; improving quality; risk reduction; growth) 3. Quantify strategic value (intermediate and long term impact as well as anticipated benefits; take into account risks of not starting a project) 4. Determine factors that may impact project success (roi; cost - budget/available resources; schedule; dependencies) 5. Create evaluation and prioritization matrix 6. Close loop with all involved parties

How do you handle scope creep?

Additional scope should be documented, estimated, and prioritized accordingly. You could also build in capacity.

How do you estimate a new project's expected work if you have no prior history to rely on?

Bottom-up project estimation breaks down and estimates each component of a project. Each key portion or work package is split and broken down to greater levels of detail. - Estimate accuracy relies on level of detail known - Can take considerable amount of time for complex projects - Can take considerable amount of money - May not be ideal during early initiation due to the cost of this estimation technique. 3 point estimate: Best case, worst case, most likely case. Outline the project Make tasks granular Use the b-player estimate Understand bottlenecks (e.g. approvals, legal, requirements churn) Identify drag (e.g. meetings) After the project, conduct earned value management, do a post-mortem, leverage hindsight.

How would you prepare a 5 page or less Powerpoint to the executive team?

Create summary slides: High-level findings, conclusions, recommendations, a call to action. (10% rule). Let team dictate conversation and refer to appendix slides as relevant questions and comments come up.

What is critical path? Give me an example.

In other words, if you arrange all the tasks in a project to account for their dependencies (like building the second floor of a building only after you build the first one), and nothing goes wrong (ha!), the critical path is the soonest you'll finish your project.

Compare Agile and Waterfall methodologies.

Waterfall a linear approach to the project execution, its internal phases are sequential and executed in a chronological order. 1) strong emphasis on planning and specifications development, which takes up to 40% of the project time and budget 2) the strict order of the project phases; a new project stage does not begin until the previous one is finished 3) tight control over the development process Otherwise, the restrictions of the Waterfall method and its inability to adjust the product to the evolving market requirements, result in a huge waste of resources and the eventual project failure. The Agile approach is very flexible. Agile is an umbrella term for a number of methodologies and techniques. The most popular are Scrum, Kanban, and Lean.. Agile projects consist of a number of smaller cycles - sprints, each having a backlog and consisting of design, implementation, testing and deployment stages within the pre-defined scope of work. At the end of each sprint, a potentially shippable product increment is delivered. Agile methodologies are characterized by: 1) iterative approach to software development 2) flexibility and rapid turnaround 3) easy management of the changing priorities 4) increased team productivity through daily task allocation 5) great project visibility due to the simple planning system

When to use waterfall vs agile

Waterfall: The methodology works best for clearly defined projects with a single deliverable and fixed deadline. In this case, it enables on-time, on-budget delivery, low project risks, and predictable final results. Both methods are iterative, but Agile iterations tend to be shorter than Waterfall iterations. Agile iterations tend to be measured in days or weeks; Waterfall iterations tend to be measured in months.

What are some strategies to handle competing visions on how to execute a project?

You could assign responsibility by area of the product (front end vs backend or support of different platforms, or completely separate products under a single "portfolio".) or by stage of life cycle (product definition vs launch). Unless there's a natural division that's obvious and apparent, and lends itself to different visions of the strategy, roadmap, and execution plan, this will inevitably wind up with conflicting goals, personalities, and undue randomization. The key is clarity on roles & responsibilities. You want to ensure a single voice of priority to avoid the "divorced parent" problem The ideal product management team contains three roles: business, technical, and marketing. These three work together to cover all aspects of the product. Common titles are strategic (or principal) product manager, technical product manager or product owner, and product marketing manager.

Given a deadline and limited resources, how would you complete a project successfully?

You must first understand what activities are considered most vital to the project's success, or on the "critical path." - Reallocate resources - Double check dependencies. Can activities be performed concurrently? - Swap resources - Work overtime