From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
All of our projects are different. We never know what our customers will want, in advance. It’s almost always a custom solution. So, when we are hiring a project manager, it’s difficult to determine what skills the candidate will need to be successful. That’s why, most of the time, we wing it, when it comes to interview questions. How can we do a better job in the interview, instead of just working off of the resume?

Response:
We may not know anything about the project, but we can still work on preparedness. So, think about behaviors connected to being prepared.

• Diagnostic questions
• Project planning
• Short interval planning
• Project adjustments
• Discipline

The only way to work through an ill-defined or unknown project specification, is to define the project. You are accurate, that many customers don’t really know what they want. Sometimes your best contribution, in managing the project, is helping the customer to define the project. What are the problems to be solved and the decisions to be made as the project meanders its way to completion?

Determine questions related to diagnosis, planning and project adjustments.

• Tell me about a project you worked on where the customer was not clear on what they wanted?
• What was the project?
• What was your role on the project?
• What was the purpose for the project?
• How did the customer describe the project?
• What was the real project?
• How did you determine the real project specification?
• What changed about the project when it was better defined?
• What changed about the resources required when the project was better defined?
• What changed about the budget when the project was better defined?
• How did you explain the changes in resources and budget to the customer?
• How many people on your project team?
• How did you explain the changes to your project team?
• What mid-course corrections were required?
• How did you discover the mid-course correction?
• How did you determine the overall project met the initial purpose of the project?

These questions will get you better data, than just winging it off the resume.