Scenario Questions

Scenario question: You have just received a project from an important client with the deadline in two weeks, even though under normal circumstances such projects take four weeks. On reading the client’s expectations, you see that they are prioritized so that a few urgent questions must be answered to complete the project in two weeks. Other points typically covered in such a project can wait to be delivered after the two-week deadline. After some preliminary thinking, you estimate that despite the reduced scope, two weeks makes it extremely tight on time. Usually only one analyst (you) works on such projects, with some senior support. Your manager has offered all help. How would you propose to go about the project so as to meet the deadline?

• First,based on my experience, access whether all the urgent questions can be answered by me alone keeping some contingency for unforeseen delays.
• Will review my plan and milestones with manager. If the project seems achievable, I’ll handle it alone with minimal help from manager. If not, will ask my manager whether any of the team members could help me with certain questions of the project in parallel to the questions I would work on.
• Keep my manager and client informed of the progress in the project and assuring them of in-time delivery

Arya: Given that work items are already prioritised , will analyse which of the high priority items can be executed in parallel and which of the items has dependencies amongst them. Also will analyse on items that could take relatively longer time than other items. Will work with my manager to allocate sufficient resources on the items that takes more time and allocate teams that can work on parallel work items. Also will ensure that there are enough backup resources available at all the time during the duration of 2 weeks with contingency plan defined. Will ensure if exit criteria are properly defined and make sure sufficient quality checks are in place. Device a plan where both development and quality testing can happen in parallel ( agile model )

Scenario question: You like your firm and manager and have been growing well here. From your personal experience, you think it is a good place to work, with challenging assignments and wonderful colleagues, growth opportunities for its employees, and a performance-focused environment for evaluating an employee’s contribution.   You and another colleague work as a team on projects. Both of you have similar background and skills. Your manager assigns the project to both of you as a team. Then both of you break down the project into stages (A, B, C, …) and tasks within each stage (A.1, A.2, A.3, …) such that only one of you works on each task (e.g., you on A.1 and he on A.2). Each successive stage can begin only when all tasks in the previous stage are complete, checked thoroughly for accuracy, and the results are understood for clarity on how to do the next stage. Within each stage, the two of you work in parallel with no interaction needed. Both of you close each stage together by collating results and deciding how best to go to the next stage.   Both of you have been working together for six months now. While things were fine earlier, for the last two months you have been frustrated by your partner’s work. His work is often late within a stage and several times both of you have had to do rework due to errors in his work in an earlier stage which were not detected then. All of this has resulted in lot of pressure on both of you to do late nights and weekends, even though the manager assigns the projects with reasonable timelines. Your partner does not seem to be bothered by the errors or time pressures. Moreover, you think that you are taking more than a fair share of the load and your partner is taking on less work within each stage. Things came to a boil last week when your joint project was delivered late to a client and a few days later your manager informed that the client had found errors and discrepancies, much to everyone’s embarrassment and risk to the account. The two of you have received a new project. What do you do?

• I will talk to my partner and first of all acknowledge that we could have done better in the last project. I will also find out whether he has been facing any challenges at work or in personal life because of which he may have not been able to focus in the previous project.
• Find out whether my partner is facing some challenges in with specific type of tasks and reallocate if needed
• If there are issues that can’t be resolved between us to ensure that the client’s project doesn’t get impacted at all, I will discuss the situation with my manager and ask for his involvement in reviewing our deliverables for the new project

Arya: First thing I do is to accept the situation that its bound to happen in a team work. Second thing I would do is try and avoid similar situation in the new project. Will come up with a plan on how things could be improvised , where my partner can focus more so that it has very minimal impact or no impact when integrating with other’s work items. Will try and see if situation improves or my partner really puts in an effort for making sure he doesn’t repeat the same mistake. Despite my partner putting sincere efforts if still there are areas to be addressed with his / her knowledge will request for some additional resource or help from the manager for assistance. If I notice my partner not being sincere in his / her efforts , will bring it to the managements view so that swift action can be taken and this time company doesn’t need to face the embracement from the customer again, and keep up the values of the company and ensure trust is not broken.

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