Interview

Each student will be interviewed for 10 minutes by an academic staff member or a course

demonstrator and asked to discuss their group assignment. Students will need to justify the project plan and discuss project success.

Outline 

Why? The interview is a chance for students to show they understand the language and the vocabulary of project management and can use them effectively. It provides a condensed assessment of students’ understanding of their PMP, and how their contributions fit together with the other group members to create an integrated project plan. Justification is a more challenging learning outcome on the course, and is assessable in an interview format. See also the descriptions of Course Learning Outcome CLO4 and CLO5.

Who? Students will be interviewed by one of the course demonstrators or staff members, who will be familiar with the content of the relevant group’s PMP assignment. They are unlikely to be the demonstrator who has been mentoring each group through the course content.

What? (content) The intervieweris emulating the role of a senior project stakeholder(suchas the

sponsor),concernedaboutexpendingresources,andrealisingbenefits.Thestudentisemulatingthe

role of the project manager, explaining, and justifying how their plan is going to deliver.

The interviewer will ask a question about justifying the project plans, as seen in Assignment Task3. If necessary, they will ask more questions or prompt responses. Approximately midway through the interview the interviewer will change topic to ask about project success.

The student should respond to the questions to show they have the necessary understanding. An interactive discussion between the student and interviewer is encouraged, however the student should do most of the talking and the interviewer should listen carefully, and record grades. A grading rubric is shown below.

When? The interviews will be held during week 10 . There will be some flexibility for scheduling the interview within these dates. Places will fill up and students who do not respond to availability surveys announced on Teams may be scheduled randomly in available time. If a student does not take part in a scheduled interview, they will not receive any marks, unless they have an approved Special Consideration application.

How?(conduct) Theclockstartsimmediatelyatthescheduledstarttime.Camerasandmicrophones

shall be turned on for both parties for the whole interview. The interviewer will ask the student to

identify themselves. The interview will not be recorded. It will last 10 minutes.

How? (preparation) The scheduled week 9 tutorial is designed to help students prepare for the

interview, so they are encouraged to attend and participate.

Students are encouraged to practice discussing their project plan among themselves, to improve their interviewing skills. Some practice questions for the interview are provided below. The questions in the real interview will be similar, but not necessarily identical to these questions.

Interview Practice Questions

Questions about justifying the project plan

1. What is your contingency for this risk event?

2. How did you analyse yourstakeholders?

3. Where is the contingency plan costed in your budget?

4. Where are the tasks planned for deliverable X?

5. After the change request, what parts of the project did you have to change and how?

6. How has the change request impacted the risk profile of your project?

7. What part of the PMP did you work on? Explain this part. Explain what your team member(s) did for a different part.

Questions about project success

1. What is your definition of success for your project? How does your plan achieve this?

2. What are the main needs of your stakeholders?

3. What is the biggest risk in your project plan, and how does it impact on project success?

4. What is your minimum viable product?What proportion of the overall project benefit does it

deliver?

5. Whatopportunitieshaveyoudiscoveredthat youcouldexploittoenhanceyourproject

success? How wouldthis happen?

6. At what checkpoints in your plan could your project be abandoned if was not delivering the

expected value to the stakeholders? How would you decide?