I am often asked about how to prepare for interviews for the positions of PMO Director or PMO Manager. One of the first things I tell people who ask is, “You must understand that this is not the same as interviewing for a project manager job.” ” Obviously right, but you would be surprised. So, PMO Directors and Managers need to pay attention to both the company they’re in charge of and the projects and programs they’re running. It’s a balance, but keep that in mind when you’re interviewing: they want to see people with that balance. It will be hard for someone who is too focused on one side or the other—either on people or on projects—to do well in this role.
Before we go any further, I made a short YouTube video about this subject that I’m sure you will enjoy. Check it out here:
What do you think? Let me know in the comments below the video. I am dying to hear what you think!.
If you read my articles and background, you’ll know that I have 30 years of experience as a tactical project manager, and for more than 20 of those years I have worked specifically with PMOs. So, I am coming at this from many-many years of experience running PMOs and sitting in PMO interviews. After a lot of interviews, I’m now in charge of my 10th PMO. It comes down to not only being able to run a PMO and deal with some of its challenges, but also having good people and leadership skills.
So, how do you prepare for an interview with a PMO Director or Manager? It’s really that simple. Don’t think too much about it; if you do, you’ll stop yourself from getting a great job.
First, you need to look for some sample questions for PMO Manager/PMO Director roles. Once you have those questions, you practiced a ton, you will be ready. I help people with interviews and practice interviews all the time, so feel free to get in touch with me here whenever you’re ready.
Another important part of this job search is reading the job description for the position you are interviewing for as you get ready. You see, the job description for your new PMO position itself tells you a lot about what you will be doing if you get the job. The more details, the more the company values the role, the fewer details…. Watch out! On the other hand, if you are new to the role of PMO Manager, the job descriptions with the fewest details will help you learn and grow. Before your next interview, you should really think about these Project Management Office – Director/Manager PMO Interview Questions.
Landing an interview for a Director of Projects role is a major accomplishment. As the leader responsible for overseeing complex initiatives from start to finish you need to demonstrate strategic thinking top-notch communication skills, and unwavering leadership abilities.
The interview is your chance to showcase why you are the ideal candidate to take on this critical position. However, you can’t just wing it and hope for the best. Thoughtful preparation and practice are essential to stand out among other qualified applicants.
This list of 15 of the most common Director of Projects interview questions and how to answer them will help you put your best foot forward:
1. What experience do you have managing large-scale, cross-functional projects?
This question aims to gauge both your technical experience and soft skills in coordinating diverse teams, stakeholders and resources to successfully execute multifaceted projects.
Tips for answering:
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Highlight at least one or two major projects you have managed from inception to completion. Focus on the scope, teams involved, challenges faced, and final outcomes.
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Demonstrate how you brought alignment between different functional groups like engineering, design marketing etc. and maintained open communication channels.
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Share any metrics/KPIs that showcase the success of the projects like completing under budget, high client satisfaction scores, performance improvements etc.
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Discuss the leadership, problem-solving, and organizational skills you leveraged to drive results.
2. How do you ensure projects are delivered on time and within budget?
Here the interviewer wants to understand your approach to balancing the constraints of time, budget and resources to achieve desired project outcomes.
Tips for answering:
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Emphasize the importance of detailed project planning and setting clear timelines/budgets from the start.
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Discuss overseeing workstreams, optimizing resource allocation, and tracking KPIs to identify issues early.
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Give examples of when you had to make adjustments to timelines or budgets and how you worked with stakeholders to align on changes.
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Share how you motivate teams and foster collaboration to boost productivity and efficiency.
3. What methods and tools do you use for project management and reporting?
This question tests your familiarity with project management software, systems, and processes to deliver transparency and drive informed decision making.
Tips for answering:
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Name specific platforms you have used like Asana, Trello, Smartsheet, MS Project etc. and key features leveraged.
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Discuss creating plans, managing workflows, tracking progress, and generating reports/dashboards.
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Share how you optimized or introduced new tools and systems to improve visibility, enhance team collaboration, and create efficiencies.
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Demonstrate a solid grasp of project management best practices beyond just using software tools.
4. How do you manage changing priorities and shifting requirements during a project?
Since projects rarely go 100% according to plan, interviewers want to know how you adeptly manage change and keep projects on track.
Tips for answering:
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Share that while change is inevitable, you try to lock down requirements upfront through thorough planning.
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Outline change management processes you follow like impact analysis, approvals, documentation etc.
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Give examples of when you had to reroute resources or adjust schedules to accommodate changes while minimizing disruptions.
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Discuss frequent status updates and open communication to ensure transparency around changes.
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Emphasize flexibility and openness to necessary changes balanced with controlling scope creep.
5. How do you make sure team members understand their roles and responsibilities?
This behavioral question tests your ability to set clear expectations, empower team members, and foster collaboration and alignment.
Tips for answering:
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Discuss holding kickoff meetings to outline project objectives, plans, roles and responsibilities.
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Share that you have ongoing check-ins to reinforce team member responsibilities and provide support.
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Give examples of aligning responsibilities with team members’ skills/experiences and providing learning opportunities.
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Highlight communicating not just individual tasks, but the bigger picture of how each role ladders up to project success.
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Emphasize an open door policy for questions and transparent team communications.
6. What is your approach to managing project risks and issues?
Here the focus is on your experience identifying, mitigating, and managing risks and issues to protect project outcomes.
Tips for answering:
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Share how you take a proactive vs reactive approach to risk management.
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Discuss working with teams to conduct regular risk analysis of schedule, resources, technology, vendors etc.
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Give examples of high impact risks and how you developed contingency plans to address them.
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Outline issue escalation processes and focusing on root cause analysis.
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Emphasize frequent status reviews to identify risks/issues early before they become major impediments.
7. How do you handle conflicts and disagreements among project team members?
Interviewers ask this to gauge your people management and conflict resolution abilities amid challenging team dynamics.
Tips for answering:
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Start by stating you have a “no blame” approach and aim to uncover the source of conflicts.
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Discuss facilitating open and honest dialogue between disagreeing parties to build understanding.
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Share you look for compromise and coach team members on productive communication.
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Give examples of resolving tense team situations while maintaining trust and morale.
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Emphasize the team’s shared goals and the importance of presenting a unified front to stakeholders.
8. What metrics do you track to determine whether a project was successful?
Here the focus is on understanding your approach to measuring project performance against targets and defining success.
Tips for answering:
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Discuss looking at the triple constraint – completed on time, within budget, and met requirements.
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Highlight measuring quality, customer satisfaction, business impact etc. beyond just schedule and cost.
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Give examples of success metrics used for different project types and how you measured against them.
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Share that you conduct lessons learned at project closure to refine success measures for future projects.
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Demonstrate a results-oriented approach focused on continuous improvement.
9. How do you ensure consistency across multiple projects within an organization?
This aims to understand how you drive consistency and share knowledge across different initiatives to enable organizational efficiencies.
Tips for answering:
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Discuss maintaining standardized processes and tools across all projects where possible.
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Share best practices around planning, risk management, status updates etc. that you mandate.
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Give examples of project debriefs to capture learnings and processes to document work for future teams.
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Highlight cross-project mentoring and identifying subject matter experts to provide guidance.
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Emphasize the importance of consistency without stifling flexibility as needed.
10. What is your approach to managing project stakeholders?
Here the focus is on your experience managing diverse stakeholders and aligning their needs with project workstreams.
Tips for answering:
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Highlight the importance of early and frequent stakeholder engagement.
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Discuss tools like RACI matrices to map stakeholders to project tasks and communications.
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Share tactics like one-on-one meetings with influential stakeholders and addressing concerns promptly.
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Give examples of presentations to senior leaders and providing easy to digest status updates.
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Emphasize relationship building with stakeholders and making them active partners in the project’s success.
11. How do you mentor and motivate your project team for top performance?
This aims to understand your leadership style and ability to inspire teams to bring their A-game to project work.
Tips for answering:
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Discuss leading by example – modeling hard work, positivity, and vulnerability to build trust.
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Share providing coaching/mentorship and opportunities for people to take on leadership roles or challenges.
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Give examples of efforts to boost morale like celebrating small wins, individual recognition etc.
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Highlight getting to know people’s passions/goals and personalizing growth opportunities.
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Emphasize servant leadership focused on unlocking people’s potential through empathy and empowerment.
12. How do you ensure quality control throughout a project lifecycle?
Here the focus is on your experience building quality practices into all project stages from planning to delivery.
Tips for answering:
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Discuss setting quality standards upfront based on customer needs, industry best practices etc.
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Share tactics like peer code reviews, user testing, process audits etc. to validate work quality.
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Give examples of early pilots or prototypes to get stakeholder feedback and refine work.
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Highlight extensive QA testing and checks at each milestone vs just end of project.
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Emphasize continuous improvement mindset and enhancing practices even after quality criteria are met.
13. Have you ever had to cancel a troubled project? How did you handle it?
While never ideal, sometimes canceling a challenged project is the right strategic move. Interviewers want to know you can make those tough calls.
Tips for answering:
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Share briefly the circumstances and factors that made you recommend cancellation.
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Discuss presenting analysis and recommendations to senior leaders
Types of Interview Questions
Before we begin, you should know that each company does these interviews in their own unique way, but most of them follow the same patterns that you should be ready for. These include:
- Behavior Interview Questions
- Star Method Questions
- Scenario-Based Interview Questions
- Professional Experience Based Questions
- Hard Skills
- Soft Skills
I highly recommend you spend time and prepare each of these areas. They will be asked again during the interview, as you can see from the list below. So be prepared.
Ok, let’s dive into these questions. Are you excited? I am! I’m going to share questions and ideas I have never shared before, and you will get them from someone who has done it before and is still doing it today. Want real world advice, well here you go.
You will be asked about your leadership and people skills, as well as your PMO and project management skills. Here is a solid list of pmo interview questions to get you started in this process.
Project Management Office – Director/Manager PMO Interview Questions (Tactical PMO Focused)
- Have you ever set up a PMO? If so, where, what kind, how big, and what did you have to begin with?
- Have you ever had to take over a PMO that was already in place? If so, what did you do, how did you go about it, and what happened?
- Have you ever had to run a PMO that you didn’t build?
- What do you think are the most important parts of a PMO, and have you ever used them?
- Have you ever created and used a Governance process? If so, what kind of process did you use, how big was it, and what happened?
- Have you ever used Project Portfolio Management in your PMOs? If so, how did it go, what did you learn, and what did the end result look like?
- Have you ever built resource management capabilities into your PMO?
- What role does organizational change management play in running a PMO? Have you worked with any formal frameworks before? If so, which ones and how did you use them to run a PMO?
- What PMO tools or software have you used? What tools have you used, how did you use them, and what kind of results did you get?
- What is the hardest thing about running a PMO? Why is it hard? How do you deal with it?
- How do you show that the governance processes in your PMO are valuable and work well?
- In your PMO, what metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) do you use? How do you measure them?
- If AI and automation technologies keep getting better, how do you think they could be used in the PMO? What are the pros and cons that we should think about?
- How would you make sure that members of your PMO team don’t send company data to AI chatbots like Google Bard, CoPilot, and others?
- How do you make sure that governance processes and frameworks are regularly reviewed and improved based on lessons learned and changing business needs? How do you encourage a culture of continuous improvement within the PMO?
Ok, that’s enough for now and a great start to get you preparing for a PMO Director/Manager interview. How did you do? It was tough, maybe a little tougher than a real interview, but that’s okay. I’ve been doing this for years and know a lot about it, and I’m trying to teach you what I know. I want to tell you what you can expect to deal with as a real PMO manager. It’s good to know what you will be up against before you start the job.
As you prepare and practice your answers to these questions, my #1 advice that I can give you is “think wide, not deep”. As you can see, a PMO manager’s job is pretty broad. They run organizations, not just work on every project. You just can’t and still be scalable. You will think about all of these questions in a new way as soon as you make that mental shift. After reading this, you’ll understand why I’m asking these questions, and that will shape how you answer them in the interview.
Remember that the best project managers in the world are not necessarily the best PMO managers. The roles are different, the skills required are different, and the focus is different. Don’t blow them away by showing them that you are the world’s best project manager in these PMO Manager interviews.
There is a lot of information about how to prepare for interviews on the internet, which is what I suggest you do. But I can also help. If you want to know the answers to these questions or find out more about me, visit my site here. We can work together, and I can help you get that next job.
If you like, I created this into an Ebook for you that I thought you would enjoy. Here is that link, let me know what you think!
PROJECT MANAGER Interview Questions & ANSWERS! (How to PASS a Project Management Job Interview!)
FAQ
What makes a good director of project management?
What is one of the most important skills a project director can have?
What is asked in director interview?
What questions should project directors ask in a job interview?
Innovation is a key driver in today’s competitive business landscape, and project directors must be able to adapt and find creative solutions to various challenges. By asking this question, interviewers want to gauge your ability to think outside the box, incorporate new ideas, and stay ahead of the curve.
What questions should you ask during a project interview?
An interview might ask you about your last project to get a sense of what types of projects you’re used to, what project management approaches you’ve used, the number of people on your team, and other details. How to answer: Describe the important information about the project, like the overall goal, team size, and how you approached it.
Are You preparing for a director interview?
If you’re preparing for a Director Interview, you’ve probably done your fair share of job interviews over the years. You’re ready to “ tell [them] about yourself ” and can answer anything an interviewer can throw at you regarding your most relevant skills and your career goals. It’s time to get down to the details.
How do you answer a project management question?
How to answer: Communication and negotiation are likely to be an important part of your answer here. Knowing your team’s needs, capacity, and the project’s available resources might also influence your answer. For more ideas on preparing answers this question, see the video below from the Google Project Management Professional Certificate.
