Interviewing for a program management role? You’ve come to the right place. In this article, I’ll share 12 of the most common and critical program management interview questions you need to be prepared for.
Whether you’re interviewing for an associate, coordinator, specialist, manager, director, or vice president position, program management interviews tend to focus on assessing your technical knowledge, communication abilities, problem-solving skills, and expertise in areas like stakeholder management, budgeting, resource planning, and risk management.
Master these 12 program management interview questions and you’ll ace your next interview and land your dream program management job in no time, Let’s get started!
1. Walk Me Through Your Experience Managing a Program From End-to-End
This is one of the most fundamental program management interview questions. To ace your response, be prepared to provide a high-level overview of a specific program you successfully managed from initiation to closure
Focus on highlighting key program management activities like:
- Working with stakeholders to identify goals, requirements, budgets, timelines
- Creating a program charter, schedule, budget
- Assembling a program team and defining roles
- Managing interdependencies across multiple projects and workstreams
- Monitoring progress, milestones, issues, risks, resources
- Managing communications and stakeholder expectations
- Controlling scope creep
- Driving program to successful completion and transition
Be ready to discuss metrics and outcomes that demonstrate the success of the program you managed as well. Share program KPIs you tracked and overall business impact.
2. How Do You Prioritize When Managing Conflicting Stakeholder Demands?
Stakeholder management is an essential program manager skillset. With this question, interviewers want to understand how you balance potentially competing needs and priorities from different stakeholders.
In your response, explain your stakeholder analysis process to map and tier stakeholders. Discuss how you identify key stakeholder concerns and requirements through listening and requirements gathering. Share how you work cross-functionally to find solutions that address different needs. Convey how you leverage the program charter, budgets, and data on costs, resources, and risks to make informed trade-off decisions and set priorities. Outline how you communicate priorities and next steps to gain alignment.
3. Tell Me About a Time You Had To Manage Budget Cuts or Resource Constraints on a Program
Things rarely go 100% according to plan on large, complex programs. Interviewers may ask you to describe a time when you had to successfully adapt and respond to budget cuts or resource constraints to assess your critical thinking, prioritization, and change management skills.
Focus your answer on how you approached re-scoping the program to work within the new budget or resource limitations. What activities did you decide could be descoped or deferred? What could be delivered more cost-effectively? How did you involve stakeholders in the process? What data did you leverage to inform decision making? How did you rally your team and manage morale? What were the end results?
4. Describe Your Experience Managing Agile Development Programs
As agile frameworks become more prevalent, you should be prepared to discuss your experience managing agile programs. Talk through how you drive iterative delivery and continuous feedback loops across agile teams. Share program-level agile practices and tools you leverage like weighted shortest job first, program Kanban or Scrum of Scrums.
Discuss how you align agile team execution with traditional program management disciplines like risk/issue tracking, vendor management, budgeting, and quality management. Convey your understanding of blending agile and traditional approaches to balance flexibility, visibility, and scalability on enterprise programs.
5. How Do You Measure Success and Track Benefits Realization on Programs You Manage?
A key part of program management is measuring outcomes to ensure the program achieves its intended benefits and ROI. This question tests your experience driving strategic program performance tracking and reporting.
In your answer, explain how you develop meaningful program-level KPIs and metrics aligned to overall business goals. Discuss how you baseline program benefits and establish targets. Share how you work with teams to track progress through tools like benefit realization plans and benefit achievement reports. Convey how you leverage data to keep stakeholders updated on program performance and benefit achievement.
6. Tell Me About a Time You Had To Resolve Conflicts Between Two Teams Working on the Same Program.
Cross-team collaboration is critical on large programs but can also lead to conflicts. Interviewers may ask you to share a time when you successfully resolved conflicts between teams to gauge your people management and influence skills.
In your story, set up the situation by explaining the two teams involved and nature of the conflict. Share how you proactively took steps to understand the root causes, perspectives, and priorities of each team. Discuss how you objectively mediated and drove consensus on a path forward. Convey how you worked to improve processes or communication to prevent future issues. Outline the improved team dynamics and program outcomes you achieved.
7. Describe Your Experience Presenting Program Performance Data and Reports to Executives
Communication and presentation abilities are essential for program managers. Be ready to discuss your experience reporting program status and performance data to executives.
Highlight how you focused reports on message, audience, visual appeal, and simplicity. Share how you highlighted key program health indicators, risks, milestones, KPIs, and financials in executive-friendly dashboards. Discuss how you prepared and presented data to align with executive priorities and concerns. Convey how you were able to effectively answer executives’ questions to provide visibility they needed to make informed decisions on programs.
8. Tell Me About a Time You Had to Manage Changing Priorities and Scope Creep on a Program
Change is inevitable on large enterprise programs. Interviewers want to know how you’ve effectively managed changing priorities, new requirements, and scope creep.
In your example, explain how change was introduced into the program and your process for assessing impact to budgets, timelines, resources, risk, quality. Discuss how you worked with stakeholders to re-prioritize and control unnecessary scope changes. Share how you rallied your team through the changes. Outline how you were able to keep the program on track to successfully deliver business outcomes.
9. How Do You Identify, Mitigate, and Manage Risks on Programs You Manage?
Sound program risk management is a must-have skillset. Be ready to discuss your systematic process for identifying, analyzing, prioritizing and mitigating program risks.
Share risk management tools and techniques you’ve used like risk registers, probability and impact matrices, contingency planning, and risk response strategies. Explain your approach to developing risk mitigation plans and working with teams to implement them. Discuss your methods for continually monitoring, controlling, and reporting on program risks. Share how your risk management practices have enhanced outcomes on real programs.
10. Tell Me About a Time You Had to Manage Multiple Vendors and Third-Parties on a Program
Program managers often oversee vendors and third-party relationships. Expect questions on your experience managing external partners and suppliers.
Focus your story on vendor governance best practices like defining SLAs, implementing tracking processes, and conducting performance reviews. Discuss how you aligned vendors on program objectives and built trusted working relationships. Share how you worked through vendor-related setbacks or conflict. Highlight vendor management successes that enhanced program outcomes.
11. How Do You Ensure Quality and Drive Continuous Improvement on Programs?
Quality and continuous improvement are cornerstones of good program management. With this question, show you have a proven methodology to bake quality practices into program delivery and cultivate a culture of improvement.
Discuss how you establish quality standards and metrics tied to program objectives. Share techniques like quality audits, reviews, and lessons learned you’ve used to monitor and enhance quality. Explain how you empower teams to identify improvement opportunities. Outline how you track program processes and outcomes to identify areas for optimization. Convey how you involve stakeholders to solicit feedback and ideas to improve program performance.
12. Why Are You Interested in This Program Manager Position and What Value Will You Bring to Our Organization?
Every program management interview will likely end with questions on your interest in the role and the value you will bring if hired. Be prepared with a compelling response that conveys your passion for the position and how your skills and experience align to the organization’s program management needs.
Do your homework on the company’s business, initiatives, program management challenges and goals. Tailor your answer to show how you will apply your expertise to help the organization achieve critical outcomes. Share past successes managing similar programs and how that experience will enable you to make an immediate impact if brought on board. Convey your commitment to driving world-class program execution that achieves strategic objectives and fuels business growth.
Key Takeaways
There you have it – 12 of the most common and critical program management interview questions with high-scoring sample responses. Use this expert guidance to showcase your technical capabilities, leadership skills, and deliver results-driven program management approaches.
Be sure to draw from real examples and metrics from programs you have successfully managed. With the right preparation and confidence in your experience, you will be in prime position to have a stellar interview and get hired for your next exciting program leadership opportunity. Good luck!
Toptal sourced essential questions that the best program managers can answer. Driven from our community, we encourage experts to submit questions and offer feedback.
What is the difference between project and program management?
The project manager role is more tactical compared to the strategic role of program management. Every day, a project manager is in charge of things like putting together and leading a project team, keeping track of resources and schedules, and getting project results to the client. A program manager is usually in charge of several projects that all work toward the same strategic goal set out in the program. This role involves leading multiple project managers, formulating and adapting strategic goals, communicating and coordinating with top-level management. 2 .
What is the difference between governance and management in the context of a program?
Governance includes strategic level decision-making, financial planning, and oversight. Governance provides values, purpose, goals, and structure, which form guidelines for management. Different people should undertake governance and management positions.
They are in charge of putting the company’s goals into action, so they are like a manager on a company level. On the other hand, they are in charge of running a certain program and give project managers instructions. 3 .
How do you evaluate a project’s performance?
To make sure the program is on track to meet its goals and to give project managers feedback, program managers have to keep an eye on how the projects are doing. There are some broad performance indicators that can be used for all projects, even though they may be different for each company:
- Costs – compare the budget to actual spending.
- Schedule: Check to see if project goals are being met on time
- Compare the quality of the finished product to the quality plans that were made at the start of the project.
- Business Case Alignment: Look at the business situation again and see if the project is still on track to meet business needs with the current budget and schedule.
- Satisfaction of Stakeholders: Find out if the project’s stakeholders are happy with the deliverables and the way the project manager communicates with them.
Apply to Join Toptals Project Management Network
and enjoy reliable, steady, remote Freelance Program Manager Jobs
What is Earned Value Management (EVM)?
Earned Value Management (EVM) tries to keep track of a project’s progress and performance in an unbiased way by combining the three measurements of project management: time, scope, and costs.
EVM can be very complicated and include a lot of different forecasts and indicators that are useful for various industries. However, at its most basic level, EVM is made up of three main parts:
- The work that needs to be done for a project to be finished is written down in a project plan.
- “Planned Work” (PV) is the cost that was planned for all the work in the project plan plus any extra costs.
- Earned Value (EV) is the amount of money that was planned to be spent on the work that was actually done, plus any extra costs that came up during planning.
5 .
How do you determine funding requirements for a program?
The budget for the program management team is added to the budgets for all the projects in the program to get the total amount of money needed for the program. Some programs take multiple years to complete and thus the concept of period funding requirement is appropriate. Quarterly, half-year or yearly periods are managed by the program managers with all the project managers. 6 .
How would you approach risk management in a program?
Firstly, a program manager should put down all of the possible risks in the list and prioritize them. One easy way to figure out what to do first is to put all the risks on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “very unlikely to happen” and 5 meaning “very likely to happen.” After that, each risk needs to be rated on a new 1–5 scale based on how bad the effect would be if it happened (1 being the least likely and 5 being the most likely). The two multiplied numbers for each risk create a prioritized list.
Secondly, a risk mitigation plan has to be put in place. Each risk item needs to be assigned a course of action based on these options:
- Avoid: making changes to the way things are done that would stop the risk from happening.
- Control means taking steps in the middle that lessen the chance or effect of a risk happening.
- Accept the risk; think that it will happen and plan for how it will hurt you financially or in some other way.
- Transfer: Give the risk to someone else by getting insurance or hiring someone else to do some of the work.
7 .
How would you determine if a project is at risk?
They can keep an eye on a project and spot risks early on in a number of ways:
- With unified dashboards, a program manager must keep track of all projects’ relevant metrics and ask project managers to comment on any big changes from the plan.
- Stakeholders—keep in touch with the project’s most important stakeholders on a regular basis to get an accurate picture of its health, since they are more than willing to bring up any issues that may be present.
- Make it easier to report; talk to project managers more directly and often. Giving people who are in charge of projects your trust will help you be sure that no one is hiding any problems.
- Tips from anonymous people: A program can have hundreds of people working on it, so it’s not possible to talk to most of them every day. Giving them a way to talk to the program manager about any problems without going through the project manager can give you a much better picture of how the project is going.
Program managers must monitor numerous projects at once. This question asks applicants to describe how they manage projects, how they find project risks, and what steps they take to make sure projects are finished successfully. What to look for in an answer:
Applicant’s management style and communication skills
Critical thinking skills and ability to identify and mitigate risk
Example: “I consistently analyze project health, looking at timeliness, budget, staffing and client satisfaction. I utilize project and program dashboards to give me a unified, real-time view. I simplify reporting processes and regularly interact with project managers and leads. Additionally, I build trusting relationships with project managers and teams in order to increase transparency and improve communication. ” 8 .
What are the advantages of grouping projects under a program?
- Having related projects under the same program makes it easier to see how they all fit together and how they affect the company’s goals.
- The program works toward the same goal, so if a project needs more resources or people at some point, it’s easier for project managers and project team members to understand why people need to move to other teams.
- Getting the most out of your resources—a program has more buying power than any one project in it When more projects use the same tools, infrastructure, or services, the program can get discounts on them.
- Similar performance metrics make it easier to figure out which projects have the best return on investment (ROI) and move resources to those projects to make a bigger difference.
9 .
How do you control the scope of projects?
Every project in a program needs to be in line with and work toward the same strategic goal. This is the job of the program manager. To begin, clear goals must be set for each project and laid out in one place to make sure that all the important parts of a program are covered. This high-level view will quickly show any milestones that aren’t needed or are too many. It will also show any projects that depend on each other. Secondly, regular meetings with all project managers are crucial for keeping the scope of all projects in check. New information can come out over time that could change the order of priorities for a project or even the program itself. Regular updates ensure that the scope does not get out of control and strategic goals are achieved. 10 .
What is your strategy for change management?
Change management is a planned out course of action to accommodate changes in strategy, processes or tools. People usually don’t like big changes to the way things have always been done, so this resistance needs to be managed to keep people from having bad psychological effects. One way to approach change management for a program manager is in a phased manner.
To begin, make it clear why the change is necessary and how it will affect the company, team, or department. Having data-driven research to support your claims will make your message stronger and lessen the hesitation or resistance. Communicate the changes not just to the project manager, but to everyone working in the program.
Secondly, create a pilot project for the change that would involve one or two project teams. Try to find project managers and teams which seem the most open to this change. Along with getting other teams on board, use the pilot to work out any bugs in the new process.
Finally, make a plan with all the project managers for when the change will be made by the project teams after the pilot.
There is more to interviewing than tricky technical questions, so these are intended merely as a guide. Not every good candidate for the job will be able to answer all of them, and answering all of them doesn’t mean they are a good candidate. At the end of the day, hiring remains an art, a science — and a lot of work.
Tired of interviewing candidates? Not sure what to ask to get you a top hire?
Let Toptal find the best people for you.
Our Exclusive Network of Program Managers
Looking to land a job as a Program Manager?
Let Toptal find the right job for you.
Job Opportunities From Our Network
Submit an interview question
Questions and answers sent in will be looked over and edited by Toptal, LLC, and may or may not be posted, at their sole discretion.
PROGRAM MANAGER Interview Questions & Answers! (Programme Manager Interview Tips!)
FAQ
How do I prepare for a program manager interview?
Why are you a good fit for program manager position?
How do I answer why I want to be a program manager?
What makes a strong program manager?
What questions do program management interviewers ask?
Interviewers for program management roles typically ask a variety of questions to better understand how you’d fit at their company and how well you’d perform at the job. In this article, we list 21 program management interview questions and provide sample answers for 11 of them.
What is a program manager interview profile?
This Program manager interview profile brings together a snapshot of what to look for in candidates with a balanced sample of suitable interview questions. Want to fine-tune this interview kit? Regenerate with AI Looking for a related job? Find them in Workable’s job board
What should a program manager do in an interview?
How to Answer: Program Managers are expected to coordinate and collaborate with different teams, so it is important for the interviewer to understand your experience in this area. You should be able to demonstrate that you have worked successfully with multiple departments or stakeholders to achieve a common goal.
How do you Ace a program manager interview?
To ace your program manager interview, knowing what potential interview questions your hiring manager will ask can help you prepare answers ahead of time. Here are 10 common questions they might ask: 1. Tell me about yourself.
