Business change manager interview questions

Change is a big part of what people do within a organisation, it’s success or failure can make or break a business case. Change management through the delivery of projects for example is littered with expensive failures, you only need to read the computing press to see how badly governments around the world fail to deliver value with their change programmes.

Change needs and infact demands engagement across the organisation. For example end users need to feel that their opinions have been taken into account, sponsors must support, change agents need to understand why they are changing. Change should be aligned to organisational objectives, it’s success must be measurable, deliver value, be backed up with analysis, require problem solving, planning, cost control and management.

Demonstrating change and project delivery competencies at a comptetency based interviee means developing examples that cover many bases. Your approach to change needs to show both leadership and management. Most importantly it’s not all about the mechanics of project delivery such as milestone adherence, risk and issue management, change control, resources, budgets etc it is also the human factor, combating resistance and fear of change, busines process, sponsorship, belief and collective sucess.

You also need to understand the impact of competing demands of those changing. Day job verses the effort required to change needs to be balanced. In particular managing the demands of competing projects through active and considered programme management is often critical.
Change managers are also required to have a knowledge of the business environment in which the company operates. We all need to understand the wider environment in order to deliver successful change. To me this is drifting into technical skills which might include developing SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) or conducting a PESTLE study (Political,
Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and environmental) into the external environment.

Competency based interview questions at a job interview

Tell me about a time when there was resistance to change relating to a project you were delivering ?
Can you tell me about an occasion when you had to mange demands for competing resources?
Give me an example when a project encountered barriers to change ? How to you overcome those barriers ? How did you priortise the resources ?
How have you understood stake holders or sponsors expectations of change ? How have you identified that the drivers for change exist ? Can you give me an example of a time when a project you we’re working didn’t to meet the sponsors or stakeholders expectations ?