Here’s a scenario: You are Project Manager on a new and important project. You have a 6-person team. You’re writing the planning documents, and J Doe, one of the key members of the team, leaves. Abruptly. Why J. quit doesn’t really matter. Maybe he or she inherited some money and decided to split for Tahiti. Maybe J simply decided to follow other dreams – which don’t involve your project.  He or she gave two week’s notice and put in a good 6-hour day for Monday thru Thursday, of the first week…. and checked out. 

But you, an “Alpha Project Manager,” are undaunted. You take a deep breath, call, email, or see the sponsor (physically or virtually) and say, “J Doe quit, effective a week from Friday. This role is critical. We – that is I – need to find a replacement.” 

What do you do next? It’s in your risk management plan, the section for human resource risk. Turn to Indeed, Linked In, recruiters and consultants you trust. But before you do that, you need to sit back and think: 

Essential Questions What is this role?  What is its essence?  What do you need in J’s replacement? What skills, experience, and training?  What is critical? And what is nice to have?

J may have been a database developer with experience in Oracle and MS SQL Server, with experience, like I have, going back to embedded SQL in C on Unix systems. But this project involves a “NoSQL” database like MongoDB or Couchbase, and you don’t need an SQL developer, you need someone who knows, or can learn, N1QL or JSON. 

Once you’ve identified the skills that you need in this team member, then you can begin your search. You need a Trifecta; you need to find someone who is willing to do the job, able to do the job, and manageable on the job. At higher levels, you may want someone with drive who is goal-oriented, not task-oriented, who gets things done. And that person has to listen as well as speak, and write clearly. He or she has to be able to speak to people at all levels. You need someone with the energy to do what it takes, the determination not to back off, and the confidence to ask for help. 

The Hiring Trifecta Willing to do the job. Able to do the job. Manageable on the job.

In your ads, and in your conversations with potential team members, you have to “sell” this opportunity and your company. Whether full-time or a contract, you have to explain why your company is a great place to work and why this opportunity is the best in the company right now because you’re building state of the art stuff to make the world a better place. 

And the reality is, projects create new products or services, and are mechanisms by which the company expects to improve its profitability and cash flow… so your project is advancing state of the art and could be designed to make at least a small corner of the world a better place. Personally, the projects I am managing in my current and previous roles were designed to streamline and speed up various state of the art systems and operations, to make the company more profitable. 

A steady paycheck may be all that matters to someone who has been out of work for a long time. While you may empathize with the applicant; you’re hiring someone to get the job done, not to give them a paycheck for simply showing up. As callous as it may seem, the candidate’s need for work is not on your list of critical needs or bells and whistles that are nice to have. 

With Hiring the Best, Martin Yate has written an interviewer’s manual. Using it, the interviewer Yate describes as “Conscious Incompetent,” who knows he or she is missing something but is not sure what, can develop into the “Conscious Competent” interviewer; one who is effective at reading thru resumes to determine who to interview, and is also effective at interviewing candidates; at determining which candidates have the ability to do the job, want to do the job, and will be manageable on the job. 

Yate also describes an interviewer he calls the “Unconscious Incompetent.” This interviewer looks at interviews simply as chances to meet the candidate. But the job interview is a business meeting; not a date. As noted, the purpose is to determine whether or not the applicant can do the job, and if hired will do the job, and will be manageable on the job. 

He also describes expert interviewers; people like Chris Wallace, Terry Gross, or Oprah. They make it look easy; but they clearly work very hard to prepare for interviews and to allow the interviewee to be relaxed. 

Open Ended Questions v “Jeopardy” Questions

I recently hired an information technology technician. In this context, questions like “What are ‘ping’ and ‘ipconfig’ used for?” or “How do you create a ‘Table of Contents’ in MS Word?” are much more valuable than simply asking, “What is ‘ping’?”, “What is ‘ipconfig’?” or “Do you know how to create a ‘Table of Contents’ in MS Word?”

Network Troubleshooting Questions Ping, which verifies network resolution and connectivity, is used in troubleshooting network issues.  Ipconfig, ifconfig on Unix, Linux, and MacOS, describes network configuration. It is also used to display network configuration and troubleshoot network issues.  “Yes, I know how to create a Table of Contents in Word,” doesn’t tell me that the candidate marks text as “Headings” and uses Word’s built-in table of contents capability to create tables that can be updated with a couple of mouse-clicks. A candidate can truthfully answer, “Yes, I know how to create a table of contents, believing that it is ok to manually type in the section or chapter names and page numbers and manually update the table when necessary.

Similarly, for Project Managers, “What do you use a Gantt Chart used for?” is a much better question than “Do you use Gantt Charts?”

Even, “What are you looking for in salary?” is open-ended because compensation may include paid vacation, insurance, bonuses and stock options. 

On the other hand, “Can you start Monday?” is an excellent closed ended question. 

Hiring the Best for job applicants. 

When planning to go on an interview, think about how to suggest to the interviewer that you are able to do the job, willing to do the job, and will be manageable on the job, and therefore are the best candidate, even tho you don’t know who else is applying for the job. 

You can treat yes/no kinds of questions as open-ended questions. First answer the question, then discuss it in more detail. 

For example, suppose you’re applying for a job as a project manager and you are asked, “What is a Gantt Chart?” 

You can answer simply, and accurately, “A Gantt Chart is a chart that shows the tasks of a project, i.e., the Work Breakdown Structure, or WBS, durations, dependencies, and the team members responsible for the job.” 

You could also say, “I use Gantt Charts to describe precisely what needs to be done, in what order, and delineate the schedule. I also use Gantt Charts to describe dependencies of various tasks, and illustrate the critical path, which is the sequence of tasks that follow all dependencies and takes the longest amount of time to complete.

“For example, suppose you are planning a renovation. The flooring depends on the painting and the sheetrock, which depends on the sub-floor. And you can not do the sheetrock before you do the plumbing, electrical, HVAC, which obviously requires the subfloor. The windows also require the sheetrock, and the siding requires the windows.

“Strictly speaking, flooring is not dependent on painting. But it’s easier to do the painting first and not worry about spilling a few drops on the brand new carpets or hardwood floors. 

Gantt Chart
Framing	Subfloor	Electrical	Sheetrock	Painting	Flooring
		HVAC
		Plumbing
Simplified Gantt Chart for renovation

“This example suggests that the Plumbing, HVAC, and Electrical work require the same amount of time. But the one that requires the longest time determines the critical path, because the sheetrock can not be applied until all three are completed. Of course, in the real world, while every room has electrical wiring and HVAC, but not all rooms have plumbing. So electrical, HVAC, and waiting for inspections are likely to establish the Critical Path.”

You don’t want to give an hour long lecture on building renovation, unless that’s the job you are interviewing for. But you want to explain in detail and you want the interviewer to know that you really understand and can apply the knowledge. 

Similarly, you may want to implement a fiber circuit to the Internet prior to or as part of a project to implement a voice over IP, “VoIP,” phone system. Strictly speaking VoIP can work over low bandwidth circuits. But acceptable performance requires bandwidth that can handle the load. In this case, the Fiber Circuit is likely to establish the critical path, because it could take three months to install. 

In summary, you may not be Oprah interviewing Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle. But whether you are interviewing a candidate or a candidate being interviewed, your career will be influenced by your performance on the interview. And as with other aspects of Alpha Project Management, the keys to effective interviewing are planning, communications, and leadership. 

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This was originally publlshed in the May, 2021 issue of Pulse, the newsletter of PMI NJ.