Project management course and PM interview preparation, 1‑on‑1 with a working project manager.

A project is a temporary effort to deliver a specific result. A programme is a group of related projects managed together for benefits you wouldn’t get separately. A portfolio is the set of projects and programmes an organisation chooses to invest in, managed against its strategy.

Scope, time and cost, with quality affected by all three. Change one and at least one other moves. Interviewers usually follow up by asking how you explained a trade-off to a sponsor, so have an example ready.

Start from agreed objectives and scope, break the work into deliverables and tasks, estimate them, map dependencies, build the schedule and budget, and add risk, communication and quality plans. Then baseline it and agree how changes will be handled.

The longest chain of dependent tasks from start to finish. It sets the shortest possible duration of the project, so any delay on it moves the end date unless you recover it. Tasks off the critical path have float.

Find out why, and whether the delay is on the critical path. Then look at the options: re-sequencing, adding people where it genuinely helps, running tasks in parallel, or reducing scope. Take the options and their impact to the sponsor, not just the bad news.

Agree a clear scope baseline and a simple change process up front. When a request comes in, assess its impact on time, cost and risk, and let the sponsor decide with that in front of them. Interviewers want to hear about a time you said no, or “yes, if”, and how it went.

Understand what they care about and why they’re pushing back, involve them earlier, and agree how often you’ll update them. Keep the conversation on project impact rather than personalities, and escalate only after you’ve tried the direct route.

Against the baseline: milestones, budget burn, open risks and issues, and quality. Use simple RAG status with a reason and an action behind every amber or red, and earned value where the organisation uses it.

Stabilise first: pause non-essential work and get an honest picture of scope, schedule, budget and team morale. Then re-plan with the sponsor, which often means cutting scope or resetting dates, and agree what success now looks like. Interviewers listen for whether you’ve actually been through it.

Clear contracts and acceptance criteria, one integrated plan with shared milestones, regular joint reviews, and a single place to track dependencies and risks. The hard part is accountability when vendors blame each other, so expect follow-up questions on that.

Look at how stable the requirements are, how soon users need something usable, regulatory or contract constraints, and how the organisation funds and governs work. Many projects end up hybrid: fixed milestones and budget at the top, iterative delivery underneath.

Raise it, even though the status is green. Check the benefits the project was meant to deliver, talk to users and the sponsor, and propose a change of direction or stopping. Senior interviews test whether you’ll speak up when the numbers look fine.