Walk me through your end-to-end approach to building and maintaining a project plan for a mid-sized initiative (3–6 months, cross-functional). Which methods, tools, and metrics do you use to track scope, schedule, budget, and risks, and how do you keep it current?

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VirtualInterview.AI · Accepted Answer

For a 3–6 month cross‑functional project, I start by clarifying outcomes and constraints with sponsors, then run a short discovery with key leads (engineering, ops, finance, marketing). We break work into epics and features, estimate at a high level, and build a baseline in something like Jira plus a Smartsheet or MS Project timeline for dependencies. I usually track scope via a simple change log tied to a requirements backlog, schedule via a milestone roadmap with 2–3 week checkpoints, and budget via a lightweight cost tracker linked to resource plans (FTE hours, vendor costs). Core metrics are milestone hit rate, sprint throughput, forecast vs. actual hours, and risk burndown. I keep the plan living: weekly updates with leads, monthly reforecast with stakeholders, and a one-page digest for execs that highlights where we’re on track, at risk, or off.

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