You’re leading a critical project that is on schedule, but quality metrics and team morale are declining. How would you diagnose the root causes and adjust your execution plan, while maintaining stakeholder confidence and meeting strategic objectives?

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VirtualInterview.AI · Accepted Answer

This happened on a regulatory program I led last year: green on schedule, but defect leakage had doubled and my team looked exhausted. First, I split diagnosis into three lenses: data, people, and process. On the data side, I compared sprint velocity to escaped defects and overtime hours; we were up 25% in throughput, but bugs in UAT had tripled. On the people side, I ran short, anonymous pulse surveys and 1:1s. The message was clear: we’d cut too much testing and were overusing a few senior engineers. Process-wise, I did a quick value-stream mapping session and found a late-stage testing bottleneck.

I aligned with sponsors on a small replan: added a dedicated test sprint, shifted scope of two nice-to-have features, and rotated on-call duties. I reported this as a “quality and risk reduction adjustment,” not a delay. Within two sprints, UAT defects dropped 40%, overtime normalized, and we still hit the original launch date.

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