Healthcare projects often have tight targets, and missing a cutoff can be very costly. How do you react when your team misses a deadline?
In the healthcare industry, missing a deadline can be devastating to a projects' budget. Not only are missed targets a pain point for stakeholders, but they can also reflect poorly on you as a leader and Project Manager. The hiring authority wants to know how you react to disappointment and project plans not going your way. Give an example of a time when your team missed a deadline and walk the interviewer through the action that you took. If you have encountered this situation before, try to deploy the STAR method by including an overview of the Situation, Task, Action, and Result.
If your team has never missed a deadline or you are new to this field, describe how you would handle this hypothetical situation, explaining that you have never encountered missing a deadline before.
"We reach deadlines as a team, and we miss deadlines as a team. I truly believe in that philosophy. Although this does not often happen, I look at how we could have moved better as a group to meet the original delivery when we miss a deadline. I do not react negatively to my team members, but I use those situations as learning and coaching opportunities. For instance, last year, we had a 15M hospital project underway when it came to my attention that some of our supplies were on hold due to new changes in NAFTA. It became apparent that I needed to find a new supplier for carious finishings. To pivot, I quickly sourced similar products from within the country and had them express shipped. I negotiated good deals, so it only impacted our overall budget by 2%. I made up for the additional material costs by finding savings in labor. All in all, the project was completed on time and within budget. My team stuck with me through the entire process, and I showed my gratitude for their hard work and dedication."
"As a healthcare PM, it is important that I never place blame on my team for a deadline that I missed. A project managers' entire job is to meet the timeliness of a project, so I would take full responsibility. For that reason, if I were to miss a deadline, I would first reflect internally and then ask my team and management for feedback. I would craft a plan around what went awry and how I could prevent it from happening again in the future."
When responding to this question, you want the interviewer to know that you remain calm and take appropriate action to keep this from happening again. You want to avoid saying that you would yell at your team or punish them in any way. You need to take responsibility as the project manager and determine why this deadline was not met and make sure it does not happen again in the future.
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