Can you discuss a situation in which you had to direct a project stakeholder toward a different course of action than the one they had originally planned to pursue?
This is a behavioral question. Behavioral questions seek to understand how you react to a specific situation you may encounter in this job. Behavioral questions are best responded to using the STAR framework. You state the Situation, describe the Task you need to accomplish, talk about the Actions you would take, and then discuss the results you plan on attaining. Behavioral questions can discuss past instances or how you would anticipate reacting to a future situation.
"Being an IT business analyst is about telling a client what is best for their business, which sometimes is not what they expect to hear. I once had a client who wanted to expand their product line, even though they were struggling to sell many of their current products via their e-commerce site. I had to help them develop a strategy to realign their products with the demands of their customers. Using a detailed analysis of their sales activities and the resulting financials, I helped them understand their market and the demand for their current products, as well as what else their customers were purchasing. This enabled them to adjust their product offerings, eliminating low-selling items, and adding new, high-demand products to their catalog."
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
In my last job, I was tasked with leading the efforts to upgrade our old exchange server. After conducting my preliminary investigation, I concluded that from a cost-benefit point of view it was no longer feasible to continue using and on-premise deployment. This assessment resulted in controversy at first within the IT team, since that felt like losing control of the server. Given this situation, I decided to hold a team meeting and conducted a SWOT analysis as a team exercise. My goal was to lead the team to conclude that this was indeed the best approach and it worked. With the team's understanding, I moved forward and presented it to management. It got approved and we moved the service to the cloud. This resulted in better availability, increased security, and less overhead on the department's internal processes.
Amanda's Feedback
Fantastic! You've clearly explained the issue, why the IT team was initially opposed, how you enabled them to come to a logical conclusion and the final positive result.
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