Describe a time when a contract was broken, and you had to negotiate a resolution.
Senior program managers often play a role in assuring the terms of contracts with third parties are met. They also help to define the way forward when contracts are broken. Interviewers ask this question to test a candidate's experience level in this area.
Remember to describe a time when internal stakeholders were unable to deliver on their assigned activities if you have not had experience dealing with an official contract violation. Large projects typically have charters with expectations for major roles and responsibilities, and senior program managers are likely to have experience handling situations in which expectations are not met and need to be renegotiated.
"In a previous role I worked as a delivery manager for a software company. Our methodology required our clients to own and deliver certain aspects of the project. For example, a client might need to provide data, or a server to host the solution, etcetera. Our legal team was great about working with us to drive out these details ahead of time because clients would often drop the ball on these activities and cause delays.
I worked on a major implementation for a large retail company. They repeatedly rescheduled our working sessions and failed to provide the resources we needed. The delay was significant and the resources on my side were moved to another project. I met with their senior management to communicate that the terms of our contract were violated and that we needed to define new terms of engagement.
Things got a bit tense, but it turned out that they had lost several key resources on their side, and they were scrambling to hire replacements. We were able to pause the project until they were able to staff it, and we renegotiated a new contract. They understood why we were unable to wait around for them, and they appreciated us working them in when they were ready."
