What strategic planning techniques do you have experience facilitating?
Strategic planning is a key skillset for a senior program manager. Interviewers ask this question to assess the depth of a candidate's expertise in this area.
Remember to include an example of your ability to identify 'thematic business problems' within your response. You should be able to then clearly demonstrate how you are able to transform those problems into strategic plans for resolution.
"I have experience working with business stakeholders to facilitate SWOT analysis sessions. In these sessions, we develop lists of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and then determine their impact on the business. I have also worked with the OKR model to develop objectives and key results. This model is useful for helping me develop the key performance indicators for the products I am responsible for.
Additionally, my background as an analyst helps me to understand how to analyze large data sets and look for themes and trends that suggest various operational problems exist within an organization. From there, I partner with various subject matter experts to drive out strategic plans for resolution. I ensure these plans specifically aim to resolve the identified issues and contribute to the business goals relevant to the initiatives we are working on."
