Delivery and execution questions
These cards examine commitments and operating decisions. Use actual authority and distinguish execution effort from unresolved choices. See evaluation.
DL01 — How do you estimate work and make a credible commitment?
Variants: How do you forecast a project with significant uncertainty?
Intent: Understand how a forecast becomes a shared, revisable commitment.
Strong answer target: Define the outcome and assumptions, separate known work from uncertainty, and involve people doing the work. Explain dependencies, confidence, and what the estimate excludes. Describe when new evidence changes the forecast and how stakeholders learn about it.
Profile inputs/adaptation: Actual forecast, unknowns, contributors, and updates. IC: bounded work. EM: team capacity and dependencies. Director: forecast across teams without treating their estimates as interchangeable.
Acceptable alternatives: Ranges, milestones, discovery first, or a fixed date with adjustable scope can fit. No estimation technique is mandatory.
Probes: What assumption mattered most? Who accepted the uncertainty?
Failure modes: False precision, imposed estimates, or silent deadline drift.
| Dimension | Weak anchor (0) | Strong anchor (3) |
|---|---|---|
| Forecast basis | Gives a date without assumptions | Connects forecast to scope, capacity, unknowns, and dependencies |
| Shared commitment | Treats an estimate as unilateral certainty | Explains agreement and visible uncertainty |
| Updating | Hides changes until failure | Uses new evidence to revise expectations promptly |
Provenance: Editorial synthesis; decision dependencies informed by L13.
DL02 — A deadline is fixed and the work will not fit. What do you do?
Variants: A promised launch exceeds available capacity.
Intent: Examine negotiation when a constraint cannot simply be removed.
Strong answer target: Establish why the date matters and which outcomes are essential. Present feasible scope, sequencing, capacity, or date options with risks. Obtain the responsible decision, preserve required safeguards, and communicate what will and will not be delivered.
Profile inputs/adaptation: Commitment, authority, indispensable requirements, and options. IC: surface evidence and proposals. Manager: negotiate team work. Executive: own business tradeoffs with peers.
Acceptable alternatives: A staged launch, smaller outcome, or missing the date openly can be defensible. Adding people is not automatically helpful.
Probes: Which requirement cannot be cut? What does the stakeholder lose?
Failure modes: Hidden scope cuts, indefinite overtime, or unsupported promises.
| Dimension | Weak anchor (0) | Strong anchor (3) |
|---|---|---|
| Constraint understanding | Assumes the date is arbitrary | Identifies the business reason and essential outcome |
| Feasible options | Offers only more effort | Presents realistic alternatives and consequences |
| Agreement | Lets stakeholders discover omissions later | Makes the chosen commitment and risks explicit |
Provenance: Practice extrapolation from R05 and H04.
DL03 — Tell me about recovering a project that was going off track
Variants: What did you do when a delivery plan stopped being credible?
Intent: Examine diagnosis and recovery rather than rescue heroics.
Strong answer target: Show the signal that revealed trouble, your part in the original plan, and how you distinguished causes. Reset scope, sequencing, ownership, or expectations based on evidence. Explain stakeholder communication, what improved, and what remained unresolved.
Profile inputs/adaptation: Original commitment, warning signs, interventions, and observed progress. Match recovery ownership to role; supporting a recovery does not make the candidate its sole leader.
Acceptable alternatives: Canceling, handing off, or accepting a smaller result may be a responsible recovery. Complete success is unnecessary.
Probes: What did you stop doing? How did you know recovery was working?
Failure modes: Blaming predecessors, changing dates without changing causes, or claiming success because the team worked harder.
| Dimension | Weak anchor (0) | Strong anchor (3) |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnosis | Calls the team slow without investigation | Identifies a specific constraint using evidence |
| Recovery action | Repeats the failed plan with pressure | Changes a material cause with clear ownership |
| Credibility | Claims recovery without observations | Describes progress, communication, and remaining limits |
Provenance: Editorial synthesis using diagnosis in L07.
DL04 — How do you deliver work that depends on several teams?
Variants: A critical dependency has a different priority for its owner.
Intent: Examine coordination without pretending to control other teams.
Strong answer target: Clarify the shared outcome, dependency interfaces, owners, and competing commitments. Agree a feasible sequence and escalation path. Reduce coupling where useful and describe how handoffs and changes remain visible without personally routing every message.
Profile inputs/adaptation: Dependencies, authority, agreements, and handoff evidence. Staff IC: technical coordination. Director: competing team priorities and capacity. Shared ownership remains explicit.
Acceptable alternatives: Changing the plan, decoupling, or negotiating a temporary collaboration can beat demanding priority.
Probes: What if the other team cannot commit? Who resolves the tradeoff?
Failure modes: Assuming others' work is free, escalation as intimidation, or becoming the permanent dependency broker.
| Dimension | Weak anchor (0) | Strong anchor (3) |
|---|---|---|
| Dependencies | Lists teams without their constraints | Identifies interfaces, owners, and competing obligations |
| Agreement | Assumes cooperation equals commitment | Establishes feasible sequencing and resolution rights |
| Coordination | Every decision requires the candidate | Creates visibility and ownership that others can use |
Provenance: Practice extrapolation from TP01 and TR04.
DL05 — Tell me about a process change that improved delivery
Variants: When did you remove a process rather than add one?
Intent: Understand whether process addresses a real constraint.
Strong answer target: Identify the recurring problem and who experienced it. Explain the change, its adoption cost, and how affected people shaped it. Compare observed benefits with overhead and describe adjustment or removal if it did not help.
Profile inputs/adaptation: Previous workflow, intervention, actual use, and outcomes. An IC can improve a handoff; a manager can change team planning. Do not infer organization-wide impact from one successful trial.
Acceptable alternatives: A checklist, fewer meetings, clearer ownership, or keeping a useful existing process can be strong.
Probes: Who found it burdensome? What observation would make you stop it?
Failure modes: Framework adoption as the outcome, compliance theater, or efficiency claims without an observable effect.
| Dimension | Weak anchor (0) | Strong anchor (3) |
|---|---|---|
| Need | Introduces process because it is fashionable | Connects change to a recurring delivery problem |
| Adoption | Ignores affected people's work | Accounts for participation, cost, and practical use |
| Effect | Measures only adherence | Examines useful outcomes and adjusts overhead |
Provenance: Direct process-interview theme in F01; our specific criteria.
DL06 — How do you decide whether a release is ready?
Variants: The team wants to ship, but important risks remain.
Intent: Examine proportionate quality and release judgment.
Strong answer target: Define the user outcome and failure consequences. Identify relevant verification, operational ownership, rollout controls, and decision authority. Explain residual risk, what blocks release, and how an accepted risk will be monitored and contained.
Profile inputs/adaptation: System stakes, evidence, release scope, and responsibility. IC: technical checks and risk communication. Manager: readiness across disciplines. Executive: material business risk, not every checklist item.
Acceptable alternatives: Limited rollout, delayed launch, or deliberate release with bounded risk may fit. Not every system needs identical gates.
Probes: What would make you stop the rollout? Who can authorize the risk?
Failure modes: “Tests passed” as complete readiness, no owner after launch, or silently transferring risk to users.
| Dimension | Weak anchor (0) | Strong anchor (3) |
|---|---|---|
| Risk fit | Uses the same quality bar everywhere | Matches checks to consequences and uncertainty |
| Readiness evidence | Relies on confidence or a single signal | Covers relevant functional and operational evidence |
| Accountability | No explicit risk or release owner | Makes residual risk, authority, and containment clear |
Provenance: Practice extrapolation from L15; release anchors are editorial.
DL07 — When have you stopped a project after substantial investment?
Variants: How do you avoid continuing work because it has already cost a lot?
Intent: Examine stopping decisions and responsible closure.
Strong answer target: Compare future value and cost using current evidence, including obligations to customers and dependent teams. Explain alternatives, who decided, and how work was closed or redirected. Acknowledge sunk effort without using it as the sole reason to continue.
Profile inputs/adaptation: Investment, changed assumptions, decision role, and closure. IC: recommendation and handover. Leader: portfolio tradeoff and people consequences within actual authority.
Acceptable alternatives: Continue a bounded experiment, pause, narrow scope, or stop entirely. Persistence is not inherently poor judgment.
Probes: What future evidence justified the decision? What obligations remained?
Failure modes: Stopping without transition, rewriting history, or preserving a project solely to protect reputation.
| Dimension | Weak anchor (0) | Strong anchor (3) |
|---|---|---|
| Forward judgment | Relies only on money already spent | Compares remaining value, costs, and obligations |
| Decision process | Hides concerns to protect the project | Brings evidence and options to appropriate decision-makers |
| Closure | Abandons dependent people or systems | Plans communication, handover, and continuing responsibilities |
Provenance: Editorial synthesis informed by strategy refinement in L08.
DL08 — How do you distinguish slow execution from unresolved decisions?
Variants: Everyone is busy, but progress keeps stalling.
Intent: Examine whether the candidate identifies the actual bottleneck.
Strong answer target: Trace where work waits: capacity, dependencies, requirements, technical uncertainty, or decision authority. Make the blocking choice explicit, obtain useful evidence, and name its owner. Explain how you checked whether resolving it improved flow.
Profile inputs/adaptation: Waiting points, evidence, decisions, and effects. IC: technical uncertainty. EM: team sequencing. Director: authority across teams. Do not presume all delays are indecision.
Acceptable alternatives: Add capacity or change a deadline when execution really is constrained. A prototype is useful only if it answers a relevant question.
Probes: Which decision unlocks work? What would disprove your diagnosis?
Failure modes: More status meetings, blaming effort, or calling every delay a leadership failure without examining the work.
| Dimension | Weak anchor (0) | Strong anchor (3) |
|---|---|---|
| Bottleneck evidence | Infers causes from busyness | Traces actual waiting and distinguishes competing causes |
| Unblocking | Demands speed without resolving uncertainty | Assigns decisions and obtains proportionate evidence |
| Verification | Declares success after a meeting | Checks whether the intervention changed progress |
Provenance: Practice extrapolation from L13, with alternatives and diagnostic checks supplied by us.