Tell me about a time when you failed badly and what you learned from it?

I was working with a pharma startup to build a datalake. We had only 8 weeks to both collect requirements and then build the same and my team consisted of me an infrastructure engineer, and a data architect. We did not have direct access to the end users of the datalake, who were the scientists, but had to get requirements through a client manager. This client manager was also not easily accessible as he was travelling a lot. I spent a week with the client manager gathering requirements and working with my team to build the datalake. The data pipelines and datalake structure was completed fast but the infrastructure build was getting delayed. I made a plan of replacing the data architect with an infrastructure architect to boost the infrastructure work and keep everything within budget. I worked this plan with the infrastructure manager, but I was not able to get a go ahead with the client manager who was travelling at that time. When the client manager came in I presented the plan. This was already in action as the data architect was released from the project and the infrastructure architect had started working. The client manager did not approve the plan as he had more data work to do - which was not informed to us. I scheduled a two hour meeting with the client manager to talk about the remaining work, estimate it and plan on how to do this. In this meeting I figured that we had 6-8 days of work remaining. We were already at week five of 8 weeks, so with careful planning, we could get this one done without a cost overrun. I talked with the infrastructure engineer and made sure that he could complete his tasks in one week, which gave me 2 weeks of budget left. I worked with the engagement manager to bring in a data engineer, who was able to scale up in one week. The project completed on time with no schedule or budget over runs. After this project I made sure that risks like access to stakeholders were handled earlier - I ensured that every project after this that there is dedicated communication channel with the stakeholder specifically mentioned in the SoW. I also carved out time in short projets like these in building a rapport quickly not only with the stakeholders, but folks adjacent to the project whom I can contact in exigencies.

During my research project, I was tasked with determining the accuracy of our model classifying stack overflow posts. We used the F1 metric to quantify the accuracy. The general process for this was to extract classifications from the model, and then to manually verify the accuracy of those predictions. I completed these steps and presented my findings to the professor. However, I had misunderstood how F1 was calculated, due to a lack of preparation I had made assumptions. I had incorrectly extracted the classifications from the model, and so I had to redo the entire process which set us back a week. The lesson learned was that in order to accomplish a task/meet a goal, it is important to fully understand the steps it takes to reach that goal. Spending more time at this phase compounds into saved time later, since it’s more costly to redo work after an error than correcting a misunderstanding before taking any action.

In my early days as Program Manager, I managed a project for one of our main customers. This project consisted in a touch screen device to control a Large format printer for HP. The project had a very tight schedule and I promised to deliver the first EVT units in a certain date.

T: As PM, it was my responsibility to coordinate a cross-functional team to deliver the program on time, within budget, and in line with the scope agreed with our customer.

A: When I started to dive deep into the project and analyze the technical details, I realized that meeting the original delivery timeline was not feasible. So, I immediately met the core team to develop a new and realistic schedule to mitigate the issue. To ensure better alignment, I implemented daily opening and closing meetings with the team to monitor activities and prevent task duplication between cross-functional teams. Two key factors contributed to the milestone delay: a delay in component deliveries and one mistake on my part—I didn’t include in my schedule the LT for one of the Reliability tests required by Engineering before the Ok2ship milestone.

R: I highlighted the issue to my manager and shared with him the root cause of the problem and the new plan. Then, we reached the customer together to explain the situation and kept working together on the new committed schedule.

This experience taught me valuable lessons. Now, I always build buffer time into my project schedules and work more closely with core team members to anticipate potential risks. However, the most important lesson I learned was the value of honesty and proactive communication—raising concerns early is crucial to success.

While I was working at Alpha Design Technologies I made a mistake in which I had overlooked and approved a mistake in the design choice by one of the engineers in the team and approved the design document . The problem was that the Engineer had selected a Capacitor for design in the Transmitting section of the Radar which would not withstand high pressures and since it was a defense based product this would not comply with the Military Standards and hence would not comply with the product specifications requested by our customer.

The problem was later rectified as I discussed with the engineer to replace the existing Aluminum electrolytic capacitor with a Tantalum capacitor of same value and size to meet the required product specifications and got the design change approved by higher management.

I learned that I must always take a deep dive into every small detail without assuming anything. I  informed all engineers that if any component details were missing in the datasheets which they felt they required I would reach out to the companies directly to get every single detail required before we could choose any particular component required for design.

Certainly, here's an example:

"In my freshman year, I participated in a science fair project with high hopes of winning a prize. Despite investing significant time and effort into my project, it failed to meet the judges' expectations, and I didn't receive any recognition. Initially, I felt disappointed and frustrated by the outcome. However, I chose to view this experience as a learning opportunity rather than dwelling on the failure. I sought feedback from the judges to understand where I went wrong and what I could improve upon in the future. I also reflected on my approach to the project and identified areas where I could have been more thorough or innovative. While it was disheartening not to achieve my desired outcome, the experience taught me valuable lessons in resilience, humility, and the importance of perseverance in the face of failure. It also motivated me to work harder and approach future projects with a more strategic mindset."

When my team and I deployed the campus network, I neglected to stay updated on the project's progress and didn't have a clear plan of action, leading to delays in project execution. Consequently, I had to work diligently to complete the project within the allotted time, which was stressful. To address this, I now make sure to regularly monitor the project's status and have a clear step-by-step plan in place.

I was working on a large scale program that had integration points with Lab and external 3rd party team . We were following a strict timelines and had intially aligned on end to end delivery and various cross coordination effort . since we were dealing with major cross coordination feed files for further processing from 3rd party team we had highlighted the risk to the leadership team but didn't receive a strong follow up on the risk and commitment from the 3rd party organization on the delivery date . This caused us to miss the go live date had to delay . However going forward we had frequent checkpoint calls and also as a backup for testing effort we build mockster and service virutalisation for testing effort so that we can mock the service behavior of the feeds and data that we were supposed to receive from 3rd party team and moved ahead in our schedule .Therefore for all major delivery and critical delivery of the product we assumed variability and defined on the process of backup scenario in case we encounter Andy hurdles / risk

During my research project, I was tasked with determining the accuracy of our model classifying stack overflow posts. We used the F1 metric to quantify the accuracy. The general process for this was to extract classifications from the model, and then to manually verify the accuracy of those predictions. I completed these steps and presented my findings to the professor. However, I had misunderstood how F1 was calculated, due to a lack of preparation I had made assumptions. I had incorrectly extracted the classifications from the model, and so I had to redo the entire process which set us back a week. The lesson learned was that in order to accomplish a task/meet a goal, it is important to fully understand the steps it takes to reach that goal. Spending more time at this phase compounds into saved time later, since it’s more costly to redo work after an error than correcting a misunderstanding before taking any action.

When my team and I deployed the campus network, I neglected to stay updated on the project's progress and didn't have a clear plan of action, leading to delays in project execution. Consequently, I had to work diligently to complete the project within the allotted time, which was stressful. To address this, I now make sure to regularly monitor the project's status and have a clear step-by-step plan in place.

An important mistake I made very early in my experience in product management was my first leadership opportunity with my Consulting Club invention Corps I was leading a team of three and it was fully remote this was very early in the pandemic one of the big failures I made was not asking for help I was a little confused about how I should schedule my project when I should start you know what the core what the template for scheduling was and as a result I took a little bit extra time and I ended up starting our project one week later than we should have this was a huge issue you know I should have reached out to my supervisors or I should have reached out to my project members and ask them what they think as a result we ended up facing a little bit of crunch time towards the middle and end of the project it forced unfortunately my team members and I had to pull a few all-nighters to make sure we hit our deadlines and so it taught me two things one plan plan I now for all my projects that I've had since I have a very detailed notion board full with a kanban board project updates and a more systematic approach to meetings and the second is to just ask for help I know that that's sometimes a little bit scary and it was very scary for me but I've learned that it is so important and honestly isn’t that daunting once you ask. People want to help you and they want you to succeed, especially in yoru own community. 

At CenterCard, when I was a Director Of Technology, I was managing an Infrastructure for my company. When we set up a K8s infrastruce, we need to install ElasticSearch  - with cost optimization in mind, I had my team install ELK on K8s. What I did not take in mind is my teams ablitiy to support ElasticSerach, when we initially released to Prodcution,we had a outage. Our team took longer than expected time causing bad customer experience.

I had to make a painful choice to switch to managed ELK. I did a retrospective and realized that I failed to access my team strengths. 

When I was first promoted to a supervisor, I had a responsibility to meet Survey, Productivity and call handling time. I monitored calls and coached the call I observed rather then looking for trends and behaviors.  I also failed to identify if it was a skill or will.  From that failure it led me to review reports at the beginning of my shift, look for trends and behaviors and to focus on coaching measurable action plans. This strategy has helped me to achieve top quartile results each year.

I remember having failed from badly understand a business requirement. The misunderstanding was discovered only on Preproduction so we lost time re-develop the functionality and redeploy the new release. To rectify the situation, I utilized systematic feedback from the business and incorporate them soon in the development.

It was when I presented one information to management team and I was asked one question that I did not expect and I do not have information on hand. The meeting was ended with no conclusion due to decision cannot made.

what I learnt from this situation is I must well prepare. For example in the next meeting, I had prepared all related information and tried to think in different dimensions. that meeting went well and conclusion can be made.

I recall a time when we were assigned a complex task with tight deadline and we were unable to complete the taak within the time range due to lack of proper time management and understanding the severity of the issue.At that time I realized that it is important to manage time and understanding the urgency of the task is very imprtant before working on it

I founded my startup in XXXX, spent the next 3 months interviewing potential customers and users and mapped out user journeys. We got a lot of positive response and most people were keen to see us build the product and eventually use it. So we spent the next 9 months building the product. At the end we weren't able to sell the product for what we hoped for. The mistake we made was to assume that if people want a product, they would be willing to pay for it. Turns out, the problem we were addressing was not urgent enough or important enough. Our learning was that we needed to test for user propensity to pay first before launching a product or service and not getting carried away by good feedback.