GDPR & Project Managers: 4 Top Interview Questions Answered
These common interview questions and answers for project managers not only reveal the answers most expected during an interview for a project management role, but also how project managers are expected to associate the tracking of executive compliance with how their projects ultimately perform.
When considering the answers to these common interview questions, although you as a project manager candidate should expect to link continual tracking of employee compliance and overall productivity; the mistake of retaining a preference towards traditional methods of compliance tracking may in some cases attract just as much attention in the interview as the project deliverables themselves.
As a project manager, how significant would the tracking of data be for ensuring consistent executive compliance?
Do
- Cite your experience with previous project-management platforms
- Mention custom spreadsheets and workflows that work alongside modern platforms
Don’t
- Overly discuss a spreadsheet-only tracking approach
- Make tenuous links between worker productivity and un-unproven tracking methodologies
If asked this question, it is first important to remember that your interviewer will most likely be prodding for an awareness of not only different project management platforms; but also, your awareness of the LMS platforms that enable you to track the compliance of your project workers on a separate basis: this means that, in this scenario, you will be expected to demonstrate that the time you would otherwise spend on tracking worker compliance using traditional methods will instead be channelled towards maximising the deliverables of your project executives.
When demonstrating your awareness of different LMS platforms for tracking executive compliance efficiently, do however present an honest overview of how your traditional spreadsheet-based methods are able to work with your choice of LMS side-by-side.
This will enable you to indicate a willingness to track compliance irrespective of the platform used to automate the tracking process.
However, although you should be expected to mention these different methods, beware of placing too much emphasis on a spreadsheet-only approach as this may wrongly imply a lack of awareness of modern LMS platforms — and perhaps more significantly — the changes to upcoming regulation such as GDPR and the consequences of non-compliance that may take effect if accepted for this project management role.
How does a dedicated LMS compare to traditional methods such as spreadsheets and files in the office draw?
Do
- Be honest: discuss your views on both alternatives, but demonstrate experience with a modern LMS platform
- Place an emphasis on all stakeholders involved in compliance tracking
Don’t
- Overly emphasise a non GDPR-compliant LMS platform
- Express a preference of traditional spreadsheet-based methods over a modern LMS
If asked this question, just as the interviewer will be testing for your awareness of the link between modern approaches to compliance tracking and worker productivity, this question is usually asked with the goal of assessing your awareness of specific LMS platforms.
Here, although you will be expected to demonstrate a genuine preference of modern LMS platforms as a method of tracking project worker compliance, many candidates in this scenario walk a fine line between exaggerating their awareness of the most feature-rich and GDPR-compliant LMS, and wrongly indicating a preference for traditional spreadsheet-only tracking.
However, although it is always a good idea to share your LMS platform of choice, you may also need to be careful in over-emphasising a platform that may not be compliant to the GDPR regulation that will most likely have come into effect by the time you are active in your new project management role.
To what extent is team productivity impacted by the choice of LMS?
Do
- Cite your previous experience with more traditional LMS platforms
- Mention the link between the saving of time and a streamlined LMS platform
- Demonstrate awareness of how poor tracking undermined worker productivity
Don’t
- Disregard the consequences to productivity caused by your choice of LMS provider
- Ignore the topic of GDPR-compliance is raised in relation to your platform choice
After demonstrating a strong awareness of how time and risk can be avoided through a thorough awareness of modern alternatives for compliance tracking such as a unified LMS platform, you will also likely be screened for your intention to re-focus this saved time towards improving the productivity of your project workers.
In discussing this however, you should also remember to contextualise the importance of improving worker productivity through more streamlined compliance tracking by sharing your past negative as well as positive experiences with more primitive tracking methodologies.
However, in discussing these experiences, one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a project manager candidate is to ignore the negative consequences to productivity caused by more traditional LMS platforms.
Moreover, in order to best answer topics centred around how this relates to your previous platforms and GDPR compliance, ensure that you have researched in advance which LMS platforms are compliant- and which are not.
With GDPR soon coming into the picture, to what extent would partnering with an already-compliant LMS influence your project management decisions as we move into 2018?
Do
- Discuss the advantages of an already-compliant LMS platform
- Mention the importance of user-centric features
- Demonstrate a firm knowledge of GDPR and the consequences of non-compliance
Don’t
- Avoid the topic of GDPR when discussing your choice of LMS
- Disregard the risk of non-compliance under traditional methods or non-compliant platforms
After testing for your knowledge and experience of how the productivity of project executives can be either enhanced or distracted depending on the approach to compliance tracking taken by the organisation, this question is most often used to test for an awareness of the consequences of on-boarding a traditional LMS platform or strategy that is not GDPR-compliant.
In answering this question, ensure that you focus not only how a GDPR-ready platform will be able to mitigate the legal complications that may arise through poor tracking of your project executives, but also how the resources consumed by GDPR-readying platforms often come at the expense of the user experience.
On the flip-side, this may also give you the opportunity to discuss how the richer features enabled by an already-GDPR-compliant platform would be able to work alongside your existing skill-sets if you were given this project manager role.
References
Beck, E. (2017). Learning Management Systems: The Need for Critical Analyses. Education Research Institute, The University of Oslo.
Pasian, B. (2006). Plan to Learn: case studies in eLearning project management. Canadian eLearning Enterprise Alliance.
Rani, M. (2015). An Ontological Learning Management System. Indian Institute of Information Technology-.
Trends and the Future of Learning Management Systems (LMSs) in Higher Education. (2017). Centre for Educational Innovation, University at Buffalo, pp.2–4.
