Keeping a Fixed-Price Client Project on Track When a Pandemic Shrinks Your Team
Company: Microsoft
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product / Decision Making
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a program manager responsible for a customer project that already sits on the critical path, so any slip in it pushes out the overall delivery date. A pandemic breaks out and leaves your team badly short-staffed, and in these conditions there is no way to bring in backup people to fill the gaps. The customer contract is already signed, and it is a fixed-price deal. Explain how you would get this project delivered.
```hint Find what can still move
Headcount cannot grow and the price cannot change. Work out which of the remaining project variables can still flex, and who has to agree before each one does.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Besides the price, what does the contract lock in: a fixed scope, a fixed delivery date, penalties for late delivery, a change-request process?
- How large is the staffing gap, and is it expected to last a few weeks (people ill or caring for family) or many months?
- How is the pandemic affecting the customer, and has the delivery date become more or less urgent for their business?
- Which other workstreams or milestones are waiting on this project?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- Looking after the reduced team first and getting a realistic picture of who can contribute, and how much, before re-planning.
- Re-estimating the remaining critical-path work against the capacity actually available, so the size of the slip is known before anything is promised.
- Levers that need no extra headcount: re-sequencing, moving people off non-critical work, overlapping phases, cutting overhead, and splitting scope into must-haves and later releases.
- Early, data-backed conversations with the customer and the internal business owner about phased delivery, change requests and who absorbs the cost overrun a fixed price implies.
- Contingency plans for further disruption, with progress tracking and a regular communication rhythm.
### Follow-up Questions
- The customer rejects any change to scope or date. What do you do next?
- Midway through the recovery, a second wave puts more of the team out of action. How does your plan adapt?
- What early signals would tell you the recovery plan is failing, and whom would you tell first?
Overview: A program management scenario about delivering a customer project on the critical path after a pandemic leaves the team short-staffed, with no backfill possible and a fixed-price contract already signed. It tests schedule recovery without new hires, scope negotiation, customer communication, contingency planning and care for the team.