Project Management Interview Questions

Basics of project management
Define project?
Who is a stakeholder?
Can you explain Scope triangle?
Can you explain what’s a vision and a goal?
What is ROI?
Can you explain project life cycle?
You have people in your team who do not meet there deadlines or do not perform what
are the actions you will take?
Are risk constant through out the project?
Explain SDLC (Software development Life Cycle) in detail?
Can you explain waterfall model?
Can you explain big-bang waterfall model?
Can you explain phased waterfall model?
Explain Iterative model, Incremental model, Spiral model, Evolutionary model and VModel?
Explain Unit testing, Integration tests, System testing and Acceptance testing?
what’s the difference between system and acceptance testing?
Which is the best model?
What is CAR (Causal Analysis and Resolution)?
What is DAR (Decision Analysis and Resolution)?
Can you explain the concept of baseline in software development?
What is the software you have used for project management?
What does a project plan consist?
When do you say the project has finished?
Can you explain what a PMO office is?
How many members in your team you have handled?
Is GANTT chart a project plan?
Two resources are having issues how do you handle the same?
What is a change request?
How did you manage change request in your project?
Can you explain traceability matrix?
what is configuration management?
What is CI?
Define stakeholders?
Can you explain versioning?
Can you explain the concept of sign off?
How will you start a project?
what is an MOU?
What where the deliverables in your project?
Can you explain your project?
Do you also participate in technical activities?
How did you manage code reviews?
you have team member who does not meets his deadlines how do you handle it?
did you have project audits if yes how was it handled?
What is a non-conformance report (NCR)?
How did you estimate your project?
How did you motivate your team members?
did you create leaders in your team if yes how?
how did you confirm that your modules are resource independent?
Was your project show cased for CMMI or any other project process standardization?
what are the functions of the Quality Assurance Group (QAG)?
Can you explain milestone?
How did you do assessme nt of team members?
What does entry and exit criteria mean in a project?
How much are you as leader and how much are you as PM ?
How can he handle the conflicts between peers and subordinates?
In your team you have highly talented people how did you ha ndle their motivation ?
How can you balance between underperforming and outperforming people ?
You need to make choice between delivery and quality what’s your take ?

Risk Management
Define risk?
What is risk break down structure?
How did you plan your risk?
what is DR, BCP and contingency planning?
Schedule Management
Can you explain WBS?
Can you explain WBS numbering?
How did you do resource allocation?
Can you explain the use of WBS?
Can you explain network diagram?
What are the different types of network diagram?
What is the advantage of using network diagrams?
Can you explain Arrow diagram and Precendence diagram?
What are the different types of Network diagrams?
Can you explain Critical path?
Can you define EST, LST, EFT, LFT?
Can you explain Float and Slack?
Can you explain PERT?
Can you explain GANTT chart?
What is the disadvantage of GANTT chart?
What is Monte-Carlo simulation?

Costing
Can you explain PV, AC and EV?
Can you explain BCWS, ACWS and BCWP?
What are the derived metrics from Earned Value?
Can you explain earned value with a sample?
Estimation, Metrics and Measure
What is meant by measure and metrics?
Which metrics have you used for tracking purpose?
What are the various common ways of estimation?
Can you explain LOC method of estimation?
How do we convert LOC in to effort?
Can you explain COCOMO?
Can you explain Intermediate COCOMO and COCOMO II?
How do you estimate using LOC?
Can you explain in brief Function points?
Can you explain the concept Application boundary?
Can you explain the concept of elementary process?
Can you explain the concept of static and dynamic elementary process?
Can you explain concept of FTR, ILF, EIF, EI, EO , EQ and GSC ?
How can you estimate number of acceptance test cases in a project?
Can you explain the concept of Use Case’s?
Can you explain the concept of Use case points?
What is a use case transaction?
How do we estimate using Use Case Points?
Can you explain on what basis does TPA actually work?
How did you do estimation for black box testing?
How did you estimate white box testing?
Is there a way to estimate acceptance test cases in a system?
Can you explain Number of defects measure?
Can you explain number of production defects measure?
Can you explain defect seeding?
Can you explain DRE?
Can you explain Unit and system test DRE?
How do you measure test effectiveness?
Can you explain Defect age and Defect spoilage?

Software process
What is a Software process?
what are the different cost eleme nt involved in implementing process in an organization?
What is a model?
What is maturity level?
Can you explain the concept of process area in CMMI?
Can you explain the concept of tailoring?

CMMI
What is CMMI?
what’s the difference between implementation and Institutionalization?
what are different models in CMMI?
Can you explain staged and continuous models in CMMI?
Can you explain the different maturity levels in staged representation?
Can you explain capability levels in continuous representation?
which model should we use and under what scenarios?
How many process areas are present in CMMI and in what classification do they fall in?
What the difference between every level in CMMI?
what different sources are needed to verify authenticity for CMMI implementation?
Can you explain SCAMPI process?
How is appraisal done in CMMI?
which appraisal method class is the best?
Can you explain the importance of PII in SCAMPI?
Can you explain implementation of CMMI in one of the Key process areas?
Explanation of all process areas with goals and practices?
Can you explain the process areas?

Six Sigma
What is six sigma?
Can you explain the different methodology for execution and design process in SIX
sigma?
What does executive leaders, champions, Master Black belt, green belts and black belts
mean?
What are the different kinds of variations used in six sigma?
Can you explain the concept of standard deviation?
Can you explain the concept of fish bone/ Ishikawa diagram?
What is Pareto principle?
Can you explain QFD?
Can you explain FMEA?
Can you explain X bar charts?
Can you explain Flow charting and brain storming?
Agile Development
What does Agile mean?
Can you explain Agile modelling?
What are core and supplementary principles in Agile modeling?
What is the main principle behind Agile documentation?
What are the different methodologies to implement Agile?
What is XP?
What are User Stories in XP and how different are they from requirement?
Who writes User stories?
When do we say a story is valid?
When are test plans written in XP?
Can you explain the XP development life cycle?
Can you explain how planning game works in Extreme Programming?
How do we estimate in Agile?
On What basis can stories be prioritized?
Can you point out simple differences between Agile and traditional SDLC?
Can you explain the concept of refactoring?
What is a feature in Feature Driven Development?
Can you explain the overall structure of FDD project?
Can you explain the concept of time boxing?
When to choose FDD and when to choose XP?
What is SCRUM?
What does product owner, product back log and sprint mean in SCRUM?
Can you explain how SCRUM flows?
Can you explain different roles in SCRUM?
Can you explain DSDM?
Can you explain different phases in DSDM?
Can you explain in detail project life cycle phase in DSDM?
Can you explain LSD?
Can you explain ASD?

Java Interview Questions

1: OOPS and CORE JAVA
· What is JVM (Java Virtual Machine)?
· What is JIT (Just- in-Time) Compilation?
· What is Object Oriented Programming?
· What’s a Class?
· What’s an Object?
· What’s the relation between Classes and Objects?
· What are different properties provided by Object-oriented systems?
· How do you implement inheritance in Java?
· How can we implement polymorphism in Java?
· What is an Abstract class?
· What are Abstract methods?
· What’s the difference between “Abstract” classes and “Interfaces”?
· What’s difference between Static and Non-Static fields of a class?
· What are inner classes and what’s the practical implementation of inner classes?
· What are packages?
· What is a constructor in class?
· Can constructors be parameterized?
· What is the use if “instance of” keyword?
· What are Native methods in Java?
· How do refer to a current instance of object?
· Explain in depth Garbage collector?
· How does the garbage collector determine that the object has to be marked for
deletion?
· Can you explain “finalize ()” method?
· How can we force the garbage collector to run?
· What’s the main difference between “Switch” and “If” comparison?
· What’s the use of JAVAP tool?
· What are applets?
· In which package is, the applet class located?
· What are native interfaces in Java?
· What are Class loaders?
· What is Bootstrap, Extension and System Class loader?
· Can you explain the flow between bootstrap, extension and system class loader?
· Can you explain how can you practically do dynamic loading?
· What is Reflection API in Java?
· What’s the difference between static and dynamic class loading?
· How can you copy one array in to a different array?
· Can you explain the core collection interfaces?
· Can you explain in brief the collection classes which implement the collection
interfaces?
· What’s the difference between standard JAVA array and Array List class?
· What’s the use of “ensure Capacity” in Array List class?
· How can we obtain an array from an Array List class?
· What is “Linked List” class for?
· Can you explain Hash Set class in collections?
· What is Linked Hash Set class?
· What is a Tree Set class?
· What’s the use of Comparator Interface?
· How can we access elements of a collection?
· What is Map and SortedMap Interface?
· Have you used any collection algorithm?
· Why do we use collections when we had traditional ways for collection?
· Can you name the legacy classes and interface for collections?
· What is Enumeration Interface?
· What’s the main difference between Array List / Hash Map and Vector / Hash
table?
· Are String object Immutable, Can you explain the concept?
· What is a String Buffer class and how does it differs from String class?
· What is the difference between String Builder and String Buffer class?
· What is Pass by Value and Pass by reference? How does JAVA handle the same?
· What are access modifiers?
· What is Assertion?
· Can you explain the fundamentals of deep and shallow Cloning?
· How do we implement shallow cloning?
· How do we implement deep cloning?
· What’s the impact of private constructor?
· What are the situations you will need a constructor to be private?
· Can you explain final modifier?
· What are static Initializes?
· If we have multiple static initialize blocks how are the sequence handled?
· Define casting? What are the different types of Casting?
· Can you explain Widening conversion and Narrowing conversion?
· Can we assign parent object to child objects?
· Define exceptions?
· Can you explain in short how JAVA exception handling works?
· Can you explain different exception types?
· Can you explain checked and unchecked exceptions?
· Can we create our own exception class?
· What are chained exceptions?
· What is serialization?
· How do we implement serialization actually?
· What’s the use of Externalizable Interface?
· What is JAVA doc utility?
2: Threading
· What’s difference between thread and process?
· What is thread safety and synchronization?
· What is semaphore?
· What are monitors?
· What’s the importance of synchronized blocks?
· How do we create threads?
· What’s the difference in using run able and extends in threads?
· Can you explain Thread. Sleep?
· How to stop a thread?
· What is wait () and notify ()?
· Can you explain how Scheduling and Priority works in threads?
· Can you explain Yielding in threading?
· What are daemon threads?
· How do we implement single threaded model in servlets?
3: JDBC
· How does JAVA interact with databases?
· Can we interact with non-relational sources using JDBC?
· Can you explain in depth the different sections in JDBC?
· Can you explain in short how you go about using JDBC API in code?
· How do you handle SQL exceptions?
Twist: - (A) Can you explain “SQL Exception” class in detail?
Twist: - (A) what is SQL State in SQL Exceptions?
· If there is more than one exception in SQL Exception” class how to go about
displaying it?
· Explain Type1, Type2, Type3, and Type4 drivers in JDBC?
· What are the advantages and disadvantages of using JDBC-ODBC bridge driver?
· What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Native-API/ Partially Java
Driver?
· What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Net-Protocol/ All-Java
driver?
· What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Native-protocol/ All-Java
driver?
· Advantages of using JDBC-ODBC bridge driver:-
· Disadvantages of using JDBC-ODBC bridge driver:-
· Advantages of using Native-API/ Partially Java Driver:-
· Dis-advantages of using Native-API/ Partially Java Driver:-
· Advantages of using Net-Protocol/ All-Java driver:-
· Disadvantages of using Net-Protocol/ All- Java driver:-
· Advantages of using Native-protocol/ All-Java driver:-
· Disadvantages of using Native-protocol/ All-Java driver:-
· Define meta-data?
· What is Database Metadata?
· Can you explain “Connection Factory” class?
· I want to display tables of a database how do I do it?
· Define “Result Set Meta Data”?
· What is the difference between “Result Set” and “Row Set”?
· Can “Result Set” objects be serialized?
· Explain “Result Set”, “Row Set”, “Cached Row set”, “JdbcRowset” and “Web
Row Set”?
· What are the different types of result set?
· Explain the concept of “Prepared Statement “statement interface?
· What’s the difference between “Statement” and “Prepared Statement”?
· How can we call stored procedure using JDBC?
· Can you explain “Callable Statement” interface in detail?
· How do you get a result set object from stored procedure?
· (A) How can we do batch updates using “Callable Statement” Interface?
· Define transactions?
· What is ACID in transaction?
· What are the four essential properties of a transaction?
· Explain concurrency and locking?
· What are different types of locks?
· What are the different types of levels of resource on which locks can be placed?
· Define lock escalation?
· What is Table level and Row level locking?
· What are the problems that can occur if you do not implement locking properly?
· What are different transaction levels?
· Twist: - what are different types of locks?
· What is difference between optimistic and pessimistic locking?
· What are deadlocks?
· How can we set transaction level through JDBC API?
· Can you explain transaction control in JDBC?
· What are Save points in a transaction?
4: Servlets and JSP
· What are Servlets?
· What are advantages of servlets over CGI?
· Can you explain Servlet life cycle?
· What are the two important API’s in for Servlets?
· Can you explain in detail “javax.servlet” package?
· What’s the use of Servlet Context?
· How do we define an application level scope for servlet?
· What's the difference between Generic Servlet and Http Servlet?
· Can you explain in detail javax.servlet.http package?
· What’s the architecture of a Servlet package?
· Why is HTTP protocol called as a stateless protocol?
· What are the different ways we can maintain state between requests?
· What is URL rewriting?
· What are cookies?
· What are sessions in Servlets?
· What the difference is between get Session (true) and get Session (false)?
· What’s the difference between “do Post” and “do get” methods?
· Which are the different ways you can communicate between servlets?
· What is functionality of “Request Dispatcher” object?
· How do we share data using “get Servlet Context ()”?
· Explain the concept of SSI?
· What are filters in JAVA?
· Can you explain in short how do you go about implementing filters using Apache
Tomcat?
· Twist: - Explain step by step of how to implement filters?
· What’s the difference between Authentication and authorization?
· Explain in brief the directory structure of a web application?
· Can you explain JSP page life cycle?
· What is EL?
· How does EL search for an attribute?
· What are the implicit EL objects in JSP?
· How can we disable EL?
· What is JSTL?
· Can you explain in short what the different types of JSTL tags are?
· (I) How can we use beans in JSP?
· What is the use of ?
· What is tag for?
· What are JSP directives?
· What are Page directives?
· What are including directives?
· Can you explain taglib directives?
· How does JSP engines instantiate tag handler classes’ instances?
· What’s the difference between JavaBeans and taglib directives?
· What are the different scopes an object can have in a JSP page?
· What are different implicit objects of JSP?
· What are different Authentication Options available in servlets?
· Can you explain how do we practically implement security on a resource?
· How do we practically implement form based authentication?
· How do we authenticate using JDBC?
· Can you explain JDBCRealm?
· Can you explain how do you configure JNDIRealm?
· How did you implement caching in JSP?
· What is the difference between Servletcontext and ServletConfig?
· How do we prevent browser from caching output of my JSP pages?
· Can we explicitly destroy a servlet object?
5: EJB
· What is EJB?
· What are the different kind of Ebb’s?
· You are designing architecture for a project how do you decide whether you
should use session, entity or message driven bean?
· Can you explain “EJBHome” and “EJBObject” in EJB?
· Can client directly create object of session or entity beans?
· Can you explain the concept of local interfaces?
· What are the limitations of using Local object?
· Which application server have you used for EJB?
· Can you explain step by step practically developing and deploying EJB
component?
· What is Passivation and Activation in EJB?
· Can beans who are involved in transaction have “Passivation” process?
· How does the server decide which beans to passivity and activate?
· In what format is the conversational data written to the disk?
· Can you explain in brief Life cycle for Stateless and Stateful beans?
6: Struts
· (I)What’s MVC pattern?
· (B) Define struts?
· (A) Can you explain the directory structure for a struts folder in brief?
· (I) Can you give an overview of how a struts application flows?
· Twist: - What are action and action form classes in Struts?
7: XML and Web Services
· What is XML?
· What is the version information in XML?
· What is ROOT element in XML?
· If XML does not have closing tag will it work?
· Is XML case sensitive?
· What is the difference between XML and HTML?
· Is XML meant to replace HTML?
· Can you explain why your project needed XML?
· What is DTD (Document Type definition)?
· What is well formed XML?
· What is a valid XML?
· What is CDATA section in XML?
· What is CSS?
· What is XSL?
· What is element and attributes in XML?
· What are the standard ways of parsing XML document?
· In What scenarios will you use a DOM parser and SAX parser?
· What is XSLT?
· Define XPATH?
· What is the concept of XPOINTER?
· What is a Web Service?
· What is DISCO?
· What is SOAP?
· What is WSDL?
· Can you explain UDDI?
· Can you explain JAXP?
· What is a XML registry?
· What is JAXR?
· What is JAXM?
· Can you explain JAX-RPC?
· How do you practically implement Web Services?
· How do we consume a web service?
· Are web services Stateful?
8: Internationalization
· Can you explain i18n and l10n?
· Can you explain internationalization and localization?
· What is Locale?
· How do we display numbers, currency and Dates according to proper Locale
format?
· what are resource bundles?
· How do we load a resource bundle file?
· How can we do inheritance in resource bundles?
9: JNI
· What is Native Interface in JAVA?
· Can you say in brief steps required to implement Native interfaces in Java?
· Can JNI be used for VB6, C# or VB.NET directly?
· What are JNI functions and pointers?
· How does the garbage collector know JNI objects are no more used?
· Twist: - What are the different types of references JNI supports?
· Twist: - How to do you delete global objects?
· How does the native language C or C++ understand data types in JAVA?
· Can you explain exception handling in JNI?
· What are limitations for “JNIEnv” pointer in multi- threading scenarios?
· What are the advantages and disadvantages of using “JNI”?
10: Architecture
· What are design patterns?
· Can you list down all patterns and their classification?
· What is the difference between Factory and Abstract Factory Patterns?
· What is MVC pattern?
· How can we implement singleton pattern in JAVA?
· How do you implement prototype pattern in JAVA?
· Can you give a practical implementation of FAÇADE patterns?
· How can we implement observer pattern in JAVA?
· What is three tier architecture?
· What is Service Oriented architecture?
· What is aspect oriented programming?
· How can you implement AOP practically in JAVA?
· What is Inversion of control?
· What is OR mapping?
11: UML
· What is UML?
· How many types of diagrams are there in UML?
· What are advantages of using UML?
· What is the sequence of UML diagrams in project?
· Give a small brief explanation of all Elements in activity diagrams?
· Explain Different elements of a collaboration diagram?
· Explain Component diagrams?
· Describe the various components in sequence diagrams?
· What are the elements in State Chart diagrams?
· Describe different elements in Static Chart diagrams?
· Explain the different elements of a Use Case?
12: Project Management
· What is project management?
· Is spending in IT projects constant through out the project?
· Who is a stakeholder?
· Can you explain project life cycle?
· Are risk constant through out the project?
· Can you explain different software development life cycles?
· What is triple constraint triangle in project management?
· What is a project baseline?
· What is effort variance?
· How is normally a project management plan document organized?
· (I)How do you estimate a project?
· What is CAR (Causal Analysis and Resolution)?
· What is DAR (Decision Analysis and Resolution)?
· What is a fish bone diagram?
· What is pare to principle?
· How do you handle change request?
· What is internal change request?
· What is difference between SITP and UTP in testing?
· What is the software you have used for project management?
· What are the metrics followed in project management?
· You have people in your team who do not meet there deadlines or do not perform
what are the actions you will take?
· What is black box testing and White box testing?
· What’s the difference between Unit testing, Assembly testing and Regression
testing?
· What is V model in testing?
· How do you start a project?
· How did you do resource allocations?
· How will you do code reviews?
· What is CMMI?
· What are the five levels in CMMI?
· What is continuous and staged representation?
· Can you explain the process areas?
· What is SIX sigma?
· What is DMAIC and DMADV?
· What are the various roles in Six Sigma implementation?
· What are function points?
· What are the different types of elementary process in FPA?
· What are the different elements in Functions points?
· Can you explain in GSC and VAF in function points?
· What are unadjusted function points and how is it calculated?
· Can you explain steps in function points?
· What is the FP per day in your current company?
· Do you know Use Case points?
· What is COCOMO I, COCOMOII and COCOMOIII?
· What is SMC approach of estimation?
· How do you estimate maintenance project and change requests?
13: Database
· What is database or database management systems (DBMS)?
· What is SQL?
· What’s difference between DBMS and RDBMS?
· What are CODD rules?
· What are E-R diagrams?
· How many types of relationship exist in database designing? What is
normalization? What are different type of normalization?
· What is denormalization?
· Can you explain Fourth Normal Form?
· Can you explain Fifth Normal Form?
· What’s the difference between Fourth and Fifth normal form?
· Have you heard about sixth normal form?
· What are DML and DDL statements?
· How do we select distinct values from a table?
· What is like operator for and what are wild cards?
· Can you explain Insert, Update and Delete query?
· What is order by clause?
· What is the SQL In clause?
· Can you explain the between clause?
· I have an employee salary table how do we find the second highest from it?
· What are different types of joins in SQL?
· What is “CROSS JOIN”?
· You want to select the first record in a given set of rows?
· What is the default “SORT” order for a SQL?
· What is a self-join?
· What’s the difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE?
· .What are Wildcard operators?
· Twist: - What is like clause in SQL?
· What’s the difference between “UNION” and “UNION ALL”?
· What are cursors and what are the situations you will use them?
· What are the steps to create a cursor?
· What is “Group by” clause?
· What is the difference between “HAVING” and “WHERE” clause?
· What is a Sub-Query?
· What are Aggregate and Scalar Functions?
· Can you explain the SELECT INTO Statement?
· What is a View?
· What is “Correlated Sub queries”?
· What is SQl injection?
· What is “Data Warehousing”?
· What are Data Marts?
· What are Fact tables and Dimension Tables?
· Twist: - What is Dimensional Modeling?
· Twist: - What is Star Schema Design?
· What is Snow Flake Schema design in database?
· Twist: - What’s the difference between Star and Snow flake schema?
· What is ETL process in Data warehousing?
· Twist: - What are the different stages in “Data warehousing”?
· What is “Data mining”?
· Compare “Data mining” and “Data Warehousing”?
· What are indexes?
· What are B-Trees?
· I have a table which has lot of inserts, is it a good database design to create
indexes on that table?
· Twist: - Insert’s are slower on tables which have indexes, justify it?
· Twist: - Why do page splitting happen?
· What are “Table Scan’s” and “Index Scan’s”?
· What are the two types of indexes and explain them in detail?
· Twist: - What’s the difference between clustered and non-clustered indexes?