Tell Me About a Process You Improved

Purpose of the Question

This is a common behavioral question asked by interviewers to assess two main areas:

1. Problem-solving skills.
2. Planning and execution skills.
3. Communication skills and overall likeability or “cultural fit.”

Your interviewer (and potential employer) is seeking an individual who can drive impact to the business, communicate effectively to various stakeholders, and contribute positively to the work environment. The interviewer is most interested in the overall impact of your improvement. As in all behavioral questions, the interviewer is measuring your likability through your communication skills – they are trying to gauge if they would want to work with you!

Preparing your Answer

Given the open-endedness of this question, there is no right or wrong answer. Here is a basic outline for answering this and similar questions like “Describe a time you made a suggestion to improve business.”

Step 1: Choose an example.

When selecting an example for your answer, assess possibilities for the following, ordered by importance:

• What impact did I drive for this process improvement? Employers want owners, not participants. Choose an example in which you had the greatest ownership over the process you were improving to showcase your impact.
• How relevant is the example to the job? Select as relevant an example to the job you’re interviewing for. Review the position description and then consider similar examples. You want an example that is relatable to the interviewer so that they are not left confused by your answer.
• How big of a problem did I solve? Try to select an example in which the process was severely impacting the business or workplace.

Step 2: Use STAR - the right way

STAR is a tried-and-true formula for answering these types of questions, but it has become so commonplace that many candidates who use the framework come across as robotic, rehearsed, and boring! To effectively use STAR, you should dramatize both the Situation and Task, indicate alternatives before describing your Action, and summarize your impact when concluding with the Result.

Step 3: Quantify and qualify details to increase credibility

Use metrics or statistics to amplify both the situation and impact of the solution. In addition, add qualitative details to both the situation and the effect of the process improvement on the business.

Finally, don't forget to demonstrate your enthusiasm in improving processes. Like any good storyteller, you should express enthusiasm throughout your answer, especially at the end of your answer. State how much you enjoy working with teams to improve the operational effectiveness of a process. Most importantly, be likable! You don’t have to be a comedian but try to be entertaining so that you’re memorable from the pact of other candidates.

Example Answer

Interviewer: Tell me about a process you improved.

Your answer should be no longer than 4 minutes. After 4 minutes, it becomes increasingly challenging to keep the interviewer engaged and interested

Candidate: I’m glad you asked because this is something I truly enjoy - making processes around me better and more efficient.

Immediately you should set the stage of being enthusiastic about sharing your example with the interviewer.

There is one situation I’d love to share.

Take a brief pause.

It was around 10PM on a Tuesday. I get a text from my manager, “We need to talk ASAP” and my heart sank.

Using STAR, dramatize the Situation so that you captivate your interviewer.

I called my boss immediately and he explained that the launch of a new product, which was two months away, was severely at risk due to potential COVID shutdowns at our suppliers and supply constraints.

I like using examples from COVID because everyone was effected by the pandemic in some way, so examples from this time period may resonate and be more relatable with the interviewer.

If we were to miss the product launch date, it would cost our business $500,000/day in lost revenue until we were able to ship the new product.

Quantify the business impact facing the old process.

As the Operations Manager, I was tasked by my boss to lead the strategy for mitigating supply chain issues so that the assembler of the product could receive the necessary parts in time to build and ship the product according to schedule.

Ideally your job title for the chosen example should be similar or relevant to the job you're interviewing for. However, if you haven’t held a similar position, then try to describe a job responsibility that aligns with the role; e.g., "As the person in charge of overseeing operations...". In addition, use language and modifiers that signal that you were the owner of the process improvement rather than a participant. Some key words to signal ownership include “led”, “owned”, “managed”, and “oversaw”.

I got right to work later that night, brainstorming ideas to mitigate the supply chain issue. One idea was to remove at-risk parts that were non-essential to the core functionality. However, doing so would require us to go through serious testing efforts to ensure the new configuration functioned correctly. Another idea was to simply push back our launch schedule so that we would have some wiggle room in case of supply delay and we wouldn’t risk quality by rushing to launch a product with untested parts. However, while mitigating potential quality issues, this wouldn’t resolve the larger issue at hand of lost revenue.

Before discussing your Action, indicate 2-3 alternatives that were considered. This shows that you carefully consider all options before making a decision.

I needed more data to inform my decision. I requested the team to provide me with a list of parts that were delayed and when we expected to receive them. With this data I realized we could take a multi-step approach to mitigating slips in schedule. First, we could use common parts from another product that had greater inventory. Second, for the parts we weren’t using in other products, we identified drop dead dates for when we needed those parts. From those dates we worked backwards to identify the dates for when we needed parts ordered and shipped. Third, we established a network of secondary suppliers for which we could order through in case our main suppliers were at risk of shipping the parts on time. Lastly, we established a COVID task force to monitor and assess the status of our main suppliers’ ability to ship on time.

Describe your solution using details to paint a vivid picture of your Action. Be a little selfish here and try to use "I" instead of "we" in areas where you were the decision maker.

The end result was that we shipped the product on schedule without any delays! We in fact had to use some of the secondary suppliers to receive parts on time, but since that network and process had already been established, we didn’t skip a beat! Following the release of the product, our product teams began implementing this framework for establishing secondary suppliers and identifying common used parts across products to mitigate supply chain issues.

Lastly, discuss your results but, more importantly, summarize your impact. Explain how you made a lasting impact on the process and overall business. This should be your exclamation point to your story. Like any great movie or book, the ending can make or break your story!