How do you handle missed deadlines or delays in the project?
Why This Is Asked
Interviewers want to see that you respond proactively to setbacks—communicating early, adjusting plans, and learning from causes. They're assessing your accountability, stakeholder management, and ability to keep the team focused under pressure.
Key Points to Cover
- Early detection and transparent communication
- Root cause analysis (scope, estimates, dependencies, blockers)
- Replanning and resetting expectations with stakeholders
- Implementing changes to prevent recurrence
STAR Method Answer Template
Describe the context - what was happening, what team/company, what was at stake
What was your specific responsibility or challenge?
What specific steps did you take? Be detailed about YOUR actions
What was the outcome? Use metrics where possible. What did you learn?
đź’ˇ Tips
- Use a real example where a deadline was missed and how you handled it
- Emphasize communication—stakeholders should never be surprised
✍️ Example Response
STAR formatSituation: At a health-tech company, my team was building an integration with a major EHR vendor. We'd committed to a launch date to align with their release cycle—missing it would push us out 6 months. At the 60% mark, we discovered their API had undocumented rate limits that would require a significant architecture change. We were going to miss the deadline.
Task: I needed to communicate early, reset expectations, and replan without damaging the relationship with the vendor or our leadership.
Action: As soon as we confirmed the delay, I scheduled a call with the vendor and our leadership—within 24 hours. I presented the situation, root cause, and a revised timeline. I didn't blame the vendor; I framed it as a discovery we should have caught earlier. I proposed a phased approach: we'd deliver a limited scope by the original date (enough to preserve the relationship) and full scope 6 weeks later. I also ran a blameless post-mortem with the team to identify how we could have caught this earlier—we added API validation to our integration checklist. I sent weekly status updates to stakeholders until we shipped.
Result: We delivered the limited scope on the original date and full scope 5 weeks later. The vendor appreciated our transparency. Leadership trusted us more because we'd communicated proactively. I learned that bad news early is better than bad news late—and that having a contingency plan (phased delivery) makes the conversation easier.
🏢 Companies Known to Ask This
| Company | Variation / Focus |
|---|---|
| Amazon | Deliver Results, Ownership — "Tell me about a time you missed a deadline" |
| Accountability, structuring unclear situations | |
| Meta | Impact at scale, execution |
| Microsoft | Execution under pressure |
| Stripe | Building reliable systems |
| Twitter/X | Speed, product ownership |