SP Jain PGPM Profile Sheet Question : Explain a situation when you were a part of a team where the group process and/or intended outcome failed. What was your role, how did you contribute to the process or outcome, and what did you learn?

(Answer in not more than 200 words)

Ok, disclaimer. This is not the ideal answer that I would have liked myself to write. But this was my first application :), so do take it with pinch of salt.

While working in the role of an acting project manager for an ongoing project, there was a partial failure in software delivered to customer.

The original project manager was away due to a personal emergency and I had to step in until he was back. Despite not being involved from beginning, I worked hard with the team to complete unfinished work. The test cases were prepared when project was in design phase, and relevant ones updated during implementation when there were minor requirement changes. Somehow this was not done for a couple of test cases, and we failed to realize this. Hence despite our belief that we have done foolproof testing, the application failed when customer tested it, and was not pleased with our efforts.

Though this delivery was partial one, customer was hoping highly from it and this failure caused a few escalations in my senior management, prompting me to explain the situation to them and promise the customer of no more failures. 

The experience taught me importance of being thorough with complete scope of the requirements, and not always relying on others to do so. This failure also ensured we did not repeat our mistakes in future deliveries.