Tell me about a commitment you missed. When did you tell people, and what did you offer?

How to answer

The question names its own checkpoints: when you told people, and what you offered. Spend your time on the gap between knowing and telling, and on the options.

Five moves, in order:

1. The commitment as you made it. Who you promised, what, by when, and what they had planned around the date: a training session, a cutover, a board update. Pick one where you set or agreed to the date.
2. When you suspected, and when you knew. The first signal (a dependency that slipped, a test that failed, an estimate that grew once you looked) and the point you were sure. The strong answer raises the date as at risk at the first, with the day you’ll know, not at the second.
3. When you told them. How long after the signal, whether you told them before they could find out, and the words you used. Lead with the fact and your part in it, not the chain of causes. If the gap was long, say why.
4. What you offered. Real options, shaped by what the date was for: the reduced scope on the original date, the full scope on a date you could defend, and what you needed from them for either. Add what you did to limit their cost in the meantime, such as a manual step you ran for them.
5. The new date, and the change. Whether you hit it, and one change someone could watch you make, such as giving a range until a dependency is confirmed, or naming the biggest unknown each time you give a date.

Put the clock on it out loud: “I saw the vendor slip on a Tuesday, told her Wednesday morning the date was at risk and I’d know by Friday, and on Friday called to confirm the miss, more than a week before it was due.” Days and hours beat “as soon as I could”.

The traps: a miss that was really a vendor’s, told without your part (passing on the vendor’s date with no buffer, or not checking it until late, is your part); notice given on the due date; and an apology with a new date but no options.