Tell me about your biggest failure.

The question Tell me about your biggest failure is asked to give interviewers a perspective of how you handle situations when things don't go according to plan. The main concern is not about the failure itself, but about your response and learning experiences from the failure.

Here are some key points to consider while forming your answer:

1. Be Honest: Choose a real incident from your past where you failed to meet your expectation or the expectation of others. Do not make up a story.
2. Analyze What Went Wrong: Reflect on the incident, on why you failed. The intention isn't to blame others, but to hold yourself accountable for the part you played in the failure.
3. Learning from Failure: Highlight the lessons learned from the experience and what steps you have taken to ensure you do not repeat the same mistake.
4. Demonstrate Growth: Show how this failure has contributed to your personal or professional growth.

In my previous role as a project manager, I was responsible for overseeing a software upgrade for our client. I presumed that all stake-holders shared my understanding of the specifications. However, upon rollout, the client revealed that they had expected different functionalities. This caused a delay in the project, leading to financial penalties for my company.

Looking back, I realize my biggest mistake was not clearly communicating and confirming my understanding of the project specifications with all parties involved. From this failure, I learned the importance of effective, clear communication and active listening.

In the future, I implemented a better communication strategy where all stakeholders were updated regularly, removing any ambiguity, and leading to improved client satisfaction.

As a junior developer, I was once tasked with developing a new feature for our application. Driven by enthusiasm, I missed documenting the process, thinking it would slow me down and, instead, focused solely on coding. Unexpectedly, I faced an issue that set me back quite a bit as I had no proper documentation to refer.

I acknowledge my failure was in not understanding the importance of proper documentation. This experience taught me that record keeping and documentation are as crucial as coding itself in the development process.

After this incident, I began maintaining rigorous documentation for all of my projects, which not only improved the quality of my work, but also helped my colleagues who later worked on those projects.