You are an analyst supporting two workstreams on the same project. At 10am, Farah, who leads the operations workstream, asks you for a benchmarking table by 4pm for a client call. Ten minutes later, Kenji, who leads the finance workstream, asks you to update a financial model by 5pm so that he can review it before a steering committee meeting tomorrow morning. You estimate each task will take about five hours. Both leads report to the same engagement manager, Sofia, who is in the office today.
What is the most effective response?
Answer: C: Tell both leads about the clash straight away with your time estimates, and suggest a quick conversation with Sofia to agree which comes first. (half credit: A)
Why: Raising the clash early with realistic estimates lets the people who own the priorities decide, and Sofia can judge which deadline matters more to the project. Doing the first request and warning Kenji is at least transparent, but it assumes that order of arrival is the right way to prioritise, and a model delivered late in the evening may leave Kenji no time to review it. Splitting your time evenly risks two unfinished pieces of work. Working on silently hides a genuine resourcing problem and makes it likely that both pieces are rushed or a deadline is missed without warning.
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Prioritisation scenarios are a staple of situational judgement tests. The pattern behind the strongest answers is to surface a clash early, with realistic estimates, and let the people who own the priorities decide, rather than silently overworking or picking a winner yourself.
This free scenario from our Bain question bank is rated medium.
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