Situational judgment: applied practice: open practice pack: learner worksheet

1. situational-judgement-applied-s01-q01

You have taken over a report at short notice. One figure in it looks wrong to you, and the report is due tomorrow. What is the most effective response?

1. Check the figure against its source, and if it is wrong tell the report's owner what you found and what the corrected figure should be, in time to change it
2. Submit it unchanged, since you did not produce that figure
3. Quietly change the figure to the value you believe is correct
4. Add a footnote saying the figure may be unreliable

Answer:

2. situational-judgement-applied-s01-q02

A colleague has interrupted you several times in team meetings over the past month. It is starting to affect how your contributions are received.

1. Interrupt them in the same way so the pattern is balanced out
2. Raise it at the start of the next team meeting so everyone hears it
3. Say nothing; meetings are short and the work matters more
4. Speak to them privately, describe the specific behaviour and the effect it has, and agree how you will both handle it next time

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3. situational-judgement-applied-s01-q03

You have been assigned a task whose instructions you only partly understand. The person who assigned it is away for two days and the work is needed by the end of the week.

1. Start on your best guess; anything wrong can be redone later
2. Complete the part you are certain about, write down the specific questions blocking the rest, and put them to the next best-informed person or to the absent colleague
3. Wait until they are back so the work is done to the right brief
4. Ask a colleague to take the task instead

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4. situational-judgement-applied-s01-q04

It is Monday. You realise a piece of work promised to a client for Thursday will now not be ready until Monday week.

1. Work extra hours to try to catch up, and say nothing unless you fail
2. Tell your manager on Thursday, with a complete explanation of what happened
3. Tell your manager today with the revised date, the cause, and what you would need to hold the original one
4. Ask a colleague to take the work over

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5. situational-judgement-applied-s01-q05

A new team process has just been introduced. You can see a case where it will produce a worse outcome than the way you worked before.

1. Keep using the old process, which you know produces better results
2. Follow the new process and say nothing; it was not your decision
3. Tell the colleagues around you why the new process will not work
4. Follow the new process while recording a concrete example of where it fails, and take that example to whoever owns the process

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6. situational-judgement-applied-s02-q01

A teammate's deliverable is two days late and your own task cannot start without it. They have not mentioned it.

1. Raise it with your manager straight away to protect the deadline
2. Ask them directly what is holding it up and when they expect it, then decide together whether help or escalation is needed
3. Keep rearranging your own work around it for as long as it takes
4. Do their part yourself without telling them

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7. situational-judgement-applied-s02-q02

Your team has debated a decision fully and chosen an option you still believe is wrong. You were heard; you did not persuade them.

1. Keep making the case at every subsequent meeting until the team reconsiders
2. Implement it without enthusiasm so the weakness becomes obvious
3. State your objection once for the record, implement the decision properly, and agree what evidence would justify revisiting it
4. Implement it and tell others you were overruled

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8. situational-judgement-applied-s02-q03

A colleague made a mistake that has now been noticed. They ask you to describe it, if asked, as a shared oversight so their appraisal is not affected.

1. Decline to misdescribe it, offer to help put the error right, and encourage them to report it themselves
2. Agree, since the error was small and they are usually reliable
3. Report the request to their manager without telling them
4. Say nothing either way and avoid the conversation

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9. situational-judgement-applied-s02-q04

A new team member is visibly struggling with a task you know well. Your own workload is heavy this week.

1. Take the task off them and complete it yourself
2. Point them to the documentation and let them work it out
3. Leave it; their manager will notice and arrange support
4. Book a short, specific slot to walk them through the part they are stuck on, and point them to the reference for the rest

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10. situational-judgement-applied-s02-q05

In a meeting, a senior colleague credits someone else for a piece of work you led. It is probably an honest mistake.

1. Correct it there and then so everyone present hears the right version
2. Let it go; the work is done and arguing about credit looks petty
3. Note it, then afterwards set out factually who did what to the person concerned and, if needed, to whoever keeps the record
4. Raise it as a formal grievance

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11. situational-judgement-applied-s03-q01

You discover an error in a data table that was sent to a client yesterday. It changes one of the conclusions.

1. Wait to see whether the client notices before raising it
2. Correct the internal copy so the record is right from now on
3. Mention it to your manager only if the client comes back with a question
4. Tell your manager now, with the size of the error, what it changes, and a proposed correction to send the client

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12. situational-judgement-applied-s03-q02

A supplier whose bid you are currently evaluating offers you two personal tickets to a sporting event.

1. Decline, and tell your manager or the procurement lead that the offer was made, so it is on the record
2. Accept, and make sure you score the bid strictly on its merits
3. Accept, and withdraw from the evaluation panel
4. Decline politely and say nothing further about it

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13. situational-judgement-applied-s03-q03

Someone considerably more senior than you asks you to do something you believe breaches a company policy.

1. Do it; they are senior and the accountability is theirs
2. Refuse, and leave it there
3. Say precisely what concerns you and which policy, ask for the instruction in writing, and use the escalation route if it still stands
4. Raise it on an internal discussion channel to see what others think

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14. situational-judgement-applied-s03-q04

A near-miss happens on your shift. Nobody was hurt, nothing was damaged, and no one else saw it.

1. Make a private note of it in case something similar happens again
2. Report it through the normal reporting route, because near-misses are the evidence used to remove the hazard before it causes harm
3. Mention it informally to a colleague on the same shift
4. Do nothing; there was no harm and no damage

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15. situational-judgement-applied-s03-q05

You escalated a risk to your manager. They considered it and decided not to act. You still believe the risk is real.

1. Ask what evidence would change the decision, gather it if you can, and use the next formal route only if the risk is serious and remains unaddressed
2. Accept the decision and drop it
3. Take it straight to the most senior person you can reach
4. Put the same argument to your manager again next week

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16. situational-judgement-applied-s04-q01

You committed to something you now know you cannot deliver as promised. The person expecting it has planned around it.

1. Deliver the part that is finished and describe it as complete
2. Say nothing until they ask; they may not need it as soon as they said
3. Tell them as soon as you know, with what you can deliver, by when, and what would help
4. Explain in detail why circumstances made it impossible

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17. situational-judgement-applied-s04-q02

You are asked for a status update on work that has barely started, though the deadline is still some way off and you expect to recover.

1. Report it as on track, because you still expect to finish on time
2. Report the actual position, the reason for it, and how you intend to recover
3. Report it as blocked, without specifying by what
4. Delay the update until there is more progress to report

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18. situational-judgement-applied-s04-q03

A required step in a documented process adds twenty minutes to every job and appears to achieve nothing.

1. Skip it and see whether anything actually goes wrong
2. Skip it only on the days when the workload is heaviest
3. Complain about it to colleagues who share the frustration
4. Keep following it while finding out what risk it was introduced to control, then propose a change that still controls that risk

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19. situational-judgement-applied-s04-q04

You receive critical feedback. Part of it lands and is fair; part of it describes something you do not recognise in your own work.

1. Act on the part that is accurate, and ask for the specific examples behind the part you do not recognise
2. Reject the feedback, since some of it is demonstrably wrong
3. Accept all of it without argument so the conversation ends well
4. Ask other colleagues privately whether they think it is true

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20. situational-judgement-applied-s04-q05

A repetitive manual task takes a large share of your week. You are fairly sure it could be automated.

1. Carry on; it is part of the role you were hired for
2. Measure how long it actually takes, then propose the change with that figure and an estimate of the effort to build it
3. Build the automation quietly and start using it
4. Stop doing the task and see whether anyone still needs the output

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