Get them in one room and move the conversation from who to what. Establish the facts together, define what done looks like at the boundary specifically enough to test, and get a named owner and a date before anyone leaves. If it is a genuine gap in ownership, escalate to have the boundary assigned rather than mediating the same argument every week.
Why interviewers ask this
Interviewers want to see conflict handled structurally rather than diplomatically. The insight they are listening for is that recurring blame usually means an unowned boundary, not bad behavior, and that mediating repeatedly means you are solving the wrong problem. They also want the written follow up, since verbal agreements between teams rarely survive a week without a record.
How to structure your answer
- Bring both sides together rather than shuttling between them.
- Establish facts before discussing responsibility.
- Define done at the boundary in testable terms.
- Leave with a named owner and a date, written up the same day.
- Escalate to assign ownership if the gap is structural.
Example answer
I get them in one room, and I move the conversation from who to what. Usually about ten minutes in it turns out both are partly right and the actual problem is that nobody owns the bit in the middle, which is why the argument keeps recurring. So I get the facts on a whiteboard, we define what done looks like at the boundary specifically enough that you could test it, and nobody leaves until there is a named owner and a date for the next step. I write that up and send it to both teams and their managers the same day, which is not about blame, it is so the agreement survives contact with next week. If it turns out to be a genuine ownership gap that neither side has the authority to close, that one is mine to escalate. Mediating the same argument every week is a sign I am solving the wrong problem.
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See how it worksFollow-up questions to expect
- What do you do if one team simply will not turn up to the conversation?
- How do you handle it when the conflict is really between two managers?
- How do you prevent boundary disputes when planning the project?
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