Describe a time requirements changed midway through a project

Why interviewers ask this

This checks adaptability without frustration or wasted effort — can you absorb a change in direction professionally and salvage what's still usable from the earlier work?

What a strong answer covers

• What changed and why — understanding the reason for the change (new information, a shifted business priority, a stakeholder mind change) shows you don't just react emotionally to it
• What work from before the change was salvageable versus what had to be discarded — a specific, honest accounting
• How you communicated the impact of the change (timeline, scope) to whoever needed to know
• Whether you did anything differently afterward to reduce the cost of the next requirements change — more incremental delivery, earlier stakeholder check-ins

Common pitfalls

• Framing the requirement change as purely someone else's failure to plan properly, with no acknowledgment that requirements changing is often legitimate and unavoidable
• No specifics on what was salvaged versus discarded