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> What would you do if two different people were emailing a spreadsheet back and forth to track something?

I realize this is part of an interview game, but perhaps the best response is still to ask why this is a problem in the first place before you launch into a technical masterpiece. Force the counterparty to provide specific (contrived) reasons that this practice is not working for the business. Then, go about it like you otherwise would have.

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I actually really prefer your answer. I would likely counter with, “what potential issues could you see with doing things this way?” But a) you’ve shown me that you don’t charge into solutions without first attempting to define the problems, b) your follow-up answer reveals to me what kind of things you think are important, and c) I’d probably quickly ask something like,”let’s assume that in the past, we’ve had issues with missing changes when emailing this back and forth,” and encourage some more dialogue.

I do dislike interviews where a candidate can fail simply by not giving a specific, pre-canned answer. It suggests a work culture that is very top-down and one that isn’t particularly interested in actually getting to the truth.

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