JP Morgan’s 2027 Video Interview for CIB Innovation Development uses this prompt to test more than creativity. The interviewer wants to see whether your insight came from disciplined problem diagnosis and whether the proposed solution produced a real outcome.
The real question
Here is the exact question:
Tell me about a time when your understanding of a problem provided you with the ability to generate a novel solution. Describe the situation, the actions you took, and the outcome.
How you lose points
- Leading with the idea: You describe a clever solution before proving that you understood the underlying problem.
- Calling any change novel: A minor process tweak sounds inflated when you cannot explain what made the approach different.
- Skipping evidence: You rely on intuition without showing the observation, data, or stakeholder input that shaped your diagnosis.
- Ignoring constraints: Your idea appears unrealistic because you omit time, risk, systems, or adoption limits.
- Reporting activity as outcome: Building a prototype is not the result unless you explain what the prototype changed.
How you pass
A strong answer makes the chain of reasoning visible. Start with the surface problem, then reveal the deeper cause you uncovered. Explain how that understanding narrowed the options and led to a solution that others had not considered.
Imagine a hypothetical internship team that manually reconciled customer requests every morning. The obvious answer was more automation, but your review showed that inconsistent request categories caused most errors. You defined a simple intake taxonomy, tested it on two weeks of records, and then automated only the stable categories. Processing time fell while exceptions remained visible for review.
- Separate the symptom from the root cause.
- Name the evidence that changed your understanding.
- Explain why the solution was novel in that context.
- Show how you tested risk before wider use.
- Finish with a result tied to the original problem.
The best answers do not present novelty as inspiration. They show that original action followed from a more accurate model of the problem.
Get the ones for your role
This is one JP Morgan Video Interview question for CIB Innovation Development. OpenInterview has the complete questions for the firm and role so you can prepare for the real assessment rather than generic creativity prompts.
