Scrum Master Interview Questions & Agile Scrum Interview Questions and Answers

Agile Scrum is one of the most useful project management methodologies in today’s challenging business environment. A large number of organizations use agile principles by now. Team members of the agile and scrum teams play key roles in the organizations. Therefore, HR managers seek candidates with good knowledge of Agile and Scrum principles. Whether you are called for your first job interview or you are an experienced team member, it essential to prepare yourself for some frequently asked Scrum Master Interview Questions and Agile Interview Questions to answer them.

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There are many career opportunities in the area of agile in the IT market and applicants are going through the interview to get a better job in that field. Since the boundaries of Agile and Scrum are enormous due to vast coverage and multiple flavors, it becomes challenging for applicants to prepare for the job interview.

In this article, we will focus on the common and frequently asked questions for agile scrum and scrum master interviews.

Basic Scrum Master Interview Questions & Agile Scrum Interview Questions and Answers

Below are some of the frequently asked questions.

1. What is Agile? Give a Brief Description.

Agile is a set of management practices and approaches that encourage “just-in-time” production in software development.

2. What are the key differences between traditional project management and Agile? (Agile vs Waterfall)

The waterfall model is a sequential model in which you complete one process and begin the next one. Design, development, and testing phases follow each other. On the other hand, Agile methodology segregates the project development life cycle into sprints and these sprints are performed simultaneously. This provides flexibility to Agile for changing project requirements, as they occur.

3. Describe the roles in Scrum

There are three main roles in Scrum which are the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and the Delivery Team. Scrum roles differ from traditional project execution roles.

Product Owner: Is the holder of the product value who defines what needs to be done and the priorities to deliver the highest value.
Scrum Master: Is the one who is responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum. Helps them to understand the basics of Scrum.
Development Team: Is a collection of experts working together to build the requested product.

4. What is the Daily Scrum (Daily Stand-Up)?

Daily Scrum is an essential concept of Agile. Therefore you may face a few questions regarding Daily Scrum (Daily Stand-Up). The daily scrum is a daily short meeting in which participants typically attend while standing.

It is typically held in the morning. The aim of this meeting is to get answers to three essential questions;

What did you do yesterday?
What will you do today?
Are there any impediments that keep you from doing work?

5. What is the Goal of a Sprint Planning Meeting?

The sprint planning meeting is held at the beginning of each sprint in which all the team members participate. The goal of the sprint planning meeting is to select the set of product backlog items that will be delivered during the sprint.

6. What are the Differences Between Agile and Scrum?

Agile is a set of management practices and approaches that uses an iterative approach for software development. On the other hand, Scrum is an approach that includes a specific set of rules to be followed while implementing Agile.

7. Give Examples for Other Agile Frameworks

Scrum is a framework that prescribes roles, events, and rules to implement Agile. There are some other Agile frameworks like Scrum such as Kanban, Extreme Programming, Test Driven Development, and Feature-Driven Development.

8. When do you use Waterfall instead of Scrum?

The waterfall is a useful method for projects with well-defined scope and requirements. It is applicable if all the requirements are completely understood and will not change.

9. Can you describe the burn-down chart?

A burn-down chart is a graphic that is used in agile to understand when all of the work will be completed. Simply put, it demonstrates the amount of work a team has completed through—such as hours during the sprint.

10. Have you managed more than one Scrum Team?

Note that this is a misleading question. Because Scrum Masters lead the teams, they don’t manage. The aim of this question is that the questioner tries to understand if you are aware of this difference. One scrum master is ideal for one scrum team. However, in some circumstances, a scrum master may be required to lead two teams.

11. What is a Sprint Retrospective?

A sprint retrospective is a meeting held by the Scrum Team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements to be decided during the next sprint.

12. What is the duration of a sprint?

The duration of a scrum sprint depends on the size of the scrum team. A scrum team may involve 3-9 members. A scrum sprint may vary from one to four weeks.

13. Can you give examples of impediments in Scrum?

Impediments are the obstacles that a Scrum team may face during the performance of the work. Lack of knowledge, technical, operational issues, lack of management supporting system are the examples of impediments in Scrum.

14. Have you heard Scrum ban?

Scrumban is a Scrum and Kanban-based methodology for software development. Therefore, it involves the characteristics of both methods and aims at continuous improvement.

15. What is Agile Testing?

Agile testing is a software testing system that relies on the principles of software development. It is an iterative process that provides feedback to the development team during the development cycle. It incorporates agile principles and applications to meet customer requirements.

16. Give examples for the principles of Agile Testing

Customer satisfaction, continuous feedback, improved communication, and error-free clean node are some of the principles of Agile testing.

17. Can you explain the “Velocity”?

Velocity is one of the common metrics of Agile. It can be defined as an average number of points from last 3-4 sprints. It provides an idea of capacity and progress.

18. What are the other common metrics of Agile? Can you give examples?

This is one of the most common scrum master interview questions.

Cumulative Flow Diagram,
Work Category Allocation
Time Coverage
Business Value Delivered

19. What is the “Planning Poker” technique?

Planning Poker ( or Scrum Poker ) is a consensus-based approach for estimating the efforts for a task. Typically a session of Planning Poker involves team members and product owners. They propose estimation values using poker cards and then finally everyone agreeing to one value.

20. What is a backlog?

A backlog involves user stories and tasks that the team needs to work upon in the future. A backlog can be categorized as product and sprint backlog.

Final Words on Scrum Master Interview Questions & Agile Scrum Interview Questions

Agile and Scrum methodologies are helpful to accomplish a project at the earliest with high customer satisfaction. In this article, we listed some of the most common Scrum Master Interview Questions and Agile Interview Questions asked by the interviewers. If you have any questions or share your experiences, use the comments box given in below.