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 Scrum Master Interview Questions & Explanation Download Here

Scrum Master Interview Questions With Answers 

What is Agile?
It’s a combination of iterative and incremental process models with focus on Process Adaptability and customer satisfactions by rapid delivery of working software products.

When would you use the Agile Methodology?
New changes to be implemented
Complex and bigger projects
Long-term goals and no bound-on requirements
Quick launch for the product to go-to-market
Frequent changes throughout the development cycle
No limit on time and budget

State some major principles of Agile?
Customer satisfaction
Face to face communication
Continuous feedback
Quick response to change
Sustainable development
Self-Organization
Collective work

What is Scrum and how is it different from Waterfall?
Scrum is a framework that implements the agile mindset, values and principles. It is different from Waterfall in the following ways:
Early Feedback
Minimal Risks
Increased ROI
Collaborative Development
Rollback changes

What is a Sprint? What is the ideal duration of a sprint?
A Sprint is a repeatable and regular work cycle in the Scrum methodology during which a releasable increment is accomplished and ready for review.

Ideal duration depends on the size of the project and the team working on the project. Average is about 1 to 4 weeks. *Typically 2 weeks*

This process of working on items from the product backlog into sprints makes it easy for the team to estimate, plan and complete the work within the 2 weeks.

It gives enough time for the Product Owner to change the priorities more often to allow the teams to adapt quickly to market pressure and user requirements.

This is not possible in the traditional Waterfall approach.

What are the different roles involved in Scrum?
Product Owner - Responsible for the work of the team. The main role of a Product Owner is to motivate the team to achieve the goal and the vision of the product. PO can take input from others but is responsible for making decisions.

Scrum Master - Coaches the Scrum team. Ensures all the team members follow Scrum Theory rules and practices. Makes sure the team has whatever it needs to complete its work and remove any impediments, roadblocks or bottlenecks.

Developers - Self organizing and Cross functional team that works together to deliver the product. The team is given freedom to organize themselves.

What is the Role of a Scrum Master?
A Scrum Master is a Facilitator for the team and the Product Owner. Rather than a manager of the team, the Scrum Master works to assist both the developers and Product owner.

The Scrum Master is the team facilitator responsible for helping all the team members follow Scrum values and practices.

What are the responsibilities of the Scrum Master?
The Scrum Master serves the Product Owner, Development team as well as the entire organization.

The Scrum Master is responsible for resolution of obstacles, conflicts, or impediments which could halt the team's progress and performance.

Responsible for tracking and monitoring the progress of the team
Maximizing the productivity of the team
Guiding the team and improving their effectiveness
Lead and organize the meetings and resolves issues (Lead daily Scrum, Retrospective and Sprint Planning)
Ensures everyone on the team follows Scrum rules, theories and practices
Communicates and reports results.

What is a Story Point? How do you calculate it?
Each product backlog item in Scrum can be written in a user story. format.

A Story is an arbitrary measure used by Scrum teams to determine the difficulty of implementing a given story.
Story Point = Development effort + Testing Effort + Resolving dependencies + Other factors
A measure which you use to calculate the difficulty of implementing a given story.

What is a Story Board in Scrum Framework?
A Story Board is a visual representation of a software project's progress. There are generally 4 columns: To-Do, In Progress, Test and Done.

Helps maintain transparency in Scrum work.

What is the Daily Standup?
Each day at the same time, same place the team meets to give updates on their respective tasks and the tickets resolved for that day. Maximum duration of 15 minutes.

Any topics that derail the time will be added to the parking lot list to be discussed later on.

The daily Scrum (sometimes called Stand Up or Daily Stand Up) is a 15 minute daily meeting where the team has a chance to get on the same page and put together a strategy for the next 24 hours.

What have you completed since the last meeting?

What do you plan on completing by the next meeting?

Are there any blocks or impediments that keep you from doing your work?

What are the three main artifacts of the Scrum process?
Product backlog - It’s a simple document that outlines the lists of tasks and every requirement that the product meets. It is constantly evolving and it's never complete. For every item on the Product backlog you have a description, acceptance criteria and an estimate

Sprint Backlog - This is a list of all items from the Product Backlog that need to be worked on during a Sprint.

Product Increment - This is the work completed during a Sprint.

What is a User Story in Scrum? How does a good User Story look?

A User Story is a method used in Agile development that captures the description of a feature from an end users perspective. It basically creates a simplified description of user requirements

A User Story is defined incrementally in 3 stages:
Who are we building it for
What are we building and what is the intention? Why are we building it? What value does it have for the user?

The User Story is written in this format: As a <User/Type of User> I want to <action/feature to implement> so that <Objective>.

What are the Burn Up and Burn down charts in Scrum?
These are used to track the progress of the project.

Burn Up Chart: Illustrates amount of work completed

Burn Down Chart: Illustrates amount of work remained to compete a project

What does a Burn down Chart comprise of?
It is used to track Sprint status. Also highlights the lack of progress that’s happening with the team.
X Axis displays working days
Y Axis displays remaining work effort
Ideal effort used as a guideline
Real progress of effort

What is the objective behind holding a Sprint Retrospective meeting?
Reflect on the previous Sprint activities.

Decide on further improvements for future Sprints.

Identifies what went well, what could have been better and action items to show improvement.

List some popular Agile Frameworks? Do you know any other Agile Methodology apart from Scrum?
Kanban
Test Driven Development
Feature Driven Development
Extreme Programming (XP)
Crystal
Lean

Explain velocity in Agile? How is it measured?
Velocity is the measure in story points how much work a team can complete product backlog items in a sprint.
It predicts how much work an Agile team can complete in a Sprint
The velocity is obtained by summing all the Story Points from the prior sprint’s stories.
Velocity = Sum of Story points completed in 1 iteration (sprint)

What is a release candidate in Scrum?
It is a build or version of the software that can be released to production. Further testing such as UAT may be performed on this version of the product.

Explain what is Scrum of Scrums?
The representative from each Scrum team attends the meeting and answers questions related to their respective teams.

The responsible person from each team attends the meeting and discusses their work and answers different questions.

List some of the Project Tracking tools that you heard of?
Rally Software
Version One
Jira
Azure DevOps

Do you know about the Agile Manifesto and its principles?
Is a proclamation that articulates 4 key values and 12 principles that its authors believe software developers should use to guide their work.
Philosophy delivers high quality products and working software after every iteration
Agile is a mindset described by 4 values and 12 principles manifested through numerous frameworks and practices like: Scrum, Kanban, XP etc.

What is Empirical Process Control?
We don’t have to fix the scope of the project nor do we have to process how to build it. We create small shippable products in short cycles.
Inspect how we create it and adapt the process in the way we build it.
Is a core Scrum principle and distinguishes it from other Agile frameworks.
It relies on the 3 main ideas of Transparency, Inspection, and Adaptation

What do you know about Impediments in Scrum?
They are obstacles or issues faced by the Scrum team which slow down their speed of work. Examples:

Business problems
Lack of skills of Knowledge
Team issues
Technical and Operations issues
Organizational problems
Sick team members
Missing resources

Do you have any Agile Certifications?
ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner)
SSM (SAFe Scrum Master)
CSM (Certified Scrum Master)
PSM ( Professional Scrum Master)

Is it ever suggested to use Waterfall over Scrum? If yes, explain?
Yes if your requirements are simple, well defined, fully understood, predictable and are not subject to change until the completion of the project you could probably go for the Waterfall model.

What is the drawback of using Scrum?
It is tricky for a Scrum Master to Plan, organize, and structure a project that lacks a clear goal.
Standup meetings need frequent reviews and substantial resources.
Involves lots of uncertainty regarding product, frequent changes and delivery.
Highly depends on the maturity and dedication of all the team members.

How is Agile different from the Waterfall Methodology?
In Waterfall;
Work is done sequentially
Feedback is obtained later in the project
Once the requirements are locked down you cannot make any changes
Progress is usually measured by percent complete
Decision making is in the project managers hands
In Agile;
All of the project steps are done in Sprints
Feedback is provided continuously throughout the lifecycle
Changes are welcome at all stages
Progress is measured by working software after every iteration or Sprint
Self-motivated and self-organizing teams drive the project

Is Agile and Scrum the same?
Agile refers to a set of methods and practices based on values and principles expressed. (mindset)
Scrum is a framework that is used to implement Agile development while a team can be Agile and not practice Scrum it cannot practice Scrum and not be Agile.

What is the difference between Epics, User Stories and Tasks?
An Epic is a group of related User Stories
User Stories define the real business prerequisite. Generally it is shaped by the business owners.
Tasks: Development teams create tasks to accomplish the business requirements. They can also be created because a User Story needs additional research.

What qualities should a good Scrum Master have?
Influential, Motivates teams and stakeholders at all levels
Collaborative, empowers team members to make decisions
Observant, Be a good listener and pay attention to the challenges
Leadership, Possess strong leadership skills
Knowledgeable, prevents potential problems

What does servant leadership mean and give examples?
Servant leader focuses on collaboration, trust, empathy
Responsible for setting up Scrum as servant process and not as a commanding process
Guiding the development team to a self-organization
Helping with team visibility
Removes and Prevents impediments
Leading the team through healthy conflict debates

You are in the middle of a Sprint and Suddenly the Product Owner comes with a new requirement. What will you do?
Add the new requirement to the Product backlog and consider it in the next Sprint based on priority.
If it's a high priority, include it in the current sprint after negotiating with the product owner on removing lower priority items of equal size from the sprint backlog.

A member of the Scrum team doesn’t want to attend the Sprint planning meetings and considers it a waste of time. How do you deal with that kind of attitude?
Have a conversation with the respective team member by asking open-ended questions to find out why they feel the way they do.
Try to explain the reason why such meeting is valuable in Scrum.
Escalation should be the last resort.

What is the main reason for the Scrum Master to be at the daily Scrum?
Scrum Master does not need to attend daily Scrum. He/she should just make sure that developers attend without fail.

Your team is picking reasonable action items but is later not delivering on them. How do you handle this?
You need to follow up as a Scrum Master to solve the issue.
Find out the root cause for the issue. If it’s an external factor or internal factor.
If external you need to address the issue and eliminate the cause.
If the internal, motivate the team to do the right thing and overcome the problem.

As a Scrum Master how do you ensure that the Transparency, Inspection and Adaptation Scrum pillars are being implemented by the team?
Sprint Planning - Inspect selected items from the prioritized Product backlog
Daily Scrum - Inspect progress towards the sprint goal.
Sprint Review - Inspect Product increment
Retrospective - Inspect the process followed and make future plans

How would you measure if Agile or Scrum is working in your team and organization?
High quality products
Increased participation
Frequent deliveries

In case you received a Story at the last day of the Sprint to test and you find there are defects. What will you do? Will you mark the Story Done?
A Story is regarded as Done only when its development is complete and QA is complete, including Acceptance Criteria is met & it's eligible to be released to production.
If your Story meets this requirement mark it done or else consider it in the next Sprint.

More Scrum Master Interview Questions

1. What is your Scrum Master total experience?

2. Tell me your daily routine and what you are currently doing as SM

3. What kind of Scrum Methodology have you worked on?

4. What factors to consider before choosing a particular Agile methodology?

5. Walk me through your role in your Sprint planning

6. How do you convince management to use Scrum(Agile) or Waterfall?

7. How do you demonstrate your Servant Leadership role to your team?

8. Explain the different ceremonies that you have attended or facilitated?

9. What is the SM relationship with the PO?

10. How have you resolved conflicts with the PO and Development team? 

11. How you manage a situation were a development team member is not cooperating with his team?

12. What strategies do you use to remove impediment?

13. Do you have a BA in your team?

14. Who gathers Business Requirements in your team?

15. What aspects do you consider important in your Retrospective meeting?

16. Have you been part of PI planning?

17. How do you estimate a story and what kind of method do you use?

18. Do you have or use Scrum board in your office?

19. How do you measure Velocity for a team?

20. What is average Velocity that you have done in your current team?

21. Have you been part of a release train?

22. What percentage of your Velocity do you allocate to refactoring?

23. How do you deal with Scope Creep ?

24. Tell me the differences between Agile and waterfall?

25. How do you demonstrate Servant Leadership?

26. How do you manage dealing with Stakeholders?

27. What don’t you like about Agile or what do you think could be better improved on?

28. What does the Definition of Ready mean to you ?

29. How do you conduct your Retrospective?

30. What is your role in a Sprint Demo?

31. Why do you think it is important for stakeholders to be part of the Daily Scrum?

32. How do you conduct your Daily Scrum?

33. What is something that you'd hope to accomplish in your first 90 days as a Scrum Master on your team(s)? How would you evaluate if you were successful after 90 days?

34. Convince us why you'd be good in this role?

35. Much of our work at our Company happens through team collaboration; what role do you typically play and what unique skills do you bring to a team?

36. What are some of the challenges you have faced as a Scrum Master?