Introduction

An essential member of the team scrum is, The Scrum Master, yet is still a very underrated one who may pose a challenge in the recruiting process. The scrum master interview questions can be a tough nut to crack but worry not. We are here your help, to crack your scrum interview effortlessly. Whether this is your first scrum master interview, or you’re a seasoned pro, learning how to plan for an interview is always helpful. The demand for skilled Scrum Masters is on the rise, and having Scrum Master certifications can give you a competitive edge in various organizations. Therefore, we’ve compiled a thoroughly researched guide to Scrum interview questions and answers to help you secure abundant job opportunities.

Stick with us until the end to master your scrum interview. Go through the following scrum master interview questions to make your upcoming scrum interview a cakewalk.

 Top 20 Questions and Answers

Q1. What is Scrum?

A. A framework which is designed to help the team work together in a cumulative and iterative approach is known as scrum. This entire scrum process is distributed into cycles called sprints, which enables the team to work on the problems to make enhancements and learn from their experiences.

Q2. What are the benefits of implementing Scrum?

A. The following are the benefits of implementing Scrum:

  • Accelerates software delivery
  • Enhances ability to manage changing priorities
  • Increases productivity
  • Improves business alignment
  • Enhances software quality
  • Reduces project risk and cost
  • Increases software maintainability
  • Enhances project visibility and team morale

Q3. Who is the Scrum master, and what do they do?

A. The Scrum Masters are accountable for promoting Scrum and facilitating it. It assists their colleagues meet their expectations. They handle project risks, and as a coach, they advise the Team. The Scrum Masters are also marked as servant leaders, offer cohesion, and inspire their Squad to achieve the best they can.

Q4. Mention the skills and qualities of a Scrum Master.

A. Here is a comprehensive list of skills and qualities of being a Scrum Master:

  • Be influential
  • Be collaborative
  • Be observant
  • Share experiences
  • Be a good listener
  • Be disruptive
  • Instil leadership skills
  • Acquire knowledge

Q5. Explain the responsibilities of a Scrum Master in brief.

A. The following are the responsibilities of a Scrum Master:

  • Act as a Servant Leader for their Scrum team
  • Maximises the value created by the Scrum team
  • Helps everyone to understand the Scrum theory, rules, values, and practices
  • Remove distractions hampering the progress of the project

Q6. How does Scrum Master serve the organisation?

A. Scrum Master serves the organisation in the below-mentioned ways:

  • It acts as an agile change agent and facilitates change
  • It helps to increase the productivity of the scrum team
  • It plans scrum implementation within the organisation
  • It supports agile leadership principles and practices.
  • It helps the team and the stakeholders to understand scrum empirical theory

Q7. Explain the Scrum artefacts.

A. Scrum artefacts are eminently designed to maximise the transparency of key information so that every person has some understanding of the artefact. The three basic artefacts in Scrum are:

  • Product Backlog: It is an order list of everything that is known to be needed in a project. The product backlog is created by the product owner with the assistance of the development team.
  • Sprint Backlog: This is the set of product backlog items that the team commits to achieve in a said sprint.
  • Product Increment: The summation of all product backlog items completed during a sprint session and the value of increments of the previous sprints. It is a step towards the project vision/goal

Q8. What is the agenda of the daily stand-up session?

A. Standup is a daily conference that usually takes place for at least 15 minutes. The central agenda behind conducting daily standup meetings is to discuss the following:

  • Completed tasks
  • Pending tasks
  • Obstacles faced by the team

Q9. Explain the different roles in Scrum.

A. The scrum team works together regularly, and closely to ensure a smooth flow of information and quick solution of issues.

There are three different roles in scrum:

  • Scrum Master: Those who are responsible for assisting the team members to understand scrum values, rules, theory, practices, and values.
  • Product Owner: Those who are responsible for maximising the product value resulting from teamwork.
  • Development Team: Those who self-organise and cross-function groups that do hands-on work of developing and testing the product. This team includes members from cross-disciplinary teams.

Q10. Explain Scrumban.

A. A combination of Scrum and Kanban methodology is defined as Scrumban. It is mainly used to meet the team requirements and to implement a pull-based system, besides it also includes a structure of scrum methodology and visualisation feature of scrum.

Q11. What are the techniques for estimation in Scrum?

A. The techniques used for estimation in Scrum are:

  • Plans Poker Estimation
  • Disaggregation Estimation
  • T-shirt Estimation Technique
  • Estimation by Analogy

Q12. What is DoD?

A. Definition of Done (DoD) is a checklist of items that need to be completed to declare a project or task as ‘Done’. Written codes, comments on coding, unit tests, integration testing, design documents, and release notes are included in the checklist.

Q13. What does the acronym INVEST stand for?

A. The acronym INVEST stands for Invest, Negotiate, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable. A guide to write good user stories.

Q14. What is timeboxing in scrum?

A. Devoting a time slot to an activity is referred to as timeboxing. A timebox is a unit of time. It should not exceed 15 minutes of Daily Scrum or 8 hours for Sprint Planning. Do attend Professional Scrum master training to learn the rules of timeboxing.

Q15. How will you describe a release candidate?

A. A software that is yet to be developed in its final stage is known as a release candidate, it’s the preview of the software. The main focus of the release candidate is on the functionality, security codes, and quality.

Q16. What are the tools used in Scrum projects?

A. The renowned tools used in Scrum are:

  • Jira
  • Microsoft Azure DevOps
  • Trello
  • Asana

Q17. Is Scrum Master a management position?

A. The scrum master is a management position, but it isn’t a manager position. The scrum master only manages the scrum process and not the team. Though the Scrum master doesn’t have the managing authority, they would resolve impediments.

Q18. How would you follow up on action items?

A. Action items are one among the primary outcomes of the retrospectives:

  • Open the list of action items and their owners
  • Mark the progress of all items
  • Include newly pinpointed items

Q19. What is a Burndown and BurnUp chart?

A. Burndown chart is a visual representation of a graph that assesses how much work a development team has done through a user story. BurnUp chart is a graph that shows the amount of the work done against that total project work.

Q20. What elements constitute a good user story?

A. The elements that constitute a good user story are:

  • All deliverables related to UI
  • Defined acceptance criteria
  • Dependencies
  • Performance criteria
  • Tracking criteria
  • A descriptionscrum master interview questions

Conclusion

The Scrum Master interview questions discussed above are sufficient to get you to walk in the interview room with confidence and walk out with a smile. While, it all depends on the experience of each company and the individual when it comes to addressing the problem. Hence, one should be prepared for general inquiries. All you’ll need to ace your interview is a broader understanding of the Scrum Master’s position, Agile practices, and principles represented by Scrum Structure.