Scrum Master Interview Question and Answers

Here, you can find the best Scrum Master Interview Questions curated by experts that you can expect to be asked in a Scrum Master Interview. You'll get the knowledge of everything you require to clear the interview process of a Scrum Master.

Top10 Frequently Asked Scrum Master Interview Questions

1. What is Scrum?

2. Who are the Scrum Masters?

3. What are the responsibilities of a Scrum Master?

4. What does the term scrum sprint mean?

5. What is the duration of a scrum sprint?

6. What are the three main artifacts of the Scrum process?

7. How is scrum different from the waterfall model?

8. What are the impediments in Scrum? Can you give some examples?

9. What do you mean by "user story" in Scrum?

10. How Scrum Master is helpful for the Product Owner?

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Scrum Interview Questions and Answers 

1) What is Scrum?

Scrum is a framework basically needed to help teams in developing projects by using an incremental and iterative approach. This process of development carries out in cycles of work known as Sprints. The duration of these cycles is generally 2 weeks but can extend a maximum of up to 4 weeks.

These cycles are timeboxed. I.e. irrespective of the state of work, they follow strict deadlines and never get extended beyond it. Before beginning a sprint, the team can select any of the prioritized tasks after agreeing upon a common goal and no tasks can be added in between a sprint.

Team meetings are held every day to review the tasks. At the end of the sprint, the team needs to showcase the end product to the stakeholders, and based on their feedback, they are assigned with the next sprint.

2) Who are the Scrum Masters?

The Scrum Masters are those persons in an organization who are responsible for managing, promoting, and supporting scrum activities. They guide the team and help them in reaching their goals.

They act as team mentors and resolve the risks associated with a project. The other name of scrum masters as servant leaders.

3) What are the responsibilities of a Scrum Master?

Scrum Master is responsible for coordinating with, Development Team, product owners, and the other members of an Organisation involved in a project. Some of the major responsibilities of a scrum master are:

• To ensure that the goal and actions needed to complete a project are being understood by everyone.
• To resolve the problems and difficulties faced by team members.
• To mentor product owner and teams for effectiveness
• To make desirable changes for better output and to increment the productivity
• To organize scrum events whenever needed

4) What does the term scrum sprint mean?

A Scrum Sprint is a cycle of repetitions in which the work gets completed and becomes ready to go in for the review process.

5) What is the duration of a scrum sprint?

Mainly the duration of the scrum sprint depends on the size of the project as well as the number of people involved in it. Generally, scrum sprit gets over in 3 to 4 weeks with a team comprising 3 to 9 members.

6) What are the three main artifacts of the Scrum process?

The 3 main artifacts of scrum are:

• Sprint Backlog
• Product backlog
• Product increment

7) How is scrum different from the waterfall model?

Scrum is different from the waterfall model in these ways:

• Getting feedback early
• Less risk after modifications
• Good ROI(return on investment)
• Emphasize collaborative development
• Increases return of investment
• Can revert changes

8) What are the impediments in Scrum? Can you give some examples?

Impediments are the difficulties or complications faced by the scrum team which impact the working speed. Any sort of hindrance in completing a project for a scrum team can be thought of as impediments. Some examples of the impediments are :

• Any team member gets sick or lacks resources
• Technical, organizational, or functional issues
• Lack of support from the management committee management supportive system
• Business related problems
• Lack of skills

Related Article: How to Become a Scrum Master

9) What do you mean by "user story" in Scrum?

A ‘user story’ is a tool that is used in the Agile software development process to capture the description of any feature from the end-user viewpoint. It is a simple description of the user's requirements.

10) How Scrum Master is helpful for the Product Owner?

It is helpful for product owners in multiple ways:

• Efficiency in managing product Backlog.
• Helps the Scrum team to adopt a shared vision.
• To understand and practice in an agile environment.
• In promoting scrum events whenever needed

11. What is the need for Agile methodology?

Agile methodology is needed as:

• It is necessary for customer satisfaction and fast delivery of projects
• It does not impact the project much with potential changing requirements from clients
• It helps in delivering the functional software which is the major source to measure the progress
• It is used to set up a balance between the company and the developers
• It is useful in assisting face-to-face conversations
• It is simple to use

Related Article: SAFe vs Agile

12. Name some of the major tools used in a Scrum project?

• JIRA.
• Version One.
• Rally

13. What are the five phases of risk management in agile methodology?

• Identification.
• Categorization.
• Response.
•  Review
• Closure.

14. How scrum master tracks the progress of a Sprint?

They can track the progress of the sprint by using the burndown chart. The vertical axis depicts the remaining amount of work while the horizontal one depicts the number of Sprints.

15. Is it possible to cancel a Sprint? If yes, who can cancel it?

Yes, it is possible to cancel a Sprint only before the Sprint timebox limit exhausts. It can only be canceled by the product owner.

16. What is the meaning of timeboxing in Scrum?

Timeboxing refers to a fixed unit of time allocated to perform an activity. The maximum length of a timebox is generally kept as 15 minutes.

17. Who all are involved in the Scrum framework? 

• Product owner
• Scrum master
• Development team

18. How is the scrum project estimated? What are the techniques to do it?

It is done by using the agile estimation technique

• The Planning Poker Estimation Technique.
• The T-shirt Estimation Technique.
• The Disaggregation Estimation Technique.
• The Estimation by Analogy Technique

19. Why there is a need for daily Scrum?

Daily scrum helps the team in self-organizing towards their goal and to plan for the other day’s work.

20.  What are some of the most common risks associated with a Scrum project? 

•  A scope creeps
•  Budget issues
• Deadline issues

21. What is the advantage of using Scrum?

There are several advantages of using scrum but providing early feedback as well as Minimum Viable Product(MVP) to the stakeholders are some of the major advantages of using it.

22. What is the meaning of Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in Scrum?

Minimum features required in a project according to stakeholder's requirements is known as Minimum Viable Product(MVP).

23. What do the burn-up and burn-down charts refer to in scrum?

To trace the status and progress of any project, burn-up and burn-down charts are used. The burn-up chart demonstrates the amount of work finished, while the burn-down chart demonstrates the amount of work that is still remaining to complete a project.

24. Why is there a need for a Sprint retrospective meeting?

A sprint retrospective meeting is necessary to discuss certain pointers as to how the team is carrying out the project, what are the problems being faced, and what is the scope to improve it. A plan is created for improving the efficacy of the project in the next sprint.

25. What is there in a scrum burndown chart?

Burndown charts depict the amount of work pending to complete a project. Also, it is used to highlight redundancy. So in the burndown chart

•  X-axis illustrates working days
•  Y-axis illustrates the remaining work

26. What do you mean by the term velocity in agile methodology? How can it be measured?

Velocity is used to predict the amount of work an agile can finish in a sprint and the time needed by it to complete a project. The stats are generated based on story points from the last sprint’s stories.

27. Explain what is a scrum of scrums?

This is the most common question used in scrum master interviews. To explain the scrum of scrums let us assume that there is an active project with eleven teams handling it.

The number of persons in each team is seven and they are assigned the task to lead their own scrum meeting.

For better coordination and communication with other teams, they will need to conduct a separate scrum meeting which is known as the scrum of scrums.

One person from each team attends the scrum meeting to discuss the advancements and shortcomings in that active project.

28. What is the release candidate in Scrum?

A build or that version of the software which is ready for going in production is known as a release candidate in the scrum. Mainly, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is carried out on this version of the product.

29. What are some of the popular project management tools that are generally used?

Some popular project management tools include Rally Software, XPlanner, Version One, EasyBacklog Agilefant, etc.

30. What is the Scrum ban?

Scrum-ban is a software development model based on Scrum and Kanban. This model is especially used for those projects that require regular maintenance and comprise of many programming bugs or may need some abrupt changes. It promotes fast delivery of projects with less time devoted to a programming error.

31. What is Zero Sprint?

Zero sprint – Zero Sprint is the first step in preparing for the first sprint in Agile. Certain activities need to be carried out before starting up any project. These activities are basically known as zero sprints such as setting up for the development environment, preparing backlogs, etc.

32. What is Spike in Agile?

Spike refers to the type of user story that can be carried out in between the sprints. These are commonly used in design or technical issues, for example, research, prototyping, and exploration. Mainly two types of spikes are known– technical spikes and functional spikes.

33. What role does Sashimi play in Scrum methodology?

Sashimi is a method used by Scrum masters to check whether all the functions that are created by the developers are completed or not. With this technique, all steps of development such as analysis, design, code, testing, and documentation are thoroughly checked, and then the project is displayed to the stakeholders.

34. What are the ceremonies and what is their importance in Scrum?

Ceremonies in scrum include Scrum planning, Daily stand up, review & scrum retrospective. These ceremonies need to be expressed along with their purpose. It is important to follow the timeboxing of standard 4 weeks of Sprint or depending on the sprint used in your projects.

35. Is Scrum an Agile framework? If yes, name a few other Agile frameworks.

Yes, Scrum is an Agile framework. Other Agile frameworks are :

•  Feature Driven Development
•  Kanban
• Test-Driven Development

36. Why automated testing of projects is preferred in scrum?

Scrum prefers the use of automated performance or regression testing so as to timely deliver the project. With manual testing, the deadline for project delivery may get extended.

37. Why is the waterfall model preferred over Scrum?

Mainly when the client requirements are simple, well-defined, easily understood, expected, and do not demand frequent alterations until the project gets completed, waterfall remains the preferred model. When the requirements are absurd or the project is complex, then scrum is preferred.

38. What do you know about the “Planning Poker” technique?

Planning poker is also referred to as Scrum Poker. It is a card-based agile technique basically used for planning and estimation of the project.

To initiate the planning poker technique, the product owner needs to read the agile user story.

39. What was the length of sprints or number of iterations in your project?

This question is generally asked in interviews to judge the kind of environment in which you have worked. This question may be followed by the next question as to whether the length of iterations was fixed or have you ever tried projects with more than this length.

Generally, the length of the sprint is kept between 2 to 4 weeks.

40. What is the difference between the Sprint Retrospective Meeting and Sprint Planning Meeting?

Sprint Retrospective Meeting – In this meeting, all the Scrum roles (product owner, scrum master scrum team) discuss the pros in a sprint, the cons in a sprint, and the methods for sprint improvements. This meeting is conducted at the end of the sprint and generally lasts for 2-3 hours.

Sprint Planning Meeting – In this meeting, all the Scrum roles (product owner, scrum master, scrum team) discuss the prioritization of tasks and product backlogs. This meeting is conducted every week and it generally lasts for approx. 1 hour.

41. What is a Storyboard in scrum?

The idea of transparency is an important principle in the scrum. To make things transparent for all the members of the scrum team, a storyboard is required. It is a visual representation of the project’s status. It comprises 4 columns namely ‘To do’, ‘In Progress’, ‘Test’, and ‘Done’.

42. Are you Scrum Master certified?

Sometimes, this question becomes a part of the interview but it does not mean that this certification is a must to get into the job. If you are certified, then it's good to share the details certification exam, the year of certification, and the score. If not, then it is also fine. You can also tell the interviewer if you are willing to do this certification in the future.

43. How role does Scrum Master play in the organization?

• Helps in adopting a scrum.
• Act as an agile change representative.
• Help in increasing the productivity of scrum team members.
• Ensure the incremental improvement cycle. Mainly, the dot voting technique is used for this.

44. What does the term scope creep mean?

Scope creep refers to the condition when the requirements are not properly stated or new features get amended to the product which is already in development.

45. How can scope creep be prevented?

Scope creep can be prevented:

• By clearly stating the requirements.
• By closely monitoring the project progress
• By effectively grooming the sprint backlog.

46. What does DoD mean? How can this be achieved?

DoD means Definition of Done. It is formed to list the tasks that define the quality of work. It is used work's quality. It is used to decide if the sprint backlog activity is completed or not.

47. What is the need for Daily Stand-Up in scrum?

The daily stand-up is a meeting held up every day to track the progress of the project. It is generally held in the morning for approx. 15 mins to analyze what is done yesterday, what needs to be done today, and what are the impediments in completing a required task.

48. What are the drawbacks of using scrum?

Some of the scenarios where it is not preferred to use scrum are

• Where frequent reviews are needed about daily scrum meeting
• Lack of work commitment by team members
• It becomes difficult for the scrum master to structure a project framework when the goal is not clear
• The ambiguous requirement, frequent modifications, and uncertainty in project delivery

49. What is the major difference between Agile and Scrum?

Agile is a set of methods based on principles and values articulated in the Agile Manifesto While Scrum is an outline to handle roles, artifacts, events, and guidelines to implement the Agile methodology. 

50. How is scrum different than other Iterative models?

Scrum cannot be considered as an iterative model as it is also incremental in nature that shows incremental progress. Some of the other agile models include Kanban, Lean, XP, FDD, etc.

51. What are the ways in which discord can be tackled in a scrum team?

Conflict is quite common when a group of people works towards a common goal. It is actually good to have differences in views as it can take the project towards a positive mode. However, it is important to have a person that can resolve the conflict without going personal so that the project does not get derailed.

52. How a new team can be motivated to use a scrum?

It is very important to make scrum comfortable for those who haven’t used it in the past. It is the responsibility of the scrum master to provide the team members with the right tools along with the proper guidelines to help collaborate the team so that they can provide accurate data for the project's progress track.

ProjectManager.com can also be used as it is cloud-based project management software having kanban boards, reporting tools, a real-time dashboard, and various other useful features for designing a successful project. 

53. Being a scrum master, will you allow the requirements to get changed midway?

Yes, as the major goal is always to improve the project based on feedback from customers as well as stakeholders. Changes made to the project make it faster and better.

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54. Being a scrum master, have you worked with more than one team at a time?

This can be a tricky question as scrum masters do not manage the team, they lead the team. According to scrum master guidelines, there can only be one manager in a team but a scrum master can lead multiple teams at the same time.

55. How requirements are managed in scrum?

In scrum, requirements are referred to as user stories and the scrum master is not responsible for providing them. They can help product owners to prioritize the stories and make them ready for sprints.