Agile Scrum Interview Questions

Basic Agile Scrum Interview Questions

1. What is the duration of a scrum sprint?

Answer: Generally, the duration of a scrum sprint (scrum cycle) depends upon
the size of project and team working on it. The team size may vary from 3-9
members. In general, a scrum script complete in 3-4 weeks. Thus, on an
average, the duration of a scrum sprint (scrum cycle) is 4 weeks. This type of
sprint-based Agile scrum interview questions is very common in an agile or
scrum master interview.

2. What is Velocity?
Answer: Velocity question is generally posed to understand if you have done
some real work and familiar with the term. Its definition “Velocity is the rate at
which team progresses print by sprint” should be enough. You can also add
saying the important feature of velocity that it can’t be compared to two
different scrum teams.

3. What do you know about impediments in Scrum? Give some

examples of impediments.
Answer: Impediments are the obstacles or issues faced by scrum team which
slow down their speed of work. If something is trying to block the scrum team
from their getting work “Done” then it is an impediment. Impediments can come
in any form. Some of the impediments are given as –

 Resource missing or sick team member

 Technical, operational, organizational problems
 Lack of management supportive system
 Business problems
  External issues such as weather, war etc
 Lack of skill or knowledge
While answering impediments related agile scrum interview questions
remember that you may be asked the way to remove any of the mentioned
impediment.

4. What is the difference and similarity between Agile and

Scrum?
Answer: Difference between Agile and Scrum – Agile is a broad spectrum, it is a
methodology used for project management while Scrum is just a form of the
Agile that describes the process and its steps more concisely. Agile is a practice
whereas scrum is a procedure to pursue this practice.

The similarity between Agile and Scrum – The Agile involves completing projects
in steps or incrementally. The Agile methodology is considered to be iterative in
nature. Being a form of Agile, Scrum is same as that of the Agile. It is also
incremental and iterative.

5. What is the increment? Explain.

Answer: This is one of the commonly asked agile scrum interview questions and
a quick answer can be given this way. An increment is the total of all the
product backlogs items completed during a sprint. Each increment includes all
the previous sprint increment values as it is cumulative. It must be in the
available mode in the subsequent release as it is a step to reach your goal.

6. What is the “build-breaker”?

Answer: The build-breaker is a situation that arises when there is a bug in the
software. Due to this sudden unexpected bug, compilation process stops or
execution fails or a warning is generated. The responsibility of the tester is then
to get the software back to the normal working stage removing the bug.

7. What do you understand by Daily Stand-Up?

Answer: You may surely get an interview question about daily stand-up. So,
what should be the answer to this question? The daily stand-up is an everyday
meeting (most preferably held in the morning) in which the whole team meets
for almost 15 minutes to find answer to the following three questions –

 What was done yesterday?

 What is your plan for today?
 Is there any impediment or block that restricts you from completing
your task?
The daily stand-up is an effective way to motivate the team and make them set
a goal for the day.

8. What do you know about Scrum ban?

Answer: Scrum-ban is a Scrum and Kanban-based model for the software
development. This model is specifically used for the projects that need
continuous maintenance, have various programming errors or have some
sudden changes. This model promotes the completion of a project in minimum
time for a programming error or user story.

Agile Interview Questions

In this section, we are going to cover Agile interview questions. You should be
prepared for the agile interview with the following agile interview questions.

9. State some of the Agile quality strategies.

Answer: Some of the Agile quality strategies are –

 Iteration
 Re-factoring
 Dynamic code analysis
 Short feedback cycles
 Reviews and inspection
  Standards and guidelines
 Milestone reviews
Preparing for PMI-ACP certification? Know your current level of preparation
with Whizlabs PMI-ACP Free Test.

10. Do you know about Agile Manifesto & its Principles? Explain
in brief.
Answer: This is the theory which most of agile/scrum roles aspirant should be on
tips. Four manifesto values and 12 principles should be explained as much as
possible as part of this question. Even if it’s not explained in 100% accurate
manner it should be fine but intentions of values and principles should come out
e.g.

 Working Software should be demonstrated at regular intervals

 Individuals & interaction – self-organization, self-motivating should be
encouraged
 Customer collaboration
 Welcoming change at any point in time in the project

11. Is there any drawback of the Agile model? If yes, explain.

Answer: Yes, there are some drawbacks of the Agile model, some of them are as
follows –

1. It is not easy to make a prediction about the effort required to complete

a task. It becomes more problematic in case of large projects as it
becomes difficult to get an idea of the total effort required.
2. At sometimes, it’s not possible to properly focus on the design and
documentation of the project
3. In case the requirements of the client are not understood properly, the
final project will not meet the customer requirements. Thus, it will lead
to the customer dissatisfaction.
4. Only the leader who has considerable experience in Agile
methodologies is capable to take important decisions. The team
 members with little or no experience are not involved in decision-
making, thus they don’t get chance to advance their knowledge.
It’s not always the case that you will be asked the questions about the
characteristics and advantages of the agile and scrum in an agile scrum
interview. So, just prepare yourself for the drawbacks and disadvantages related
agile scrum interview questions.

12. What is the use of burn-up and burn-down charts?

Answer: The burn-up chart illustrates the amount of completed work in a project
whereas the burn-down chart depicts the amount of work remained to complete
a project. Thus, the burn-up and burn-down charts are used to trace the
progress of a project.

13. Define Zero Sprint and Spike in Agile.

Answer: To answer this question, describe Zero Sprint and Agile in detail, as
follows –

Zero sprint – Zero Sprint can be defined as the preparation step of the first
sprint in Agile. There are some activities that are required to be done before
actually starting the project. These activities are considered as the Zero sprint;
the examples of such activities are – setting the environment for development,
preparation of backlogs etc.

Spike – Spike is the type of story that can be taken between the sprints. Spikes
are commonly used for the activities related to the design or technical issues
such as research, design, prototyping, and exploration. There are two types of
spikes – functional spikes and technical spikes.

Scrum Interview Questions

While going for a scrum job interview, prepare yourself for some good scrum
interview questions. You may be asked questions related to scrum master,
sprint, story point, sashimi, ceremonies etc. by the interviewer. So, prepare
yourself for these scrum interview questions.
14. What is the role of the Scrum Master?
Answer: Here’s how you can answer Scrum Master interview questions like this –

The scrum master is the leader as well as coach of the Scrum team. The scrum
master is responsible to serve and protect his team from any kind of distractions
that could affect their performance. The main role of the scrum master is to
motivate his team to achieve the sprint goal. He is focused to build a self-
organized and motivated team where each member is familiar with the
implementation of Agile and Scrum principles and applications. The scrum
master keeps a proper check on the scrum team if they are executing
committed tasks properly. He is also responsible to increase the efficiency and
productivity of the team so that they can achieve the sprint goal effectively.

Also Read : Scrum – Is it mandatory to learn in today’s IT market?

15. What do you know about a story point in Scrum?

Answer: A story point in Scrum is the unit for the estimation of total efforts that
are required to perform or complete a particular task. So, here is how you can
answer such agile scrum interview questions on a single line.

Confused about which Scrum Master Certification you should go for? Have a
comparison between PSM Vs CSM and get to know which one is the right
certification for you!

16. What is the role of Sashimi in Scrum methodology?

Answer: Sashimi plays an important role in Scrum methodology. Sashimi is a
technique used by Scrum to check the completion of all the functions created by
the developers. Using this technique, all the requirements such as analysis,
designing, coding, testing and documentation that are used in the constitution
of a product are checked and only after that the product is displayed.

17. What are the different roles in Scrum?

The three scrum roles i.e. Scrum Master, Product Owner and Team should be
explained with the details of few primary responsibilities of each role. You can
add more details as mentioned below for a particular depending on the role you
are getting interviewed for.

Product owner – A product owner is actually the stakeholder of the project. He
represents the project requirements before the team. He is responsible to have
a vision of what to build and convey his detailed vision to the team. He is the
starting point of an agile scrum software development project.

Scrum team – Scrum team is formed by the collective contribution of

individuals who perform for the accomplishment of a particular project. The
team is bound to work for the timely delivery of the requested product.

Scrum master – Scrum master is the leader and the coach for the scrum team
who checks whether the scrum team is executing committed tasks properly. He
is also responsible to increase the efficiency and productivity of the team so that
they can achieve the sprint goal effectively.

18. What are the responsibilities of a Scrum Master?

Answer: Key responsibilities of a Scrum Master involves:

 Tracking and monitoring

 Understanding requirements properly
 Work to reach the project goal
 Process checking master and quality master
 Protect the team from detachments
 Improving the performance of the team
 Lead the meetings and resolve issues
 Resolution of conflicts and impediments
 Communication and reporting

19. What are different ceremonies and their importance

in Scrum?
 Scrum planning, Scrum – Daily stand up, Scrum review & scrum
retrospective ceremonies should be clearly expressed with the purpose
 of the ceremony. It’s important to remember the time-boxing of the
ceremonies for a standard 4 weeks of Sprint or as per the Sprint you
have used in your projects.

Agile Testing Interview Questions

Agile testing is the software development practice using practices of agile
software development. In an interview for the Agile job, you may be asked agile
testing questions, so have a look at the agile testing interview questions.

20. What do you understand by the term Agile testing?

Answer: Agile testing is a software testing practice that is fully based on the
agile principles of software development. It is an iterative methodology where
the requirements are the outcome of collaboration between the product owner
and team. The agile principles and applications are applied to meet the
customer requirements by successful completion of the project.

21. State some major principles of Agile testing.

Answer: Some major principles of Agile testing are –

 Customer satisfaction
 Face to face communication
 Sustainable development
 Quick respond to changes
 Continuous feedback
 Successive improvement
 Self-organized
 Focus on essence
 Error-free clean node
 Collective work

22. What are the skills of a good Agile Tester?

Answer: An agile tester is one who implements agile software development
principles for software testing. Followings are the skills of a good agile tester –

 Required to be familiar with the concepts and principles of Agile

 Should have an excellent communication to communicate with the
team and the clients
 Ability to set priority for the tasks according to the requirements
 Should be able to understand the requirements properly
 Understanding of the risks involved with a project due to changing
requirements

Advanced Agile Scrum Interview Questions

The agile scrum is a vast field, so the interviewers seek candidates with
advanced knowledge. Thus, the basic knowledge is not sufficient to crack the
job interview. So, here we bring some frequently asked advanced agile scrum
interview questions.

23. What do you understand by the term “Scrum of Scrums”?

Answer: This is one of the commonly asked scrum master interview questions.
Consider a case to understand the meaning of the term scrum of the scrums.
Let us assume an active project on which seven teams are currently working.
The number of members of each team is also seven. Each team is responsible to
lead its own scrum meeting. But, in order to coordinate and communicate with
different teams, it is required to organize a separate scrum meeting. The scrum
meeting organized to hold a coordination between scrum teams is known as the
scrum of scrums. There is one team leader from every team, known as
ambassador, who is responsible to represent his team in the scrum of scrums.

24. Scrum is an Agile framework, right? Name a few other Agile

frameworks.
Answer: Yes, Scrum is an Agile framework. Few other Agile frameworks are –

 Feature Driven Development

  Test Driven Development
 Kanban
While answering this type of Agile Scrum interview questions please note that
name the frameworks you are familiar with or have followed.

25. Explain some common metrics for Agile.

Answer: You may definitely come across agile scrum interview questions
regarding agile metrics. The question may be related to a particular agile matric
or explaining all the metrics. So, the detailed description of some common
metrics for Agile is as follows:

Velocity – Velocity is the average number of points from last 3-4 sprints. It is
measured by the summation of the all approved estimates of the stories. It gives
an idea of the capacity, progress etc.

Cumulative Flow Diagram – With the help of a cumulative flow diagram, an

inspection is done over the uniform workflow. In this diagram/graph, the x-axis
represents time whereas the y-axis represents the number of efforts.

Work Category Allocation – Work category allocation is an important factor

that gives a quick information of the time investment i.e. where the time is
being invested and which task should be given priority as a factor of time.

Time Coverage – It is the time that is given to a code during testing. It is
calculated in percentage as a factor of the number of lines of code called by the
test suite and the total number of relative lines of code.

Business Value Delivered – It is a term which denotes the working efficiency
of the team. The business objectives are assigned numerical values 1,2,3.. and
so on, as per the level of priority, complexity, and ROI.

Defect Removal Awareness – It is the factor that helps the team to deliver a
quality product. The identification of an active number of defects, their
awareness, and removal plays an important role in delivering a high-quality
product.
Defect Resolution Time – It is a procedure through which the team members
detect the defects (bugs) and set a priority for the defect resolution. The
procedure of fixing errors/bugs or defect resolution comprises of multiple
processes such as clearing the picture of defect, schedule defect fixation,
completing defect fixation, generation, and handling of resolution report.

Sprint Burn Down Matric – The sprint burndown chart is a graph to represent
the number of non-implemented or implemented sprints during as Scrum cycle.
This matric helps to track the work completed with the sprint.

26. Is it ever suggested to use waterfall over Scrum? If yes,

explain when.
Yes, sometimes it is suggested to use a waterfall model over Scrum. It is done
when the customer requirements are simple, well-defined, fully understood,
predictable, and are not subjected to change until the completion of the project.
It may the case that you would haven’t ever used waterfall over Scrum but you
need to prepare for such Agile Scrum interview questions.

27. Why does Scrum encourage the use of automated testing

for projects?
Answer: Scrum encourages the use of automated (automated performance or
automated regression) testing to make the fastest possible delivery of the
project. While answering this question, you may explain some tools that you
have used for automated testing.

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

Answer: Planning poker, also known as Scrum Poker, is a card-based agile
technique that is used for planning and estimation. To start a session of
planning poker technique, the agile user story is read by the product owner. The
steps performed in the poker planning technique are –

1. Each estimator has a deck of poker cards with the values such as 0, 1,
2, 3, 5, and so on, to denote story points, ideal days or something else
that the team uses for estimation.
 2. Each estimator has a discussion with the product owner and then
privately selects a card on the basis of their independent estimation.
3. If the cards with same value are selected by all estimators, it is
considered as an estimate. If not, the estimator discusses the high and
low value of their estimates.
4. Then again, each estimator privately selects a card and reveals. This
process of poker planning is repeated to reach a general agreement.

Experience-based Agile Scrum Interview

Questions

29. Name some methodologies and development where you

have used the Agile model.
Answer: While answering this type of agile scrum interview questions, keep in
mind to mention those methodologies that are familiar with. Some of the
methodologies and development where the Agile model can be used are –

 Crystal methodologies
 Lean software development
 Dynamic development
 Feature-driven development
30. Share your experience as a Scrum Master/Product
Owner/Agile team member and what were your primary
responsibilities?
Answer: Here you have to explain your project details where you worked in
Scrum team and defining your role with the responsibilities you held. The trick in
this question is whether while explaining you are showing self-organizing and
self-motivational team. Also, the interviewer will try to judge how in depth you
have worked in the agile/scrum environment based on your explanation.

31. What was the length of sprints/iterations in your project?

Answer: This is probably the most common question asked in agile interviews.
The idea here is to judge in which kind of environment you have worked. There
will be definitely follow up question like was this length fixed in the beginning
and never changed? Have you tried with more than this length or less than that?

32. How have you done user story mapping & estimation of
stories in your projects?
Answer: This question is to under how you have done story writing,
mapping, and estimation. Have you used any estimation technique like planning
poker, t-shirt, sizing etc? Whatever technique you used in your project just
mention it very clearly.

33. What is the biggest challenge you faced in your project

while handling the Scrum team members?
Answer: This question is pure to judge your experience. The better you
articulate your challenges working in agile better it will be. Challenges generally
faced in the initial stages of scrum is stabilizing the velocity, team members
conflicts, sticking to time-boxing etc..

34. Have you ever performed the removal of impediments as a

scrum master on behalf of scrum team?
Answer: As the scrum master acts as a coach for his team, he should motivate
his team to perform every task. Although he can remove impediments on behalf
of scrum team but he should not do this. It is recommended for a scrum master
not to over pamper nor overrule the team. There may be something when the
team can face failure, at that time the scrum master should help them. He
should guide them with an appropriate method t0 get out of the problem. Scrum
master should prompt his team members to become independent enough to
face problems and take a decision by themselves. This is one of the frequently
asked scrum master interview questions, so prepare now and get ready to
answer.

Comparative Agile Scrum Interview Questions

Whatever is the field of job, interviewers prefer to ask one or more comparative
or difference-based questions. The questions may be from the currently used or
previously used technologies. So, here we represent some comparative agile
scrum interview questions.

35. What is the difference between the agile & traditional way
of working?
Answer: This question is to judge whether one is aware of the environment of
the agile way of working. Here the answer is expected to cover few or all of
below:

 The traditional way is sequential where design->Development->Testing

etc. happens one after another whereas in agile all of this is done in
every iteration/sprint
 Changes are welcomed in agile as Scope is flexible whereas in
traditional manner scope is fixed in the beginning due to which
changes have to follow change request path
 Progress is measured with % completion traditionally whereas working
software is the measure of progress in agile
 Project Manager as a central controlling authority is traditionally driving
the project whereas Self-motivated and self-organizing teams drive the
projects in agile
Here is a comparison between Agile and Waterfall software development
models i.e. Agile vs Waterfall that will help you understand the difference
between Agile and traditional approach.

36. What is the difference between Sprint Planning Meeting and

Sprint Retrospective Meeting?
Answer: The difference between Sprint Planning Meeting and Sprint
Retrospective Meeting is as follows:

Sprint Planning Meeting – A meeting in which all the Scrum roles (product
owner, scrum team, and scrum master) have a discussion about the team’s
priority features and product backlog items is known as sprint planning meeting.
This meeting is held every week and lasts for almost 1 hour.

Sprint Retrospective Meeting – A meeting in which all the Scrum roles
(product owner, scrum team, and scrum master) have a discussion about the
good part of the sprint, the bad part of the sprint, and the sprint improvements
is known as sprint retrospective meeting. This meeting that is held at the sprint
review meeting or at the end of the sprint; it lasts for 2-3 hours.

This is one of the frequently asked Agile Scrum interview questions. You may be
asked to define the above terms separately or the difference between these
two.

37. How is an agile testing methodology different from other

testing methodologies?
Answer: Agile scrum interview questions may include a number of questions
from agile testing. Let’s understand how you can answer such questions.

The agile testing methodology involves the division of the whole testing process
into multiple small segments of codes. In every step, these segments of codes
undergo testing. There are a number of additional processes involved in agile
testing methodologies such as team communication, strategic modifications for
optimal results and many others.
38. What is the difference between agile & scrum?
Answer: This question will test whether you are aware of a broader picture of
agile and its different frameworks or flavors. Below image will help you explain
this answer where you can say agile is an umbrella of values and principles and
under it, one of the lightweight frameworks is called Scrum.

Certification-related Agile Scrum Interview

Questions
Certifications have become very important these days. Although it’s not
compulsory to have a certification for any job position it demonstrates your skills
to the employers. So, interviewers include these certification-related agile scrum
interview questions in an agile scrum interview.

39. Do you have a Scrum Master certification?

This question may seem awkward to you but it is one of the most popular Agile
Scrum interview questions. If an interviewer asks this question, it doesn’t mean
that a certification is must for the job position. Just be confident while answering
whether you have a scrum master certification or not. If you are a certified
scrum master, just share the details of your certification like certification exam,
score obtained, and the year of passing the certification exam. In case you don’t
have a certification, mention and highlight your experience in the particular
field. Also, let the interviewer know if you are planning to invest in the
certification in the near future.

40. Do you hold any agile certification? Why did you choose this
certification?
Answer: Agile and scrum certifications are hot in the market and organizations
are expecting the candidates to hold one or more out of it. Certifications
generally looked by organizations are:
 o ACP (Agile Certified Practitioner)
o ASM (Agile Scrum Master)
o CSM (Certified Scrum Master)
o PSM (Professional Scrum Master)
o Safe Agilist
If you have any of these certifications, showcase it here in a big manner. Due to
the many options available in the market, organizations also have started asking
why you have chosen one. It’s recommended that for your certification you
know few good points as its advantages handy with you so that it can be
mentioned once asked.

Some Other Important Interview Questions

Suggested By Our Reader

1. When can you say your story is ready to develop/groom

enough to deliver?
Answer: Ready is a stable state of Scrum that is linked to a user story. As per
the Definition of Ready (DoR), a user story have to satisfy some conditions
before picking it up for a sprint i.e. to be in the ready state. So, the conditions
that are essential for the development/grooming of a user story specify if the
user story is ready to develop/groom enough to deliver or not.

Basically, the following questions should be answered to consider a user story

ready:

Why: Is it clear what the business or stakeholders are trying to achieve?

What: Is the goal or outcome of the user story clear?

How: Is the strategy for the implementation of user story clear? Is the story is
small enough?
The conditions for the user story are defined by scrum master in coordination
with the product owner. Although the conditions vary for the different projects,
some of the common conditions for user story are –

 It is clear and well-written in a format to identify user type, function,

and benefits
 It is self-contained i.e. independent of other user story inherently
 It is small so that can be delivered in a single sprint
 It has a defined acceptance criteria for all the functional requirements
and appropriate non-functional requirements
 It should have been estimated by the scrum team
 All the external blocking dependencies should have been resolved
before starting the sprint
 The resources/team have all the skills required to deliver the sprint
So, if the user story can give satisfactory answers to the above questions and
meet the conditions defined, it is considered to be ready.

2. How do you manage if the story is high priority and

resources left before last day of sprint completion?
Answer: The answer to this question will fully depend on the number of
resources left.

If one or two members leave the story just before a day of the sprint completion,
a scrum master can handle the situation as described below –

First, analyze the pending tasks and the impact on the overall sprint. According
to that, try to find an alternative solution around to manage the situation. As a
leader, you can decide to work for some extra hours to complete the sprint and
can also ask (remember to ask, not to tell) other team members to do so. And
this way, you can do the sprint completion on time.

In case, more or all the members leave just before a day of the sprint
completion, then the situation can be handled as –
Analyze the amount of pending work and its impact on the overall sprint.

Check if you can manage the situation and finish the task by yourself or try to
get some other resources to work. (Although this won’t be feasible as you will
have to first explain everything about the sprint and task done to the new team;
of course it won’t be possible in a day.) So, if you can’t manage to complete the
sprint by yourself, it’s better to tell this to your product owner. You can ask him
to give some more time to complete the sprint, so you can get a new team or
get it done by yourself by working extra hours.

3. As a scrum project manager, what are your responsibilities?

Answer: Firstly, I would like to correct the question as there is no project
manager role in scrum i.e. Scrum Project Manager is not a defined role. The
responsibilities of a project manager are split between the scrum master,
product owner, and the development team.

Scrum Master is a facilitator who is responsible to manage the development

teams working on Agile methodology. He is an intermediate between the
product owner and the development team to work for the achievement of the
final goal. The scrum master role is similar to the project manager in a few
cases, and the responsibilities of a scrum master are:

 Performing Sprint planning

 To schedule the daily Scrum meeting
 Management of responsibilities of the Scrum process
 Assisting Scrum teams to follow Scrum practices
 Work to remove barriers to allow the team focus on work
 Providing assistance with the Product Backlog
 Co-ordinating with Product Owner to design Product Backlog items for
the upcoming Sprint
 Motivating team not to be distracted by the external factors
 Helping team to improve the dynamics to reach the goal
4. How (What are the parameters) to choose the number of
resources required to your scrum team?
Answer: The team members are the resources to build a scrum team. And the
scrum guide recommends that the development team size should be between 3
and 9 (7 +/- 2) without giving any context or reasons for this.

Obviously, one common range can’t define the optimal size of the team for
everyone. So, there are some factors that should be considered while
determining the number of resources required to form a scrum team. These are
not just the factors but the need for the development of the scrum team, let’s
have a look.

 The broad set of skills required to build the team

 The consistency in team membership for a long period of time
 Dedication of team members to one and only one team
 Diversity and variety in thought and background I.e. a broad set of
ideas and experience for more creativity
The scrum guide also states the issues faced by the teams with over 9 members
in terms of concerns instead of failing points. However, you can even have 15
members in the scrum team.

In that case, two teams will be formed according to the nexus Guide for scaling
Scrum.