Scrum Master Interview Questions

For some of these questions, there is no right and wrong answer. The interviewer is trying to see if you
have agile mindset or not. And how was your experience.

While answering these questions we recommend giving few seconds thought before answering them.
Remember even if you have lot of experience, you will get roughly 1-minute window to answer the
questions, and to convince the interviewer that you are right fit for the job, so it’s always good to
practice before appearing for interview.

1) How do you find Scrum different than waterfall?

Talk about what benefits Scrum brings, highlight on Agile manifesto. You could also give a specific
project while answering.

2) What is the difference between Manager and Scrum Master role?

Manager is a leader, allocates work, refines estimates, responsible for work. Scrum Master is a servant-
leader, helps remove impediments from team’s way, does not allocate work or refine estimations. Assists
product owner to define user stories. Feel free to add more points.

3) When is scrum bad to implement? Or when should u use waterfall? There isn’t any one answer fits all
situations. Sometimes a hybrid methodology works best. Other times a strictly traditional course best
serves the project. For example, if the work is simple, predictable and fully defined, it would probably be
right to use waterfall. This scrum master interview question will determine if the candidate is thinking of
their focus or the overall good of the project.

4) How is Agile different than Scrum?

Agile covers a broader range of methodologies like Kanban, Scrumban, XP, Lean etc. It is an umbrella
under which Scrum lies. Scrum is a framework which has defined some rules and processes to make sure
the benefits of agile methodology are achieved.

5) How big was your last team?

Answer as per your experience

6) Did you use only Scrum or combination with other methodologies?

Answer as per your experience

7) Describe your typical day as a Scrum Master in last organization.

Answer as per your experience

8) What is your strength as a Scrum Master.

What strengths were useful for you as a Scrum Master. Try answering using a specific example from your
past experience.

9) How Do You Run a Daily Meeting?

10) Were your daily meetings long?

Answer as per your experience

11) How did you help to make them time-boxed to 15 minutes?

If your meetings run longer, did you try to time-box them? If yes, what did you do – talk to the team in
retrospective, remind team during daily meetings to keep it short, have a timer. Answer as per your
experience

12) Who maintains Sprint backlog?

Development team

13) As per scrum can we add or delete items from sprint backlog once sprint has started?

Yes, without affecting sprint goal. Sprint goal is fixed.

14) Can sprint goal be changed once sprint has started?

No. Sprint goal is fixed.

15) Who all are present during planning meeting?

Development team, Product Owner, Scrum Master

16) Can you describe how you did sprint planning meeting?

Answer as per your experience

17) What planning technique have you used?

Answer as per your experience

18) How did you communicate to stakeholders about the planned work

Answer as per your experience

19) How often did you review Sprint backlog?

Usually, it is done once in the middle of sprint. Answer as per your experience

20) How often did you review Product backlog – alone or with Product owner?

The interviewer is evaluating your scope of work. Answer as per your experience

21) Did you estimate at user story level or task level?

There is no right answer. Different teams have different ways. Answer as per your experience

22) Did you do retrospective meetings?

There is no right answer. But not having a retrospective meeting is bad as the team is not able to do
continuous improvement as well as resolve any conflicts.
23) Can you walk me through a retrospective meeting?

Answer as per your experience

24) Did you use Story points or Man days for estimation?

There is no right answer. Answer as per your experience

25) Which one do you think is better and why?

Answer as per your experience. The advantages of both are listed above in the book.

26) While analyzing burndown charts for bad sprints, what were the reasons for delay?

The interviewer is checking if you reviewed burndowns. Answer as per your experience

27) What all your team had on whiteboard apart from To-do, In-progress and Done list.

Answer as per your experience

28) Have you used Burnup chart? How was it useful?

Answer as per your experience

29) How did you handle team capacity during vacation/festival times?

One way is to change capacity during capacity planning before sprint. Answer as per your experience

30) How frequently your team used to deliver in production?

There is no right answer. Answer as per your experience

31) Was it automatic or manual?

Automatic deployments usually highlights that there was some form of Continuous Integration and
Continuous Delivery in place which goes hand in hand with Scrum framework. It’s better to answer
automatic but manual is also not wrong answer. Answer as per your experience

32) What DevOps tool you used?

There is no right answer. You could be in a cloud native project using AWS or Azure to automatically
deploy or in a basic project using some PowerShell scripts. Answer as per your experience

33) How could you have improved delivery process?

Even though you may not be technical person, but you were part of Scrum team and were involved in
removing impediments, retrospective meetings and brainstorm sessions. Share your ideas how you think
delivery process could be improved. Interviewer is checking if you have growth and improvement
mindset.

34) Did you attend brainstorming sessions with team? If yes, what was your role in general.

Your role could be to give inputs of requirement, delivery dates, stakeholder concerns or just making sure
there are no conflicts. Answer as per your experience
35) What you used to do when a new member joined a scrum team.

Interviewer is checking your role in onboarding a new team member and your role in mentoring him/her.
Answer as per your experience

36) How did you make sure Product owner-maintained agility and at the same time not allowing sprint
backlog to be updated?

Tricky question. Try to dig into your experience and answer using an example. Or may be you had it
covered during Sprint backlog review. Answer as per your experience

37) How did you interact with other Scrum teams in your organization?

Answer as per your experience

38) Which tool have you used for Scrum in previous organization?

Answer as per your experience. If you did not use any, google for some tools and let them know that
although not worked you find these tools useful.

39) Which other tools you know about?

Google to find out latest tools if you don’t know already – I did not mention here as new tools keep
coming in market.

40) How Do You Deal with conflicts amongst Your Team?

Answer as per your experience

41) Tell me about a time you encountered an impediment during a project.

Answer as per your experience

42) What did you do for team building?

Answer as per your experience

43) Have you done Zero planning? What did you do in it?

Answer as per your experience

44) Have you worked on distributed remote scrum teams?

These days most teams are distributed, and remote working is a new normal. It is good to have this
experience and be able to share how you adapted to it and what challenges you faced.

45) How did you do planning meetings, review and retrospective meetings.

Answer as per your experience

46) What would you have improved?

Interviewer is checking your continuous improvement mindset. Answer as per your experience

47) How do you introduce Scrum to business/client?

48) What was the client feedback for your project deliveries?

Answer as per your experience

49) Are you member of any agile or scrum groups?

It’s good to be a member of few and be able to name them. Answer as per your experience

50) Do you write blog or articles related to scrum?

Answer as per your experience