How To Prepare For A Scrum Master Interview

What Are Mvp And Mmp

• Minimum viable product is a Lean Startup concept that stresses the impact of learning while performing product development. This allows one to test and understand the idea by getting exposed to the initial version for target customers & users. To accomplish this, one has to collect all the relevant data and learn from that collected data. The thought behind MVP is to produce the product, to provide access to the users, and to observe how the product is used, perceived, and understood. This will also provide more insight towards what the customers or users needs are.
• The MMP refers to the description of the product, which will have a minimal number of features that address the requirement of the users. The MMP would help also help the organization reduce the time to market

What Do Daily Stand

Each day, at a specific time and at a specific place , the team meets to share updates about their tasks and tickets resolved for the day. This meeting addresses Scrums three questions listed below.

• What have you completed since the last meeting?
• What do you plan to complete by the next meeting?
• What is getting in your way?

Why Should You Take This Csm Certification Training

This CSM certification training gives you a clear understanding of terms, procedures, and events that one needs to be aware of, to safely hold together the Scrum framework. The course teaches professionals how to get Scrum teams to work at their highest efficiency levels and engage with other scrum practitioners to ensure continuous improvement.

Recommended Reading: Cfo Interview

How Do You Recommend Following Up On Action Items

Retrospectives don’t finish when they’re concluded. In fact, the toughest part has now been initiated: Following-up on your retrospective action plan. In a retrospective, one of the outcomes is the action items which the teams have identified to make their process or work environment much better . If the action items identified during the last retrospective is not worked upon or gets lost during the course of the sprint, the team will start refraining from coming up with the points as they will not see any closure on the items. Hence, the Scrum Master should present the action items from the last retrospective and discuss the status of progress.

This gives a sense of satisfaction to the team that they are getting heard and the items are being tracked to closure. There are several ways of following up, for example,

Running the activity:

Each team can have a different tool for tracking their action items. Some examples: post-it on the team wall, a shared excel document, Trello, etc.

How Can You Identify Where You Need To Improve

Be susceptible to feedback. Ask your team and stakeholders what you can do to help them .

Experiment with your teams suggestions. Search for innovative solutions to lead your team.

Maybe having a fully dedicated retrospective meeting spanning a few hours can be much more useful than your past attempts at stuffing everything that happened during the sprint in a 10-minute meeting.

Read Also: Questions To Ask The Cfo In An Interview

What Are Some Common Impediments In Scrum

What is more, the prospective employers would always be interested in your understanding of some of the most common impediments in Scrum. Mostly, your team is likely to encounter the following barriers:

• Missing resources
• Organizational, technical, or operational difficulties
• Lack of supportive systems from the management
• Business-related problems
• External issues
• Lack of proper knowledge and skills

In conclusion, use this as your guide to some of the most commonly asked questions in Scrum-Master interviews. Nevertheless, do not let this guide stop you from studying this matter more so that you turn up for the interview well prepared for whatever awaits!

Sociocratic Decision-Making

There are thousands of decisions to make at the start of every enterprise. Some decisions may appear temporary, but others pave the path you’re going to walk for years to come.

Rock The Scrum Master Interview

This the last post in a 3-part series on how to prepare for a Scrum Master interview. These posts will help you be more confident and clear in explaining the Scrum framework, describing your agile experience, and showcasing your personal agile journey and strengths. Interviewers ask a variety of questions and look for different skills based on their organizations needs. Preparation as a candidate will give you a better sense of what you are looking for in an opportunity. Good luck on your interviews, and remember they are a two-way process so you can ask questions too.

Recommended Reading: Questions To Ask A Cfo In An Interview

Describe A Time When There Was A Conflict Between Scrum Team Members And Tell Me How You Handled This Conflict

This is a classic behavioral interview question that interviewers like to ask people who will assume responsibility for a team. This question tests how you handle conflict. Its a good idea to practice the STAR interview method to deliver great answers to behavioral questions. STAR stands for situation, task, action and result.

Example: I was the Scrum Master of a team working to develop a shopping cart feature for an e-commerce website. Conflict emerged between designers and developers over how the cart should function and look. I adopted a neutral stance, listened to both sides and suggested we used both types of design and A/B test them. Both parties agreed on the compromise and the result was that we got a data-backed decision on which shopping cart worked best, leading to a 10% boost in online sales.

Should You Check Up On The Teams Health During A Retrospective

Its useful to measure the teams health during sprint retrospectives in terms of their engagement and satisfaction.

This can influence their productivity which respectively impacts the quality of the final product.

You can measure the development teams health by sending out an anonymous 2-minutes questionnaire to team members before the retrospective. A preferable questionnaire is one that features a simple scale from 1 to 5 as optional answers every question.

You May Like: How To Prepare System Design Interview

How We Can Help

In addition to highlighting the top scrum master interview questions, we offer a number of other valuable resources for those interested in excelling in business.

For instance, you can take advantage of courses such as Leading SAFe, SAFe Scrum Master 5.0 and SAFe Advanced Scrum Master 5.0.

Our goal? To help you to improve your skills in the high-demand scrum and agile area through our top-of-the-line training and consultancy services.

Get in touch with us today to find out more about how you can use scrum and agile standards to establish and achieve your business goals in the months and years ahead.

The Knowledge Centre

When Mentoring And Coaching Needed

Mentoring becomes a must during role transition, such as program manager transition to the product owner role or architects role in the development team. Scrum Masters should prepare a mentoring program and execute either themselves or with the management team to have a smooth role transition. Scrum masters should be champions in coaching conversions to enable critical thinking within and outside the scrum team. Coaching helps the team to move from self-organization to self-management.

Dont Miss: What Questions To Ask A Project Manager Interview

You May Like: Best Interview Clothes For A Woman

What Are The Main Types Of Scrum Master Interview Questions

Scrum Master interviews include behavioral questions and role-specific questions. Employers will want to know that you have experience as a Scrum Master and how you handle different projects. You could need to provide answers about your teamwork, problem-solving, critical-thinking and time-management skills. Hiring managers usually also ask questions about your experience and any certifications you may have.

The Product Backlog Has Over 200 Tickets Is This Acceptable

The product backlog is a prioritized list of all the things that are needed in a product. It is a common practice for product owners to have a separate list of product ideas and as they go into the product backlog they should be prioritized against other items already in it. However, it could be a reasonable compromise to have everything in one place and have only the top half prioritized. A product backlog can have a list of items to be accomplished, but the team will only focus on the high priority items which can add value to the client.

Apply to Join Toptal’s Project Management Network

No, velocity is a good proxy for the teams capacity. While trying to maximize velocity, a team may actually decrease productivity. Team members might minimize re-factoring, skip bug fixing, ignore or spend too little time on unit or acceptance testing, reduce customer collaboration. These practices can offer short-term increases in velocity at the expense of long-term product quality. The goal of a Scrum master is to arrive at an optimal and relatively constant velocity.

You May Like: Questions To Ask A Cfo

Does Conducting The Daily Scrum At The Same Time And At The Same Place Every Day Make It Easier For Scrum Master And Product Owner To Participate

Not necessarily. It is preferable to conduct it at the same time and the same place to reduce the complexity of meeting overheads. Unless the Product Owner and Scrum Master are also part of the Development team it is not required for Daily Scrum. Daily Scrum is for the Development Team. The Daily Scrum is not planned as a status report or management reporting mechanism. Performing Daily Scrum highlights liability and commitment in the development team.

The following are misinterpretations or breaking of the Agile Principles and suggested ways to fix the problem:

Who Is A Certified Scrum Master

A Certified Scrum Master is one of the three major roles in a Scrum framework. Such a professional is a leader of the scrum team who handles the project, guides the team, and ensures that the scrum team follows agile principles and values. They oversee the routine activities, maintain the Scrum board, and find new techniques to effectively manage the product backlog.

Read Also: Design Interview Preparation

Things To Know Before The Scrum Master Interview

The questions you will encounter during a scrum master interview can vary widely based on the interviewer company and its values.

You might get asked kinds of questions about indifferent team members, keeping stakeholders in the loop, agile metrics, the barebones of scrum, and more. Well pretty much cover everything from exam-like, SDLC, and behavioral to more advanced technical and testing-related interview questions.

Of course, your experience will impact the interview process, as well. Senior scrum masters will get asked questions that an entry-level scrum master wouldnt stumble upon until later in their career.

Also, regardless of your experience as a scrum master, you should always display curiosity and excitement in front of your interviewer. Tell the interviewer about your background and experience as a scrum master. Share what excites you about the job position you are applying for. It will, without a doubt, boost your chances of getting hired.

Alrighty, lets get you prepared for your scrum master interview

How Are Epic User Story And Tasks Different From One Another In The Context Of Scrum

• Epic – It is something so large that it will almost certainly not fit into a sprint, is unclear in terms of client requirements, and should be split down into stories. Epics are often defined at the early stages of product road mapping and then broken into stories in the product backlog when additional information becomes available.
• User Story – A story is anything actionable that can be fit into a sprint. These are INVEST criteria-based story points and definitions. By the end of an iteration, stories should give a vertical slice of functionality to the client that is both valuable and complete. Typically, stories are developed throughout the product development process, particularly prior to iteration planning and throughout higher-level product road mapping.
• Task – They are the decomposed parts of a story that define how the story will be finished. If needed, tasks can be estimated by the hour. Tasks are typically defined by the individuals who execute the job, whereas stories and epics are typically developed by the customer. Because tasks are temporary, they are produced within the confines of an iteration.

Don’t Miss: System Design Interview Prep

Whats Your Criticism Of Scrum

This can be quite an interesting question as its quite unusual.

It shows your point of view and rationalization process to a degree.

Thats something you should personally answer without having someone else tell you the correct answer.

Some developers consider the daily scrums to be a waste of time to a certain degree. Others believe that sprints can be managed better allocating more time to fixing the technical debt.

A Scrum Team Is In The Process Of Defining Product Backlog Items The Scrum Master Notices That The Team Is Not Using User Story Format To Capture The Backlog Items What Should Be The Scrum Masters Course Of Action

The Scrum Master should let the team decide the format of Product Backlog items. The product owner brings forward the main objective that should be achieved in the sprint and the PBIs that would help to attain these objectives. The development team selects the PBIs that will help to achieve the sprint goal based on the product owner input and creates the plan for delivering the PBIs. The scrum master ensures that the scrum rules are followed appropriately. There is no need for a scrum master to conduct events, but instead to facilitate as required.

Also Check: Top 10 Behavioral Questions

What Are The Roles Of A Scrum Master

The Scrum Master provides support to the Scrum Team in a variety of ways, including:

• Mentoring members of the team in self-management and cross-functionality
• Assisting the Scrum Team in focusing on creating elevated Increments that meet the Definition of Done
• Removing roadblocks to the Scrum Team’s progress
• Ensuring that all Scrum events occur and are positive, productive, and kept within the timeframe.

The Product Owner benefits from the Scrum Master in a variety of ways, including:

• Assisting in the use of strategies for successful product goal definition and backlog management
• Assisting the Scrum Team in comprehending the need of having clear and precise Product Backlog items
• Assisting in the development of empirical product planning for a complicated environment

The Scrum Master helps the company in a variety of ways, including:

• Leading, mentoring, and training the organization’s Scrum adoption.
• Making plans and recommending Scrum implementations within the organization assisting employees and stakeholders in understanding and putting into practice an empirical approach to complex work.
• Removing barriers between stakeholders and Scrum Teams.

Do You Believe Daily Stand

Daily stand-up sessions help understand the progress and provide help whenever required. As a scrum master, you may illustrate how using these sessions helped improve the course of a project. An employer often asks this question to assess your team building and project management skills.

Example:”Yes, I believe a daily stand-up session is essential. It provides a chance for the team to collaborate, assist each other and bring a better direction to the project. I conduct a daily stand-up with all the units I work with to understand completed, pending and ongoing tasks. It also helps me find out if the team is facing any issues and align resources if necessary. Once the daily stand-up is complete, I hold a follow-up meeting with team members facing issues or requiring clarifications.”

Don’t Miss: Preparing For System Design Interview

How Do You Address New Requirements In The Middle Of A Sprint

Scrum is designed to be responsive to last-minute changes. But it inevitably adds stress to the team.

With this question youre really asking:

• What ideas does the candidate have to help a Scrum team manage scope changes?
• How would they go about integrating those changes into the current sprint?
• Can they make judgment calls about what can be deprioritized to the next sprint?

Good Scrum masters are happy to make their case to higher-ups about not having the bandwidth to take on more than is reasonable. The team needs to know their Scrum master is willing to go to bat for themand can reorient them to new challenges, or help them turn challenges into opportunities to improve.

Shielding the teams productivity from change is critical. Youll know this candidate is capable if you get a hint of their openness, flexibility, and ability to coordinate different stakeholders.

As A Scrum Master How Do You Ensure That The Transparency Inspection And Adaptation Scrum Pillars Are Being Implemented By The Team

Scrum prescribes four formal events for inspection and adaptation, as described in the Scrum Events section of the Scrum Guide as a Scrum Master you should attend the events and ensure the team is following the Transparency, Inspect and Adapt processes:

• Sprint Planning
• Inspect the average Team Velocity over the previous 3 or 4 Sprints, ensure that the velocities have been Transparent to the team and ensure that the team Adapt the Velocity to be used for planning the Sprint
• Inspect the Product Backlog and ensure that it is up to date, that it is Transparent to all stakeholders and that the team Adapts the PBI estimates if necessary

You May Like: Women’s Outfit For Job Interview