How To Prepare For Scrum Master Interview

Who Is A Scrum Master And What Does He/she Do

A Scrum Master is someone who promotes and supports the usage of Scrum within the team.

• He/She understands the theory, practices, rules and, values of Scrum
• He/She ensures that the team follows the values, principles and, practices of Scrum
• They remove any distractions and impediments that hamper the progress of the project
• The Scrum Master ensures that the team delivers value during the sprint

How Would You Deal With A Difficult Stakeholder

Dealing with difficult stakeholders is another key project management skill. Dealing with them gracefully will probably take a combination of people skills and having processes in place to minimize unexpected changes and set expectations for communication.

Other forms this question might take:

• How frequently do you think you should communicate with stakeholders?

• How would you balance stakeholder needs with the needs of your team?

What Are The Different Roles In Scrum

Following are the different roles in Scrum:-

• Product Owner: The product owner is in charge of enhancing ROI by determining product features, prioritizing these items into a list, determining what should be prioritized for the next sprint, and much more. These are re-prioritized and modified on a regular basis.
• Scrum Master: This person assists the team in learning how to use Scrum to maximize business value. The scrum master removes roadblocks, keeps the team focused, and helps the team embrace agile methods.
• Scrum Team: A Scrum Team is a group of people who work together to guarantee that the stakeholders’ needs are met.

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What Qualification Does A Certified Scrum Trainer Hold

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All this for only

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How Would You Handle Conflict Within The Team

Conflict can happen due to clashing personalities or disagreements on how to approach a task.

There are a few ways you can handle conflict, including:

• Have one-on-one meetings with interested parties to understand the issue

• Organize the Scrum team to brainstorm solutions

• Escalate if the decision-making capacity is out of your power

• Allow team members to sort out differences themselves, and intervene only when it is actively hampering project performance

You might also talk about preventative measures to prevent conflict as much as possible. This can include setting up effective communication plans, or fostering teamwork by having icebreaker sessions.

Other forms this question might take:

• What would you do if you disagreed with a team member on how best to approach a task?

• Are you capable of managing a team?

Differentiate Between Product And Sprint Backlog

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Do You Track Each Team Members Daily Scrum Tasks

This is a bit of a trick question, but something you want to be on the same page about as any Scrum master you hire.

You may disagree with me on what qualifies as a good answer, but thats all the more reason to ask. This question will show you whether the candidate is aligned with your companys idea of good collaboration.

Generally, though, a good Scrum master enables their teams self-organization. Theyre not a task master. They help coordinate the teams work rather than oversee individual work.

Its hard to imagine formal tracking of team members daily tasks accomplishing anything positive over the long-term. Much more likely to come are micromanagement and singling out.

So, the short answer youre looking for is no. Even better if they can demonstrate how they would track progress without looking over teammates shoulders.

Candidates Experience As A Scrum Master

Experience matters a lot, and Im sure youd like to dive deeper into the candidates experience. Here are some of the Scrum Master interview questions you might ask.

1. How big was your team? Was your team co-located or distributed?2. Did your team had any specific rituals?3. What was the size of the projects you worked on as a Scrum Master?4. What kind of Scrum Events did you have in your project? Did you facilitate and attend all of them?5. How do you prepare yourself to Sprint Planning session?6. How did your Sprint Planning meeting look like? Who was attending it? Did you use a physical whiteboard?7. Can you give an example of one of the Sprint Goals your team had?8. Did you have a chance to lead any change in the organization?9. What kind of tools did you use for Sprint management?10. Have you been involved in organizing any pieces of training about Agile/Scrum for other employees?11. Walk me through your Scrum Demo Session.12. What retrospective formats have you been using in the past?13. Share the retrospective action you have taken and what was the outcome?14. How did you help the team to self-organize?15. How did you collaborate with the Product Owner

. . .

Hopefully, youll find the best candidate for your job. If you know other worth mentioning Scrum Master interview questions, please let me know in the comments below.

Images are provided by Unsplash.

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The Scrum Master Questions

Top 51 Scrum Master Interview Questions And Answers

Here are a few frequently asked questions that will help you prepare for your job interview:

1. Who are Scrum Masters and what are they responsible for?

The Scrum Masters are responsible for supporting and promoting Scrum. They assist their team in meeting their goals. They help to manage project risks and mentor the team as a coach. The Scrum Masters are also known as servant leaders, as they provide collaboration and motivate their team to deliver their best.

Source: Digital Varys

2. What is a “user story” in Scrum?

A user story is a tool used in Agile software development that captures the description of a feature from an end-user perspective. It describes, among others, the type of users and their motivations. A user story creates a simplified description of a user’s requirements.

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

• Product Increment

4. What do you understand by the term Scrum Sprint? What is its duration?

A Scrum Sprint is a repeatable cycle during which work is completed and made ready for review. The duration of the Scrum Sprint depends on the size of the project and the team working on it. Generally, it is under 30 days.

5. Describe the role of a Product Owner.

The Product Owner focuses on the success of the product, ensuring the business value of it. Their main responsibility is to identify and refine the Product Backlog items.

6. How does the Scrum Master help the Product Owner?

7. How does the Scrum Master serve the organization?

• nTask

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How Does Agile And Scrum Differ If They Do

If the person is unaware that scrum falls under the larger umbrella of agile thats, a problem. There are four main values and 12 principles of agile, while scrum has its own set of values and principles. Scrum is a framework to help teams become agile. This question will reveal whether the candidate is in fact a scrum master.

What Is Empirical Process Control In Scrum

• Empiricism refers to work thats based on facts, experiences, evidence, observations, and experimentation. It is established and followed in Scrum to ensure project progress and interpretation is based on facts of observations.
• It relies on transparency, observation, and adaption.
• The mindset of the team and the shift in thought process and culture are essential to achieve the agility required by the organization.

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A Team Member Is Cherry

The development team has the ultimate authority to select the tasks its going to be working on.

However, if developers are cherry-picking secondary tasks before 1-st class items, they should be advised otherwise.

If the team has been working only on secondary tasks and running out of time, you wont be able to ship an MVP when the time comes.

Pair programming can be a reasonable solution to solving this problem.

Scrum Master Interview Questions Part I

Situational questions are an essential part of the interview process in assessing candidates who will be a good fit for an open Scrum Master job. Here are 12 real-world situations to discuss during an interview.

Dive deeper into the discussion of each situation when possible asking open questions like why would you do that?, what is your desired outcome?, what if nothing changes?, etc.

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What Is The Difference Between Agile And Scrum

If you still struggle with explaining in simple terms, heres a more straightforward definition that can make things easier for you:

Agile is a philosophy. Scrum is a framework and subset of Agile.

Agile describes a set of ideals and values. In contrast, Scrum gives you principles through which you can make your project management easier.

A Team Member Has Stopped Attending Daily Scrumwhat Do You Do

Im a fan of situational questions. Many Scrum masters have to deal with some version of this one.

Hopefully, they understand the glitches that can come from uneven meeting daily Scrum attendance. That letting it continue is asking for blind spots to emerge during the sprint and a truly team-wide knowledge base is critical for decision making.

How would they intervene? Their answer can clue you into how they perceive the role of Scrum master: not as an enforcer, but as a confident mentor and mediator who can help team members understand the consequences of their decisions.

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What Does A Certified Scrummaster Do

A Certified Scrum Master ensures that the team adopts agile practices in their work. The professional manages large teams across multiple departments using the Scrum framework and guides team members to work smoothly. They conduct daily scrum meetings to understand the progress of the work and clear any obstacles that the team faces. In addition, they also help team members understand the theory, rules, practices, and the value of Scrum methodology.

What Are The Roles And Responsibilities Of A Certified Scrummaster

Certified Scrum Masters are basically responsible for conducting the daily scrum meetings held to take updates regarding the work done and to provide resolutions if the team is facing issues. They work towards building a pleasant relationship between the scrum team and the product owner to ensure smooth workflow. They also assist the team members in understanding their assignments and guide them on how to execute each task.

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Your Product Owner Has Pushed To Include In The Upcoming Sprint A User Story Which Does Not Have The Final Designs Yet The Design Team Promises To Deliver Them On The Second Day Of The Sprint How Do You React

The user story obviously does not meet the definition of ready and could be refused by the team. However, Agile promotes people over process and thus other factors should be evaluated as well. Has the design team consistently met their deadlines in similar situations?

Is there evidence that this user story of very high value to the client? In these circumstances, the team could make an exception and accept the story.

However, it is important for the Scrum master to have a talk with the product owner and make sure that such exceptions do not become the rule. definition of ready is a valuable technique and ignoring it can derail the scrum teams efficiency and increase the risk of delays.

Is There A Scenario Where The Waterfall Is Preferable Over Scrum

For any project, there shouldnt be an all-in-or-all-out approach because there are times where a hybrid methodology works best for the project. And there are also other times where a strictly traditional course serves best for the project. For example, if the work is predictable, simple, and is fully defined, then we would go for the waterfall.

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Why Are The User Stories Not Estimated In Man Hours

One of the most common approaches for evaluating teamwork is to estimate in man-hours. While man-hours are simple to comprehend, they have a number of significant drawbacks:

• Few activities, such as legacy work, are difficult to estimate precisely.
• If one team member delivers the estimate but the task is completed by another, the estimate is useless.
• The amount of time it takes to perform a task depends on the developer’s level of experience.
• Teams frequently overestimate the obstacles they may face and simply consider the best-case scenario.

The benefits of estimating user stories in points include the following: There is no association between the estimator’s skills and experience, and story points are independent of the story’s author. The team members can estimate more correctly since story points are a measurement of relative sizes, and the size of the story cannot be changed by external forces. As team behavior takes precedence over individual conduct, Story Points encourages collaboration. The team comes together when they use planning poker to estimate story points. As teams exchange, constructively criticize, argue, and have fun playing poker cards to arrive at an agreement on estimations, it serves as a team-building activity.

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.

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Someone On Your Team Hasnt Taken A Liking To Scrum Which Is Negatively Affecting The Project What Would You Do

Scrum is a new process to many people. Some people might not take to it easily, especially in companies where processes have been entrenched for many years.

There are several ways you might tackle this issue. Some Scrum masters might refer back to the Scrum values and encourage teams at the outset to think differently than theyâre used to. Others might work to instill a sense of ownership of the product in the team member so that theyâre invested in the process. Still others might bring in a certified trainer for formal training.

Other forms this question might take:

• How do you break old habits within an organization?

• How would you prepare people to accept the Scrum process?

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?

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