Top 23 Scrum Master Interview Questions and Answers

Agile Scrum Master Interview Questions

Here are Scrum Master interview questions and answers for freshers as well as experienced candidates to get their dream job.

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1) What are the advantages of doing Scrum?

The advantage of doing scrum is that while performing the test
  • It minimizes the risk in response to changes made to the system
  • It increases ROI (Return of Investment)
  • It improves the process continuously
  • It repeatedly and rapidly looks into actual working software
  • Anyone can see real working software and continue to enhance for another iteration

2) How long does a scrum cycle last? Who is involved in the Scrum cycle?

Scrum cycle depends on the type of project the team is working. Usually, it ranges about 2-4 weeks to nearly a month.  In scrum cycle, it includes a
  • Scrum master
  • Product owner
  • Team

3) What is a user story in Scrum?

In scrum, a user story is short, one sentence definitions of a feature or functionality.

4) What are the artifacts of Scrum process?

Scrum process artifacts include
  • Sprint backlog
  • Product backlog
  • Velocity chart
  • Burn-down chart

5)  What is Scrum Sprint?

Scrum project is developed in a series of “sprint”. It is a repeatable and regular work cycle in scrum methodology during which work is accomplished and kept ready for review.
Scrum Master Interview Questions
Scrum Master Interview Questions

6) What is the ideal duration is for Sprint?  How it affects the workflow?

Sprint in Scrum usually lasts for 30 days or two weeks.  The two-week sprint planning is preferred for various reason. First, it makes it easier for the team to estimate, plan and complete the work in two weeks. Secondly, it gives enough time to the product owner to change the priorities more often and allows the team to adapt quickly to the market pressures.

7) Explain product backlog in Scrum

Before the scrum sprint initiates, product owner reviews the list of all new features, change requests, enhancements and bug reports and determines which ones are of high priorities. If the project is new it includes new features that the new system must provide, this list of item is referred to as Product Backlog.  The things that are kept on sprint are referred to as Sprint Backlog.

8) Explain the activities performed in Agile scrum meeting

During scrum meetings
  • Team analyze how much time they got to complete task during the Sprint
  • From product backlog, the team takes the first item and breaks into tasks
  • Team estimates how long a task will take
  • If there is any time left during the sprint, they will move on to the next item on the product backlog
  • Decide the features which have clarity and estimates how many to be scoped for sprint

9) What is the role of scrum master in Scrum?

  • Removes any obstacles that the team faces during the pursuit of its sprint goals
  • Maximizing the productivity of the team
  • Making sure that the scripting language used for system testing and unit testing is written in the same language
  • Guides the team and product owner to improve the effectiveness of their practices
  • Makes sure that all standard scrum practices are followed
Scrum Master Interview Questions and Answers
Scrum Master Interview Questions and Answers

10) What does a scrum burndown chart should consist of?

A scrum burndown chart should consist of
  • X-axis that displays working days
  • Y-axis that displays remaining effort
  • Ideal effort as a guideline
  • Real progress of the effort

11) What are the drawbacks of using Scrum?

  • It will be a tricky job for an Agile scrum master to plan, organize and structure a project that lacks a clear goal
  • Daily scrum meeting requires frequent reviews and substantial resources
  • A successful project relies on the maturity and dedication of all the team members
  • Uncertainty regarding the product, frequent changes, and frequent product delivery remains during the scrum cycle
  • It makes all dysfunction visible
  • It requires significant change

12) What is a scrum of scrum?

Scrum of scrum is used to refer to the meeting after the daily scrum. The responsible person from each agile team attends the meeting and discuss their work and answer the questions like
  • Since the last meeting, what is the progress of the team?
  • What your team is expected to do or should accomplish, before the next meeting?
  • What are the obstacles your team faced while completing the task?
  • Were you going to allow any of your work to the following team?

13) Explain the term “Increment.”

The term “Increment” is used to refer the total number of the product backlog items completed during the sprint and all previous sprints. At the end of the sprint, increment should be in done status; also, it must be in re-useable condition regardless of whether the product owner is willing to release a product or not.

14) What is “Velocity”?

“Velocity” is the total effort a team is capable of in a sprint.  The number is obtained by adding all the story points from the last sprint’s stories.  It is a guideline for the team to understand how many stories they can do in a sprint.

15) What is “Sashimi” and “Impediments”?

  • Sashimi:This term is analogous to “done”; it is used to define the specific task when it is completed. The term used by a different team to refer their completed task status may differ but should remain the same within one team.
  • Impediments: Any obstacle that prevents the team members from performing their work is referred to as impediments

16) What is scrum poker or planning poker?

Scrum poker or planning poker is a technique to estimate the relative size of development goals in software development.  It is a way to determine sprint item durations by playing number cards face down the table, instead of speaking them aloud.

17) What does the burndown charts show?

Burn down charts is used to track sprint status, they act as an early warning indicator; they can be useful in highlighting the “lack of progress”.  Also, they will highlight the area where they see redundancy.

18) What is the objective behind holding a Sprint retrospective meeting?

The objective behind Sprint retrospective meeting is to let team members know how things went during the sprint and discuss possible ways for further improvements for future sprints.

19) What is the difference between Sprint and Iteration in Scrum?

  • Iteration: It is a terminology used to define a single development cycle in general agile methods. It is a common term used in the iterative and Incremental development process.
  • Sprint: It is used to define one development cycle or iterative step in a specialized agile methodology referred to as Scrum. Sprint is scrum specific, and not all forms of iterations are Sprints.

20) What is a story point in Scrum?

Each feature in scrum is Story. A story point is an arbitrary measure used by Scrum teams, and it is a metric used by agile teams to determine the difficulty of implementing a given story.

21) What velocity in scrum?  How it is measured?

Velocity in a scrum is a measurement of how much the team gets work done in an iteration or sprint. It is measured by
  • V= Number of total story points / One iteration

22)  When Scrum cannot be useful?

Ideally, scrum is useful to monitor work with 5 to 10 people, who are committed to achieving the sprint goal.  It does not go well with huge groups or team having more responsibilities.  For a larger team, scrum can be applied by splitting the team into small groups and practice Scrum.

23) What are your responsibilities of a professional scrum master?

The scrum master role is similar to the project manager in a few cases, and the responsibilities of a scrum master are:
  • Conducting Sprint planning and project management
  • To schedule the daily Scrum meeting
  • Management of responsibilities of the Scrum process
  • Assisting development teams to follow Scrum practices
  • Work to remove barriers to allow the team to focus on work
  • Offering assistance with the Product Backlog
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8 Comments

  1. i was asked question during my interview: how long before you do sprint planing prior to implementation. eg. if you implementation start date is in 2 weeks. when you start sprint planning. thanks

    1. Avatar Anonymous says:

      8 hrs for a 4 week sprint

      1. Avatar Gaurav Dutt says:

        Yes.. it’s the max hours which could be taken up for planning Sprint size of 4 week

    2. Avatar Gaurav Dutt says:

      On same day when we start the implementation of Sprint.
      The planning, review, retrospective and daily scrum are all parts of the Sprint’s and their duration is included in it’s Time box

  2. Avatar Anuj Sharma says:

    Nice QnA…But I have some questions also and please let me know what will be there answers :

    1.What is regression suite in Agile?
    2.Impact Analysis with its template in Agile ?
    3.Acceptance Test Plan in Agile with template.
    4.Test Estimation in Agile

    And real time scenarios question with respect to Agile.

  3. how to guide one or more teams in adaption of agile/scrum principles

    1. Avatar Nayer Sadek says:

      @payal

      1- Introduce your team to the Agile values and principals.
      2- Facilitate the scrum key values.
      3- Explain what are the ceremonies and the empirical process and why we do the scrum meetings.
      4- practice Sprint Zero on new teams so they get familiar with sprint proceses

  4. Avatar Brad Bond says:

    Burn down charts and velocity are NOT scrum artifacts. You are giving false information to your readers and should be ashamed.

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