Most companies are fast shifting to Scrum which promises better results. You should therefore be well aware of the Scrum methodology if you want to fit in a number of organizations in the near future. You should also ask yourself how an organization will know that you understand scrum through an interview.
This article will look at some of the questions that you should expect in a Scrum interview to increase your chances of landing the job. Make sure that you also look into other aspects of the interview such as grooming to give you an edge over other candidates. Take a look at the following questions:
1. Can You Tell Us About The Different Scrum Events?
There are five main Scrum Events. Spring planning, which is the first, normally occurs at the beginning of spring. Here, the team discusses everything in a product’s backlog before picking the ones to be part of the existing script. Here, the deliverable is the sprint backlog. The second event is the daily Scrum which has a timeline of 15 minutes and occurs at the beginning of the day. Here, the team normally discusses the sprint backlog items to help uncover the issues/blockers. Sprint, the third event, refers to the duration of delivery of all the sprint backlog and normally takes between two weeks to a month. The fourth event is the sprint review, occurring at the end of the script. Here, a stakeholder meeting is held and the team is expected to review the product for a maximum of 4 hours. The last event is the sprint retrospective, a meeting that reviews the last sprint. It generally runs from 1-3 hours.
2. What Do You Understand By Scrum?
Scrum Forster’s teamwork. It is one of the frameworks in Agile that define how teams work and therefore help them work together. Teams normally gain from experiences thanks to Scrum, which further helps them to achieve proper self-organization and get a perfect reflection of their successes and disappointments. Lastly, it allows a team to make major improvements.
3. Can You Mention All The Roles In Scrum
There are three main roles in Scrum. The first is the product owner responsible for increasing the return on investments on a product. They choose the features of the product and prioritize them before figuring out what needs to be done in the upcoming spring. The second role is the Scrum master who guides the team on how to apply Scrum to generate the highest level of business value. They are generally charged with removing any obstacles, keeping the team away from distractions, and helping them use agile practices.
4. Have You Ever Been Part Of A Scrum Team? What Were Some Of Your Responsibilities?
I have been part of several Scrum teams before. We normally have between 5 to 7 members. Some.of.our responsibilities included working together with the existing teams and among themselves, offering the right information during and before the daily Scrum meeting, developing and delivering the working products during every sprint, and maintaining ownership and transparency in their work.
5. Most People Confuse Agile With Scrum. Can You Mention Their Main Difference?
Agile is a combination of iterative and incremental principles whereas Scrum is one of the implementations of the agile methodology. Secondly, agile is normally meant for projects that have. A small team.of.experts while Scrum supports teams working in constant changing requirements. In agile, the head of the project handles all the tasks and therefore plays an important role during the project while Scrum doesn’t have a leader. Everything else is handled by the Scrum master and the entire team.
6. Have You Ever Heard Of Scrum-Ban? What Is It?
Scrum-ban is one of the most used methods in Scrum that combines Scrum and Kanban. It is usually used to meet a team’s needs, minimize workload and implement a pull-based system. Generally, the scrum-ban methodology uses Scrum’s structure but greatly relies on the visualization and flexibility of Kanban.
7. Can You Tell Us More About Sprint Retrospective?
The sprint retrospective is the next process after sprint review. It is a meeting that uncovers previous mistakes, some. of the potential issues set to arise, and any new method that can handle both the potential issues and the new methods. It contains important data that is usually taken into account when planning a new script.
8. What Do You Understand By Empirical Process Control In Scrum?
Empirical process control stems from empiricism which refers to things based on experimentation, evidence, and facts. This process is normally followed in Scrum to ensure that the project goes on well and all interpretations are backed by facts and observations. The whole process greatly depends on observation, adaption, and transparency. It allows the entire team to achieve agility by gifting them the right mindset. I know and understand the importance of empirical process control and will be willing to use it in the workplace.
9. As A Regular Scrum Team Member, Can You Mention The Different Artifacts In Scrum?
There are three main artifacts in Scrum that everyone should be aware of. These are the product backlog that shows all the items to be delivered for a given product. It is worth noting that it is a cinstaky evolving list whose main commitment is the product goal. The second is the sprint backlog which lists all the items to be delivered in a sprint. Unlike the first artifact, it is unchangeable. Its commitment is the sprint goal. The last is the product increment which is generally delivered when the sprint ends.
10. What’s The Best Way To Measure The Work Done In A Sprint?
I have been in a number of scrum teams before. I, therefore, know that the work done in a particular sprint is usually measured by the velocity, which shows the number of items a team can deliver. Generally, a spring burndown chart is used to measure the progress in a team. It shows how the sprint progresses as seen from the pending user stories and the remaining number of hours.
11. Can You Explain What Sprint 0 And Spike Are
Sprint 0 is a common term in Scrum referring to the small amount of effort needed to create a rough skeleton of a product’s backlog. It is an accumulation of insights geared towards the estimation of product releases. One needs Sprint 0 to keep a minimal design, come up with the project skeleton, completely develop stories and keep a low velocity. On the other hand, spike refers to activities such as Extreme Programming needed for design, research, and a number of other activities. Its main aim is to minimize the risks of a given approach which in return equips the team with knowledge needed for reliability improvement.
12. Can You Mention The Skills Of A Scrum Master?
A Scrum master requires several skills owing to his/her position in the Scrum team. These include a better and deeper understanding of Agile and Scrum concepts owing to the functions of the team, ability to manage conflicts and come up with quick solutions, awareness, and familiarity with the technology that the team relies on to execute their functions, proper organizational skills, ability to coach the team members on Scrum practices and readiness to be a servant leader. It is worth mentioning that Scrum is all about servant leadership.
13. What Is The Best Way To Deal With Discords In A Scrum Team?
I have been in several Scrum teams before and therefore know how to work around discords. First, one must identify the root cause of the issue and address it. The team or involved parties should try to diffuse the disagreement and only focus on the areas relevant to the project. Afterward, they should reach a common agreement or understanding to give the team the right direction. Lastly, there should be continuous monitoring to provide complete visibility.
14. Define A User Story
A user story is one of the most important agile project management and software development tools used to shed more light on an end user’s perspective. An end-user can be an external component or a colleague within an organization. It offers the team a natural language and simple language explanation of the different features of the project. However, it is not as detailed as other tools as it only details how different types of work offer value to end-users. User stories generally constitute the building block of agile frameworks such as epics. It is also worth noting that the user stories get the teams focused on the goals of the organization. They are normally recorded on index cards, post-it notes, and project management software.
15. Now That You Have Mentioned Stories And Epics, Can You Differentiate Between Tasks, Stories, And Epics?
Epics are collections of several related user stories, which makes them large and complex. User stories are tools that furnish a team with simple explanations of what the business requires and are normally created from the view of an end-user. Tasks are related to both since they are used to further break down the stories. Out of all the three, tasks are the smallest Ans are used to track work. It is worth noting that one or two people can successfully work on a task, unlike the other three.
16. Can You Mention Some. Of The Risks In Scrum?
There are several risks in Scrum that any member of a Scrum team should know. The main one is the risk associated with the budget so CE it is easy to exceed the set budget. Other risks include those brought about by the team, which should consist of people who are properly skilled and capable of delivering; sprint risk which brings about issues of duration and deliverables; product risks occasioned by having poorly defined epics and user stories and risks occasioned by lack of the appropriate resources. All these risks can be successfully managed by identifying, assessing, monitoring, managing risk responses. The risk management process spans from the start of the project to its end.
17. Have You Ever Dealt With Scope Creep?
Scope Creep is a major issue in Scrum as it normally leads to delays in project delivery. It is an uncontrolled change that heavily impacts a project. Luckily, there are several means of handling scope creep. First, one needs to closely monitor the work in progress daily, while understanding, communicating, and aligning the project’s vision to the entire team. Every change I produced in the project should also be subjected to a change control process and be implemented only after a change request has been approved. Lastly, avoiding gold plating helps prevent scope creep.
18. What Do You Understand By DOD?
DOD refers to the definition of done, a collection of deliverables such as written codes, unit tests, design documents, release notes, and coding comments among many others. They are needed to offer verification and demonstration to project management, making them handy in identifying the different deliverables needed to meet a project’s objectives. More uses include defining all the steps needed to arrive at an iteration, offering real-time feedback while working on the project, and creating a checklist for different backlog items. The DOD also brings the product owner on board for review purposes.
19. Can You Define Servant Leadership In Scrum
Servant leadership mostly applies to scrum masters who are expected to lead. As the name suggests, a servant leader is expected to serve the subordinates and not lord over them. Scrum masters are normally expected to offer guidance, facilitate and act as mentors in the Scrum team setting. One who does his/her job well will make the team. more involved Nz empowered to deliver the project deliverables.
20. Tell Us More About The Scrum Values
There are five scrum values. The first is openness, which allows a Scrum team to make tangible progress in a short duration. Every team member is expected to be honest with each other, especially in their personal development. The second value is the courage to be real, honest, and open among the team members and the project stakeholders. The third is the focus, which requires every team member to be attentive and wary of the current tasks, clearly remembering their impact on the sprint goals. The fourth value is respect among the Scrum team. Everybody should respect the contribution of others, appreciate their accomplishments listen to them, and lastly, trust teammates to complete the work. The last value is commitment, which requires Scrum teams to work together for a common cause.
21. In Your Opinion, What Is The Best Way Of Handling Team Conflict?
Conflicts are always bound to arise in team settings. However, their resolution lies in how well one can handle them. Having been in scrum teams for quite some time, I understand that the first step is scene-setting, which determines the source of the quarrel and helps uncover the source of the conflict. The second step is gathering information which mainly entails obtaining the relevant facts about the conflict. Here, every party should be given a chance to say their side of the story. The third and most important step is to find g a solution, which involves brainstorming. The final step is the implementation of the solution which brings the issue to an end.
22. How Would You Advise Someone To Deal With A Difficult Stakeholder?
I always believe that there are four main ways of dealing with a difficult stakeholder. First, one needs to listen to them carefully and understand their point of view before discovering common ground. The second step is to estimate their motivation which allows one to understand the reason for the stakeholder’s difficulty. The third step is to meet all the stakeholders personally and make clear and better interactions. Lastly, one should closely monitor the stakeholders and find out their inspiration.
23. Can You Mention The Three Pillars Of Scrum
There are three main pillars of Scrum: adaption, transparency, and inspection. Inspection refers to checking Scrum artifacts and sprint goals. progress regularly, which helps uncover deviations and irregularities. The second pillar is transparency, which provides that all elements should be specified using a given regular standard for easier viewing and understanding. The last pillar is adaption which requires a method under processing to be cha gedd after the determination that it is beyond the allowed limits. It is also worth noting that this correction should be made in the shortest time possible.
24. Your Work Will Require You To Ensure That The User Stories Have Met The Required Standards. How Will You Ensure That?
I normally use the INVEST conceit to tell whether a user story has met all the requirements or not. I stand for independence and require the user story to exist in such a way that no one is very independent of another. N stands for negotiable Ans defines the user story. It should be provided by the team and project owner alike. V on the other hand standard for valuable, meaning that the user story should be of benefit to the customer. E is estimable, which means that it should be easy to approximate in terms of time while S stands for small; a requirement that the user stroh be small enough for easier tackling. Lastly, T stands for testable.
25. Do You Know The Steps Involved In Risk Management?
There are five main steps in Risk management that every scrum master or team should be aware of. The first is risk identification, which involves identifying the risks that the company is facing at the moment such as environmental, regulatory, and legal risks. The second is risk analysis, which I vomves investigating a risk after identification and determining how dangerous it is. The risk is then ranked and prioritized based on its severity. The fourth and most important step is to treat the risk as much as possible by contacting all stakeholders.
Conclusion
These are some of the common Scrum interview questions you may come across in your interview. Make sure that you have all the answers at your fingertips to increase your cha ves of landing the job.
