User Stories & Epic Examples|Scrum Master Interview Questions and Answers| How to Split user Stories
Basic Agile Scrum Interview Questions
While you are preparing for the Agile Scrum interview, move to your final preparation with the below-mentioned basic agile scrum interview questions. These are quick questions you should go through before your agile scrum interview.
Answer: Generally, the duration of a scrum sprint (scrum cycle) depends upon the size of project and team working on it. The team size may vary from 3-9 members. In general, a scrum script complete in 3-4 weeks. Thus, on an average, the duration of a scrum sprint (scrum cycle) is 4 weeks. This type of sprint-based Agile scrum interview questions is very common in an agile or scrum master interview.
Answer: Velocity question is generally posed to understand if you have done some real work and familiar with the term. Its definition “Velocity is the rate at which team progresses print by sprint” should be enough. You can also add saying the important feature of velocity that it can’t be compared to two different scrum teams.
Answer: Impediments are the obstacles or issues faced by scrum team which slow down their speed of work. If something is trying to block the scrum team from their getting work “Done” then it is an impediment. Impediments can come in any form. Some of the impediments are given as –
While answering impediments related agile scrum interview questions remember that you may be asked the way to remove any of the mentioned impediment.
Answer: Difference between Agile and Scrum – Agile is a broad spectrum, it is a methodology used for project management while Scrum is just a form of the Agile that describes the process and its steps more concisely. Agile is a practice whereas scrum is a procedure to pursue this practice.
The similarity between Agile and Scrum – The Agile involves completing projects in steps or incrementally. The Agile methodology is considered to be iterative in nature. Being a form of Agile, Scrum is same as that of the Agile. It is also incremental and iterative.
Answer: This is one of the commonly asked agile scrum interview questions and a quick answer can be given this way. An increment is the total of all the product backlogs items completed during a sprint. Each increment includes all the previous sprint increment values as it is cumulative. It must be in the available mode in the subsequent release as it is a step to reach your goal.
Answer: The build-breaker is a situation that arises when there is a bug in the software. Due to this sudden unexpected bug, compilation process stops or execution fails or a warning is generated. The responsibility of the tester is then to get the software back to the normal working stage removing the bug.
Answer: You may surely get an interview question about daily stand-up. So, what should be the answer to this question? The daily stand-up is an everyday meeting (most preferably held in the morning) in which the whole team meets for almost 15 minutes to find answer to the following three questions –
The daily stand-up is an effective way to motivate the team and make them set a goal for the day.
Answer: Scrum-ban is a Scrum and Kanban-based model for the software development. This model is specifically used for the projects that need continuous maintenance, have various programming errors or have some sudden changes. This model promotes the completion of a project in minimum time for a programming error or user story.
In this section, we are going to cover Agile interview questions. You should be prepared for the agile interview with the following agile interview questions.
Answer: Some of the Agile quality strategies are –
Answer: This is the theory which most of agile/scrum roles aspirant should be on tips. Four manifesto values and 12 principles should be explained as much as possible as part of this question. Even if it’s not explained in 100% accurate manner it should be fine but intentions of values and principles should come out e.g.
Answer: Yes, there are some drawbacks of the Agile model, some of them are as follows –
It’s not always the case that you will be asked the questions about the characteristics and advantages of the agile and scrum in an agile scrum interview. So, just prepare yourself for the drawbacks and disadvantages related agile scrum interview questions.
Answer: The burn-up chart illustrates the amount of completed work in a project whereas the burn-down chart depicts the amount of work remained to complete a project. Thus, the burn-up and burn-down charts are used to trace the progress of a project.
Answer: To answer this question, describe Zero Sprint and Agile in detail, as follows –
Zero sprint – Zero Sprint can be defined as the preparation step of the first sprint in Agile. There are some activities that are required to be done before actually starting the project. These activities are considered as the Zero sprint; the examples of such activities are – setting the environment for development, preparation of backlogs etc.
Spike – Spike is the type of story that can be taken between the sprints. Spikes are commonly used for the activities related to the design or technical issues such as research, design, prototyping, and exploration. There are two types of spikes – functional spikes and technical spikes.
While going for a scrum job interview, prepare yourself for some good scrum interview questions. You may be asked questions related to scrum master, sprint, story point, sashimi, ceremonies etc. by the interviewer. So, prepare yourself for these scrum interview questions.
Answer: Here’s how you can answer Scrum Master interview questions like this –
The scrum master is the leader as well as coach of the Scrum team. The scrum master is responsible to serve and protect his team from any kind of distractions that could affect their performance. The main role of the scrum master is to motivate his team to achieve the sprint goal. He is focused to build a self-organized and motivated team where each member is familiar with the implementation of Agile and Scrum principles and applications. The scrum master keeps a proper check on the scrum team if they are executing committed tasks properly. He is also responsible to increase the efficiency and productivity of the team so that they can achieve the sprint goal effectively.
Answer: A story point in Scrum is the unit for the estimation of total efforts that are required to perform or complete a particular task. So, here is how you can answer such agile scrum interview questions on a single line.
Answer: Sashimi plays an important role in Scrum methodology. Sashimi is a technique used by Scrum to check the completion of all the functions created by the developers. Using this technique, all the requirements such as analysis, designing, coding, testing and documentation that are used in the constitution of a product are checked and only after that the product is displayed.
The three scrum roles i.e. Scrum Master, Product Owner and Team should be explained with the details of few primary responsibilities of each role. You can add more details as mentioned below for a particular depending on the role you are getting interviewed for.
Product owner – A product owner is actually the stakeholder of the project. He represents the project requirements before the team. He is responsible to have a vision of what to build and convey his detailed vision to the team. He is the starting point of an agile scrum software development project.
Scrum team – Scrum team is formed by the collective contribution of individuals who perform for the accomplishment of a particular project. The team is bound to work for the timely delivery of the requested product.
Scrum master – Scrum master is the leader and the coach for the scrum team who checks whether the scrum team is executing committed tasks properly. He is also responsible to increase the efficiency and productivity of the team so that they can achieve the sprint goal effectively.
Answer: Key responsibilities of a Scrum Master involves:
Agile testing is the software development practice using practices of agile software development. In an interview for the Agile job, you may be asked agile testing questions, so have a look at the agile testing interview questions.
Answer: Agile testing is a software testing practice that is fully based on the agile principles of software development. It is an iterative methodology where the requirements are the outcome of collaboration between the product owner and team. The agile principles and applications are applied to meet the customer requirements by successful completion of the project.
Answer: Some major principles of Agile testing are –
Answer: An agile tester is one who implements agile software development principles for software testing. Followings are the skills of a good agile tester –
Advanced Agile Scrum Interview Questions
The agile scrum is a vast field, so the interviewers seek candidates with advanced knowledge. Thus, the basic knowledge is not sufficient to crack the job interview. So, here we bring some frequently asked advanced agile scrum interview questions.
Answer: This is one of the commonly asked scrum master interview questions. Consider a case to understand the meaning of the term scrum of the scrums. Let us assume an active project on which seven teams are currently working. The number of members of each team is also seven. Each team is responsible to lead its own scrum meeting. But, in order to coordinate and communicate with different teams, it is required to organize a separate scrum meeting. The scrum meeting organized to hold a coordination between scrum teams is known as the scrum of scrums. There is one team leader from every team, known as ambassador, who is responsible to represent his team in the scrum of scrums.
Answer: Yes, Scrum is an Agile framework. Few other Agile frameworks are –
While answering this type of Agile Scrum interview questions please note that name the frameworks you are familiar with or have followed.
Answer: You may definitely come across agile scrum interview questions regarding agile metrics. The question may be related to a particular agile matric or explaining all the metrics. So, the detailed description of some common metrics for Agile is as follows:
Velocity – Velocity is the average number of points from last 3-4 sprints. It is measured by the summation of the all approved estimates of the stories. It gives an idea of the capacity, progress etc.
Cumulative Flow Diagram – With the help of a cumulative flow diagram, an inspection is done over the uniform workflow. In this diagram/graph, the x-axis represents time whereas the y-axis represents the number of efforts.
Work Category Allocation – Work category allocation is an important factor that gives a quick information of the time investment i.e. where the time is being invested and which task should be given priority as a factor of time.
Time Coverage – It is the time that is given to a code during testing. It is calculated in percentage as a factor of the number of lines of code called by the test suite and the total number of relative lines of code.
Business Value Delivered – It is a term which denotes the working efficiency of the team. The business objectives are assigned numerical values 1,2,3.. and so on, as per the level of priority, complexity, and ROI.
Defect Removal Awareness – It is the factor that helps the team to deliver a quality product. The identification of an active number of defects, their awareness, and removal plays an important role in delivering a high-quality product.
Defect Resolution Time – It is a procedure through which the team members detect the defects (bugs) and set a priority for the defect resolution. The procedure of fixing errors/bugs or defect resolution comprises of multiple processes such as clearing the picture of defect, schedule defect fixation, completing defect fixation, generation, and handling of resolution report.
Sprint Burn Down Matric – The sprint burndown chart is a graph to represent the number of non-implemented or implemented sprints during as Scrum cycle. This matric helps to track the work completed with the sprint.
Yes, sometimes it is suggested to use a waterfall model over Scrum. It is done when the customer requirements are simple, well-defined, fully understood, predictable, and are not subjected to change until the completion of the project. It may the case that you would haven’t ever used waterfall over Scrum but you need to prepare for such Agile Scrum interview questions.
Answer: Scrum encourages the use of automated (automated performance or automated regression) testing to make the fastest possible delivery of the project. While answering this question, you may explain some tools that you have used for automated testing.
Answer: Planning poker, also known as Scrum Poker, is a card-based agile technique that is used for planning and estimation. To start a session of planning poker technique, the agile user story is read by the product owner. The steps performed in the poker planning technique are –
Having said adjusting new requirement in the current sprint is just an exception, not a norm.
To the question about team member working on multiple projects. Ideally “Not recommended”. But It depends upon the situation. When doing heavy development, it is better to have a single product. If doing lighter enhancements, multiple products can be supported.
Example: If there are 6 programmers and 2 weeks iteration then there will be 60 programmer days, one-third of this will be 20 story points which we need to plan. As this is a new sprint and a new team, it will take some time to stabilize. And also some time may be for meetings, emails, designs etc.
Agile is an empowering process that promotes small, continuous iteration of development and testing throughout the cycle of project development. It is the ability to respond to changes. Agile helps teams to respond quickly to unpredictable feedback that they receive during a project. Regular meetings called Sprint are held by the team to assess the project on a regular basis. The major aim is to analyze and improve the product throughout the development process. Having an Agile way helps companies produce the desired product that is valued in the competitive market. The Agile teams work in a cross-functional manner.
Story points further used to calculate the velocity of the sprint which is very helpful to predict the release dates.
Top 10 Frequently Asked Agile Interview Questions
Ans: Agile is a software framework of behaviors and approaches encouraging in-time production, which enables customers to receive quality software sooner.
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FAQ
What are 3 C’s in user stories?
- Cardi The Card, or written text of the User Story is best understood as an invitation to conversation. …
- Conversation. The collaborative conversation facilitated by the Product Owner which involves all stakeholders and the team. …
- Confirmation.
What a user story should contain?
- What is the duration of a scrum sprint? …
- What is Velocity? …
- What do you know about impediments in Scrum? …
- What is the difference and similarity between Agile and Scrum? …
- What is the increment? …
- What is the “build-breaker”? …
- What do you understand by Daily Stand-Up?
