Hello Agile and Scrum Enthusiasts,

One parking lot question I often get during my public training is, “Do you have a list of questions for Scrum Master interview?” At ApexOrion, back in Bay Area, California, we used to place Scrum Masters on our Agile transformation projects and there is a list of common questions that we used to coach our Scrum Masters to prepare for an interview. I am sharing that list with all of you.

However, I always tell the Scrum Masters I mentor, that the more important question to ask is, “What questions should Scrum Masters ask to the hiring company during an interview?” This blog is going to come in 2 parts – today is the first part about Scrum Master interview questions. The next blog will contain the second part – deep insights about how very simple questions can help you learn a lot about the hiring team, manager and company.

Scrum Master interview questions:

1. Scrum
   1. What would you do if a developer wanted to do design and implementation in one sprint, and testing in another sprint? (Hint: Is it Scrum?)
   2. What do you do if the team fails in meeting its say-do ratio? (Hint: Is it a failure?)
   3. What metrics do you report to senior management?
   4. How do you track team’s progress? (Hint: Scrum Master does not track it, but should know how to do it, in order to coach the team)
   5. How would you transform a team into an Agile Team?
   6. How do you determine Sprint Length?
   7. What is definition of done?
   8. Describe Scrum in one sentence?
   9. Teach me Scrum in under 5 minutes
   10. How would you evangelize Scrum to senior leadership?
   11. Why should a team use Scrum?
   12. How would you scale Scrum?
   13. How do you handle Spikes in Scrum?
   14. What is PI Planning? (Hint: It is a SAFe concept)
2. Facilitation & Conflict resolution
   1. Tell me about a time when a team resisted going to Scrum
   2. Tell me about a time when there was passive resistance from leadership in the organization to become Agile
   3. Give an example of a conflict in your Scrum Team, and how you resolved it
   4. The team wants to add a 40 point story to reduce technical debt. Product owner wants to add new functionality that the customer wants. What would you do in this situation as a Scrum Master?
   5. How would you facilitate a conversation among Stakeholders and Product Owner?
   6. How did you turn a non-working relationship into a positive or working relationship?
   7. Give an example of how you influence people
   8. How do you deal with change in Product Vision?
   9. How do you deal with change in the scope of Release?
   10. What is the most difficult conflict that you have resolved?
3. Scrum Master (and Product Owner and Development Team Members)
   1. What are the traits of a good Scrum Master?
   2. What is your leadership style?
   3. What is your communication style?
   4. Tell me about a time when you failed
   5. Tell me about a time when you were not treated fairly. How did you react?
   6. How would you describe Scrum Master in one sentence?
   7. What does a day in life of a Scrum Master look like?
   8. What are the primary responsibilities of a Scrum Master?
   9. How do you manage and track impediments and risks?
   10. How do you manage dependencies – technical, functional, and process?
   11. Why is the role of Scrum Master required?
   12. What is the biggest challenge for a Scrum Master?
   13. How is Scrum Master different from an Agile Coach?
   14. Why did you not choose to become a Product Owner?
   15. Can you also play the role of a Product Owner?
   16. Can you also be a Test Engineer? We do not have budget for dedicated Scrum Master
   17. How do you distinguish a good Product Owner from a bad one?
   18. How would you deal with an aggressive Product Owner?
   19. How do you motivate a disengaged team?
   20. How do you make a team hyper-productive?
4. Scrum Events (Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, Sprint Retrospective)
   1. If you had to drop one Scrum Event, which one would it be?
   2. Which is the most important Scrum Event?
   3. How do you run Daily Scrum? (Hint: Does Scrum Master run Daily Scrum?)
   4. How do you make sure time-box is maintained in Daily Scrum?
   5. What does Development Team (OR Product Owner OR Scrum Master) bring to each event?
   6. If you could facilitate only 1 Scrum event, which will it be? Why?
   7. How do you avoid finger-pointing during a Sprint Retrospective?
   8. How do you increase participation in the Scrum Events?
5. Scrum Artifacts
   1. What techniques do you know for Product Backlog Ordering? Teach me one technique
   2. What variables will you take into consideration when assigning Value to Product Backlog Items?
   3. Why should you refine Product Backlog?
   4. How do you Split User Stories?
   5. Take a sample user story and split it using techniques you know
   6. How would you coach the team to maintain the Sprint Backlog?
   7. How long does a Sprint Backlog live?
   8. What is a Team Backlog? (Hint: There is no Team Backlog artifact in Scrum. It is a concept of Scaling Scrum)
   9. How do you make your artifacts transparent?

I continue to pray for all our well-being and for the world to get back on its feet and start running again, much healthier than what it is today.

May God bless us all!

Punita Dave