What Is Scrum?

Scrum is a framework used in agile project management that helps teams work together to manage and
complete complex projects efficiently. It was originally developed for software development projects, but
its principles and practices have been adopted in various other fields due to its effectiveness in managing
teamwork and iterative progress. Here are some key components of Scrum:

Roles
Scrum has three primary roles:
 Product Owner: Responsible for maximizing the product's value and managing the Product Backlog.
 Scrum Master: This person acts as a coach and facilitator for the Scrum Team, helping to resolve
impediments and ensure the Scrum framework is followed.
 Development Team: A group of professionals who deliver the product increments.

Events/Ceremonies
Scrum defines several structured events to create regularity and to minimize the need for meetings not
defined in Scrum:
 Sprint: The basic unit of development in Scrum, typically lasting two to four weeks, during which
work is completed and ready for review.
 Sprint Planning: A meeting at the beginning of each sprint where the team decides what work will
be done.
 Daily Scrum (Daily Standup): A short (usually 15-minute) meeting held each day of the sprint,
during which team members synchronize activities and make plans for the next 24 hours.
 Sprint Review: Held at the end of a sprint to inspect the increment and adapt the Product Backlog if
needed.
 Sprint Retrospective: This occurs after the Sprint Review and before the next Sprint Planning; it is a
time for the team to reflect on the past sprint and improve its processes.

Artifacts
Scrum uses several artifacts to help manage work:
 Product Backlog: An ordered list of everything that might be needed in the product, which
the product owner maintains.
 Sprint Backlog: A set of items chosen from the Product Backlog that the team commits to complete
during a sprint.
 Increment: The sum of all the Product Backlog items completed during a sprint and the value of the
increments of all previous sprints.

Who Is a Scrum Master?

A Scrum Master is a key role within the Scrum framework, acting primarily as a facilitator and coach for a
Scrum team. The Scrum Master helps the team and the organization adopt and implement Scrum practices
effectively, ensuring that the team adheres to the Scrum methodology while remaining flexible and
responsive to the team's needs. The role is not that of a traditional project manager or team leader but
more of a servant-leader and process owner.
What Does a Scrum Master Do?
Here are some specific responsibilities and duties of a Scrum Master:
1. Facilitating Scrum Ceremonies: The Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring that all Scrum
ceremonies (Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective) are held
appropriately and are productive. They help the team understand the purpose of these events and
ensure that they are conducted efficiently.
2. Supporting the Product Owner: The Scrum Master assists the Product Owner with managing the
Product Backlog, ensuring it is well-maintained and clear to all. This involves helping to refine and
review backlog items to ensure clarity and understanding.
3. Coaching and Mentoring: The Scrum Master coaches the team in self-organization and cross-
functionality, helping each team member understand their role in Scrum and encouraging them to
 work collaboratively. The Scrum Master also provides guidance to the team on becoming more agile
and efficient.
4. Removing Impediments: One of the Scrum Master's primary duties is identifying and removing
obstacles that may impede the team’s progress. This can involve addressing external blockers, such
as dependencies on other teams, or internal issues, such as communication breakdowns.
5. Promoting Scrum Practices: The Scrum Master helps everyone involved understand Scrum theory,
practices, rules, and values. This includes promoting the adoption of Scrum within the wider
organization and helping stakeholders understand how to interact with the Scrum team effectively.
6. Shielding the Team: The Scrum Master protects the team from external interruptions and
distractions to keep them focused on the tasks at hand during the sprint.
7. Facilitating Communication: The Scrum Master's crucial function is to ensure clear, open, and
honest communication among team members and between the team and external stakeholders.
This also includes helping the team improve internal communication practices.

Agile vs Scrum
While Agile is a broad philosophy encompassing various frameworks, Scrum is a specific implementation of
Agile principles.
Agile Methodology
Agile is a development approach that emphasizes iterative progress, flexibility, and customer
collaboration. It involves breaking down the product into smaller builds and continuously iterating on
development and testing. Agile methodologies encourage teamwork, face-to-face communication, and
adaptability to changing requirements1.
Scrum Methodology
Scrum is a lightweight, iterative, and incremental framework within the Agile methodology. It breaks down
development into stages called "sprints," each lasting a fixed period. Scrum involves defined roles such as
the Scrum Master and Product Owner, and emphasizes daily communication and collaboration 1.

What is Scrum?
Scrum is an Agile framework that can help teams work together. Scrum can enable teams to learn from
experiences, self-organize while working on problems, to reflect on their victories and failures, to make
improvements. This Agile Scrum interview question is often used as a starter question to get the interview
moving.

Define the roles in Scrum?

 Product Owner: The product owner is an individual who is responsible for increasing the ROI by
determining product features, prioritizing these features into a list, what needs to be focused on the
upcoming sprint, and much more. These are constantly re-prioritized and refined.
 Scrum Master: This individual helps the team in learning to apply Scrum to ensure optimum
business value. The scrum master removes impediments, shields the team from distractions, and
enables them to adopt agile practices.
 Scrum Team: They are a collection of individuals who work together to ensure that the requirements
of the stakeholders are delivered.

What are the responsibilities of the Scrum Team?

The Scrum Team is one that’s self-organizing and involves five to seven members. The following are their
responsibilities:
 Working products must be developed and delivered during each sprint.
 Ownership and transparency must be ensured for the work assigned to the team members.
 Correct and crisp information must be provided to ensure a successful daily scrum meeting.
 They must collaborate with the team and themselves.
Differentiate Between Agile and Scrum.
The difference between Agile and Scrum is a very fundamental and common

Agile Scrum

It is a set of principles that’s iterative and

It is an implementation of the Agile methodology
incremental in nature

It is suited for projects involving a small team of It is used in teams that need to handle constant
experts changing requirements

The project head takes care of all tasks and is There is no leader. Issues are handled by the scrum
vital to the project master and the team

Changes cannot be handled frequently Teams can react to changes quickly

Sprints provide workable builds of the final product to

It requires frequent delivery to the end-user
the user for feedback

There are face-to-face interactions between There are daily stand-up meetings help with
cross-functional teams collaboration

Design and execution can be innovative and

Design and execution is simple
experimental

What are the Artifacts of the Scrum Process?

 Product Backlog: It is a list that consists of new features, changes to features, bug fixes, changes to
the infrastructure, and other activities to ensure a particular output can be obtained.
 Sprint Backlog: It is a subset of the product backlog that contains tasks focused on by the team to
satisfy the sprint goal. Teams first identify the tasks to be completed from the product backlog.
These are then added to the sprint backlog.
 Product Increment: It is a combination of all product backlog items completed in a sprint and the
value of previous sprints' increments. The output must be in usable condition, even if the product
owner doesn’t release it.

How are the Product and Sprint Backlog different from One Another?

Product Backlog Sprint Backlog

It is a list of items that need to be completed for It is a list of items to be completed

developing the product during each sprint

The backlog is collected from the customer by the product The team collects the backlog
 from the product owner and sets
owner and assigned to the team
up the time frame for the sprint

It has a specific end goal It is specific to a sprint

Can vary based on product vision

Based on customer vision
defined by the product owner

It’s dependant on the product

It’s independent of the sprint backlog
backlog

The product owner maintains the backlog until the project Each new sprint has backlogs
is complete added by the team

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

What happens in Daily Stand-up sessions?

Stand-up sessions are daily discussions that take place and are usually 15 minutes long. Daily Stand-up
sessions help understand:
 What tasks went well
 What tasks were completed
 What tasks are pending, and
 The obstacles the team is facing
The meeting helps in understanding the overall scope and status of the project. Further discussions can
take place after the stand-up sessions.

What is Scrum-ban?
 Scrum-ban is a methodology that’s a combination of Scrum and Kanban. Scrum-ban can be used to
meet the needs of the team, and to minimize the batching of work, and to adopt a pull-based
system.
 It ingeniously includes the structure of Scrum and the flexibility and visualization of Kanban.

10. What is Sprint 0 and Spike?

 Sprint 0 refers to the small amount of effort put in to create a rough skeleton of the product
backlog. It also includes insights towards estimating the release of products. Sprint 0 is required
for:
 Creating the project skeleton, along with research spikes
 Keeping minimal design
 Developing some stories completely
 Having low velocity and being lightweight
 The spike is a set of activities that involve Extreme Programming (XP) for research, design,
investigation, creating POCs, etc.
  The spike aims to reduce risks of the technical approach, helping gain knowledge to better
understand requirements and improve reliability

11. What is ‘Scrum of Scrums’?

 It is a terminology used for scaled agile technologies, which is required to control and collaborate
with multiple scrum teams. It is best used in situations where teams are collaborating on complex
assignments.
 It is also used to ensure that the required transparency, collaboration, adaption, and adoption are
established and to ensure that the products are deployed and delivered.

12. What is User-Story Mapping?

 User story mapping represents and arranges user stories that help with understanding system
functionalities, system backlog, planning releases, and providing value to customers.
 They arrange user stories based on their priority on the horizontal axis. On the vertical axis, they
are represented based on the increasing levels of sophistication.

13. What happens in a Sprint Retrospective?

The sprint retrospective takes place after the sprint review. During this meeting, past mistakes, potential
issues, and new methods to handle them are discussed. This data is incorporated into the planning of a
new sprint.

14. What is Empirical Process Control in Scrum?

 Empiricism refers to work that’s 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.

15. What are Some drawbacks to using Scrum?

 Scrum requires individuals with experience
 Teams need to be collaborative and committed to ensuring results
 A scrum master with lesser experience can cause the collapse of the project
 Tasks need to be well defined, lest the project has many inaccuracies
 It works better for smaller projects and is difficult to scale to larger, more complex projects

16. What are the key skills of a Scrum Master?

 A strong understanding of Scrum and Agile concepts
 Fine-tuned organizational skills
 Familiarity with the technology used by the team
 To be able to coach and teach the team to follow Scrum practices
 Having the ability to handle conflicts and resolve them quickly
 To be a servant leader

17. How can discord be dealt with within the Scrum Team?
 The issue’s root cause needs to be identified and addressed
 Complete ownership needs to be established
 Try to diffuse the disagreement
 Emphasize on focus areas that complement the project
 A common understanding needs to be established to guide the team
  Performing continuous monitoring and providing complete visibility

18. What is a User Story?

 The user story is an agile software development/ project management tool that provides teams with
simple, natural language explanations of one or more project features written from the end-user's
perspective.
 The user story doesn’t go into detail but only mentions how certain types of work will bring value to
the end-user. The end-user, in this case, could be an external component or an internal
customer/colleague within the organization.
 They also form the building block of agile frameworks like epics and other initiatives.
 They ensure that the teams work towards the goals of the organization, with the help of epics and
initiatives.
 The requirements to make a user story a reality are added later, after discussions with the team.
 They are recorded on post-it notes, index cards, or project management software.

19. How are user stories, epics, and tasks different?

 User Stories: They provide the team with simple explanations of the business’ requirements created
from the end user's perspective.
 Epics: An epic is a collection of related user stories. They are usually large and complex.
 Tasks: Tasks are used to break down user stories further. They’re the smallest unit in Scrum that is
used to track work. A person or a team of two people usually work on a task.

20. What is a Sprint?

 Sprint is a terminology used in Scrum, used to describe a time-boxed iteration.
 During a sprint, a specific module or feature of the product is created.
 The duration of a sprint can vary between a week or two.

21. What is Velocity?

Velocity is a metric used to measure the amount of work completed by a team during a sprint. It refers to
the number of user stories completed in a sprint.

22. What are the responsibilities of a Product Owner?

 Defines the vision for the project
 Anticipates the needs of the customer and creates appropriate user stories
 Evaluates project progress
 Acts as a liaison for all product-related questions

23. What is a Burnup and Burndown Chart?

 A burnup chart is a tool that’s used to track the amount of work that’s been completed and to
represent the total amount of work that needs to be done for a sprint/project.
 A burndown chart represents how fast working through user stories is. It shows total effort against
the amount of work for each iteration.

24. How is Estimation Done in a Scrum Project?

 The estimation of user stories is done based on their difficulty
 A particular scale is used to assess the difficulty of the user stories. Some type of scales are:
 Numeric Sizing (1 - 10)
 T-shirt Sizes (S, M, L, XL…)
 Fibonacci Series (1, 2, 3, 5, 8…)
 Dog breeds (Great Dane, Chihuahua…)

25. What are some risks in Scrum? How are they handled?
Some types of risks in Scrum are:
 Budget: The risk of exceeding budgets
 People (team): Team members need to be of appropriate skill and capability
 Sprint (duration and deliverables): Exceeding the duration, addition of the scope of work
 Product (user stories, epics): Having ill-defined user stories and epics
 Knowledge and capability: Having the appropriate resources
Managing risks involves identifying, assessing, analyzing, defining, and implementing risk responses,
monitoring, and managing them. These are done on a continual basis right from the starting of the project
until completion. It is essential to understand that the impact of the risk is based on the proximity of the
actual occurrence of the risk.

26. How does a Scrum Master track Sprint progress?

 Daily Scrum meetings
 Scrum retrospectives
 Sprint planning
 Escaped defects
 Defect density
 Sprint burndown
 Team velocity

27. How to deal with Score Creep?

Score creep refers to a change that’s uncontrolled and added without checking its impact on scope, time,
cost, etc.
To handle it, here’s what needs to be done:
 Close monitoring of work being done on a day-to-day basis.
 Understanding and communicating the vision to the team and ensuring they’re aligned.
 Capturing, reviewing the project requirements regularly (against what is delivered), to emphasize to
the team & customer about the requirements signed off.
 Ensuring that any changes introduced go through change control & are implemented based on the
approval for change request.
 Avoid gold plating.

31. How can you coordinate between multiple teams?

 One of the most common approaches for this is the Scrum of Scrums (SoS) meeting, where
members representing each scrum team discuss the progress, performance, issues, risks, etc.
together.
 The frequency of these meetings must be pre-defined. Generally, scrum masters would represent a
particular scrum team, besides having the Chief Scrum Master (whose responsibility is coordination
& collaboration among all the scrums) who facilitates these meetings.

32. What are the Scrum values?

The five Scrum Values are:
 Openness - In order for the Scrum team to make the most progress in the shortest time feasible,
each member of the team must be completely honest about their personal development. The
objective of the daily Scrum meeting is to identify and address problems. That will happen only if
team members are open about any issues or roadblocks they're seeing. Members of the team
should be willing to work together and regard each other as important contributions to the project's
success. Scrum masters can create openness by being honest with their teams. Giving honest
feedback at daily Scrum meetings inspires team members to be open and honest in return and is
important for making necessary modifications.
 Courage - Scrum teams must have the courage to be authentic, open, and honest with themselves
and stakeholders about any bottlenecks they experience and the project's progress. Members of the
team must also be gutsy enough to ask for help when they need it, try unfamiliar procedures,
techniques, and respectfully disagree and debate openly. Scrum masters should foster courage first
 and foremost by demonstrating it just like respect. In order to avoid mid-sprint modifications or
scope creep, the Scrum Master must have the confidence to stand up to product owners and
stakeholders.
 Focus - To get the most out of each sprint, every team member must remain focused on the task at
hand and how it influences the sprint goal. To keep team members engaged throughout sprints,
scrum masters may limit the number of tasks or priority allocated to each team member.
Individuals can also stay on task by making sure that the whole team is engaged in daily Scrum
sessions.
 Respect - In a Scrum team, respect is accepting that no one person or contribution is more valuable
than the other. Respect means appreciating your accomplishments, trusting your teammates to
fulfill their tasks and also considering their ideas, and listening to them. Scrum masters may help
their teams create mutual respect by demonstrating respect for the team members, product
owners, and stakeholders.
 Commitment - To achieve a common purpose, scrum teams must work together. This means
trusting one another to finish their tasks and deliver their best. It will only happen only if every
member of the team is entirely committed to the team and the project.

33. How would you handle conflict within the team?

Giving individual coaching to team members is one of the most effective strategies to resolve a problem. It
is imperative for a Scrum Master to maintain positive relationships with team members and provide
guidance when they face challenges.
For a Scrum Master, paying attention to the source of the problem and listening and acting accordingly
would go a long way. Any disagreements should be shared with other team members in a manner that
they would be open to suggestions for resolving the issue. When a conflict arises, the Scrum Master must
intervene so that the process runs smoothly and without hiccups.
The following steps help in handling conflicts within the team:
Step 1 - Scene setting
First, we must determine the source of the team's quarrel. Before taking any action, it is necessary to
understand the discrepancy between two groups or two persons. In times of dispute, Scrum Masters
typically react aggressively against team members in the hopes of resolving the conflict on their own.
However, while this may temporarily cure the problem, it does not address any underlying concerns. The
Scrum Master must lead the team and teach them that disagreement is a regular occurrence in the
workplace and it can be resolved with assertiveness. It is the leader's responsibility to guarantee that team
members' concerns are acknowledged and addressed.
Step 2 - Gathering Information
Gathering facts about the conflict is usually crucial before coming to a conclusion about a certain individual
or suppressing the topic. This could be accomplished by listening to each party separately and
comprehending the situation from their point of view. The Scrum Master should also consider other team
members' perspectives and also respect every team member’s decisions. As a result, the Scrum Master
must elicit everyone's assistance in order to gain a picture of the workplace conflict.
Step 3 - Brainstorming to find a solution
It is often impossible for the leader to resolve problems on his or her own. Furthermore, several members
of the Scrum Team would have better answers that would quickly remedy the problem. Organizing
spontaneous group talks and sharing opinions on various activities would stimulate good discourse
between the two people or groups in these situations. This would urge both sides to see things from the
other's perspective. This also provides opportunities for superior ideas to be pushed and for the disparity
to be bridged.
Step 4 - Solution conferring
Listing all of the possible answers to an issue would only be useful if those solutions were put into action.
Scrum Master removes the team's roadblocks by implementing the solution in this step. Throughout the
conflict resolution process, remembering to stay calm and respectful will aid in a speedier and more
efficient resolution.
Teams using Scrum and estimating their tasks deliver work with 250% higher quality compared to those
without estimates.

34. How would you deal with a difficult stakeholder?

The four strategies by which we can deal with difficult stakeholders are:
1. Listen to them carefully - Make an effort to comprehend their point of view. If what they say
aggravates you, consider whether their needs are in line with the project's goals. Is it possible that
they want things done a little differently? Make efforts to discover some common ground. People
desire to be understood and to believe that their voices are heard.
2. Estimate their motivation - Try to understand the motivation behind the stakeholders’ opposition.
This will allow you to compromise, and come up with a win-win solution, and complete the project.
Answer questions like - Are they reporting to a board of directors that has its own reservations?
What's the source of your stakeholders' sudden opposition? Are they concerned about exceeding
their budget? Concerned that the project may not turn out as planned?
3. Meet them one after another - Meeting without other stakeholders in the room relieves stress and
allows the stakeholders’ to be more at ease. So, make time to meet with each challenging
stakeholder separately. This results in interactions becoming clearer and calmer. Take advantage of
this chance to learn more about their point of view and recommended solutions. However, don't ask
them why they don't like your plan outright. Ask open-ended inquiries about their thoughts and how
the project is moving instead.
4. Watch the stakeholders closely by identifying them - Determining the stakeholders and finding out
what inspires them should be the first step. Anyone who is influenced by our work has control or
influence over it or is interested in its success is referred to as a stakeholder.

35. What are the three pillars of Scrum?

The three pillars of Scrum are summarized below -
Adaption: The method being processed must be changed if an inspector determines that one or more
aspects of a process are outside of permitted limits. A correction must be made as quickly as possible to
avoid future deviation.
Transparency: Transparency mandates that those elements be specified by a consistent standard in order
for viewers to understand what they are viewing. For example, while referring to the process, all
participants must use the same terminology. Those reviewing as well as those executing the job and the
resulting addition must have the same definition of "done."
Inspection: Scrum users must check Scrum artifacts and progress toward a Sprint Goal on a regular basis
to discover unwanted deviations. Inspections should not be carried out so frequently that they constitute a
burden to their work. Inspections are most successful when skilled inspectors do them attentively at the
point of work.

36. Explain user story structure with an example.

The User Story Structure is defined below -
As a <role of user>,
I want <To achieve a goal / perform a task>,
So that <I may achieve some value/goal>.
Example:
User Story of a person’s online course purchase -
As a Customer,
I want to purchase educational courses online from ed-tech websites,
So that I do not have to visit a training center.

37. How can you assure that the user stories meet the requirements?
A good user narrative includes both a description and acceptance criteria. It should be completed in a
sprint with the fewest possible dependencies. The team should be able to develop and test while still
delivering estimations within the sprint's constraints. In short, good user stories adhere to the INVEST
concept.
I → Independent: The user story should be written in such a way that team members are less dependent
on one another.
N → Negotiable: it should define the functionality of the user story and is subject to the Product Owner and
the Team’s approval.
V → Valuable: It should offer value to the customer's experience.
E → Estimable: This lets us be able to roughly approximate in terms of time.
S → Small: The user story should be tiny enough for the team to finish in a sprint.
T → Testable: Good acceptance criteria after testing is required.

38. What are the five steps of Risk Management?

The five steps of Risk Management are given below -
Risk Identification: To identify the risks that your company is exposed to in its current operating
environment. There are several types of risks, such as market risks, legal risks, regulatory risks,
environmental risks, etc. It's crucial to be aware of as many risk factors as possible.
Risk Analysis: Once a risk has been identified, it must be investigated. The scope of the danger must be
determined. It's also important to understand the connection between other internal factors and risk. It's
critical to determine the risk's severity and importance by examining how it affects the business
operations.
Ranking the risk: Risks must be ranked and prioritized. Most risk management solutions include
numerous risk categories based on the severity of the danger. Risks that may cause minor discomfort are
prioritized the least, but risks that can result in significant loss are prioritized the highest.
Treating the risk: As much as possible, all risks should be avoided or reduced by contacting experts in
the field in question. In a manual environment, this would include contacting each and every stakeholder
and setting up meetings for everyone to discuss the issues.
Risk review: To ensure that it has been entirely eradicated, the risk evaluation is done.

39. What do you mean by timeboxing in Scrum? When can a Sprint be canceled, and by whom?
Timeboxing is the practice of devoting a set amount of time to a single activity. A timebox is a unit of time
measurement. A timebox should not exceed 15 minutes in length. A Sprint can be canceled before the
Sprint timebox limit ends. Only a Product Owner can cancel the sprint.

40. What do you understand about Scope Creep? How can Scope Creep be managed?
Scope creep is used to describe how a project's requirements tend to grow over time, like - a single
deliverable product becomes five when a product with three essential features becomes ten, or when the
customer's needs change midway through a project, requiring a reassessment of the project requirements.
Changes in project needs from internal miscommunication and disagreements, and key stakeholders are
some of the common causes of scope creep.
To manage scope creep, we need to use the change control mechanism to keep it under control. This
includes the following -
 Maintaining a baseline scope and keeping track of the project's progress.
 To evaluate actual work performance metrics to the baseline scope, i.e., "How different is the
current project from the original plan?", we need to perform Variance analysis.
 Identifying the severity and source of the observed alterations.
 Selecting whether to take preventive or corrective action in response to requests regarding
changes.
 To recommend actions and manage all change requests by using the Perform Integrated Change
Control method (whether preventive or corrective).

41. When should a Scrum Master not act as a facilitator?

A workshop facilitator must be objective when it comes to the topics being discussed and should avoid
contributing facts or opinions to the conversation. Even though a Scrum Master's job is to assist the team
in achieving the best possible results, workshop facilitation can be challenging at times. Most of the
general product development workshops can be facilitated by the Scrum Master if someone has the
required knowledge. The Scrum Master should not facilitate a workshop about modifying the Scrum
process.

42. How do you make different stakeholders attend daily scrum meetings?
The coordination of business people and developers defines the success of a project. The scrum master
should conduct the daily standup meetings and encourage all stakeholders to be a part of the call by
explaining the impact it will have on the project. The motive of the daily scrum is to know whether or not
they will reach the sprint goal. If all stakeholders are present on the call, they can see a clear picture of the
product development and change their priorities to meet the set expectations. Problems faced by different
parties are also discussed here to bring everyone together.

43. What is the structure of a good story?

The structure of a good story is as follows:
1. Who are we building it for, and who are the users? - As a <type of user>
2. What are we building, and what is the intention? -I want <some goal or objective >
3. Why are we building it, and what value does it bring for the user.? - So that <benefit, value>
Well-formed stories will meet the criteria of Bill Wake's INVEST acronym:
1. Independent - Does your story have the potential to be stand-alone?
2. Negotiable - Your story should have the scope to make adjustments.
3. Valuable - There has to be some takeaway for users or customers.
4. Estimable - The team should be able to use it for planning.
5. Small - Longer stories take more time to plan and implement. Keep your story short.
6. Testable - Can you test the story?

44. What is the role of a Scrum Master in a sprint retrospective?

The scrum master in sprint retrospective inspects the progress of previous improvements. With the help of
team discussion, new improvements are also inspected and adapted. Scrum Master plays the role of a
facilitator for the team.

45. How can Scrum Masters ensure timely delivery of action items?
Regular scrum retrospective ensures timely delivery of action items. An effective retrospective makes sure
that the team has identified the action items. Some organizations use a retrospective tracker to monitor
action items. Here are the targeted categories: priority, ownership, status, description, identified on, and
type. Working on the action items gives the team a boost that they are moving towards improvement and
enhances the sense of ownership.

46. What exactly do you mean by Sprint in Scrum?

A Sprint is at the heart of Scrum. An incremental product is released every two weeks or every month.
After the previous Sprint gets completed, a new Sprint begins. It breaks down large projects into smaller,
more manageable chunks. It allows companies to produce high-quality work more frequently and quickly,
making project management easy. Sprints have made them more adaptable to changes. Daily scrums,
Sprint planning, sprint review, development work, and sprint retrospectives are part of a sprint.
 The Scrum Team as whole plans the work that gets accomplished during the Sprint planning phase.
 The Scrum Team values efforts and develops a plan for the following day during the Daily Scrum
Meeting, a timed 15-minute session.
 At the end of each Sprint, a Sprint Review gets held to evaluate the increment and, if necessary,
make changes to the Product Backlog.
 A Sprint Retrospective is held after the Sprint Review but before the subsequent Sprint Planning.
The Scrum Team will evaluate its performance and develop a plan for implementing changes during
the following Sprint during this meeting.

47. What does the concept of Confidence Vote mean in Scrum? Why is it vital?
The Confidence Vote is held at the Program Increment Planning session following the risk analysis. It is
when all team members assemble, voice their opinions, and vote with their fingers on their confidence
level in completing the PI Targets. The confidence vote can be used only once all the features and user
stories are adequately estimated and prioritized. All work must be clear to all parties involved, with all
dependencies and risks clearly defined.
A vote of confidence can help create an environment where people feel comfortable sharing and
expressing their ideas. It boosts team morale because members should feel that their opinions are valued.
48. Is a daily meeting suggested for all teams, irrespective of their size or experience level? Explain.
During the daily meeting, a team can evaluate its progress in sticking to the sprint goal. To ensure that
everyone is on the same page, all agile teams should meet frequently. Depending on their size and level of
experience, they can conduct the meeting in different ways.
 Small and Experienced - A small, experienced team can get together for a brief break or even an
informal meeting.
 Small and Inexperienced - If the team is small and inexperienced, the Scrum Master should prefer
going through a standup because the team needs to understand the progress. They may require
assistance with technicalities or business functionality and must also understand the values,
principles, and discipline.
 Large - Taking a relaxed attitude with huge teams may be troublesome, as formal meetings are
required to provide advice and clarity.
 Distributed Teams - Because scattered teams are at a distance from each other, they can use the
'dial-in' feature to undertake meetings in an organized manner.

49. Can the Scrum team members participate in the product development process? If so,
please explain how.
It is advantageous to involve the scrum team in the discovery phase stage of the product development
lifecycle. Agile teams collaborate with stakeholders early in the development cycle to ensure that both
parties are on the same page.
 By identifying technical implementation issues early in the process, development teams can help
modify specifications with the client.
 Working with the product owner, the team starts to share a common understanding of what needs
to be ready. They can aid the product owner in identifying requirements that may have gone
undetected.
 They share an understanding of what needs to be ready. It also helps teams maintain their
dedication and confidence, encourages them to take ownership of their work, and, most
importantly, boosts team spirit.
 To assist with this, the scrum master can begin involving teams in early product discussions while
the requirements are still hazy. The product owner and the team can create the product backlog.

50. In Scrum, what do you mean by user stories? What benefits come from using them?
A user story is an informal, generic description of a software feature written from the end user's
perspective. Its purpose is to explain how a software feature could benefit the customer. Putting people
first is a critical element of agile software development, and a user story accomplishes this by putting end-
users at the center of the discussion. These anecdotes use non-technical language to describe the
development team and their efforts. After reading a user story, the team understands why they are
developing, what they are building, and what value it adds.
The following are some of the benefits of using User Story:
 The primary benefit of User Story is the user-centric definition. It is because, in the end, the user
will use the product in the relevant user scenarios. It creates a connection between end users and
team members.
 The syntax of the User Story ensures that the user's desired goal, benefit, or value gets captured.
 Because the acceptance criteria get included in the user story, the Scrum Team will benefit from
them.
  A user story can change at any time during the project's execution. If its scope becomes too large,
it must be divided into smaller user stories. The conditions of the acceptance criterion can also be
altered.

51. Why aren't the user stories' man-hours estimated?

Estimating clock-in-hours is one of the most popular methods for evaluating teamwork. Some significant
disadvantages are:
 A few activities are difficult to estimate. Example – legacy work.
 If one team member provides the estimate, but another completes the task, the estimate is
rendered useless.
 The developer's experience level determines the time it takes to complete a task.
 Teams frequently exaggerate the difficulties they may face and only consider the best-case
scenario.
The following are some of the advantages of estimating user stories in points:
 There is no correlation between the estimator's skills and experience, and story points are
independent of the story's author.
 Because story points measure relative sizes, and external forces cannot change their size, team
members can estimate more accurately.
 Story Points encourage collaboration by prioritizing team behavior over individual behavior.
 It serves as a team-building activity because teams exchange, argue, constructively criticize, and
have fun while playing poker cards to reach an understanding of estimations.

53. Name some other Agile frameworks.

There are other frameworks besides Scrum, such as Kanban, Test Driven Development, and Feature-Driven
Development.

54. When should you use Waterfall over Scrum?

Use waterfall if the requirements are simple, predictable, fully defined and understood, and will not
change.

56. How long were your sprints?

An ideal sprint length is between one and four weeks, with a two-week sprint being the most widely used.

57. Is it okay if someone wants to change a requirement?

Yes. Agile encourages frequent feedback from customers and stakeholders so that the product can be
improved. We need to be able to embrace change.

58. What type of metrics or reports have you used?

Sprint, release burn-down and burn-up charts are standard reports. Most companies also want to
understand how many stories were committed versus completed per sprint and the number of defects
identified post-release to production.

59. What is a burn-down chart?

A burn-down chart displays the amount of work a team has completed—such as hours during the sprint.
Discuss how you have used these in the past.

60. How many Scrum teams have you managed at one time?
This is a popular question. Don’t offer that Scrum guidelines state only one Scrum Master per team as your
answer! In this new role, you may be required to lead multiple teams. Notice the use of the word
“managed” versus “led.” Scrum Masters do not manage; they lead teams—so be sure to use this word in
your response. Your interviewer is likely to be listening very closely!

61. What type of requirements did you use for your teams?
Requirements in Scrum are written as user stories using a standard, “As a ___, I want___ so that I can ___.”
As a Scrum Master, you don’t necessarily write user stories, but you would assist the Product Owner to
ensure that user stories are written, prioritized, and ready for the sprint.

62. Describe a time when your Delivery team members didn’t seem to be getting along. How
did you handle this?
A little conflict is always good, but your interviewer is looking for your ability to be an effective leader.
Reflect on a time when you had a few team members who just never seemed to be able to work things out.
How did you encourage those team members to work together? Was it a team-building exercise? Did you
make sure they had a common goal? State your problem, how you addressed it, and the outcome.