20 Scrum Master Interview Questions and Answers: Updated List

Scrum is a famous Agile framework that integrates the greatest Agile concepts. It has gained significant acceptance and uses by several businesses throughout the world as a result of this. Studying for your interview before the date can enhance your morale and chances of success. This post will put you through over 80 Scrum Master interview questions often asked, including theoretical and practical, as well as behavioral ideas.

You’ll also find materials to help you brush up on Scrum concepts. Read on!

Kinds of Scrum Master Interview Questions

There are 3 kinds of Scrum master interview questions you may face in your job quest. Let’s discuss them briefly.

a) Typical or Universal Questions:

The kinds of questions you find in this category include questions about your identity, i.e., your name, strengths, passions, etc., that you could face in a variety of interviews.

b) Theoretical Problems

When a business hires a scrum master, they are most likely looking for someone who is well-versed in Scrum. Many of the interview questions will likely examine your real understanding of Scrum, as well as related concepts such as Agile. Answer these with a brief explanation of the phrase and why it is significant.

c) Attitudinal Questions

Behavioral questions demonstrate how you would handle different scenarios as a Scrum master. Bring plenty of anecdotes from your experience to share during the interview.

20 Scrum Master Interview Questions and Answers

1. What is Scrum?

In response to this question, provide a brief definition and discuss why Scrum is important. Regardless of whether you’re acquainted with Scrum, coming up with fundamental concepts on the fly might be difficult. Prepare a strong definition, as well as some remarks on the value it may give to a business.

The question can also be posed in the following forms: Describe Scrum to someone who is unfamiliar with it. What are the benefits of Scrum? What does the term “Scrum” mean to you?

2. What are the roles in Scrum?

The Product Owner: The product owner is in charge of enhancing ROI by deciding which aspects of the product should be prioritized in a list, what should be the focus of the next sprint and many other things. These are updated and prioritized often.

Scrum Master: This person aids the group in using Scrum to maximize business value. The scrum master helps the team embrace agile principles by removing obstacles and protecting them from outside distractions.

Scrum Team: They are a group of people who collaborate to guarantee that their partners’ expectations are met.

3. What are Scrum artifacts?

The product backlog is an organized list of the actions and materials required to create a product. The product owner normally maintains it.

The tasks that must be completed in a sprint are listed in the sprint backlog.

The last deliverable finished in a sprint is known as a product increment.

You might anticipate inquiries along these lines: What is a backlog of products? What is an increment in a product? What do you consider to be the most significant Scrum artifact?

4. What duties fall under the purview of the Scrum Team?

The Scrum team consists of five to seven people and is self-organizing. They are accountable for the following things:

Each sprint requires the creation and delivery of working products.
The team members’ allocated jobs must be handled with ownership and openness.
A good daily scrum meeting requires clear and accurate information.
They must work together, both with the team and with each other.

5. Who is a Scrum Master and what exactly does he or she do?

A Scrum Master is a team member who promotes and supports the use of Scrum.

A Scrum Master is aware of Scrum’s principles, practices, rules, and values.
He or she sees to it that the group adheres to the Scrum ideals, rules, and procedures.
They eliminate any obstacles that prevent the project from moving forward and cause diversions.
The Scrum Master makes sure the team produces value during the sprint.

6. What are the values of Scrum?

Scrum’s success is fueled by its five core values: commitment, focus, openness, respect, and bravery. Scrum is more than simply a collection of procedures because of its ideals, which also help it stand out from more conventional project management techniques like Waterfall.

Consider explaining why those qualities are significant to a Scrum team in your response. You might discuss how they vary from other project management methodologies. It will also be beneficial to link a Scrum team’s performance to its ideals. Do you have a tale of how encouraging a team member to be gutsy and offer direct criticism prevented a project from going wrong? Perhaps this is an excellent moment to communicate.

7. What are Scrum’s barriers?

Although Scrum is often praised for its advantages, not every team or organization should use it. A Scrum master should be aware of the constraints of Scrum and when it is preferable to delegate project management to alternative methods.

Scrum is typically advised for groups or sectors that anticipate change. Also, Scrum teams are often small since they are made to adapt rapidly and work in short cycles, making it challenging for pure Scrum to function for projects with huge teams without some adaptations.

Furthermore, Scrum might not be the greatest option if you have to adhere to very rigorous limitations, such as a strict budget or deadline. Compare and contrast Scrum with any other project management technique you are acquainted with.

8. What takes place during daily stand-up sessions?

Stand-up sessions are everyday chats that last 15 minutes on average. Daily stand-up sessions aid comprehension of:

What actions were successful?
What assignments have been completed?
What tasks remain?
What challenges is the team facing?

Understanding the project’s broad scope and current progress is aided by the meeting. The stand-up sessions might be followed by more conversations.

9. Describe Scrum-ban.

A combination of Scrum and Kanban is known as Scrum-ban. To satisfy the demands of the team, reduce work batching, and implement a pull-based methodology, scrum-ban can be employed.
It cleverly combines the Scrum framework with Kanban’s adaptability and visualization capabilities.

10) What is “Scrum of Scrums”?

It is a term for scaled agile technologies, which are necessary to manage and work alongside several scrum teams. It works best when teams are working together on challenging projects.

Additionally, it is employed to guarantee that the conditions for transparency, cooperation, adaptation, and acceptance are created, as well as the deployment and delivery of the goods.

11) How may Scrum be scaled?

Specific project managers are recruited by corporations to scale Scrum. Check the job description to find out if you are required to perform this sort of task.

To scale Scrum across a big team or business, you might employ a number of techniques. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Nexus, and Scrum@Scale are a few of them. Be truthful when discussing what you are familiar with and what procedures you have performed or not.

12) How would you go about getting people to adopt the Scrum methodology?

For many individuals, the scrum methodology is new. Some people could struggle with it, particularly in organizations where processes have been established for a long time.

There are various ways you might approach this problem. Some Scrum masters could remind teams of the Scrum ideals and challenge them to think outside of the box right away. Others may try to give the team members a sense of ownership over the outcome so they get involved in the venture. Others could hire a licensed trainer to provide formal training.

13) How did you react when anything went wrong?

Any project team will err; details may be missed, communications may fail, or events may just not proceed as expected. It’s expected—or even preferred—by interviewers that you have experience handling errors. Knowing how to handle them and still finish a project effectively when they occur is part of being a project manager or Scrum master.

What kinds of devices or procedures do you employ to ensure effective communication? What safeguards do you employ to minimize mistakes?

14) What is Scrum’s Empirical Process Control?

Work that’s based on facts, experiences, data, observations, and experiments is referred to as empirical work. It is established and implemented in Scrum to guarantee that project progress and interpretation are based on facts.

It is based on openness, observation, and adaptation. Furthermore, the team’s mentality, as well as a transformation in thought process and culture, are necessary to accomplish the organization’s desired responsiveness.

15) What are the essential abilities of a Scrum Master?

A thorough grasp of Scrum and Agile principles is required.
Improved organizational skills
Understanding of the technologies that the team employs.
Being able to educate and teach the team about Scrum practices.
The ability to handle and resolve disagreements quickly.
Being a servant leader

16) What are a product owner’s responsibilities?

Defines the project’s vision.
Anticipates consumer needs and develops relevant user stories.
Project progress is evaluated.
Serves as a point of contact for any product-related inquiries.

17) How would you gauge Agile’s effectiveness inside your organization?

Agile effectiveness cannot be quantified using metrics or indicators that are generally accepted. Based on the problems they are seeking to tackle with Agile, every business or team should develop its own definition of success. Here are some signs to take into account:

When product improvements satisfy customer demands, product metrics improve, such as lifetime value, conversion rates, and retention rates.
improved software quality. less technical debt, glitches, etc.
improved resource allocation for high-value items.
In the beginning, team velocity rose to new peaks.
Agile meetings encourage stakeholder participation, particularly during the sprint demo.
Team members recommend available opportunities at the firm to their friends because they are happy.

18) How do you determine a Scrum team’s capacity and velocity?

By averaging the total story points completed across prior sprints, velocity is determined. Velocity is used to calculate capacity, or how many items from the product backlog the team should carry over to the following sprint.

The team’s participation in the forthcoming sprint is indicated by capacity. The capacity should match the velocity, other factors being equal. However, the following elements may reduce the capacity:

Vacations
Unwell days,
Getting new team members up to speed
Other ad-hoc business gatherings or activities

19) If the project is running behind schedule, what would you do?

As a Scrum master, it will be your responsibility to monitor the requirements of your team. If a team member is lagging behind, you, as the scrum master, could have a one-on-one chat to find out why. Maybe they are overworked, don’t know how to utilize a tool, or are dealing with personal concerns. Then you may implement a suitable workaround, such as distributing the workload or bringing in a subject-matter expert to demonstrate a tool or finish a section of the assignment.

This can also entail fostering a setting where teammates are confident in voicing their concerns.

20) How can different teams communicate and coordinate?

The Scrum of Scrums (SoS) meeting, when participants from each scrum team review the progress, performance, concerns, risks, etc., is one of the most popular methods for doing this.
These meetings must have a predetermined frequency. In addition to the Chief Scrum Master, who is in charge of coordinating and collaborating among all the scrums, scrum masters often represent a specific scrum team at these sessions.

Final Note

Therefore, we’ve discussed some of the best Scrum Master interview questions that can help you land your ideal position.
If you believe you need more advanced upskilling, check out the Scrum Master Certification Training Course from IBTLearning if you believe you need more advanced upskilling.
This course goes into great detail about how Agile may be used, various Agile approaches, Scrum ideas, and much more. Your capacity to create and provide clients with high-quality items will also improve as a result of the training.