Scrum Master Interview Questions

1. Tell me about yourself.

2. What is the Agile Manifesto?
3. What is your definition and or understanding of agile?
4. What are the THREE Pillars of Scrum?
5. There are many Agile Frameworks, why Scrum?
6. What are FIVE Scrum Values?
7. How would you approach your Product Owner if you notice he/she has not been
grooming the backlog, and it has now become an impediment to the Developers? (HINT:
D.E.E.P.)
8. How do you approach conflict between teams?
9. How do encourage concept and practice of self-organizing teams?
10. How do you protect How do you protect our team when additional backlog items,
stakeholder requests, and proposed extension of sprints are being requested?
11. In your opinion, what is the most important Scrum Ceremony?
12. As a Scrum Master, how to you approach a new team?
13. How do you start your day as a Scrum Master? (HINT: Ask them which part of the day
they are referring to)
14. How do you present impediments to those outside of the Scrum Team that demand
Additional work items to be completed during sprints? (Hint #: create an impediment
board)
15. How do you stay abreast of industry knowledge?
16. What is the last book you have read?
17. How do you avoid becoming the impediment?
18. In your opinion, what is the difference between a Scrum Master and a Manager?
19. Is the Scrum Master responsible for the project budget? (HINT: No, but they can ask the
investment the PMO is willing to contribute for the sprint to be successfully carried out)
20. How to you handle an organization that wants to do have an Agile Transformation and
implement Scrum, but in their own way of doing Scrum?
21. What is the goal you have for your team during and after Scrum?
22. How do you measure team performance?
23. What tools do you use to manage your boards?
24. What is your knowledge of Kanban?
25. How do you estimate your story points? (TRICK QUESTION)
26. How do you handle spikes?
27. How do you estimate your team’s velocity? And is this the ultimate measure of
productivity?
28. How do you shield your Developers from additional workloads and distractions affecting
the completion of sprints?
29. As a Scrum Master, how do you gain knowledge of not only the product, but the
organization’s mission, goals, scope, and reason for doing what they do?
30. Have you ever or describe a time you failed as a Scrum Master?
31. How do you handle a Developer(s) that do not want to participate in Scrum ceremonies?
32. Our organization is new to Scrum, and you will be our first master, where do you start?
33. How do you manage technical debt?
34. What is TDD in Scrum and Agile?
35. Have you every coached or mentored other Scrum Masters? In not, how would you?
36. What keyword would you use to summarize your experience being a Scrum Master and
servant leader?
37. How do you motivate others when you find it hard to motivate yourself?
38. How do you communicate with your team with stakeholders/PM’s/PO’s etc. cancel
meetings?
39. What is your approach to building individual relationships with your team?
40. What is the difference between Waterfall and Scrum?
41. What are the advantages and disadvantages between Waterfall and Scrum?
42. Is Scrum a methodology or a framework?
43. How do you deal with “antipatterns” in Scrum?
44. How do you approach user stories that spill over?
45. What is the difference between the Definition of Done and Acceptance Criteria?
46. What is the structure of a user story?
47. Who attends the sprint review?
48. How do you approach your relationship with your stakeholders within your first 90 days?
49. How do you run a working agreement with your team?
50. How do you facilitate communication with external vendors so that it does not cause
impediments for the sprint and future release?
51. How do you deal with a Product Owner that asks for more work than the Developers’
capacity?
52. How do you collaborate with SME external and internal to your organization?
53. Who creates the Definition of Done, and can it be overridden or changed?
54. How are Scrum teams created?
55. What do you do when a user story is not completed?
56. What is your approach to handling defects, bugs, etc. in Scrum?
57. What is your #1 resource as a Scrum master?
58. Is the Scrum Maters responsible for the delivery of a project?
59. Walk me through a Sprint Planning ceremony.
60. How do you facilitate your Sprint Retrospectives, and how do you set up your
Developers for success foie the next sprints?
61. Who sizes story points and why?
62. How do you communicate with Developers that do not update their task stats(s) on the
Scrum board?
63. What key action do you do pre-sprint to ensure your backlog is ready for the Sprint
planning ceremony and sprint?
64. How do you increase your team’s velocity?
65. How many Developers can be on the Developer team?
66. How do you work with international stakeholders and vendors? What do you do if they
are not flexible?
67. How do you deal with dependencies? What do you do if those dependencies adversely
impact the sprint?
68. How do you have effective sprint planning ceremonies?
69. Who prioritizes the Produce backlog?
70. How many accountabilities are there in Scrum, and what are they accountable for?
71. What is the increment?
72. What is a PBI vs a User Story?
73. How do you handle dominant and passive Developers?
74. What is a product roadmap?
75. What is agile?
76. What has been you experience creating a release plan?
77. What is technical debt? How do you deal with it?
78. What are metrics and KPIs in Scrum?