Top 30 Scrum Master Interview Questions and Answers in 2024

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The role of Scrum Master raises the need for scrum specialists and subsequently, there are innumerable prospects for the scrum expert. The scrum master profession allows one to create a profession in different pitches. Choose the best job path and it’s beneficial to distinguish your possibilities. With agile constantly suitable consistent exercise at most companies, scrum masters are in extreme need. Here is a look at the Interview questions about Scrum Master roles, related certifications, expected salaries, and business opportunities. Scrum is a dominant background for executing agile processes in software development and other projects.

Scrum Master is a very well-liked and key role in agile software development. A lot of professionals are becoming or trying to become Scrum Masters, and a lot of firms are hiring Scrum Masters. If you are interested in Scrum, these artefacts will give you my outlook on the concepts of  Scrum Master a good job.

There are so many trending courses in Scrum that every professional wants to go for. One of the challenging and trending courses is SCRUM Certification. Does SCRUM look new to you? If your answer is yes, then this blog will help you understand scrum and its courses.

“Scrum” — what is it? Have you heard about SCRUM before? If this word makes you imagine that players are struggling to win in a pedalboat with lots of hard work and team spirit, you’re in good company. Though I am here to explore SCRUM and how Scrum is a tool in the workplace to achieve a common goal with team building activities.

SCRUM Master Interview Questions:

1. What is SCRUM?

SCRUM is a holistic approach to solving a complex problem in a simple and sophisticated way scientifically.

Scrum is an evidence-based, simple framework for professional agile leadership with effective team collaboration on complex products.

2. What are the goals of SCRUM?

• Delivering high-value products 
• Scrum is a framework within which people can innovate products with maximum utility and value for people, teams, and organizations.
• Creating adaptive solutions for complex problems is Scrum. 

3. Who are the creators of SCRUM?

Scrum is created by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland.

They wanted to generate a framework that helps everyone to sustain complex products with simple understanding.

4. What are the artifacts of the Scrum Process?

• Product Backlog: It is a list that comprises of latest features, variations to features, bug fixes, conversions to the infrastructure, and other activities to guarantee a particular output to achieve.
• Sprint Backlog: It is a division of the product backlog that covers tasks engrossed on by the team to fulfill the sprint goal. Teams primarily identify the tasks to be finalized from the product backlog. These are then further added to the sprint backlog.
• Product Increment: It is a blend of all product backlog items accomplished in a sprint and the value of earlier sprints increments. The output must be in a functional state, even if the product owner doesn’t issue it.

5. Define SCRUM?

Scrum can be defined as a lightweight framework, where people can resolve complex problems as a team to deliver software products with high value.

6. What is the role of a Scrum Master?

For Scrum, we need a Scrum Master. To improve the profession of software delivery, the role of SCRUM Master comes into the picture. They are:

1. For a complex issue, a product owner orders the work into a Product Backlog.
2. Design of the framework with added value is done by the Scrum team.
3. The outcome is measured by the Scrum team and its stakeholders.
4. Repeat

7. Why is Scrum needed?  

To employ a practical approach engaging a team

To optimize predictability with skills and expertise acquired by the people

To control risk in the work

8. What are the elements in SCRUM?

For inspection and adaptation within a containing event, the Sprint, Scrum combines four formal events. These events play an important role in implementing the empirical Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation.

9. What are the values in SCRUM?

• Commitment
• Focus
• Openness
•  Respect
• Courage

10. What is a Scrum Team?

A scrum is a group of people,  working for achieving the product goal, called the Scrum Team. Though there are no hierarchy or sub-teams, the Scrum Team consists of 

• One Scrum Master
• One Product Owner
• Developers

10. Define the roles in Scrum?

 Developers: The Scrum team includes developers to create a usable Increment each Sprint is done by developers.

The Product Owner: The Scrum Team works on a product and then comes the role of the product owner. The product owner has the objective of maximizing the value of the product to the fullest.

Scrum Master: The Scrum Master is responsible for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness. Constant motivation and guidance to the Scrum Team to be proficient in its practices within the Scrum framework with explaining them the Scrum theory and general practices. So Scrum Master is a leader to leads the Scrum team effectively. A scrum master will combine and unite a project for the benefit of a common goal. 

11. What is the Scrum framework?

The Scrum framework includes:

• The organization
• Product owner 
• Scrum team

12. What are Scrum Events?

To inspect and adapt Scrum artifacts, the Sprint is necessary. A container for all events, the Sprint is present. For a clear understanding of a project, Scrum events are used to regularize the framework effectively and efficiently.

13. What are the artifacts of the Scrum Process?

• Product Backlog: It is a list that comprises latest features, variations to features, bug fixes, conversions to the infrastructure, and other activities to guarantee a particular output to achieve.
• Sprint Backlog: It is a division of the product backlog that covers tasks engrossed on by the team to fulfill the sprint goal. Teams primarily identify the tasks to be finalized from the product backlog. These are then further added to the sprint backlog.
• Product Increment: It is a blend of all product backlog items accomplished in a sprint and the value of earlier sprints increments. The output must be in a functional state, even if the product owner doesn’t issue it.

14. Differentiate Between Agile and Scrum?

Agile	Scrum
It’s the usual set of Principles that’s iterative and incremental	Agile Methodology is an implementation of Scrum
A small team of experts is needed for the successful completion and implementation of projects	To manage a constantly changing environment, Scrum is needed
The project head is responsible for all tasks and plays an important role in the team	There is no leader responsible, though the issues are handled by the team
Changes are difficult to manage	Teams can take action quickly
Frequent delivery is needed for the end-user	Sprints provide workable builds of the final products to the user for the feedback
Cross-functional teams have face to face interaction	Daily stand up meetings are held with the team collaboration

Design and execution can be done in a simple way

Design and execution can be done in an innovative and experimental way

15. Why is the Scrum Framework needed?

For any project or product development, we need an efficient framework to empower members, individuals, and organizations with agile practices, agile approaches, principles, and values.

16. What are the objectives of Scrum Master Certification?

To sustain and develop the Scrum Developer Program

To gain certifications based on assessments

To assist our business to grow

To escalate to the demands of a progressively intricate world of Scrum.

To simplify increasingly complex technologies and products. Spread the materials and techniques in a concise way

To move to a collective, inventive methodology to form and facilitate the software.

17. What do you understand by DoD?

The DoD is commonly a brief record in the form of an agenda, that defines when a product backlog item (i.e. user story) is contemplated “done” before the team can start applying in the next sprint. It is a checklist of what needs to be done to a product backlog item which has many bases and countless ways to understand it:

You need a general explanation of what “done” (“this user story is finished”) means. Else it will mean unique for every person on the team.

• All your non-functional necessities reside in the DoD.
• A usual list of acceptance criteria to be enhanced to every story’s explicit acceptance criteria.
• Many amendments you will find in your retrospectives end up in the DoD.  

18. What are the responsibilities of the Scrum Team?

Scrum is a framework that allows teams to work on complex projects and deliver high-value products by approaching problems adaptively. It’s a simple, straightforward, and easy-to-implement way of project planning. It can pivot and encourage continuous feedback, allowing a project to fulfill a customer’s needs more accurately.

19. What are the positive outcomes after Scrum Certification?

These courses will deliver you a complete, concise, and confident Scrum overview to help you learn scrum concepts confidentially. They are designed for scrum masters, product owners, or individuals interested in understanding what makes Scrum tick. Learning Scrum will help you get a concise overview of Scrum, such as the actual events, roles, rules, and artifacts used to deliver a project using Scrum, along with the history of Scrum. 

20. What do you understand about DOR in Scrum?

The DoR is somehow related to DoD. It is a list of what needs to be done to a product backlog item before the team can start executing it in the next sprint. You can view the definition of ready as the “DoD” the Product Owner has to fulfill so that the Development Team accepts the story in the Sprint Planning meeting.

21. What is a User Story?

A user story is an agile software development/ project management tool that offers teams ingenious, natural language justifications of one or more features of the project that’s penned from the viewpoint of the end-user.

• The user story doesn’t go into detail but only refers to how certain types of work will fetch value to the end-user. The end-user, in this case, could be an outside component or an internal customer/colleague within the organization.
• They also form the building block of agile frameworks like epics and other enterprises.
• They confirm that the teams work concerning the goals of the organization, with the help of epics and initiatives.
• We need to make a user story a reality and are added later, after discussions with the team.
• They are detailed on post-it notes, index cards, or project management software.

22. What is a Sprint?

A sprint is an important tool used in Scrum. They are a set of lengthy events of duration between a week or two to create consistency. A new Sprint starts instantly after the finish of the previous Sprint.

Sprint allows the ideas to turn into high-value products following a specific module or feature of the product created with all the work necessary to achieve the Product Goal, including Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective, happen within Sprints.

23.  How are Sprint Backlog and Product Backlog different from each other?

Product Backlog	Sprint Backlog
For completion of product development, we need a list of products	It is a list of items to be completed in each Sprint
Product owner collects backlog from the customer and assigns it to the team	The backlog is collected from the product owner and set up the time frame
The specific end goal is there	It is specific to a Sprint
It is based on customer vision	It is based on customer vision which is defined by the product owner
It is independent of the sprint backlog	It is dependent on the product backlog
Till the project completion, the product backlog is maintained	Each new sprint has backlogs added by the teams

24. What is Scrumban? 

• Scrum-ban is a practice with a combination of Scrum and Kanban. Scrum-ban can reduce encounters with the needs of the team, and reduce the batching of work, and implement a pull-based system.
• It creatively includes the structure of Scrum and gives a visualization of Kanban.

25. What are Sprint 0 and Spike?

• Sprint 0 denotes the little amount of work set to form a basic structure of the product backlog. It also comprises insights about valuing the release of products. Sprint 0 is required for: 
• Generating the project skeleton, along with research spikes
• Retaining minimal design
• Evolving some stories entirely
• Taking low velocity and being lightweight
• The spike is a set of actions that involve Extreme Programming (XP) for research, design, investigation, creating POCs, etc.
• The spike targets to lower risks of the technical approach, facilitating knowledge to better understand necessities and increase reliability

26. How do Daily Stand-up sessions take place?

Stand-up sessions are daily dialogs that take place and are usually 15 minutes long. Daily Stand-up sessions support us understand:

• What tasks went well
• What tasks were accomplished 
• What tasks are incomplete, and
• The obstacles the team is facing

The meeting helps in accepting the overall scope and status of the project. Further thoughts and steps can take place after the stand-up sessions.

27. What do you mean by ‘Scrum of Scrums’?

• It is an expression used for ascended agile technologies, which is requisite to switch and work together with multiple scrum teams. It is preeminent in situations where teams join forces 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. 

28. What do you know about User Story Mapping?

• User story mapping characterizes and positions user stories that help with the awareness of system functionalities, system backlog, scheduling releases, and offering value to customers.
• They arrange user stories based on their priority on the horizontal axis. On the vertical axis, they are exemplified based on the rising levels of complexity.

29. What are the few drawbacks when using Scrum?

• Teams need to be collaborative and committed with the positive outcome 
• A naïve scrum master can become the cause to collapse the project
• Well defined tasks are need of the hour, in case the project has many inaccuracies
• It works better for smaller projects and is challenging to scale to larger, more complex projects

30. How can a Scrum Master be a Servant Leader?

The term “servant leader” mainly spotlights the service orientation which a leader should reveal.

• The Scrum Master needs to be an expediter, a guide, an advisor, etc.
• This helps the team have added involvement, inspiration, empowerment, etc.

Scrum Master training is provided by various institutes globally. One of the recognized institutes in India for Scrum Master training is Henry Harvin Education. Henry Harvin’s Scrum Master Training course has produced many Scrum Master professionals.

Henry Harvin Education

The Certified Scrum Master Training Course is designed to deliver the Scrum Master framework which includes Scrum values, principles, and practices. The Scrum Alliance CSM Course can help candidates to handle agile project Management excellently. Furthermore, it escorts them to magnify their career in different business domains by Scrum methodologies execution.

This Scrum Master training comprises of 9 in 1-course benefits:

• Training: Live Online Interactive Sessions all time

• Projects: Advantage to undergo live projects in related fields of Scrum Master certification, Scrum methodologies, principles, implementation, Scrum training, and many more
• Internship: Internship support to gain concrete knowledge of Agile & Scrum Academy upon successful completion of the course.
• Certification: Get Certification of Scrum Master Training Course from Henry Harvin®, Govt of India recognized & Award-Winning Institute that opens ample career opportunities
• Placement: 100% Placement assistance for 12 months post successful completion
• E-Learning: Get access to abundant tools and techniques, video content, assessments, and more
• Bootcamps: Consistent Bootcamps spread over the next 12 months 

Key Features:

Expand your understanding and open innumerable options to career opportunities in multiple industry sectors of Scrum principles, daily scrum, scrum master roles and tasks, sprint planning, sprint review, scrum framework of Agile project management, and sprint reviewing

• Identify how to execute scrum methodologies and inflate your information and experience in scrum training.
• Advance your skills in the agile approach to achieve your business goals.
• Learn Team Management and alliance to drive your agile team
• Grasp the product backlog, sprint backlog, product increment, and product owner roles and errands.
• Hands-on projects allied to scrum methodologies, principles, and implementation suitable for members of Scrum teams, managers of Scrum teams, teams transitioning to Scrum, and executives who are interested in pursuing a career as a professional Certified ScrumMaster.

Benefits:

Get 1-year gold membership of Henry Harvin Academy to become a professional certified Scrum Master. The membership covers access to recorded videos on concepts of Scrum, Agile, games, projects, and free Bootcamp Sessions for 12 months.

• For Scrum professionals, grab a chance to do an Internship with Henry Harvin or partner firms
• Advance your knowledge and experience in Industry Projects, get access to local groups, networks during the training
• Easily accessible various tools and techniques about scrum, video lessons, assessments, and Hackathons, and competitions are available.
• Earn 20 PDUs and 16 SEUs credits awarded by Project Management and Scrum alliance.
• Learn from accomplished trainers having more than 15 years of work experience in the highly valued industry

Duration and fees:

24 hours of live on-screen training

INR 17500 /-

Requisites:

Anyone with interest in Agile and Scrum

Related courses offered by Henry Harvin Education:

https://www.henryharvin.com/agile-project-management-course

https://www.henryharvin.com/cspo-certification-training

There are some other Popular Courses and Scrum Training offered by different institutes. They are:

• Professional Scrum Master
• Professional Scrum Product Owner
• Professional Scrum Developer
• Scaled Professional Scrum
• Professional Scrum with User Experience
• Professional Agile Leadership
• Professional Scrum with Kanban
• Professional Agile Leadership- Evidence-based Management

Conclusion:

Scrum Master Training will provide a likelihood to pitch entry at the Operational level at fieldwork. The work of Scrum Master is to facilitate the Scrum Process, support and abet team members to determine hindrances. Scrum Training will make the professionals act as the Motivator, Mentor and Coach as well, who can meritoriously lead and illustrate the right path to the team members.

Comprehensive education resources, choice of accomplices, and experienced trainers, with strong knowledge of Scrum, make it appealing and the wisdom process smooth. Questions were answered with examples that are always helpful in the learning journey of Scrum. The training/workshop will help all trainees to grow further and understand how Scrum works in different teams.

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