SCRUM

What are some Scrum certs?

- CSM (Certified Scrum Master) - PSM (Professional Scrum Master) - ASM (Agile Scrum Master) - SAFe Scrum Master

Can you specify the features that a good user story should have?

A good user story: Includes a description Has acceptance criteria defined Can be delivered within a single Sprint Has all UI deliverables available Has all (probable) dependencies identified Has performance criteria defined Has tracking criteria defined Is estimated by the Scrum Team

Is there a difference between Agile and Scrum? If yes, what is the difference?

Agile - is a philosophy that takes an iterative approach towards the completion of a project. Scrum - is a lightweight framework that is used to implement the Agile philosophy.

Mention some cases when using scrum is not suggested.

Certain situations where SCRUM is not suggested to use are: - When the requeirements are not allowed to evolve - When the organization is nor ready to adopt agile values and practices - When frequently needing to respond quicker than a sprint allows - When people have had bad experiences with Scrum already - When looking for a one-stop solution to all our problems

What is the of a scrum master in scrum retrospective?

During the Sprint Retrospective, the team reflects upon how things went during the previous sprint and identifies adjustments and improvements they could make going forward. Scrum master acts as a peer team member in this event.

Some suggests that the daily standup doesn't work well with distributed teams. What is your opinion on this? AS a scrum master how are you going to handle daily scrums with remote teams

General answers: - Peer-to-peer status updates are interesting and relevant - These scrum meetings are not just about information exchanges, they involve discussion on social and complex aspects of tam performance - They are about building relationships, straightening put the hard issues, and growing a great team culture - Slack can be a perfect tool for leading your video calls with distributed teams.

Can you name some of the metrics used by the scrum team to measure the work done?

Metrics that help to measure the work done by scrum teams include: - Sprint Goal Success - Escaped Defects & Defect Density - Team Velocity - Sprint Burn-down - Time to Market - ROI - Capital Redeployment - Customer Satisfaction

Can you name some of the tools used in a scrum project?

Personally I've only seen: Jira Trello

Apart from planning, review, and retrospective, do you know any other event in scrum?

Product Backlog Refinement (Backlog Grooming) Some of the activities that occur during backlog refinement are: - Remove irrelevant user stories - Create new user stories with respect to new needs - Re-assigning the relative priority of stories - Splitting user stories when required - Assign estimates to stories - Correct estimates based on new information

What are the different Artifacts used during a Scrum Process.

Scrum Artifacts The Scrum artifacts are designed to maximize the transparency of key information so that everybody has the same understanding of the artifact. Basically it is a Step Towards a vision or goal. Product Backlog : The product backlog is an ordered list of everything that is known to be needed in a product Sprint Backlog: Sprint Backlog is the set of Product Backlog items that the team commits to achieve in a give Sprint Product Increment: It is the sum of all the product backlog items completed during a sprint and the value of the increments of all previous Sprints.

List down the different events that take place during the scrum process.

Scrum Ceremonies Scrum defines four events (sometimes called Scrum ceremonies) that occur inside each Sprint. Sprint Planning: The entire Scrum Team collaborates and plans the work to be performed during a Sprint and defines the Sprint Goal. Daily Scrum: It is an every day 15-minute time-boxed event for the Dev Team to inspect progress towards the Sprint Goal. Sprint Review: It is held at the end of the Sprint where the SCrum TEam and Stakeholders inspect the Increment and adapt the Product Backlog if needed. Sprint Retrospective: During a sprint retrospective the Scrum Team reflects upon how things went during the previous sprint and areas for improvement in the Sprint.

What is a Scrum Sprint? What is the ideal duration for a Sprint?

The sprint is a timebox of one month or less during which the team produces a potentially stoppable product increment. The duration of the sprint in Scrum is anywhere from 2-4 weeks to almost a month.

You and your team are thoroughly implementing the agile principles but for some reasons you are not constantly meeting commitments and the velocity is very unstable. What could be the possible reason and how are you going to solve those issues?

There are multiple reasons that might lower team's performance such as: - New team members are being hired - Team members are leaving - Working in uncharted territory - Varying levels of seniority in the team is causing issues - Working with legacy code, probably undocumented - Unexpected technical debt -Unnecessary holidays and risk leave

What is timeboxing in the scrum framework?

Timeboxing is basically allotting a fixed unit of time for an activity. Incorporating a timeboxed approach brings in discipline, predictability and creates a situation for inspect and adapt. Every event in a sprint is timeboxed and can not be extended unless absolutely necessary. Sprint - Daily Scrum - Sprint Planning - Sprint Review - Sprint Retrospective

Name some drawbacks of the agile model

- Long-term projects suffer from incremental dlivery - The level of collaboration can be difficult to maintain - Very limited documentation - Fragmented output - The project can easily go off track - It's more difficult to measure progress - Projects can become ever-lasting because there's no clear end.

As a Scrum Master, what would you do when the scrum team doesn't like your ideas and instead suggests new ones?

- Stay open to suggestions - Do not blindly accept the ideas - Ask for a reasonable explanation - If agreed upon by everyone, consider the idea If you think the idea is not good enough - do not be harsh on rejecting - explain them where their ideas are lacking

Apart from Scrum are you aware of any other Agile Frameworks?

1. Scrum 2. ScrumBan 3. Kaban

Can you stat some major Principles of agile project management?

12 Agile Principles - Meet Customer needs - Welcome changes - Continuous Feedback - Good teamwork - Focus on Active Processes - Face to face talk - Motivate the people - Sustainable Development - Technical Excellence - Be Simple - Self-organized - Adjust Strategies

What skills and qualities do you need to possess to be a great scrum master?

A GReat Scrum Master Qualities: - Be influential - Be Collaborative - Be Observant - Be a Good listener - Share Experience - Be Disruptive - Instill Leadership Skills - Acquire Knowledge - Protect the team - Understand there is more than just Scrum

Who is a Scrum Master? What does he do?

A scrum master acts as a coach, facilitator, mentor and a teacher. - Organizes meetings - Deals with roadblocks & challenges - Helps the team to understand Scrum theory, practices, rules and values - Enables efficient communication & collaboration

What is a user story? what is the structure of a good user story?

A user story is an informal and general explanation of a software feature written, from the perspective of the end user. For example, user stories might look like: As a marketing data analyst, I need to run the Salesforce & Google analytics reports so that I can build the monthly media campaign plans As a credit card holder, I want to view my statement balance, so that I can pay the balance due As a frequent flyer, I want to rebook a past trip so that I can save time booking trips I take often.

What is the difference between Agile methodology and Waterfall model?

AGILE - Changes Oriented - Product Mindset - Iteration, All Processes - Short Feedback Loop - Unit Testing - Unclear Requirements - Minimal Paperwork - Collaboration - Full Transparency - Easy to Incorporate Changes -Supports Changing Requirements Perfect for IT, Software, Marketing WATERFALL - Carefully Oriented - Project Mindset - Fixed and Separated Stages - No Feedback Until Testing - End Product Testing - Fixed Requirements - Extensive Documentation - Teams Work in Turns - Lack of Transparency - Difficult to Enable Changes - End Product is Defined - Perfect for Long Term Projects; such as Construction, Manufactoring

What is Scrum? What are the benefits of using it? Can it be used for all types of Projects?

According to the Scrum Guide, "Scrum is an Agile framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.' Scrum can not be used in all types of projects. With Scrum, unlike the Waterfall model, you're relying on customer collaboration.

There are often people in teams whole think scrum meetings are a waste of time. Let's say you have one such person in your team too. How are you going to handle him/her?

First, have a ono-on-one meeting the team member in quesstion - Schedule a meeting with the department manager - Consider shifting the team member to another team.

What do you think should be the ideal size of a SCRUM team?

Ideal size of the Scrum team is between 3-9 people, not including the ScrumMaster and Product owner.

Explain what empirical process control is and how scrum framework is based on that?

Empirical Process Control Empiricism means working in a fact-based, experience-based, and evidence-based manner. Scrum implements an empirical process where progress is based on observations of reality, not fictitious plans. Scrum also places great emphasis on mind-set and cultural shift to achieve business and organizational Agility. The 3-Pillars of Empiricism Transparency: This means presenting the facts as is. All people involved—the customer, the CEO, individual contributors—are transparent in their day-to-day dealings with others. They all trust each other, and they have the courage to keep each other abreast of good news as well as bad news. Everyone strives and collectively collaborates for the common organizational objective, and no one has any hidden agenda. Inspection: Inspection in this context is not an inspection by an inspector or an auditor but an inspection by every- one on the Scrum Team. The inspection can be done for the product, processes, people aspects, practices, and continuous improvements. For example, the team openly and transparently shows the product at the end of each Sprint to the customer in order to gather valuable feedback. If the customer changes the requirements during inspection, the team does not complain but rather adapts by using this as an opportunity to collaborate with the customer to clarify the requirements and test out the new hypothesis. Adaptation: Adaptation in this context is about continuous improvement, the ability to adapt based on the results of the inspection. Everyone in the organization must ask this question regularly: Are we better off than yesterday? For profit-based organizations, the value is represented in terms of profit. The adaptation should eventually relay back to one of the reasons for adapting Agile—for example, faster time to market, increased return on investment through value- based delivery, reduced total cost of ownership through enhanced software quality, and improved customer and employee satisfaction. Scrum works not because it has three roles, five events, and three artifacts but because it adheres to the underlying Agile principles of iterative, value-based incremental delivery by frequently gathering customer feedback and embracing change. This results in faster time to market, better delivery predictability, increased customer responsiveness, ability to change direction by managing changing priorities, enhanced software quality, and improved risk management.

Define the roles in Scrum.

Scrum ROles Product Owner: Responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from work of the Team. Scrum Master: Responsible for helping everyone in the team understand Scrum theory, practices, rules, and values. Development Team: Self-organizing & cross-functional group of people who do the hands-on work of developing and testing the product.

As a scrum Master, how are you going to demonstrate servant leadership?

Scrum master is often referred to as the servant-leader of the Scrum team. As a servant leader scrum master: - Should not blindly follow directions - Be loyal to the team and try to earn their trust - Shield the team from external impediments and interruptions - Guide the development team towards self organization - Lead the team through healthy conflict and debate

How does a scrum master serve the organization?

Scrum master serves the organization in following ways: - Acts as an agile change agent and facilitates the change - Helps to increase the productivity of the scrum team - Supports agile leadership principles and practices - Helps stakeholders and employees understand scrum empirical therory - Plans scrum implementation within the organization

How does a scrum master help the product owner?

Scrum master serves the product owner in the following ways: 1. Promoting scrum events as and when requested by the product owner 2. Help product owner in efficient product backlog managemnet 3. Helps product owner understand agile principles and practices 4. Assist the product owner to arrange the tasks in product backlog to maximize value 5. Help the scrum team in adopting a shared vision

What is Scrum-Ban?

Scrumban is a project management framework that combines important features of two popular agile methodologies: Scrum and Kanban. The Scrumban framework merges the structure and predictable routines of Scrum with Kanban's flexibility to make teams more agile, efficient, and productive. For companies that implement Scrumban, the approach can help their teams focus on the correct strategic tasks while at the same time improving their processes. Kanban is a visual approach to managing a team's workload. With this methodology, a team creates a Kanban board to visually display its workflow in columns—such as "Ready to Start," "In Progress," "Under Review," and Completed." As developers begin working on an item, they move a card (or sticky note) with the item's name from the Ready-to-Start column to In-Progress. If an item needs to move backward, from Under Review back to In-Progress—the team can move that card back to the In-Progress column. The Kanban board makes it easy for everyone to view and update the status of each project quickly.

Let's say you have received a story on the last day of the sprint and you find that there are defects in the story? What will you do? Will you mark it as 'done'?

Typically a user story is marked done, only when its development is complete + QA is completed + acceptance criteria is met + it is eligible to be shipped in to production. In this case the user story has defects, you can mark it as partially done and move it to the next sprint.

What does the term velocity mean in Scrum?

Velocity is an extremely simple, powerful method for accurately measuring the rate at which scrum development teams consistently deliver business value. Note: Velocity is not a measure of effectiveness, efficiency, competency, or anything else. It is merely a measure of the rate at which a given amount of problem statements are turned into tested software.

What are some drawbacks of scrum?

- Adopting to a large team can be challenging - Frame can be successful only with experienced team members. - difficult to scale to larger complex projects. - dealing with frustrated team members - team members abandoning project. - frequent changes/delivery during the scrum cycle. - no deadlines, often leads to requests of implementation for more deliveries from Product Manager.

As a scrum master how will you identify where you need to improve?

- Be susceptible to feedback - Be open minded - Experiment with new suggestions - Share your experiences - Organize seminars &conferences to gather knowledge - Facilitate a fully dedicated retrospective meeting

When is the best time to use Agile Methodology? Is it suitable for all the situations?

- Complex projects - Unclear requirements - Quick launch of products - Minimal cost of change - Emphasis on teamwork, transparency, & continuous improvement - No limit on time & budget - Frequent change of requirements - No need to deliver fully functional software at once - Don't have a fixed budget/schedule

How would you handle a Scrum transition of an organization that was heavily reliant on Waterfall before?

- Make sure you have experienced people in the team who have been practicing Scrum previously - You can conduct Scrum-related workshops, on-site practices & exercises about user stories, time & cost estimations, collaboration tools, and other tasks - Upgrade the project management tools you have been using till now - Try to talk to everyone in your organization - Facilitate a fully retrospective meeting

Can agile methodology also be applied in domains other than software testing and development projects?

Agile methodologies are being used today by a variety of businesses such as: - biochemistry - biophysics - manufacturing - support - marketing or supply chain management

What would you do if you find out that one of your team members is breaking one or more of the agile principles?

As a scrum master, you need to know that if one of your team members is breaking one or more agile principles - Try reasoning with the team member and get to know why he/she is not following the agile principles - Mentor the individual 'miscreants' to explain the Agile philosophy and Principles to them how their 'interruptions' are causing delays in development progress - If the issues is still not resolved, you can set up a meeting with his reporting manager to talk about the concern and search for ways to help the team member

Let's say your teammates are cherry-picking task? How are you going to help your team to work on the most important stories first?

As scrum master along with the product owner ensure that no secondary user stories are ranked above primary ones. To help the development team on the most important user stories: - include them in the initial planning stages when user stories are assembled - Additional training might help some team members accommodate a greater variety of tasks - Pair programming may be a suitable first step in that direction.

What is a Sprint Burndown Chart?

Burndown Chart: Is a graphical way of showing how much work is remaining in the sprint, typically in terms of task hours. It is not a typical scrum artifact but many teams use it.

As a scrum master how are you going to communicate with your team?

Communication skills are very essential fro a scrum master. It is the best way for a Scrum Master to get the cooperation of a Product Owner. They should work as allies and coach the organization to become, and remain, agile. Both must serve as excellent servant leaders without being authoritative on each other. They should drive the development team towards success by working together.

What is scrum of scrum?

Scrum of Scrums: it is a daily meeting where multiple scrum masters and chief product owner meet to discuss their work and progress. It is the same as that of a daily scrum, but the focus is on a team level.

What happens during a sprint review?

Sprint Review A Sprint Review is held at then end of the Sprint to inspect the product increment and update the Product Backlog if needed. - The Scrum Team and stakeholders collaborate about what was done in Sprint - Based on the feedback they update the Product Backlog as needed -The team does research on the marketplaces and estimates the budget, potential capabilities, timeline, etc.

What is discussed during the sprint planning meeting?

Sprint panning Meeting During Sprint Planning, the entire Scrum Team collaborates and discusses the work to be performed in the Sprint. - What can be delivered in this Sprint iteration? - How to achieve that work?

What is a Storyboard in scrum?

Storyboard In Scrum A storyboard is a visual representation of progress of a software project which generally has for columns, namely, 'To do', 'In Progress', 'Test', and 'Done'. Storyboard is one way of ensuring transparency

Please state the four values of agile software development as stated in the Agile Manifesto?

The 4 Agile Values 1. Individuals and interactions - over process and tools 2. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 3. Working software over comprehensive documentation 4. Responding to change over following a plan

What anti-patterns might a Scrum Master fall into during a sprint?

The Anti-patterns During Sprint Flow disruption - Does not educating stakeholders on the negative impact of disruptions - Does not oppose line managers assigning other tasks to team members - Does not object that the management invites engineers to random meetings - Turns a blind eye to mid-Sprint changes of priorites by PO Assigning sub-tasks to developers Defining technical solutions Lack of support

What is the purpose of a daily Scrum Meeting? Is it mandatory for the scrum master to attend daily scrum?

The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed event for the development team that takes place every day during a sprint. Questions that are alway asked: What did you do yesterday? What will you do today? Is there any impediment?

How will you know that agile practivce are working for your organization? Are ther any indicators to gfre

There is no standard definition of the term 'Agile Success'. Every organization must develop its own criteria to evaluate if their adoption to agile was a success or not. - The products you deliver are resulting in higher customer retention rates, upsells, and more customer acquisition - When team members are extremely happy and there is an increase in the number of refferals from team members -Stakeholders are increasingly participating in events, for example, during the Sprint Review - Increased software quality can be demostrated by measurably less technical debt, fewer bugs, and less time spent on maintenance - Lead time, from validated idea to shipped product, has been reduced