Scrum Interview

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

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.

5 Scrum Values

courage, focus, commitment, respect and openess

User story example and structure?

Example: As a customer I want to shop online from website so that I do not need to visit local markets Structure: As a (User role) I want (Goal) So that (Benefit)

A product owner assigns user stories to specific team members. How do you react?

The goal of the Scrum master to explain to the product owner why such actions upset this balance.

What do you mean by Sprint 0 and Spike?

The modest amount of effort put in to establish a rough skeleton of the product backlog is referred to as Sprint 0. It also contains information on calculating product release dates. Sprint 0 is necessary for the following tasks: Creating a skeleton for the project, as well as research spikes Maintaining a minimalist design Creating a few stories completely Being lightweight and having a low velocity Spike = collection of activities that use Extreme Programming for research, design, investigation, prototyping, and other purposes

What are the Scrum Master Roles?

- Mentoring members of team in self management - Assisting Scrum Team to meet the Definition of Done - Removing Roadblocks - Ensure scrum events occur and are positive, productive and within the timeframe - Assist in comprehend clear and precise backlog items - leading mentoring, and training scrum adaption - remove barriers between stakeholders and scrum teams

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

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.

Why might your team be constantly failing to meet committed deadlines, and its velocity is unstable?

-People are joining and leaving the team too often. -There isn't a good distribution of junior and senior people and the team is imbalanced. -Definition of ready is not met for user stories and thus the estimates are off.

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.

What is a Definition of Ready?

A "definition of ready" provides criteria of what needs to be included in a user story before the scrum team can provide an estimate for it. The product owner is responsible for making sure that all user stories are "ready" before they reach the sprint planning phase.

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.

3 pillars of Scrum?

Adaption, Transparency, Inspection

What is a sprint in a scrum?

Around 2 week period to possibly release a new product

Who all can be the participants in the retrospective meeting?

Attendance by the entire Scrum team is required. Product Owner is not mandatory. Anyone not on the immediate scrum team, especially team members' managers, should not be invited to participate.

What are some risks in Scrum? How are they handled?

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

What do you mean by 'Confidence Vote' in Scrum? Why is it important?

Confidence Vote is conducted at the Program Increment Planning session. It is when all members of the team meet together and raise their voices and vote with their fingers on their confidence level in the completion of the PI Targets. - create an environment where individuals feel free to share and express their opinions

How does a Scrum Master track Sprint progress?

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

What do you mean by DoD?

Definition of Done. It is the set of deliverables that contain written codes, comments on coding, unit tests, integration testing, design documents, release notes, and so on.

Should the Scrum team be involved in the product discovery process? Why?

Developers will be able to provide feedback on epics and user stories, which are technically not viable. The product owner and scrum team members will develop a common understanding of the market problem and client needs. This will foster a sense of ownership amongst the team members, which in turn increases motivation.

Which is the most important Scrum ceremony?

Different ceremonies are important for different reasons, thus one should be careful in comparing them on the same scale. It can create a mindset that one should be prioritized over the other, while the reality is that all of them are very important for an effective Scrum process. However, taking into account that the goal of the Scrum team is to deliver working product increments, one could say that the sprint demo is the most important Scrum ceremony. During the demo, the real progress of the team becomes known, clients and stakeholders are able to give feedback, the team has to chance to get better acquainted with the product requirements and vision.

Why are user stories not estimated in man hours?

Difficult to estimate precisely Amount of time depends on developer's experience Team overestimates obstacles they may face

How do epic, user story and task differ from one another?

Epic - It is something so large that it will almost certainly not fit into a sprint, is unclear in terms of client requirements, and should be split down into stories. Epics are often defined at the early stages of product road mapping User Story - A story is anything actionable that can be fit into a sprint. Typically, stories are developed throughout the product development process. Task - They are the decomposed parts of a story that define how the story will be finished. Tasks are typically defined by the individuals who execute the job, whereas stories and epics are typically developed by the customer. Because tasks are temporary, they are produced within the confines of an iteration.

What are user stories in scrum?

Generic explanation of a software feature from end user perspective, main advantage includes = user centric definition. Scrum team benefits because acceptance criteria included in user story

How to assure the user stories meet the requirements?

I- Independent = team members less reliant on each other N- Negotiable = Subject to agreement between team and product owner V- Valuable = Add value to customer experience E- Estimable = Time requirements approx. estimated S- small = small enough to be completed in a sprint T- testable = good acceptance criteria

What do you mean by artifacts in Scrum?

Information that the scrum team and stakeholder need to know in order to understand product being developed

How would you deal with a difficult stakeholder?

Listen to them carefully Estimate their motivation - Meet them one after another Watch the stakeholders closely by identifying them

What is the purpose of a Scrum Master to be present at the Daily Scrum?

Meeting for development team members, they synchronize their work, track their progress towards sprint goal

Is velocity a good proxy for productivity?

No, velocity is a good proxy for the team's capacity. While trying to maximize velocity, a team may actually decrease productivity. Team members might minimize re-factoring, skip bug fixing, ignore or spend too little time on unit or acceptance testing, reduce customer collaboration.

How much capacity would you consider to refactor, fix important bugs, explore new technologies or ideas?

One popular technique is to follow the 15-10-5 rule: 15% of a team's capacity to technical debt. 10% to bugs and defects. 5% to exploring new ideas.

Differentiate between Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog.

Product Backlog: - List of all tasks that need to. be completed before final product is created - Product owner in charge -Depending on customer vision, can be altered Sprint Backlog: - List of all items from product backlog that must be done for sprint to be completed - Development team in charge - will not charge throughout the sprint

What are the different roles in Scrum

Product Owner, Scrum Master, Scrum Team

. How could you determine the success of Agile in your company?

Product increments meet client needs resulting in increasing product metrics—higher retention rates, better conversion rates, increased lifetime value, etc.

What do you mean by agile?

Project management and software development methodology that allows team to deliver value to client faster with fewer difficulties

What are the five steps of Risk Management?

Risk Identification Risk Analysis Ranking the Risk Treating the Risk Risk Review

How would you handle conflict within the team?

Scene setting Gathering Information Brainstorming to find a solution Solution Conferring

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. Ways to Manage: -Groom Product Backlog, make sure all include a DOR -Follow Spring Backlog, avoid introducing new stories -Frequent Communication within the team and with product owner, encourage stakeholders to provide feedback during sprint review - Make sure sprint retrospectives occur

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

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.

Difference between scrum and agile?

Scrum: -One of agile best methodology -Best for projects with quick change requirements -big benefit = adoptability Agile: -Suited for small but highly developed project teams -No room for modification -Kept simple as possible

How do you calculate the capacity and velocity of a Scrum team?

Velocity is calculated by averaging the number of completed story points in previous sprints. Some stuff to consider before deciding total number of points in a Sprint: -Vacations -Sick days -Onboarding of new team members

When should a Scrum Master not act as a facilitator?

The Scrum Master should not facilitate a workshop about modifying the Scrum process.

How would you deal with a team member who considers sprint planning meetings a waste of time and refuses to participate?

The Scrum master should focus on the behavior rather than on the individual. Firstly, you should talk to the team member privately and ask open-ended questions to figure out their reasoning. After that, make a case for the importance of sprint planning meetings and why all team members should participate. Moreover, you could encourage other team members to voice their concerns during a retrospective regarding the non-participation of the team member in question. Ask them to talk about how that affects the working environment and the team's performance. Lastly, if all else fails, you should set up a meeting with the team member's reporting manager to discuss solutions and if possible consider a transfer to a team that is not using Scrum.

Your product owner has pushed to include in the upcoming sprint a user story, which does not have the final designs yet. The Design team promises to deliver them on the second day of the sprint. How do you react?

The user story obviously does not meet the definition of ready and could be refused by the team. However, Agile promotes people over process and thus other factors should be evaluated as well. Has the design team consistently met their deadlines in similar situations? Is there evidence that this user story of very high value to the client? In these circumstances, the team could make an exception and accept the story. However, it is important for the Scrum master to have a talk with the product owner and make sure that such exceptions do not become the rule. definition of ready is a valuable technique and ignoring it can derail the scrum team's efficiency and increase the risk of delays.

What is a time boxing in a scrum, when and by whom can a sprint be cancelled by?

Timebox refers to allocating a specific amount of time to specific activity- no longer than 15 mins - Sprint can be cancelled by product owner

What happens in Daily Stand-up sessions?

What tasks went well What tasks were completed What tasks are pending, and The obstacles the team is facing

Who is responsible for writing user story?

Written by anyone, product owner responsibility that an agile user story backlog exist.