Scrum Master Interview Questions in 2024

Efficient planning, development, and implementation of projects are critical for all businesses. Sometimes, it can even take months to complete large projects that require multiple resources. As a result, it becomes difficult for companies to manage projects on a large scale and solve complex issues. Therefore, a lot of companies use frameworks that facilitate project management. Scrum is a popular project management tool for software development that encourages teamwork and allows businesses to accomplish smaller goals within definite timelines.

Most Commonly Asked Scrum Master Interview Questions

1. What is Scrum?

Scrum is an agile framework for project management that allows software development teams to work together. The primary purpose of scrum is to develop, deliver and initialize sustainable products. Through scrum, teams can address complex adaptive problems and generate value by figuring out the solutions to such issues.

2. Explain the various roles in the Scrum Team.

There are mainly three key roles in a scrum team: the Scrum Master, Product Owner, and the Developers. There are no hierarchies or subdivisions within the scrum team.

• Product Owner- The role of a product owner in a scrum team is to ensure the maximization of value or to increase the return on interest (ROI). The product owner understands customers’ needs and communicates the same to the team. The role of a product owner can be summarized into three key tasks, i.e., managing the scrum backlog, release management, and stakeholder management.
• Scrum Master:- The scrum master ensures proper coordination within the team and that all the stakeholders are performing their jobs efficiently. They assist the product owner in clearing backlogs and help the team understand how to use the scrum framework for maximum value generation.
• Development Team:- This team is responsible for the execution of work. They accomplish the goals set by the product manager and follow the directions of the Scrum Master.

3. Explain the process of empiricism and its three pillars.

The scrum team follows the empiricism process, which means that the team believes in gauging the progress by the actual work done. They do not believe in fictitious progress. There are three pillars of empiricism: transparency, inspection, and adaptation. These allow all the stakeholders to track real-time progress and be updated with the recent developments.

4. What are the five events of Scrum?

The scrum team members decide a timeframe within which a particular goal has to be achieved. This period is called a sprint. There are five events in a scrum form a part of the sprint.

• Sprint Planning:- The first event incorporates sprint planning, during which the product manager and the developer decide what backlogs items are to be included in the sprint. Next, the team sets up a realistic goal for all the stakeholders.
• Daily Scrum:- This event is a short meeting for almost 15 minutes where the team discusses ideas, tracks their progress, and plans activities to meet their goals.
• Sprint Review:- This event usually takes place a day before the final sprint day. The team members present the product to the stakeholders for review and constructive feedback. It allows the team members to incorporate the necessary changes in the product.
• Sprint Retrospective: On the final day of the sprint, the scrum team retrospects their activities and roles and discusses ideas to improve the team’s efficiency.
• The Sprint:- Sprint is an event in itself that marks the end of a project. The time frame during which the scrum team carries out various functions.

5. Explain the meaning of artefacts in Scrum.

Artifacts in scrum refer to the specific information that the scrum team uses to describe the product they are working on. The team also uses artifacts to describe the various activities or functions undertaken by them. The artifacts serve as metadata that offers an insight to the stakeholders about the sprint’s progress.

6. What is a sprint review, and what is its outcome?

Sprint review is the fourth event in scrum in which the team reviews or inspects the final product and identifies ways to improve it. During the sprint review event, the team invites all the stakeholders involved to explain the product’s features and what product backlog items have been compensated. The team also seeks stakeholders’ feedback on the product during the sprint review event.

7. Explain product and sprint backlog.

The product team constantly brainstorms and comes up with new and effective ideas. The team compiles the list of suggestions as a backlog to ensure that all the ideas and suggestions are incorporated into the product. There are two main types of backlogs in the scrum.

• Product Backlog- It lists all the features that have to be included in the product. The product owner is responsible for managing and updating the product backlog and directing the developers what product backlogs must be used. 
• Sprint Backlog- These are derived from the product backlogs. The developer prepares a list of specific suggestions from the product backlog that can be integrated into the product within a specific sprint. It is called the sprint backlog.

8. Explain backlog refinement.

The product owner and the developer collaborate time and again for backlog refinement. It means that they ensure a shared understanding between the stakeholders about the product’s features and the time taken to integrate all the features. It also means checking the backlogs and seeing how various suggestions should be included in the product. Backlog refinement is also popularly called backlog grooming.

9. Explain the difference between agile and scrum.

Agile is a product management philosophy that focuses on iteration in the software development process. It focuses on maximizing the ROI of a product by accomplishing tasks efficiently. Scrum is a framework based on the agile methodology that facilitates solving complex solutions by breaking them into sprints. 

Agile is a philosophy with a more flexible approach, whereas the scrum framework is a slightly rigid methodology. In agile, the team delivers the entire product at the end. In scrum, various benchmarks or goals are set in sprints that facilitate constant reviewing of the product.

10. How to run a daily Scrum meeting?

The daily scrum meeting is started by the scrum master, who mainly asks three questions from the team members, what did they do after the previous meeting, what will they do that day, and whether any team member is facing any challenge or has a doubt. Daily scrum meetings should be short and primarily for discussing the daily agenda. It is not for problem-solving.

11. How do scrum masters communicate with product owners?

Communication is the key to ensuring cooperation between the scrum master and the product owner. The scrum master can support the product owner by keeping a tab on the backlogs and ensuring that the backlog refinement process takes place timely.

12. What are the various tactics that a scrum master can use to engage stakeholders with scrum?

There are various tactics that a scrum master can use to engage stakeholders and promote an agile mindset.

• While preparing the agile manifesto, a scrum master should communicate with all the stakeholders and incorporate their suggestions.
• The scrum master should invite all stakeholders to the sprint review event and encourage them to provide feedback.
• The scrum master can also organize training workshops for scrum team members and the other stakeholders.

How to Prepare for Scrum Master Interview Questions?

Even though the scrum framework is easy to understand, there are plenty of concepts that you may find tricky. Moreover, since scrum is a practical framework, you must be proficient in using it for real-world applications. Hence, it is beneficial to pursue a degree program in Software Development to learn the nitty-gritty of the Scrum framework.  upGrad’s Executive PG Program in Software Development is a good choice.

Conclusion

While preparing for the scrum interview, make sure to thoroughly understand the basics. Practical knowledge of the framework will be an added advantage.

Learn Software Development Courses online from the World’s top Universities. Earn Executive PG Programs, Advanced Certificate Programs or Masters Programs to fast-track your career. Also check out our Executive PG Program in Software Development through upGrad