Basic Agile Scrum Interview Questions

While you are preparing for the Agile Scrum interview, move to your final preparation with the below-mentioned basic agile scrum interview questions. These are quick questions you should go through before your agile scrum interview.

1. What is the duration of a scrum sprint?

Answer: Generally, the duration of a scrum sprint (scrum cycle) depends upon the size of project and team working on it. The team size may vary from 3-9 members. In general, a scrum script complete in 3-4 weeks. Thus, on an average, the duration of a scrum sprint (scrum cycle) is 4 weeks. This type of sprint-based Agile scrum interview questions is very common in an agile or scrum master interview.

2. What is Velocity?

Answer: Velocity question is generally posed to understand if you have done some real work and familiar with the term. Its definition “Velocity is the rate at which team progresses print by sprint” should be enough. You can also add saying the important feature of velocity that it can’t be compared to two different scrum teams.

3. What do you know about impediments in Scrum? Give some examples of impediments.

Answer: Impediments are the obstacles or issues faced by scrum team which slow down their speed of work. If something is trying to block the scrum team from their getting work “Done” then it is an impediment. Impediments can come in any form. Some of the impediments are given as –
  • Resource missing or sick team member
  • Technical, operational, organizational problems
  • Lack of management supportive system
  • Business problems
  • External issues such as weather, war etc
  • Lack of skill or knowledge
While answering impediments related agile scrum interview questions remember that you may be asked the way to remove any of the mentioned impediment.

4. What is the difference and similarity between Agile and Scrum?

Answer: Difference between Agile and Scrum – Agile is a broad spectrum, it is a methodology used for project management while Scrum is just a form of the Agile that describes the process and its steps more concisely. Agile is a practice whereas scrum is a procedure to pursue this practice.
The similarity between Agile and Scrum – The Agile involves completing projects in steps or incrementally. The Agile methodology is considered to be iterative in nature. Being a form of Agile, Scrum is same as that of the Agile. It is also incremental and iterative.

5. What is the increment? Explain.

Answer: This is one of the commonly asked agile scrum interview questions and a quick answer can be given this way. An increment is the total of all the product backlogs items completed during a sprint. Each increment includes all the previous sprint increment values as it is cumulative. It must be in the available mode in the subsequent release as it is a step to reach your goal.

6. What is the “build-breaker”?

Answer: The build-breaker is a situation that arises when there is a bug in the software. Due to this sudden unexpected bug, compilation process stops or execution fails or a warning is generated. The responsibility of the tester is then to get the software back to the normal working stage removing the bug.

7. What do you understand by Daily Stand-Up?

Answer: You may surely get an interview question about daily stand-up. So, what should be the answer to this question? The daily stand-up is an everyday meeting (most preferably held in the morning) in which the whole team meets for almost 15 minutes to find answer to the following three questions –
  • What was done yesterday?
  • What is your plan for today?
  • Is there any impediment or block that restricts you from completing your task?
The daily stand-up is an effective way to motivate the team and make them set a goal for the day.

8. What do you know about Scrum ban?

Answer: Scrum-ban is a Scrum and Kanban-based model for the software development. This model is specifically used for the projects that need continuous maintenance, have various programming errors or have some sudden changes. This model promotes the completion of a project in minimum time for a programming error or user story.

Agile Interview Questions

In this section, we are going to cover Agile interview questions. You should be prepared for the agile interview with the following agile interview questions.

9. State some of the Agile quality strategies.

Answer: Some of the Agile quality strategies are –
  • Iteration
  • Re-factoring
  • Dynamic code analysis
  • Short feedback cycles
  • Reviews and inspection
  • Standards and guidelines
  • Milestone reviews
Preparing for PMI-ACP certification? Know your current level of preparation with Whizlabs PMI-ACP Free Test.

10. Do you know about Agile Manifesto & its Principles? Explain in brief.

Answer: This is the theory which most of agile/scrum roles aspirant should be on tips. Four manifesto values and 12 principles should be explained as much as possible as part of this question. Even if it’s not explained in 100% accurate manner it should be fine but intentions of values and principles should come out e.g.
  • Working Software should be demonstrated at regular intervals
  • Individuals & interaction – self-organization, self-motivating should be encouraged
  • Customer collaboration
  • Welcoming change at any point in time in the project

11. Is there any drawback of the Agile model? If yes, explain.

Answer: Yes, there are some drawbacks of the Agile model, some of them are as follows –
  1. It is not easy to make a prediction about the effort required to complete a task. It becomes more problematic in case of large projects as it becomes difficult to get an idea of the total effort required.
  2. At sometimes, it’s not possible to properly focus on the design and documentation of the project
  3. In case the requirements of the client are not understood properly, the final project will not meet the customer requirements. Thus, it will lead to the customer dissatisfaction.
  4. Only the leader who has considerable experience in Agile methodologies is capable to take important decisions. The team members with little or no experience are not involved in decision-making, thus they don’t get chance to advance their knowledge.
It’s not always the case that you will be asked the questions about the characteristics and advantages of the agile and scrum in an agile scrum interview. So, just prepare yourself for the drawbacks and disadvantages related agile scrum interview questions.

12. What is the use of burn-up and burn-down charts?

Answer: The burn-up chart illustrates the amount of completed work in a project whereas the burn-down chart depicts the amount of work remained to complete a project. Thus, the burn-up and burn-down charts are used to trace the progress of a project.

13. Define Zero Sprint and Spike in Agile.

Answer: To answer this question, describe Zero Sprint and Agile in detail, as follows –
Zero sprint – Zero Sprint can be defined as the preparation step of the first sprint in Agile. There are some activities that are required to be done before actually starting the project. These activities are considered as the Zero sprint; the examples of such activities are – setting the environment for development, preparation of backlogs etc.
Spike – Spike is the type of story that can be taken between the sprints. Spikes are commonly used for the activities related to the design or technical issues such as research, design, prototyping, and exploration. There are two types of spikes – functional spikes and technical spikes.