Questions for an Agile Interview Stay Updated!

Agile is a framework – scrum is a type of agile development popular for software. This has lead to high demand for Scrum practitioners. If you want to grab a position of the Scrum Master or Agile Coach, you are likely to confront the following agile and scrum interview questions most recruiters ask during the selection of the right candidate. Though these questions might not turn an interviewer into an agile expert, it will definitely determine whether an interviewee has the experience of working in the agile trenches.

Let’s get started.

How is scrum different from waterfall?

The major differences between Scrum and Waterfall are:

• Scrum facilitates early feedback from a customer during a development cycle whereas waterfall involves the feedback from a customer at the end of a development cycle.
• Scrum accommodates new requirements faster than waterfall.
• Scrum fosters collaborative development as compared to the waterfall method where the entire development cycle is divided into different phases.
• Unlike the Waterfall method, Scrum does not have a specific time for implementing changes. Additionally, rolling back changes in Waterfall is not easy.
• Testing is not a phase in Scrum, but Waterfall considers it one.

Can smaller organizations implement Scrum?

Yes, Scrum is suitable for small organizations. Moreover, you would require less recognition for faster scrum application. If any organization, big or small, does not know how to implement agile and scrum to their work processes, the Agile and scrum training can help to get hands on the basic concepts of both and make them part of business culture successfully.

Top two best practices of Scrum that SMBs can implement are :

• Dividing your staff into small teams.
• Quick and efficient communication during meetings.

The principles of Agile Software Development are:

1. The aim of Agile is of continuous delivery of the business software with utmost client satisfaction.
2. Early or late, changes are always welcome.        
3. Working software delivery should be the highest priority.
4. Collaboration is important between business units and developers with transparency on a daily basis throughout the project.
5. Motivated individuals are important to build projects
6. Face to face interactions is important to keep up trust and collaboration within teams.
7. Measure the progress on the basis of how fast you deliver working software.
8. Keep up a constant pace
9. Keep your focus towards technical excellence
10. Simplicity – ideas for maximizing the amount of work not done are important
11. Foster the culture of self-organizing teams
12. A regular meeting to discover new strategies for improving efficiency and fine-tuning the existing ones are vital.

What does a scrum burndown chart have?

A scrum burndown chart consists of

• Guidelines for ideal effort
• Real progress of the effort
• X-axis describes working days
• Y-axis describes the remaining effort

What do you mean by Zero Sprint and Spike in Agile.

To answer this question, describe Zero Sprint and Agile in detail, as follows –

• Zero sprint – It is the preparation step of an Agile first sprint. It involves some activities that are required to be performed before the project begins. These are the Zero sprint activities; the examples of them are – preparing the backlog environment etc.
• Spike – It can be done between the sprints. The use of Spike is common during design or technical issues, for example, research, design, prototyping, and exploration. There are two types of Spikes – functional spikes and technical spikes.

What happens in the Sprint planning meeting.

A Product Owner explains the goal of the sprint and mentions the high priority product backlog items during the sprint planning. Then the Delivery team prioritizes the amount of work for the next sprint.

Mention what is the difference between Sprint and Iteration in Scrum?

Iteration: Iteration is a terminology that is being used to describe single development cycle in agile methods. This term frequently occurs in the iterative and incremental development process. It is often considered a timebox in an agile project and includes the development phase. Its duration depends on a project’s requirements and usually lasts for four weeks.

Sprint: Sprint refers to defining one development cycle or iterative step in a particular agile method called as Scrum. Sprint is scrum typical, and all iterations are Sprints.

Did you use automated test tools on your projects? Explain how that worked.

The members of an Agile project team should know how to use automated testing tools for performance testing during iterations. The result of each iteration should be something your client wants to “see.” Automated testing results in quick identification and differentiation of development defects along with the ability to test development work completed in previous iterations.

When can we use waterfall over Scrum?

There are some cases when you can use waterfall model over Scrum. This is done when the project requirements are well-defined, predictable and require minimal changes until the completion of a project.

Name some methodologies of the Agile model.

When you are being asked this question, make sure you mention those methodologies you are familiar with. Moreover, you can even mention the following methodologies.

• Lean software development
• Dynamic development
• Crystal methodologies
• Feature-driven development

What is velocity?

An approximate number of points from the earlier 3 – 4 sprints in a scrum is called velocity. It helps predict when backlog items will be delivered.

Conclusion

Though questions about agile and scrum interview are many, you need to make sure whatever you mention should be meaningful and follows the latest standards. You can skim over other blogs, webinars, PDFs, ebooks, and much more to dig deeper and get your dream job.