How is scrum different from waterfall?
The feedback from the customer is received at an early stage in Scrum than waterfall, whereas the feedback from the customer is received towards the end of the development cycle.
Accommodate the new or changed requirement in scrum is easier than the waterfall.
Scrum focuses on collaborative development than waterfall where the entire development cycle is divided into phases.
At any point of time, we can roll back the changes in scrum than in waterfall.
Testing is considered a phase in the waterfall, unlike scrum.
What are the ceremonies you perform in the scrum?
- Planning Meeting: Here, the entire scrum teams along with the scrum master and product owner meet to discuss each item from the product backlog that they can work on the sprint. When the story is estimated and is well understood by the team, the story then moves into the Sprint Backlog.
- Review Meeting: Here, the scrum team demonstrates their work done to the stakeholders.
- Retrospective meeting: Here, the scrum teams along with the scrum master and product owner meet to retrospect the last sprint they worked on.
What are the roles of a Scrum Master and Product owner?
- Scrum Master: Acts as a Servant Leader for the scrum team. He presides over all the scrum ceremonies and coaches the team to understand and implement scrum values and principals.
- Product Owner: Is the point of contact for a scrum team. He/she is the one who works closest to the business. The main responsibility of a product owner is to identify and refine the product backlog items.
How do you create the Burn-Down chart?
Burn-down chart is a graph that shows the estimated v/s actual effort of the scrum tasks. It is a tracking mechanism by which for a particular sprint; day to day tasks are tracked to check whether the stories are progressing towards the completion of the committed story points or not. Here, we should remember that the efforts are measured in terms of user stories and not hours.
What do you do in a sprint review and retrospective?
- During Sprint review we walk-through and demonstrate the feature or story implemented by the scrum team to the stakeholders.
- During Retrospective, we try to identify in a collaborative way what went well, what could be done better and action items to have continuous improvement.
Where does automation fit into scrum?
Automation plays a vital role in Scrum. In order to have continuous feedback and ensure the quality deliverables we should try to implement TDD, BDD, and ATDD approaches during our development. Automation in scrum is not only related to testing but it is for all aspects of software development.
As I said before introducing TDD, BDD and ATDD will speed up our development process along with maintaining the quality standards; automating the build and deployment process will also speed up the feature availability in different environments – QA to production.
What is DoD? How is this achieved?
DoD stands for Definition of Done. It is achieved when the story is development complete
- QA complete
- The story meets and satisfies the acceptance criteria
- Regression around the story is complete
- The feature is eligible to be shipped/deployed in production.
What is the duration of a scrum sprint?
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.
What do you know about impediments in Scrum? Give some examples of impediments.
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
What is the difference and similarity between Agile and Scrum?
- 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.
What is the “build-breaker”?
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.
What do you know about Scrum ban?
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.
What is the role of Sashimi in Scrum methodology?
Sashimi plays an important role in Scrum methodology. Sashimi is a technique used by Scrum to check the completion of all the functions created by the developers. Using this technique, all the requirements such as analysis, designing, coding, testing and documentation that are used in the constitution of a product are checked and only after that the product is displayed.
What are different ceremonies and their importance in Scrum?
Scrum planning, Scrum – Daily stand up, Scrum review & scrum retrospective ceremonies should be clearly expressed with the purpose of the ceremony. It’s important to remember the time-boxing of the ceremonies for a standard 4 weeks of Sprint or as per the Sprint you have used in your projects.
What do you know about a story point in Scrum?
A story point in Scrum is the unit for the estimation of total efforts that are required to perform or complete a particular task. So, here is how you can answer such agile scrum interview questions on a single line.
What are the responsibilities of a Scrum Master?
Key responsibilities of a Scrum Master involves:
- Tracking and monitoring
- Understanding requirements properly
- Work to reach the project goal
- Process checking master and quality master
- Protect the team from detachments
- Improving the performance of the team
- Lead the meetings and resolve issues
- Resolution of conflicts and impediments
- Communication and reporting
Do you see any disadvantage of using scrum?
I don’t see any disadvantage of using scrum. The problems mainly arise when the scrum team do not either understand the values and principles of the scrum or are not flexible enough to change.
Apart from planning, review, and retrospective, do you know any other ceremony in scrum?
We have the Product Backlog Refinement meeting (backlog grooming meeting) where the team, scrum master and product owner meets to understand the business requirements, splits it into user stories, and estimating it.
What is the most important function of a Scrum master?
Scrum masters guide the progress of a project and are heavily involved in planning realistic goals for their team. Even if you aren’t interviewing for a Scrum master position, your response will demonstrate your general knowledge of this method. When preparing an answer, reflect on past projects, and provide specific examples of Scrum master functions.
What is zero planning?
Zero planning, also sometimes called zero sprint, is the preparation part of a project cycle. In your interview, try to explain what zero planning is and why it exists in the Scrum framework to demonstrate that you understand its important function. To provide a thorough answer, consider describing your personal experience with zero planning and how you successfully prepare for projects.
What is the importance of a product backlog?
A product backlog is a collection of tasks that help plan for and complete goals. Your response should demonstrate your critical thinking skills and your ability to define goals and steps clearly. Craft an answer that explains what you believe is most important about product backlogs. Try to give a specific example of how you planned and used a backlog to work through a project successfully.
What is the function of stand-ups?
Stand-ups, or daily scrums, are short meetings that help team members plan the rest of their workday. During a stand-up, each team member explains their progress on tasks and the work they expect to complete that day. Understanding the purpose of stand-ups will reflect time-management and planning skills. When you prepare an answer, consider defining stand-ups and how you use them to schedule the rest of your day and week.
Tell me about a time you encountered an impediment during a project.
Impediments, or blockers, are obstacles you encounter during a project. Being able to quickly identify and resolve impediments shows interviewers that you can use critical thinking and problem-solving abilities to overcome a challenge. Your answer can illustrate any specific skills you employed to address an impediment. Use the STAR method to create a specific answer to this situational question.