scrum Masters are accountable for establishing scrum in their organization and the effectiveness
of the scrum team how do we test that you are up for the job there are a few common
interview questions that I like to ask when I'm recruiting for the scrum Master job and
I'd like to share those with you for potential candidates this can remove some of the stress
during preparation for your upcoming interview and for recruiters this can help you find the
right candidate that will bring the best results for your teams watch the video to find out more
hey it's Daria here welcome in this video I'd like to share some common scrum Master interview
questions with you I have an older video called how to introduce scrum Masters where I share some
insights into the interview process as well as more from the point of view of a recruiter here
I'd like to focus more on the candidate side of things now an important disclaimer is there isn't
really one way to answer those questions and I won't be giving you a script to learn by heart
really it's to give you a more structured approach for preparing for the interview and the job which
you won't be able to do if you don't know the scrum Master role and scrum at all if you need
guidance with exact action plans from day one on the job check out my scrum Master startup guide
for in-depth explanation of daily activities goals and templates you can use right away I'll put the
link in the description before we jump into the actual questions let's talk about some overall
knowledge skills and traits we are looking for in the scrum Master interview knowledge skills and
traits since the scrum Master is accountable for establishing scrum in the organization of course
the knowledge of scrum is essential just having a certificate or having attended a class is not
enough obviously it's more about how well you understand the framework and its application in
real life that will involve the understanding of every element of scrum every role every event and
artifact then since you will be working with teams it's important that you have good communication
and people skills it may relate to being able to resolve conflict present and negotiate influence
others and more often I also like to check the knowledge and understanding of popular agile
practices to see if the person will be able to pick up the teams current implementation as is
and gradually make improvements to it and then of course depending on what the organization
and team needs right now there might be some other important elements to verify so some more specific
questions for example if I'm hiring someone who will need to work alone on a larger organizational
transformation I'd be asking questions related to Executive coaching stakeholder management larger
scale training experience and more importantly ability to work independently without guidance
or if I have specific challenges in the team I might be looking for someone who has experience
with similar situations okay that's a brief overview of skills and knowledge I would be
looking for in a potential candidate in general now let's jump into the exact interview questions
I'll review five popular questions and give you a general idea of how you would want to approach
answering them without giving you the answer of course stay until the end to hear my answer to the
most popular interview question that I've gotten one what is agile and what is Scrum I'd say that's
an obvious one yes I usually would check for certification on the resume if the person doesn't
have scrum Master experience for example but even if they do have either or even both I would want
to check how well they actually know scrum and their role for example a popular question would
be something along the lines of could you describe scrum to me briefly in a couple of minutes this is
a very important question that you should be able to answer without a second thought this is where
you can show your ability to teach as well as your knowledge of scrum of course I would recommend
actually preparing a short explanation that you can learn by heart and of like an elevator page
that you can take with you in every interview that way you won't be caught off guard by this question
why should companies Implement agile what's the point this is kind of an add-on to the previous
question when I asked this question I'm trying to see the overall understanding of agile values and
principles do you know why companies Implement agile does agile apply to every business what
challenges agile helps overcome and are there any drawbacks to implement in agile if you aren't sure
how to answer these questions you need to do some studying and it's not just about surface
level understanding but about practical view on the agile values and principles because in the
end the scrum Master needs to teach others how to become more effective using the scrum framework
not just implement the process in itself think of Concepts like customer value adaptability
collaboration and more I talked a bit about this in my video are agile and scrum the same thing so
you can go and watch this one right after the the video here to learn a bit more and if you'd like
to have an expert understanding of agile and learn how to implement these principles in practice
check out my online course fundamentals of agile it contains over five hours of video and over 170
pages of actionable worksheets designed to help you build knowledge and confidence you need to
coach others I put the link in the description as always what you like and dislike about the role of
a scrum master I use this question for two primary reasons first it allows me to assess the person's
knowledge and understanding of the role itself if they talk about the work they love that is fully
aligned with the role I know they understand it really well but if they are sharing something that
technically scrum Masters shouldn't be focusing on unless absolutely necessary I will be concerned
especially if they talk about something they love to do that is not part of the role it means they
will have tendency to go towards it which will inevitably reduce the time and effort they spend
on what's truly important for scrum Masters second it shows the person's strengths and weaknesses
let's be honest we are usually good at what we love and not as good at what we dislike that way
I can can see where this person might need some training and coaching and whether it is lined
with the needs of the team and what I can offer to them if they come on board what are the common
challenges that you have seen when a company is going through an agile transformation that is a
great question and I absolutely love it I don't always ask it but it's a great one that I kind of
have up my sleeve whenever I need to ask something more challenging this question is a way to gauge
how well the person is familiar with agile and scrum and what kind of challenges they have seen
previously it's also an opportunity to ask how they address these kind of challenges however even
if the person doesn't have a lot of experience they should be able to recognize some of the most
common issues they will most likely be facing since change management is a big part of the
scrum Master role another important detail that I would pay attention to is how they talk about the
challenges are they looking for someone to blame or are they talking about collaboration patience
and coaching scenario based questions this is a big set of questions rather than a single question
really and honestly usually scenarios take the most time in a scrum Master interview the exact
questions will depend on the organization and the team and will usually be related to the practices
and tools they're using as well as typical challenges they face kind of challenges they
want your help with most likely for example once I was looking for a scrum Master for a
team of Highly opinionated and very direct people I myself appreciated this a lot and I knew how to
deal with it but at the same time I knew that some people might have trouble working with people like
that so I would ask questions like what is your experience working with very opinionated people
with strong personalities or let's imagine there is a conflict between a senior developer and a vpu
of sales that is unfolding in a product planning meeting how do you facilitate the discussion other
examples of scenario based questions are for example your team has been delivering 13 story
points exactly for the past several sprints what are your thoughts on this how would you facilitate
a retrospective in a team after a particularly difficult Sprint or the product owner has trouble
keeping up with the product backlog it's often empty and it takes a long time to get new tasks
from the product owner when needed what do you do these are just a few examples of course and I
know you most likely want me to give you answers to these questions here's the thing there is no
right answer there might be some very very wrong answers however that go against agile values and
principles but when I ask those questions I'm not expecting something in particular I just want to
see how the person thinks their past experiences dealing with similar situations or how they
can draw from other experiences to approach the scenario if they have never lived it themselves
your questions okay we've covered some important questions you might be asked during the interview
but it's not only about the questions the employer has for you but also about the questions that you
should have for your potential employer I'd say it would be a bit suspicious if the candidate
doesn't have any questions but it's also a very important part for you because this is how you
can assess whether the company is the right fit for you at least at a very minimum level think
of questions that might help you understand the situation and the challenges the team experiences
as well as the management view on it for example how many teams are they expecting you to support
do they have a dedicated product owner what are the common issues and challenges that the
management sees or what is the biggest pain point they would like you to get resolved for them ASAP
if you didn't get a good introduction to the team ask to give you a quick lay of the land
at least and while you are listening to that or view some new questions May pop up into your
head where you'd want to get some clarifications as well tools and practices one more thing I'd
like to quickly add here is questions related to tools you might need to be familiar with or
popular agile practices I started sharing some tutorials for useful tools for scrum Masters so
stay tuned for those And subscribe to this YouTube channel to get notified whenever I
release a new video now as I promised I'd like to give you my answer to one of the popular
interview questions and I'm going to answer it live without a script and the question is what
do you like and dislike about the role of a scrum master I personally really love the scrum Master
role because it allows me to help people become more effective to help teams and organizations
deliver great products and I can see the results of my work more in the long term but I don't need
to be involved in every single step and instead kind of setting people up for success and I think
when the team achieves great results I feel really good it just makes me feel good I really love this
experience obviously this is not something that just comes in and you often don't get praised
for it actually because all of the things that you implement as a scrum Master are indirect though it
is fine with me I know that it might be kind of a negative part of the scrum Master role but at the
same time I'm totally okay with that as long as I know that my team is being successful what I just
like is I think the fact that there are lots of people who believe they have a good knowledge and
understand your vigilance scrum while they really don't have it they have very little knowledge kind
of not understanding where they are at and it's okay obviously to not have that knowledge but a
lot of people are not willing to listen especially to a scrum master who technically doesn't have any
Authority so I think that is kind of the part that slows down progress for a lot of teams and
I wish that was not an issue because then I would be able to help teams much more effectively share
in the comments below what you like and dislike about the role it can give you Clarity on why you
should or maybe shouldn't be a scrum master and of course I'm always interested in hearing your
thoughts I hope you learned something new and if you did like this video leave a comment and
subscribe for more content like this and I'll see you in the next video cheers and scrum on foreign
[Music]