CSM Interview Questions

1. Why Scrum is a framework instead of a Process/Methodology/Technique?

Scrum does not explain the “how” part of the Scrum. Example: Scrum says the Product Backlog should be
prioritized by Product Owner but it does not mandate any techniques to prioritize. Frameworks are used
by builders and not the end users.

2. What is the duration of a sprint according to Scrum and who decides it?
As per Scrum Guide, the Sprint should be not more than one calendar month. However, it can be any
duration within less than a month and it will be collaboratively decided by Scrum Team.

3. What is Velocity?
“Velocity is the pace (rate) at which a Development team delivers working software in a Sprint” It is the
cumulative story points of the Stories that are completed (met the Definition of done).

4. What do you know about impediments in Scrum? Who should resolve them? Give some
examples of impediments.
Impediments are anything that will either slowdown or block the Development Team. Impediments are
of two types: Team level; where they have power, ability and knowledge to resolve on their own.
Global/Systemic; these are taken care by Scrum Master where the team does not have
Power/Ability/Knowledge to resolve on their own.

Examples:
• Dependency with other teams (example an API to be provided by other team)
• Process related such as approval to install a software or to procure hardware

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

Agile is a mindset with a state of “Being” whereas Scrum is a framework aligned with Agile mindset with
a state of “doing”. Scrum is aligned with the 4 values and 12 principles of Agile manifesto.

6. What is the increment and what is the purpose of it?

Increment is the output created by the Development team as per the Sprint Goal that was agreed during
Sprint planning and using the selected Sprint Backlog items. Increment should be potentially releasable,
by making sure it meets the team’s definition of done. Increment enhances the Transparency and helps
to create value to the customers.

7. What is the meaning “build-breaker” situation?

The build-breaker is a situation that arises when there is a bug or defect in the software that blocks the
compilation to be abruptly ended. The Development team should fix the issue with their collaborative
effort and get to the normal to continue further. Stop starting – Start finishing is the concept behind this
fixing.

8. What do you know about the Daily Scrum?

Daily Scrum is a planning and knowledge sharing meeting for the Development team to inspect the Sprint
Goal based on the last 24 hours progress and to adapt the Sprint backlog with current day’s work. Daily
Scrum is a synchronization meeting for Development Team to encourage self-organization and enhance
transparency.
 9. What do you know about Scrum ban?
Scrumban combines Scrum and Kanban and contains the best rules and practices of both methods. On
one hand, it uses the sanctioned nature of Scrum to be Agile, on the other it encourages teams to
constantly improve their processes along with Kanban’s aim of continuous improvement (Kaizen).

State some of the strategies that enhance the quality.

• Coding standards
• Pair programming
• Re-factoring
• Short feedback cycles
• Continuous integration
• Branching strategies
• Simple design

10. What do you know about Agile Manifesto?

Agile manifesto was created in 2001 by 17 software development leaders. Objective of the Agile Manifesto
was to identify an alternate approach for waterfall model. There are 4 values and 12 principles in Agile
Manifesto. Below is the brief:

4 Values:
• Individuals and interactions OVER processes and Tools
• Working software OVER Comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration OVER Contract negotiation
• Responding to change OVER Following a plan

Short form of 12 Principles:

• Early & continuous delivery of valuable software
• Open to receive late changes
• Iterative and incremental delivery with short cycles
• Business and IT collaboration
• Trust and empowering Teams
• Face to face communication
• Value based progress tracking
• Maintain sustainable pace
• Sustainable pace of development and delivery
• Continuous technical improvements (emerging architecture)
• Less is more (prioritization based on value)
• Self-organized teams
• Periodic inspect and adapt to become better

11. What are the drawback of the Agile way of Delivery?

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 the project upfront as the
requirements are evolving.
2. It is not possible to create end-to-end architecture and design in Agile as the architecture emerges.
So if there are changes at very late that impact the design and Architecture, it may take more cost.

3. Limited (just in time) documentation may lead to information non-availability.

4. If teams misuse self-organization and empowerment, it will lead to low productivity issues or lack of
accountability issues.

12. Explain the use of burn-up and burn-down charts in a Scrum Project?
Burnup and Burndown charts are not part of core Scrum, but they provide the Development Team and
the Product Owner a way to track the progress at Sprint Level and overall Project Progress. Burndown
helps to track work remaining against Sprint time and burnup helps to track work done against release
time. Sprint level tracking is done by the Development team and Project level tracking is done by the
Product owner. Both burnup and burndown can be used at Sprint level and Project level. Sprint level
(burndown/burnup) should ideally be updated by Development Team as and when they complete an item
during the Sprint or at least once in a day. Release level (burndown/burnup) should be updated by the
Product Owner at the end of every Sprint before going to Sprint Review. This helps the Product Owner to
make scope vs time trade-off decisions.

13. What is Sprint 0 in Scrum?

There is no Sprint Zero, some teams use this concept to show their preparation work. Scrum does not talk
about Sprint zero. You can start the first Sprint with bare minimum planning so that you can become
rhythmic and be predictable.

14. What is the role of the Scrum Master?

The scrum master is responsible for Scrum process framework implementation within the team and the
organization. He/she is Scrum expert, change agent, visibility enhancer, protector of the Team, Facilitator,
Coach, Mentor. He helps the team to be self-organized and cross-functional. He helps the Product owner
to effectively manage the Product backlog. He promotes collaborative environment between the Product
owner and the Development team. Overall, it is a Servant leadership role, where there is no authority
over People.

15. What do you know about a story point estimation?

Story point estimate is a relative size given to the Product Backlog Items (user stories) with respect to
complexity, uncertainty and volume of work involved. The size is given by taking one or two reference
items and comparing the rest of the items with those references.

16. What is the role of Sashimi in Scrum?

Scrum does not talk about Sashimi as a recommended method. Sashimi means “pierced body” just like a
sliced fish. Sashimi is a technique can be used by Scrum teams 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 backlog item are implemented
properly. This helps the team to get more clarity on backlog items and also helps them to manage and
track their work effectively. This also improves collaboration within the Development Team because
multiple people can take each peace and swarm to complete that backlog item.

17. What are the different roles in Scrum?

Scrum team is composed with 3 roles
Product owner – Responsible for the Product end-to-end. He represents the customers and creates their
wishes and desires and needs into a Product Backlog and manages that backlog through prioritization.
Development team – A set of cross-functional skilled people who are responsible for creating the Product
increment as per the priority decided by the Product owner. These are technical people.
Scrum master – Scrum master is the leader and the coach for the scrum team who checks whether the
scrum team is following Scrum properly or not. He/she is also creates a protected environment for the
Development team so that they can focus on the goal.

18. What are the typical responsibilities of a Scrum Master?

• Helps team to become self-organized, cross-functional
• Ensures Scrum is implemented properly
• Ensures Product owner and the Development Team are collaborative
• Protect the team from external or internal disturbances
• Improving the performance of the team through coaching
• Facilitation support to Development Team and Product owner as needed
• Resolution of conflicts within the Development team or between Product owner and the
Development Team
• Removes Global/systemic impediments

19. What are different events defined in Scrum?

Scrum has 5 events: Sprint is a container event which is timeboxed to a maximum of one month or less.
Within the Sprint there are: Sprint planning (on the first day), Daily Scrum (every day), Sprint Review and
Retrospective (last day). These are inspect and adapt opportunities for the Scrum Team. Sprints create a
rhythmic way of working that enables predictability.

20. What Agile testing?

A software testing practice that follows the principles of agile software development is called Agile
Testing. Agile is an iterative and incremental development approach, where requirements evolve through
collaboration between the customer and self-organizing teams and agile aligns development with
customer needs. So instead of doing testing at the end of the project like in traditional way, Agile testing
goes hand in hand with the development and testing also done continuously. This helps uncovering
defects early and fix them early and continuously.

21. What are some key principles of Agile testing?

22. What are the skills of a good Agile Tester?

• Agile by nature
• Familiar with values and principles of Agile
• Able to collaborate with the Developers
• Ability to set priority for the tasks according to the requirements
• Should be able to understand the requirements properly
• Good to have some Development understanding such as understand the code
• Having automation skills
 23. What is “Scrum of Scrums”?
Scrum of Scrums is a coordination and dependency management meeting when multiple teams work on
same Project/Product. Just like Daily Scrum for a single team, Scrum of Scrums happen across multiple
teams but the frequency may not be daily. It is a collaboration meeting with the each team representatives
come together and discuss dependencies, inter team impediments in Scrum of Scrums. It is also called as
“Meta Scrum”. This is not for Scrum masters of the teams, instead the Development Team representatives
from each team participate in Scrum of Scrums.

24. What other Agile frameworks you know?

• eXtreme Programming (XP)
• Feature Driven Development
• Crystal

25. What are some agile metrics?

• Earned business value – Earned business value helps to check how the value delivery happens within
the Product over time.
• Escaped defects – Helps to identify how the defects are leaked post release and helps the team
identify respective measures to control them

• Release Burn Down/up – Release burndown helps to see whether remaining work can be done in
remaining Sprints or not and accordingly make time vs scope trade off decisions
• Cumulative Flow Diagram – CFD helps to identify the bottleneck in the work and team can identify
fixes for the bottleneck to make smooth flow

• Net promoter Score – Helps to identify customer satisfaction about the Product

• Failed Deployments – Tracking # of failed deployments will help to see how the teams are creating
potentially releasable increments

26. In what situation you will use waterfall over Scrum?

It is decided based on the problem domain. If the problem domain is Simple (know is more than unknown
and things do not change in between), it is better to user waterfall. Scrum is more suitable for complex
(unknown is more than known and things are unpredictable) problems because of the empiricism.

27. How does automated testing help for Scrum projects?

Though Scrum does not mandate the use of automated (automated performance or automated
regression) testing, it will certainly speed up the if teams follow automated testing. Right from the
beginning, if teams practice automation for unit, regression, security, performance, integration testing, it
will help teams to be more agile as these automation tests act as safety net for the components.

28. What is “Planning Poker” estimation technique?

Planning Poker is a relative sizing estimation technique to estimate the Product Backlog Items. The
Development Team uses this technique to estimate the Product Backlog Items in Product Backlog
Refinement or in Sprint Planning. This is a consensus based estimation technique that uses one or two
reference items based on complexity, uncertainty and volume of work. Teams will use their collective
knowledge and experience to arrive consensus. Usually modified Fibonacci numbers are used in Planning
poker: 0, ½, 1,2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100, …
 29. What is the duration of your current Project Sprint?
This is probably the most common question asked in agile interviews. The idea here is to judge in which
kind of environment you have worked. There will be definitely follow up question like was this length fixed
in the beginning and never changed? Who has decides the duration? What was your role as Scrum Master
in Sprint Duration? Have you tried with more than this length or less than that? Etc So be prepared to
answer accordingly.

30. What is the biggest challenge you faced in Scrum Master role?
This question is asked to validate your experience in the Scrum Master role. You need to identify one
challenge that you experience in your career related to leadership, inter team dependency management,
Timeboxing, collaboration between Product Owner and Development Team, Scrum implementation etc.
It should be a real challenge instead of a cooked up one.

31. What is impediment and tell me one impediment that you removed as Scrum Master recently?
Impediment is anything that slows down or block the Development Team. Impediments can be team level
or Global/Systemic. As Scrum Master my responsibility is to focus more on Global/Systemic as the team
may not have power, ability or knowledge to resolve them on their own. After this explanation you have
to explain one of the impediments that you have resolved recently, preferably a Global/Systemic one.

32. How agile is different from traditional way of working?

The traditional way is sequential whereas agile is iterative and incremental. In Traditional we generally
push back the changes but in agile we are flexible with changes based on the value. In traditional the
teams work in silos but in Agile teams work as single unit with team level accountability. Traditional
projects are tracked through milestone based whereas in agile the progress is tracked based on working
software (value)

33. What is the difference between Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective?
Sprint Review is to inspect the Product with Stakeholders and adapt the Product Backlog if needed based
on their feedback. Sprint Retrospective is to inspect and adapt the Scrum team itself with respect to
people, collaboration, tools, practices, techniques and so on and to come up with an actionable
improvement plan. Sprint Review will have Scrum Team and also Stakeholders whereas Sprint
Retrospective will have only Scrum Team. Sprint Review duration is maximum 4 hours for one month
Sprint and Sprint Retrospective is 3 hours for one month Sprint.

34. Why do you think CSM certification is useful?

Going through a training and taking certification exam helped me to unlearn few things and relearn new
things. It also helped me understand some most common anti-patterns that are used by organizations
and how to address them from the training. It was a great learning experience through the networking
happened during the training, as people have joined from different organizations. In my personal
experience, knowledge is primary and the certification is the by-product.

35. What is a Spike in Agile software Development?

Spike is the type of story that is used to have more understanding or to get a confident estimates by
Development Team. 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.
 36. Who decides the Sprint duration and how?
Scrum team collaboratively decides the Sprint duration. Development Team size, their skill set, stability
of Product backlog (how frequently prioritization changes), overall project duration, how frequently
customers want to see the product and give feedback, organizational barriers or influencers will help
Scrum team to decide the Sprint duration.

37. What is the role of a Scrum Master in Sprint duration decision?

Scrum Master facilitates the decision of Sprint duration between Product Owner and Development to
ensure the following:

• Product Owner and Development come to a consensus on the duration

• If they come to a decision that is more than a month, then Scrum Master will remind the allowed
timebox is one month or less and ask them to come up with a duration within that

• If they cannot come to a consensus then after certain discussion Scrum Master can tell them to start
with a duration and inspect and adapt at the end to see what can be done

38. What is Definition of Done and who and when decides the Definition of Done?
Definition of Done is a quality criteria checklist that helps the Development team to create potentially
releasable Product increment. While the proposal for the items in Definition of Done are from
Development Team, it brings shared understanding within Scrum team on what “Done” means. Definition
of Done is created before Sprint Planning. Sprint retrospective is a formal opportunity to inspect and adapt
the Definition of done.

39. Can Definition of Done be changed during the Sprint?

Usually it is not a good practice because it impacts the current Sprint items and there by the team may
not be able to achieve the Sprint Goal. However, if the changes to the Definition of Done do not endanger
the Sprint goal, it may be changed with a consensus of all Development Team members.

40. What is the difference between Acceptance criteria and Definition of done?
Acceptance criteria is related to functionality and is applied at Product backlog item level, Definition of
done is related to quality and applied at the entire Product Backlog level.

41. What is Definition of Ready?

Scrum does not have Definition of Ready, but some teams may follow this is a criteria that decides whether
a Product Backlog Item is ready to be pulled into Sprint or not. All scrum says is to have a list of items in
the Product backlog “ready” by the time Scrum team comes to the Sprint planning.

42. Why Product backlog is incomplete?

Scrum is meant for “complex” products. Complex means unknown is more than known. So it is not
possible to know all the requirements upfront for a project at the beginning. The more we get into the
Project the more we learn based on user interactions and frequent releases so the more changes may be
uncovered. Hence, product backlog is incomplete.

43. You have been just hired as a new Scrum Master. The team you’re going to work with doesn’t
have any experience in Agile and is very sceptical about Scrum. They want to focus only on
 coding and don’t want to track their progress or attend any meetings. How do you influence
and motivate them to use Scrum?
I first interact with all the team members to observe their current challenges in their current way of
working. I shall give my commitment to them from supporting point of view to get their trust. Then I shall
ask the teams, while we continue what we are doing, what are the top 3 challenges and issues with current
way of working. I shall try my best to support them in addressing. This will help me to get even more trust
with the team. Then I shall just introduce “Daily Scrum” without even telling Scrum and Agile to the team.
Everyday a 15 minutes of sync up meeting with all Development team. After few days I shall ask them if
they find that useful. I am sure they will find it useful because transparency will improve, team
collaboration will improve. Then slowly I shall introduce retrospective at a cadence of 2 weeks, what went
well and what went wrong in the last two weeks and what can be improved. This will get confidence to
the team because they see small improvements. Then I shall ask them how about a one day training on
Scrum and Agile? With their consent, I shall run a one day training to introduce Agile and Scrum with fun
filled activities. Then I shall ask them, shall we try few Sprints to see how it works? Like this I shall introduce
small doses and Agile and Scrum to get the team’s confidence and get them into experimental mode.

44. Product Owner doesn’t have any experience in Agile methodologies. He used to manage
Waterfall projects. He doesn’t want to participate actively in Scrum events like Sprint Planning,
Sprint Review and be available for Dev Team during Sprints. What would you do to make sure
the Scrum process is being applied?
Here I will use coaching approach. First, I shall speak to Product Owner, one on one to understand his/her
concerns. Then I shall try to address his concerns and I shall explain the Scrum Product owner role and
responsibilities to him/her. I shall also explain him/her the disadvantages of not participating in the Scrum
events such as low trust with the team, team cannot be transparent with him/her and how the overall
product development impacts because of that. I shall then ask him/her what you think you should do and
how can I help you in achieving that. This way I get trust with him and also create a feeling in him/her that
I am there to help him/her to succeed in that role. If still the situation is not improving, I shall reach out
to management/leadership to get a new Product Owner in that role.

45. You already performed Scrum training for stakeholders. After an initial phase of trying to apply
the concepts, when first obstacles/hurdles are encountered, you see that these colleagues build
serious resistance in continuing with Scrum adoption. What is your strategy/experience to
handle such situations?
In this case I take up a life example to the stakeholders. Let us say someone is learning bicycle riding. Can
he/she becomes perfect in their first ride? If they stop learning as soon as they fall for the first time will
they be able to learn bicycle? Similarly, Scrum is simple but not easy. So it needs lot of commitment,
collaboration and courage to overcome the challenges come throughout the way. So I will try to shift their
attention from not any more moving to what are the learning from the failure and how can we avoid them
next.

46. The Product owner of your Scrum team tends to add ideas of all kind to the backlog to continue
working on them at a later stage. Over time, this has led to over 200 tickets in various
stages. What is your take on that: Can the Scrum team work on 200 tickets?
First thing I shall do is to have a chat with the Product owner to check his understanding of Product Backlog
management. This includes whether he is aware of prioritization techniques, and managing the content
and order of the Product Backlog. I also check with him/her whether he is using “No” word to stakeholders
whenever any new requirement is added that does not have any value. Then I shall ask the Product Owner
to do a Product Backlog Refinement to get team’s estimates for the top important items and accordingly
facilitate the Sprint Planning. If the Product Owner has to provide tentative timelines to the stakeholders
for the prioritised tickets, then I shall help Product Owner to facilitate a release planning.

47. Your Dev Team works on a very legacy software project. Unfortunately, the team was set-up
recently and don’t have appropriate knowledge about the old platform. So far, all Sprints have
finished with very low velocity and without significant results. What would you do to help the
team achieve success?
First thing I do is to get Product Owner and the Development team together and facilitate a discussion.
Explore options on how team can get required knowledge on the legacy code base. One option that may
come is to reserve some % of team’s capacity to understand the existing code base every Sprint (example
10%). This may slow down the team temporarily but it will speed up in future. Going forward I will ask the
team to check what level of documentation is required to avoid this situation in future and get that added
to their definition of done.

48. A user story is lacking the final designs, but the design department promises to deliver on day
#2 of the upcoming sprint. The product owner of your Scrum team is fine with that and pushed
to have the user story in the sprint backlog. What is your take?
There are many angles to this question. One could be that item is the top most item that the team should
immediately start, or it may be a 3rd or 4th item in the Sprint Backlog that may start after couple of days
into the Sprint. So I shall ask the team if they are fine with this and if they are fine, I will be okay because
at the end the Development team to accept as a team. I also ask if Product Owner can provide a rough
idea on the design so that Development team can proceed. I will also ask Product Owner on how he/she
can avoid such issues in future, perhaps working with design team little advance before coming to Sprint
planning and get the high level designs ready.

49. The Product owner of your team normally turns stakeholder requirement documents into
tickets and asks to estimate them. Are you okay with that procedure?
I shall first ask the Product Owner for a product vision and ask him/her to create a Product Backlog in
order to prioritize the customer needs. I shall also facilitate a Product Backlog refinement so that team
will get an idea on the top important items and they can provide estimates. This way the work can be
executed based on value to customers and it improves transparency.

50. The project is delayed three months/has lots of dependencies/based on old technology. Do you
find this appealing/challenging for you? Have you worked in the similar situation?
I want to understand is this executed in Scrum or traditional waterfall? If it is done using Scrum, and if
Product Owner had Release burn up or burndown based approach, he/she would have envisaged much
earlier than 3 months delay. Because at the end of every Sprint Product Owner can easily find whether
the remaining scope can be done in remaining number of Sprints as per the release plan or not. This is
possible using average, best and worst velocity calculations. You can also refer brook’s law based
justification here (refer to Brook’s law in Google if you do not know). Scrum does not guarantee success
but it helps you to understand where you stand and make right decisions such as scope vs time vs cost
decisions.

51. In case you receive a story on the last day of the sprint to test, and you find there are defects,
what will you do? Will you mark the story to done?
The completeness of a User Story in a Sprint is purely decided based on the Definition of Done. For
example if the Definition of Done says there should not be any severity 1 or 2 defects but it the Story has
some lower severity defects such as cosmetic then the Product owner may accept that story and add the
defects to the Product Backlog. If the defects are of severity 1 or 2 then it is not to be accepted and moved
back to the Product backlog at appropriate location as per Product owner’s discretion. Accepting low
quality stories that do not meet the Definition of done leads to illusion of progress.

52. A team is always picking reasonable action items but is later not delivering on them. How do
you handle this habit?
Is it related to Retrospective action items? If so, I will see how many they are taking up. If they are taking
up many, obviously the focus and commitment will be poor. So in next retrospective, I shall use DOT voting
technique and help them to prioritize top 2 action items and I will use Fist of Five to check their
commitment levels to achieve those selected items. I will also help from my side during the next Sprint to
work up on those action items by reminding and get required support as and when needed.

53. The product owner chooses new features regularly and never picks bug fixes. In the end, the
crashes have to be fixed, and the tech debt is growing. Those problems are slowing down testing
and development. What would you do in short and in the mid-term?
Short term approach: I shall coach the Product Owner to review the defects and prioritize them as per
their severity and criticality in each Sprint.

Mid-term: Having a strong Definition of Done is one option I shall explore with the team.

Also, ask team to experiment automating all possible tests like regression, integration, performance test
cases.

54. Why did you decide to apply for this job?

This question is purely related to your personal choice. So accordingly you can answer. If I have to answer,
I shall check the company history, their products, their locations, their culture in websites like glass door
or mouthshut and accordingly frame my answer covering the above points.

55. What kind of project would you like to work on?

This question is purely related to personal. Everyone will have different answer for this question based on
what kind of work they are looking for. If I have to answer, a project with challenging work and learning
involved so that I can sharpen my skills by working on those challenges. Others who are technically
focused may answer they want to have a cutting edge technology based project. So it depends.

56. Describe your perfect company/organization culture.

This is a vague question. “Perfect” is different for different people. For me my perfect company would be:
Where teams are empowered and allowed to learning through experiment, where leadership is
collaborative and create a “safe-to fail” environment, where customer centric products are created,
where high transparency is managed that will be my perfect organization.

57. What are your strengths and beliefs?

You need to identify your Strengths and beliefs and answer this question accordingly. You can refer to
your core values also as part of the answer.

58. How would your Dev Team members describe you?

Again this is related to individual. My team used to describe me as “The go to person”.

59. How do you maintain a good working relationship with Dev Team members?
By being honest, transparent and always open to help them in whenever they need my support, resolving
Global/Systemic impediments, appreciating them when they did great work, protecting them from
external and internal disturbances and helping them finding them in better position time to time.

60. What type of personality types did your team have?

I broadly categorize personality types into 6: Results-oriented, Relationship-focused, Process followers,
Innovative, Pragmatic

61. Did you have a chance to work with international teams?

This is related to your own professional experience. So if you have the international teams experience you
have to tell. I suggest to be honest if you do not have.

62. How do you handle conflict situations? Provide examples.

Here you need to mention the conflict-resolution techniques such as win-win, win-lose, lose-win, lose-
lose and give one example from your experience to explain how you have used these techniques.

63. Explain Agile in 2 minutes? When should you use Agile?

Agile is a Mindset/Philosophy. It is based on inspect & adapt, Teamwork, Self-organization and
accountability. Agile is a state of being. Agile can be used to improve time to market, customer
collaboration, faster feedback, in an iterative and incremental way of value delivery.

64. How do you understand ‘Self-organizing’ concept in Scrum?

Self-organization is a pattern emerges from within instead of external control or influence. Self-
organization makes decision making decentralized and improves the accountability of the people who
makes those decisions. Self-organization also improves collaboration and teamwork.

65. What do you recommend a newly formed Scrum team works on first?
Every new team will go through the 4 stages of Tuckman ladder: Forming, Storming, Norming and
Performing. So my suggestion is to instil “Trust” within the team as soon as possible. Once they develop
Trust, it helps them to be transparent with each other and they will be able to grow together as a team.

66. What are the characteristics of a good Scrum team? How do you as a Scrum Master
facilitate that?
Self-organization and cross-functional are the two important characteristics of a good Scrum Team. Scrum
Master has to create awareness in the team as to why they should demonstrate these two characteristics
and help them through coaching, training and mentoring to achieve them. I used a “Star map” technique
to help team to check what is their current level of cross-functionality and helped them to create a plan
to improve over a period of 3 to 6 months to next level.

67. How do you measure the maturity of the Scrum process?

There can be several ways to measure the maturity of Scrum process. I used a quarterly survey within the
team and Product Owner with specific questions and each question will have a weightage based on the
answer given by the team members. Using the category wise cumulative scores I identify which area needs
immediate improvement, which areas are doing well and accordingly help the team to create an
actionable improvement plan.

68. How do you introduce Scrum to senior executives?

Executives always believe numbers. So I use some techniques such as value stream map, cumulative flow
diagram and show them where is the waste in the organization and how does it impact the organizational
growth. Once they realise the waste, I will help them to create plans through coaching. I use coaching
techniques such as ADKAR (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement)

69. How do you ensure that the Scrum team has access to the stakeholders?
By having the Product Owner explain who are the key stakeholders involved in the project and having a
kick off meeting with them and the Development team. In that I will have some working agreements
created to increase the periodic interactions between the Development Team members and the
Stakeholders and get both parties buy-in.

70. How do you spread an Agile mindset in the company across different departments and what is
your strategy to coach these non-IT stakeholders?
Based on my experience working as an enterprise Agile Coach, it is not just telling them the values and
principles, instead we need to show value. So my approach would be, asking every department to
collectively identify one improvement to achieve (it can be related to anything such as communication,
collaboration, processes within their team) and ask them to show some improvement on that selected
item in 30 days. After 30 days I will ask them to choose one more thing to improve in next 30 days. After
2 months I will ask them if they feel any better by improving the 2 items. They I will introduce the Agile
values, principles and suitable framework to them.

71. How would you prepare to kick-off transitioning to Scrum? How would you create the first
Scrum team?
I will first get the Product Owner and the Development team are allocated to the project. Then I will give
them a high level training to them to help them understanding Scrum framework and Agile values and
principles. Then I shall help them to agree on definition of done, decide a suitable Sprint duration, help
Product owner to create product backlog, help them to do initial backlog refinement, help the team to
have the required infrastructure for the development, letting them identify the coding standards, create
working agreements.

Once they are ready with the above information, they can start the Sprinting. So I shall help with
facilitating the Scrum events and also help in removing global/systemic impediments. Throughout the
Sprint I shall be available for the team and ensure they are working as a Team with high level of
collaboration, effective communication and help in resolving conflicts.

72. What kind of information would you require from the Product owner to provide the team with
an update on the product and market situation?
What is the Product Vision, Why the product is being built, what problem it is going to solve or the need
to fulfil and who are the critical stakeholders, in what kind of market the product is going to operate, if
the technologies are already decided then that information also will be useful. Apart from that, any
additional information such as customer expectations in terms of time, cost of the Project.

73. We have a rotational Scrum Master and it is working fine for us, is it okay to continue?
The Scrum roles have clear objectives and specific responsibilities and purpose, so having a rotational
scrum master may lead to suboptimal due to conflict of interest.

In my experience, a Dev team member to zoom in to fix a technical issue whereas Scrum Master has to
zoom out to see the big picture and identify areas of improvement for the team. So same person zoom in
and zoom out quickly may not be possible.

74. Should ScrumMaster be dedicated 100% to a team?

Scrum does not describe how the Scrum Master role with respect to his availability, however if he(she)
can do justice 100% to the team it is fine however way this role is played. From my experience Scrum
Masters work with their teams dedicatedly, have seen consistently better results.

The highest performing professional sports individuals/teams have dedicated coaches. The coach’s skills
are different/unique from players.

75. Is ScrumMaster a management role?

The ScrumMaster is a leader, specifically a servant leader. As a leader they may use a variety of skills,
including management skills, to affect a desired outcome.

The various ‘stances’ that a Scrum Master typically applies — trainer, consultant, mentor, facilitator, and
coach, doesn’t include “manager”. While knowledge of management skills, techniques, and tools would
be appropriate for a ScrumMaster to be experience/familiar with, a good ScrumMaster would look for
approaches to enable the team with these skills.

76. How can the Scrum Master convince Top management of organization?
I don’t think Scrum Master can convince people. She/he can only make things transparent so that they
have information and help them with structures that enable them to make effective decisions.
While doing this, Scrum Masters can use some change management models such as GROW, ADKAR,
WONDER.

77. Which approach will be more appropriate for Scrum Master? Top down or bottom up?
Personally, I don’t see great success in either, at least not sustainable success. Instead I think it needs to
be “inside-out”, where the organization — top to bottom — all commit to the change. Push (from top-
down, bottom-up, or outside-in) all result in resistance and reversion as soon as the pressure from the
“push” is released.

78. What if Product Owner want to be part of Daily Scrum?

He /She can attend the Daily Scrum as observer, can provide clarifications and Feedback if Dev team
wants.

Healthy participation of the Product Owner — interest in how the team is progressing and providing them
any essential insight or support — would be an indicator of a true “Scrum Team”.

79. Our Product owner is quite controlling and pushing the Development team to take more work
than they can do. What do to?
Dev team should use Courage to push back if still not possible then Scrum Master should coach the PO.

All roles should work as per Scrum rules in order to enhance Transparency and Trust across and to yield
positive results of Scrum.

80. How to increase Trust between PO and Team?

By increasing the collaboration and direct communication and transparency. My own bias (which I would
highlight as a bias) is that trust is built upon over time.

81. Product owner vs Product manager?

Management might be a subset of ownership. Scrum focuses more on bottom up thinking with respect to
product ownership role.

As a Product owner he/she may delegate some of his/her tasks to development team and focus more on
the broader areas like marketing, sales, launch, talking to larger stakeholders etc.

One that focuses on administrative issues — but ownership is larger to include visioning (either exclusive
or participant) and true ROI responsibility — not just management of investment, but true accountability
for the results.

82. Can Scrum Master and the Product owner be the same person?
Scrum roles are defined with a specific purpose and responsibilities.

This is one area where Scrum is very specific. The Product owner and Scrum Master roles should not be
shared. It is a conflict of interest, resulting in too much power within a single role (there is nobody to
protect the team)

83. Can product vision change?

Perhaps, but generally speaking a good vision to be broad enough that, while strategies and tactics might
shift, the overall vision would remain the same, with possible exceptions for exceptional circumstances.

84. Is it fine if Product owner skips the Scrum events?

Product owner is required in Part I of Sprint Planning and the Sprint Review, Retrospective and optional
in other ceremonies.

As a member of the “Scrum Team”, we would hope that the Product Owner would be actively engaged in
other ceremonies, as appropriate, and their absence might result in some degree of sub-optimization.

85. Our Product owner is not co-located with our Development team. Is it a problem?
Product owner and the Development team should come up with an approach on how best they can
collaborate and communicate effectively. Scrum Master can help them to find such approaches. This is a
non-ideal situation. Refer to Agile principle .

86. My team is very high performance do I still need Scrum Master?

Yes, Scrum Master helps on organizational impediments. I saw teams that are really doing great may have
Scrum Master spending less time with them, but when they get into systemic impediments then they can
take help of Scrum Master. She/he might be spending time with a different development team to make
them become more self-organized and high performance.

The highest performing professional sports teams continue to have dedicated coaches.

87. What about special skills people like DBA, Architects? Should they be part of the Development
team?
Yes. Scrum requires that the Dev Team has all competencies required to deliver the product. While we
might start with a non-optimized structure, we would look to optimizing it over time by building these
skills within the cross-functional team — building cross-functional skills within individuals as well.

88. We have multiple teams working from different locations on same Product/project. Is it fine?
At least traditional Scrum (earlier Scrum Guides versions) provide strong guidance that teams should be
co-located.

If that isn’t possible we can still apply Scrum, but we are likely to encounter challenges which result in
non-optimal results. We have to do the best we can while maintaining the intent to move continually
towards optimal states. Scrum Masters should focus on enhancing transparency, communication and
collaboration in this scenario. Perhaps, some tools may be helpful.

89. Can same person play dual role in Scrum team?

This would be normal and expected of a cross-functional Development team. Within the Scrum Team, as
with a member of the Dev Team also being the Product Owner or ScrumMaster? This is contextual — for
example with a very small Scrum Team, it might be appropriate for one person to wear two hats, Product
Owner and Dev Team member, for example, but under most normal circumstances the roles should be
dedicated to allow the Scrum value of “focus” to be best realized. The Product Owner and ScrumMaster
roles should never be shared.
 90. Should the Development teams be component teams or feature teams?
Scrum does not have any specific recommendation on component Vs feature teams. However, you need
to have a cross-functional, self-organized team that converts the PBI into releasable increment.
Component teams may have more complexity, less transparency and integration issues and feature teams
will have less complexity, less integration issues and more transparency. In my experience feature teams
work better but if you are using comp teams and they are working fine, it is fine to continue. However,
make sure DOD will have integration included in it.

91. Can tasks be added to the Product backlog?

The term “tasks” is undefined in Scrum. Scrum identifies Product Backlog Items (PBIs – represent WHAT)
and Sprint Backlog Items (SBIs). The Product Owner can change the Product Backlog as they see fit,
including adding additional Product Backlog Items, at any time. Sprint Backlog Items are not part of the
Product Backlog, and are owned and managed by the Development Team within the Sprint. Usually
“Tasks” are added to the Sprint Backlog as they represent “HOW”

92. How Product owner orders the Product Backlog items?

Ordering is up to the Product Owner. I recommend ROI (Return on Investment, considering expected
return vs. the cost to produce) but other options (Time to market, Learning, Risk) could be other factors.
Prioritization is different than ordering. The Product Backlog is ordered. Prioritization might be used to
identify a subset of features to focus on for ordering. [NOTE: be careful not to confuse ordering and
prioritization]

93. What if you allow everyone to add items to Product Backlog? Does it not increase the work for
Product owner?
The Product Owner owns the Product Backlog and he/she decides how to manage it.

They may allow anyone to add items to the Product Backlog and simply order them so that PBIs that are
less valuable are lower in the Product Backlog and may never be developed.

94. Can Scrum Master add items to Product Backlog?

If that helps the Product to increase value.

The Product Owner owns the Product Backlog and he/she decides how to manage it.

They may allow anyone to add items to the Product Backlog and simply order them so that PBIs that are
less valuable are lower in the Product Backlog and may never be developed.

95. Is Product backlog a replacement for traditional requirements document?

No. Scrum doesn’t prescribe the format of the Product Backlog, so a Scrum Team might consider using
traditional requirements documents but this would likely lead to suboptimal results since the
requirements are likely not described in terms of things that could be delivered within short timebox
(Sprint) that could result in a Releasable Product Increment, as required by Scrum. Considering the Agile
Manifesto, we might expect the Product Backlog to act as a reminder that detailed requirements will be
clarified through face-to-face communication.
 96. Who will inspect the Product increment?
While stakeholders may inspect the increment and provide feedback in the Sprint review, the Product
Owner is responsible for accepting work results at any point of time during the Sprint when the
Development team completes the product backlog item and it meets the Definition of Done.

97. I do not release my increment for 6 months or 1 year are we doing Scrum?
Yes, as long as you are creating potentially releasable increments within one month or less, you are doing
Scrum.

Scrum permits late release, no release, frequent releases based on Product Owner’s preference. If you
are not releasing you are doing Scrum but as if you do not release the increment you have to inspect and
adapt on why you are not able to release and address the underlying issues. Releasing the increment gets
the feedback.

98. Why Product Backlog Refinement (PBR) is not an event but it is an activity?
Scrum doesn’t prescribe how Product Backlog Refinement will occur. Deciding whether to perform this as
an ongoing, non-time-boxed activity, or as a time-boxed event is a decision left to the Scrum Team.
However, the 4 Events (Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective have certain
guidelines on how they have to be performed).

Only rule for PBR is not more than 10% of Development team’s capacity of the Sprint should be spent for
PBR.

99. I do not have Product Backlog Refinement (PBR) still am I doing Scrum?
How are you making sure your team will have a set of items in ready state in your backlog?

As long as you have items that keep your Development team busy for the upcoming Sprints, it is fine, and
you are doing Scrum even you are not formally doing PBR.

100. In my team only a few team members attend Product Backlog Refinement while others
work on current Sprint items, is it fine?

It is up to the Scrum Team to determine how PBR will be performed. The readiness of the PBIs being
selected for the Sprint would be a good inspect and adapt point to consider the efficacy of a particular
approach to PBR.

In my experience, having all team members attend PBR will help reduce complexity as good brainstorming
happens and everyone will have same level of understanding on the PBIs from the discussion.