Agile Contracts - Interview Questions for Agile Roles
This content provides scenarios and questions that are intended to guide the the government representative during the interview and evaluation phase where a candidate is being considered for an Agile delivery role. These sample questions can be used to evaluate and assess the overall experience, competency and compatibility of a candidate (Federal or contractor) being considered for specific roles in Agile methodologies (e.g. Scrum Master, Product Owner, developer, tester, etc.)
Scrum Master Interview Questions
The Scrum Master (SM) is responsible for facilitating and maintaining the Scrum process and the overall health of the process and team. The Scrum Master performs this role by administering the Scrum ceremonies, facilitating the organic self-organization of the team, and removing any obstacles that may be impeding the team’s progress.
Below are some of the basic Scrum Master Interview Questions when vetting a candidate for this position:
Interview Questions | Agile Response Samples |
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How do you differentiate your role as a Scrum Master against the Project manager or the Product Owner role? |
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How do you facilitate the creation of an effective scrum team? What does your ideal Scrum team look like? |
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How do you help the team set sprint goals? |
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Why and how do you conduct the Daily Scrum meeting? |
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What is your experience with guiding teams with estimation? |
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If the team’s work doesn’t get completed in a sprint, what would you do? |
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What is your experience with reporting and metrics? |
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How do you help your teams continuously improve and reach their product/sprint goals? |
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Product Owner Interview Questions
The Scrum Product Owner (PO) is the primary project key stakeholder. The primary role of the product owner is to have a vision of what needs to be built, and convey that vision to the scrum team. The Product Owner is the lead champion of the product and is responsible for ensuring the product creates value for its customers and users as well as the company providing it. The PO does this through the product backlog, which is a prioritized features list for the product.
Below are some of the basic Product Owner interview questions when vetting a candidate for this position:
Interview Questions | Agile Response Samples |
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How would you characterize your role as a Product Owner? |
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What is the difference between a Product Backlog and a Project Backlog? |
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Describe your role as a PO in the Scrum Ceremonies/meetings? | Understands that the PO is integral in keeping the team on track and plans to be an active and regular participant in the collaborative activities and meetings.
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What is your approach to creating and managing product roadmaps? |
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What does a typical day look like as an Agile Product Owner? |
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How do you manage changing requirements? | Plans to employ Agile approaches to managing changes in requirements, such as:
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How do you avoid misallocating resources to features or products that are NOT a priority? |
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What would you say are the most important skills for a PO? |
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Developer Interview Questions
Interview Questions | Agile Response Samples |
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How would you say Agile development impacts the programming design and development process? |
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How long is a typical sprint cycle when you are breaking work down and estimating? |
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What would you say are the most essential programming best practices within the Agile development frameworks? | An in depth understanding of the nature of Agile development and delivery process such as:
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What is your experience writing automated test cases? |
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What is your experience with continuous integration? | Detailed explanation of how continuous integration is used on previous projects
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How did you manage traceability of the requirements? |
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How do you handle changing requirements? |
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How do you understand team velocity to measure team capacity? |
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What would you say are the most important skills for an Agile developer? | Technical:
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Tester Interview Questions
Interview Questions | Agile Response Samples |
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How is Agile Testing different from traditional testing models, in light of the role of the tester? |
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How do you decide what to test, and how to thoroughly to test? | One approach is to identify and analyze the most and least important in the delivery product. Consider rational inclusion/exclusion criteria based on the product such as;
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What is your testing approach when requirements change continuously? | Some possible answers can be;
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What types of testing are you familiar with? | Examples of the various types of testing in Agile development include;
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What is Test Driven Development (TDD)? | TDD is an approach where the development team first writes automated test cases which describe new functionality cases and creating small codes to pass that case. Followed by the refactoring of the code to meet the test criteria. |
What is your experience writing automated test cases? |
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What is your experience with Agile frameworks? |
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What would you say are the most essential skills for an Agile tester? |
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What qualities / attributes should a good Agile tester have? |
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