Interview prep
Scrum Master interview questions
13 questions scrum masters get asked, grouped by type. Under each one are the skills it is really testing, so you can pick a story from your own work that shows them.
Technical
- A team consistently misses its sprint goals. How do you approach diagnosing why?Tests: process analysis, delivery risk
- Your team's retrospectives keep surfacing the same issue without anything changing. What do you do?Tests: facilitation, ownership
- How do you respond if leadership starts using velocity to compare teams against each other?Tests: communication, process analysis
Situational
- How do you handle a team where a few people dominate discussion and others stay quiet?Tests: facilitation, team dynamics
- How do you protect the team's focus when outside requests keep interrupting the sprint?Tests: prioritisation, stakeholder management
- The product owner and the team disagree about what should be in the next sprint. How do you handle that as the scrum master?Tests: facilitation, conflict resolution
Behavioral
- Tell me about a time you removed a blocker that was slowing your team down.Tests: delivery risk, ownership
- How do you influence a team's behavior without having formal authority over them?Tests: influence, facilitation
- Tell me about a time you disagreed with a coworker and how you handled it.Tests: conflict resolution, communication
- Describe a project or task that did not go well and what you did about it.Tests: ownership, reflection
- Give an example of persuading someone to adopt an idea they initially resisted.Tests: influence, communication
- Walk me through how you decided what to work on when you had more requests than time.Tests: prioritisation, judgment
- Tell me about a time you had to learn something new quickly to get a job done.Tests: learning agility, ownership
Getting the resume right first? See resume guidance for Scrum Masters, or browse interview questions for every role.