Top interview questions for Scrum Master
A Scrum Master is someone who is responsible for ensuring the team lives agile values and principles and follows the processes and practices that the team agreed they would use.
According to a Study.com report, this job role will see an annual growth of about 24 percent till 2026.
Are you in a hurry to get started? Download the Scrum Master Interview Questions and Responses Toolkit.
Hard Skills
Use these questions to identify a candidate’s technical knowledge and abilities
Soft Skills
Use these questions to assess a candidate’s personality traits and cognitive skills
What to look for while interviewing for a Scrum Master?
Since the required skills for a Scrum Master require knowledge. Therefore, look for a candidate who has knowledge of all these.
Here are some of the in-demand skills for a Scrum Master
Role-specific skills to look for: Coaching Agile practices, tight grip on Agile Estimating and planning, forecasting, removing impediments, creating communication channels, and enforcing rules.
Soft skills to look for conflict resolution, servant leadership, critical thinking, problem-solving, and empathy.
Pro Tip: Always screen before your interview. Use Online Assessment to screen applicants for a Scrum Master position before blocking your time for an in-person interview.
Questions to ask while interviewing a Scrum Master
We have compiled a set of questions with the help of 70+ hiring managers at different organizations.
Top Role-based interview questions for Scrum Master
Why is product backlog important?
Purpose of this interview question:
An interviewer can ask this question to learn about the candidate’s critical thinking skills and ability to define goals and steps clearly.
What to listen for:
- Top candidates would explain why they believe product backlogs are important, while discussing their experience of how they planned and used it to work through a project successfully.
What is a user story?
Purpose of this interview question:
Developing an effective user story is crucial to this job function, as it helps in understanding the client’s needs. Hence this question can be asked to test candidates’ understanding of the same.
What to listen for:
- An ideal candidate would share their experience when they helped devise a user story and its results.
How would you determine the success of Agile in your company?
Purpose of this interview question:
Since there are no fixed metrics of indicators to measure how Agile is working, hence this question can be asked to analyze the candidate’s take on the same.
What to listen for:
- Top candidates would list out their choice of indicators along with the reason to choose them.
How to screen Scrum Master for soft skills
What is the most important function of a scrum master?
Purpose of this interview question:
By asking this question the interviewer can test the candidate’s general knowledge of this method.
What to listen for:
- Top candidates would reflect on their past projects and provide examples of scrum master functions.
What are the interpersonal skills you have gained from your previous job as a Scrum Master?
Purpose of this interview question:
This question is designed to learn about what types of interpersonal traits a candidate has that could enhance their job capabilities at their company.
What to listen for:
- Top candidates would show evidence of self-awareness, by discussing their previous experiences.
How do you deal with a non-cooperative team member?
Purpose of this interview question:
This question is designed to test the candidate’s team management skills and how open-minded they are.
What to listen for:
- An ideal candidate would the different steps they would take to deal with the team members.
Start Optimizing your Scrum Master Hiring today
Find and hire talent with confidence. If your candidate doesn’t know the answer to the above questions and you’re hiring for a Scrum Master position, then they’re probably not a great fit.
Read our additional hiring guides
Product Manager
Java Developer
Digital Marketing Executive
Machine Learning Engineer
HR Recruiter
Database Administrator DBA
View all roles  |  Back to Top
