Table of contents
1.
Introduction
2.
Beginner Level Agile Interview Questions
2.1.
1. What do you mean by Agile Methodology?
2.2.
2. What are some important parts of the Agile process?
2.3.
3. Name some different types of Agile methodologies.
2.4.
4. What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Agile Methodology?.
2.5.
5. Explain Agile Testing?
2.6.
6. Explain Scrum Methodology.
2.7.
7. Difference between sprint backlog and product backlog.
2.8.
8. What is Scrum of Scrum means?
2.9.
9. Give some disadvantages of the agile model (SDLC)?
2.10.
10. What are the burn-up and burn-down chart?
2.11.
11. What do you understand by Daily Stand-Up?
2.12.
12. What are the different roles in Scrum?
2.13.
13. What do you know about Scrum ban?
2.14.
14. What are the major principles of agile testing?
2.15.
15. What are the skills of a good agile tester?
3.
Intermediate Level Agile Interview Questions
3.1.
16. Is it ever suggested to use waterfall over Scrum? If yes, explain when?
3.2.
17. Why does Scrum encourage the use of automated testing for projects?
3.3.
18. What is the difference between the agile & traditional way of working?
3.4.
19. Explain Iterative and Incremental Development in Agile.
3.5.
20. What are some Agile metrics that need to be focused on?
3.6.
21. What Is Adaptive System Development (ADS)?
3.7.
22. What are some popular Agile tools?
3.8.
23. What are the obstacles to the Agile process?
3.9.
24. What is Spike in Agile?
3.10.
25. What is Zero Sprint in Agile?
3.11.
26. What is a Sprint Planning Meeting?
3.12.
27. Explain TimeBoxing in Scrum.
3.13.
28. What is the difference between Scrum and Kanban?
3.14.
29. How do you handle conflicts within an agile team?
3.15.
30. What metrics do you use to measure the success of an agile project?
4.
Advanced Level Agile Interview Questions
4.1.
31. What is the difference between Lean and Agile?
4.2.
32. How do you scale Agile in large organizations?
4.3.
33. What is the role of the Product Owner in Agile?
4.4.
34. How do you handle dependencies between Agile teams?
4.5.
35. What is Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) in Agile?
4.6.
36. How do you foster a culture of continuous improvement in Agile teams?
4.7.
37. What is the role of the Scrum Master in Agile?
4.8.
38. What are some common challenges in Agile adoption, and how do you overcome them?
4.9.
39. How do you prioritize user stories in Agile?
4.10.
40. What is the Definition of Done (DoD) in Agile?
4.11.
41. How do you manage scope creep in Agile projects?
4.12.
42. What is the difference between Agile and Waterfall project management methodologies?
4.13.
43. How do you ensure alignment between Agile teams and business objectives?
4.14.
44. What is the role of metrics in Agile project management?
4.15.
45. How do you handle technical debt in Agile projects?
5.
Frequently Asked Questions
5.1.
What are the 4 core principles of Agile methodology?
5.2.
What is agile testing in simple terms?
5.3.
Why is Agile used?
6.
Conclusion
Last Updated: Jun 26, 2024
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Agile Interview Questions

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Introduction

Agile is a popular technology that allows you to build and respond to changes. It is a collection of several principles that are used in the field of project management and software development. This practice works on the continuous iteration of testing and development for the complete Agile software development life cycle of a given business project.

Agile Interview Questions

The whole series consists of 50 Agile Interview Questions of various levels: Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. 

Beginner Level Agile Interview Questions

1. What do you mean by Agile Methodology?

Agile is a project management and product development approach that prioritizes flexibility, collaboration, and customer feedback. It involves iterative cycles called sprints, frequent reassessment and adaptation, and emphasizes delivering small, functional increments of a project to respond effectively to changing requirements and customer needs.

2. What are some important parts of the Agile process?

There are several important parts of the agile process:

  • Sprints: Short development cycles, typically 2-4 weeks.
  • Backlog: Prioritized list of tasks to be completed.
  • Scrum: Framework emphasizing collaboration and adaptability.
  • User Stories: Descriptions of functionality from an end user's perspective.
  • Daily Stand-ups: Brief team meetings for status updates.
  • Retrospectives: Reflection on the team's performance for continuous improvement.

3. Name some different types of Agile methodologies.

Ans: Some of the important agile methodologies are listed below:

  • Crystal Methodology
  • Kanban
  • Adaptive System Development (ADS)
  • Extreme Programming (XP)
  • Lean Software Development
  • Scrum

 

4. What are the benefits and drawbacks of the Agile Methodology?.

Ans: The advantages and disadvantages of the agile process are listed below:

Advantages

  • Products are delivered quicker.
  • Feedback from customers is received faster.
  • Fast and continuous development.
  • Agile is useful for projects when the aim isn't clear at the start but becomes clearer as the project continues.
  • Code Errors are identified and eliminated quickly

Disadvantages

  • Estimating resource requirements and effort is difficult.
  • Very less documentation.
  • When compared to other development approaches, it is more expensive.
  • Large projects are difficult to scale.
  • The danger of a never-ending project

 

5. Explain Agile Testing?

Ans: Agile testing is a software testing procedure in which software is checked for faults, mistakes, and other issues, as the name implies. It is regarded as an important aspect of the development process since it allows testers and developers to collaborate as a team, improving overall performance. It also contributes to the timely delivery of high-quality goods. Testing is frequently done so that testers can spot and fix problems early on in the development process.

 

6. Explain Scrum Methodology.

Ans: Scrum is a method for forming hypotheses, testing them, reflecting on the experience, and making improvements. Feedback, self-management, small teams, and work divided into sprints are all important. It works on a step-by-step basis.

 

7. Difference between sprint backlog and product backlog.

Ans: Sprint backlog: The development team is usually in charge of the Sprint Backlog. It only includes features and needs that are relevant to the current sprint. It's thought to be a subset of the product backlog. It is a list of everything that has to be done in order to finish a sprint. Only items that can be done during each agile sprint are included. It is solely applicable to the sprint goal in that specific sprint.
Product backlog: The project owner is usually the one who owns and maintains it. It usually includes all of the product's features as well as the product's needs. It contains a list of everything that needs to be done in order to finish the process. Every thing is simply broken down into a sequence of steps. It is more focused on the product's end goal.

 

8. What is Scrum of Scrum means?

Ans: Scrum of Scrums is a scalable agile technique that allows several teams to collaborate on big projects. It facilitates the development and delivery of complicated products at scale by facilitating transparency, inspection, and adaption. It's especially effective when all members of a high-performing scrum team work toward a same goal, are perfectly aligned, and have complete trust and regard for one another.

 

9. Give some disadvantages of the agile model (SDLC)?

Ans: Disadvantages of agile model (SDLC)

  • There's a chance that the new need will clash with the present architecture.
  • There is a potential that the project will take longer than predicted if more corrections and changes are made.
  • Because of the ongoing iteration, estimating the project's eventual cost may be challenging.
  • Estimating resource requirements and effort is difficult.

 

10. What are the burn-up and burn-down chart?

Ans: The burn-up chart shows how much work has been completed on the project, and the burn-down chart shows how much work remains. As a result, the terms burn-up and burn-down are employed to describe the project's status report.

 

11. What do you understand by Daily Stand-Up?

Ans: The daily stand-up is a 15-minute meeting held every day (usually in the morning) in which the entire team meets to discover answers to the following three questions:

  • What did you do the day before?
  • What do you have planned for the day?
  • Is there anything preventing you from finishing your task?

 

12. What are the different roles in Scrum?

Ans: Scrum Master, Product Owner, Agile Development Team are the three different roles in Scrum

  • Scrum Master: Team leader and facilitator who assists team members in sticking to agile methodologies in order to satisfy their goals and customers' demands.
  • Product owner: The person who runs the product from a business perspective and defines the requirements and prioritizes their values.
  • Agile Development: The agile development team makes technical decisions and determines any dependencies.
different roles in Scrum?

Source: Scrum.org

 

13. What do you know about Scrum ban?

Ans: Scrumban is a project management approach that combines key elements from two famous agile methodologies: Scrum and Kanban. Scrumban combines Scrum's structure and predictable procedures with Kanban's flexibility to improve team agility, efficiency, and productivity.

 

14. What are the major principles of agile testing?

Ans: Some of the major principle of agile testing are:

  • Continuously provide feedback
  • Keep it simple
  • Enable face-to-face communication
  • Practice continuous improvement
  • Quick respond to changes

 

15. What are the skills of a good agile tester?

Ans: The following are characteristics of a great agile tester:

  • He needs to be comfortable with agile ideas and concepts.
  • To communicate with the team and clients, he must have strong communication skills.
  • He can prioritise tasks based on the needs of the consumer.
  • He should be able to fully understand the customer's requirements.
  • He should be aware of the project's risk as a result of fluctuating demand.

Intermediate Level Agile Interview Questions

16. Is it ever suggested to use waterfall over Scrum? If yes, explain when?

Ans: Yes, we often prefer the waterfall module over scrum. This is because when the client's request is straightforward, short, well-defined, well-understood, and predictable, and the subject does not change until the project is completed.

 

17. Why does Scrum encourage the use of automated testing for projects?

Ans: In Agile testing, QAs can design test cases that will run automatically whenever new code is posted to the code repository for a given application. Continuous testing ensures that new code is bug-free before it reaches the production environment.

 

18. What is the difference between the agile & traditional way of working?

Ans: Everything is out there and transparent with agile technique. Initiation, planning, review, and testing are all done with the clients and decision-makers in mind. Whereas in the traditional approach, the project manager controls the project and no one else has a say in critical choices, with the new approach, everyone has a say.

 

19. Explain Iterative and Incremental Development in Agile.

Ans: Incremental Development: The process is broken down into little, manageable chunks in this method of development. The work accomplished in the preceding increment is built upon in subsequent increments. Functionalities are added throughout time based on what has already been developed.
Iterative Development: Large jobs are broken down into smaller sections that can be repeated, refined, and explored throughout the software development cycle using iterative development.

 

20. What are some Agile metrics that need to be focused on?

Ans: These are some of the agile methods that needs to be focused on

  • Velocity
  • Lead time
  • Cycle time
  • Code quality
  • Code coverage
  • Deployment success rate
  • Net promoter score

 

21. What Is Adaptive System Development (ADS)?

Ans: It embodies the idea that projects should always be adapting, and it has a cycle of three repeating series namely: speculate, collaborate, and learn.

 

22. What are some popular Agile tools?

Ans: Here are the list of some popular agile tools:

  • JIRA
  • Agilean
  • Binfire
  • LeankitKanban
  • Axosoft

 

23. What are the obstacles to the Agile process?

Ans: The following are some of the potential roadblocks:

  • Not having the right or enough tools and technologies
  • The customers' lack of active participation
  • Members of the team who lack the necessary skills and abilities
  • The inability to design systems based on criteria that aren't known ahead of time
  • Adopting the Agile culture successfully in the organization.

 

24. What is Spike in Agile?

Ans: It usually refers to an overly lengthy and complex user story in software development that can't be estimated until the development team does a timed inquiry. These stories can be used for a variety of purposes, including study, design, exploration, prototyping, and so on. Spikes are typically used to solve some of the project's technical and design concerns.

 

25. What is Zero Sprint in Agile?

Ans: It is the first step, or pre-preparation step, that occurs just prior to the first sprint. It covers everything from setting up a programming environment to creating a backlog.

 

26. What is a Sprint Planning Meeting?

Ans: The team discusses features and product backlog items (user stories) that are relevant to them during this meeting. The product owner, Scrum Master, and Scrum Team are normally present during this meeting. It is a weekly gathering that lasts around an hour.


27. Explain TimeBoxing in Scrum.

Ans: Timeboxing is a time management strategy or tool that is used to keep track of how much time it takes to finish an activity. It simply allows a specific amount of time for each operation, which is referred to as a time box. The time box can be as long as 15 minutes. It not only aids in the improvement of focus, but also increases productivity. In Scrum, some events are timeboxed, which means they are assigned a maximum and defined amount of time for the work. The following are the events that are timed:

  • Sprint 
  • Sprint Planning 
  • Daily Scrum 
  • Sprint Review 
  • Sprint retrospective
TimeBoxing in Scrum

 

28. What is the difference between Scrum and Kanban?

Ans: Scrum is an iterative and incremental agile framework with predefined roles, ceremonies, and time-boxed iterations called sprints. Kanban, on the other hand, is a visual management method that focuses on continuous delivery and limiting work in progress (WIP), with no prescribed roles or time-boxed iterations.

29. How do you handle conflicts within an agile team?

Ans: Conflict resolution in an agile team involves fostering open communication, active listening, and collaborative problem-solving. Encourage team members to express concerns and perspectives, facilitate constructive discussions, and seek consensus-based solutions that align with project goals.

30. What metrics do you use to measure the success of an agile project?

Ans: Metrics commonly used to measure the success of agile projects include velocity (rate of work completed in each iteration), cycle time (time taken to complete a unit of work), burndown charts (visualization of work remaining), customer satisfaction scores, and defect density (number of defects per unit of work). These metrics provide insights into team performance, project progress, and customer satisfaction, aiding in continuous improvement efforts.

Advanced Level Agile Interview Questions

31. What is the difference between Lean and Agile?

Ans: Lean focuses on minimizing waste and maximizing value delivery by eliminating non-value-added activities. Agile, while sharing similar principles, emphasizes iterative and incremental development, customer collaboration, and responding to change over following a plan.

32. How do you scale Agile in large organizations?

Ans: Scaling Agile in large organizations often involves frameworks like SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum), or Nexus. These frameworks provide structures and practices for coordinating multiple agile teams, ensuring alignment, and enabling effective collaboration at scale.

33. What is the role of the Product Owner in Agile?

Ans: The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product and the work of the development team. They prioritize the backlog, define user stories, accept completed work, and ensure alignment with business goals and stakeholder needs.

34. How do you handle dependencies between Agile teams?

Ans: Handling dependencies between Agile teams requires communication, collaboration, and coordination. Agile teams can establish regular synchronization meetings, use dependency boards, and adopt practices like cross-team planning and dependency management to address and mitigate dependencies effectively.

35. What is Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) in Agile?

Ans: Continuous Integration (CI) is the practice of frequently integrating code changes into a shared repository, followed by automated builds and tests to detect and address integration errors early. Continuous Deployment (CD) extends CI by automating the deployment process, enabling frequent and reliable releases to production environments.

36. How do you foster a culture of continuous improvement in Agile teams?

Ans: Fostering a culture of continuous improvement in Agile teams involves encouraging open feedback, embracing experimentation, and celebrating successes and failures alike. Regular retrospectives, Kaizen events, and knowledge-sharing sessions can help teams identify areas for improvement and implement changes iteratively.

37. What is the role of the Scrum Master in Agile?

Ans: The Scrum Master is responsible for facilitating the Scrum process, coaching the development team and product owner on agile principles and practices, and removing impediments to the team's progress. They serve as servant-leaders, ensuring that the team is empowered and productive.

38. What are some common challenges in Agile adoption, and how do you overcome them?

Ans: Common challenges in Agile adoption include resistance to change, organizational silos, and lack of executive support. Overcoming these challenges requires effective change management strategies, clear communication, leadership buy-in, and incremental adoption with continuous learning and adaptation.

39. How do you prioritize user stories in Agile?

Ans: User stories are prioritized based on business value, customer needs, and dependencies. Techniques like MoSCoW (Must, Should, Could, Won't) prioritization, value vs. effort analysis, and collaborative discussions with stakeholders help determine the priority order of user stories in the product backlog.

40. What is the Definition of Done (DoD) in Agile?

Ans: The Definition of Done (DoD) is a checklist of criteria that must be met for a product increment to be considered complete and potentially shippable. It includes quality standards, testing requirements, documentation, and any other criteria agreed upon by the team.

41. How do you manage scope creep in Agile projects?

Ans: Managing scope creep in Agile projects involves maintaining a prioritized product backlog, enforcing the Definition of Done, and engaging stakeholders in regular reviews and discussions to manage expectations. Agile teams should embrace change but also ensure that changes are evaluated for their impact on project goals and timelines.

42. What is the difference between Agile and Waterfall project management methodologies?

Ans: Agile emphasizes iterative and incremental development, customer collaboration, and responding to change. Waterfall follows a sequential approach with distinct phases (requirements, design, development, testing, deployment) and minimal customer involvement after the initial requirements phase.

43. How do you ensure alignment between Agile teams and business objectives?

Ans: Ensuring alignment between Agile teams and business objectives involves establishing clear goals, communicating strategic priorities, and fostering collaboration between business stakeholders and development teams. Regular reviews, feedback loops, and transparent communication channels help maintain alignment and adjust priorities as needed.

44. What is the role of metrics in Agile project management?

Ans: Metrics in Agile project management help track progress, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions. Common Agile metrics include velocity, burndown charts, lead time, cycle time, and customer satisfaction scores. These metrics provide insights into team performance, project health, and areas for improvement.

45. How do you handle technical debt in Agile projects?

Ans: Handling technical debt in Agile projects involves balancing short-term delivery with long-term sustainability. Agile teams should prioritize refactoring and debt repayment alongside feature development, using techniques like backlog grooming, sprint planning, and dedicated time for technical debt reduction.

Must Read FP&A Interview Questions.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 4 core principles of Agile methodology?

- Customers are satisfied when valuable work is delivered on time and in a timely manner.

- Breaking down large jobs into smaller, more manageable ones.

- Recognizing that self-organised teams produce the best results.

- Providing the environment and support that motivated persons require, as well as trusting them to complete the task.

What is agile testing in simple terms?

Agile testing is a software testing procedure in which software is checked for faults, mistakes, and other issues, as the name implies

Why is Agile used?

Here are the reasons why you should use Agile software development and testing

- You can Reduce Technical Debt

- One can Easily and Quickly Adapt to Changes.

- Risks are minimized.

- Product quality increases

Conclusion

In this article, we have extensively discussed various Agile Interview Questions. These Interview questions will prove to be helpful for recalling the important concepts and prepare you for your upcoming interviews. Now that you have gone through Agile Interview Questions, you must have got a basic notion of your strengths and weaknesses in this domain.

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