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Scrum Master Role Interview

Last post 06:14 am April 12, 2022 by Martin Jungmair
4 replies
01:15 pm April 9, 2022

I have a couple of questions that I found while preparing for a Scrum Master role interview. And I was wondering if anyone could help me with these



I. Please outline how you would approach the first 30 days of the role and how you would measure your success.

II. Below I have outlined the current engineers and their levels, please state how you would organize the team?

2 x Senior Engineers/ Tech Lead

2 x Student Placements (1 is also a QA)

2 x QA Testers

1 x PT Automation Engineer in test

3 x Mid Software Engineer (1 fully remote, 1

a new starter)

2 x Software Engineer I (1 a new starter)

SRE Team

1 x Head of Technology

1 x SRE Level 1

1 x Mid SRE Level 2

1 x Senior SRE

Product

1 x Product Owner

1 x Designer


08:58 pm April 11, 2022

I. Please outline how you would approach the first 30 days of the role and how you would measure your success.

How would you approach the first 30 days of the role? Giving someone else's answer wouldn't help so much in the interview. I've written about how I approach working with new teams in the past, as have others. However, unless you will actually approach the job that way, it doesn't really help you.

II. Below I have outlined the current engineers and their levels, please state how you would organize the team?

Why would a Scrum Master organize a team? Scrum Teams are self-organizing and self-managing.


10:43 pm April 11, 2022

I. Please outline how you would approach the first 30 days of the role and how you would measure your success.

I agree with @Thomas.  If we give you our answers, it wouldn't be you answering the questions.  You would be getting the job under false pretenses.  Remember that a Scrum Master is transparent with information.  You need to answer that question honestly. 

II. Below I have outlined the current engineers and their levels, please state how you would organize the team?

It sounds like they have already organized the team and that is a pretty big team.  If they want to know how you would re-organize or break the team up, my response would probably not get me hired.  It would be almost word for word what @Thomas said. 

I suggest that you answer these questions on your own.  There are no right or wrong answers.  It is an interview.  They are trying to understand your knowledge, skills, and expertise.  Not ours.


05:40 am April 12, 2022

Something like:

"At least one Done, immediately usable increment must be created in 30 days. For this to happen teams will need to master self organization, and not have organization inflicted upon them.

"The most critical indicator of success is available right here and right now in this interview. Where is senior leadership? Do they accept that overcoming the organizational constraints to agile practice, which I will help to expose, must be the most important activity in their working day?"

Bear in mind that I would stand essentially no chance of getting the job.


06:14 am April 12, 2022

As this are only questions 

I. Please outline how you would approach the first 30 days of the role and how you would measure your success.

I wrote in an other thread what I did, but do not copy it. It always depends on the issues in the team - having a team with e.g. a product with a lot of bugs needs an other approach than a team with social problems. As Daniel already said - answer honestly.

II. Below I have outlined the current engineers and their levels, please state how you would organize the team?

Think about team sizes and self-management, advantages and disadvantages of big and serveral teams.... And ask if this is a real scenario.


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