In last week’s Professional Agile Leadership class, I asked leaders to share what interview questions that they would use to find a great Scrum Master. With their permission, I’m sharing the questions that the group came up with.
“If you were hiring a Scrum Master, what interview questions would you ask?”
The class brainstormed, debated, and then voted on their top picks. Here’s what they came up with.
1. “In the last year, tell me when you failed at something.”
Failure isn’t fun to talk about, but this question reveals a lot. Great Scrum Masters don’t pretend everything goes perfectly — they experiment, learn, and adapt. When candidates can talk openly about failure and what they learned, it shows humility and a growth mindset.
Scrum thrives on transparency and inspection. If someone can’t acknowledge failure, they’ll struggle to foster a culture where others can.
2. “Tell me about a time you needed to challenge leadership.”
Scrum Masters are servant-leaders, but that doesn’t mean they avoid difficult conversations. Sometimes they need to challenge leadership — respectfully, but firmly — to protect the team’s focus or uphold Scrum principles.
This question helps identify whether a candidate has the courage (one of the Scrum values) to speak truth to power while maintaining trust and professionalism.
3. “How do you build trust with your team?”
Trust is the foundation of everything a Scrum Master does. Without it, retrospectives become surface-level, Sprint Reviews lose authenticity, and experimentation grinds to a halt.
A good answer might include transparency, empathy, consistency, and follow-through. A great one will include specific actions — like how they handled conflict, supported vulnerability, or modeled integrity.
4. “Tell me about a time you received negative feedback — and what actions you took.”
This question uncovers how someone responds when things get uncomfortable. Does the candidate become defensive, or do they listen, reflect, and adapt?
Scrum is all about continuous improvement. The best Scrum Masters model that behavior themselves — not just for the team, but for the whole organization.
5. “Provide a scenario of how you’ve coached a team on an Agile principle. What were the outcomes?”
This one was the group’s favorite because it bridges theory and practice. It invites the candidate to share how they teach, influence, and guide teams — and how they measure success.
You’ll learn whether their coaching is outcome-focused or activity-focused, and whether they understand that change in behavior — not just process compliance — is the real goal.
Final Thoughts
These questions go beyond just checking boxes. They reveal mindset, courage, and authenticity — the traits that separate a good Scrum Master from a great one.
Hiring a Scrum Master isn’t about finding someone who can run events on time. It’s about finding someone who can build trust, foster learning, and challenge the system to help the organization grow.
And sometimes, one of the first steps toward finding that right person is to ask the right questions.
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Rebel Scrum is the host of the annual Scrum Day Madison and Scrum Day Houston agile conferences.