All The Useful Agile Interview Questions & Answers - 2

Q 1. What is Agile testing in an organization? 

Possibly, this is the first Agile business analyst interview question to test your knowledge of the Agile basics. 

Agile testing follows the principles of Agile software development, aimed to include all members of an Agile team to ensure the product's on-time delivery. Additional features then add on at frequent intervals. 

The key elements of Agile testing are - clean code, customer satisfaction, collaborative work between developers and business analysts, constant feedback and continuous improvement. 

Q 2. How does the Agile methodology differ from the traditional waterfall approach? 

This is one of the most frequently asked Agile interview questions, the answer should be at your fingertips. In the Agile framework, the company delivers software features frequently so that testing and development happen simultaneously. Consequently, the testing time is short since only small features need testing regularly. 

On the other hand, the waterfall methodology involves the testing activity to take place at the end of the entire product development process. The user has to test the complete product, along with all functionalities, in one go, so the testing period is long. 

The waterfall model is a closed process where all stakeholders may not be involved in the development process. Contrarily, Agile requires and allows stakeholders and customers to be involved at all stages. 

Q 3. Mention the pros and cons of the Agile framework in a business. 

An important and often-asked Agile coach interview question, the answer is: 

Pros of Agile framework in an organization: 

Quick and constant delivery of the software features to ensure customer satisfaction. 
Involvement of all stakeholders ranging from customers, developers to testers leading to technical excellence and great design. 
Facilitation of close interaction between business analysts and developers. 
The flexibility ensures adaptation of changing requirements. Changes required at the last moment or later on are easy to implement without any complication. 

Cons of Agile framework: 

When the software deliveries are large, determining the effort required at the onset of the software development cycle becomes challenging. 
Documentation takes a hit in the Agile approach. 
In the development process, decision-making requires the expertise and experience that veteran professionals bring along. Freshers find it difficult to manage the Agile software development process. 

Q 4. What are the different types of Agile methodologies companies commonly implement? 

There are many types of Agile methods widely used in the business domain. The most widely used approach is Scrum. Other Agile approaches include Kanban, Crystal Methodology (CM), Dynamic Software Development Method (DSDM), Lean Software Development and Extreme Programming (XP). 

Q 5. What is the difference between the Scrum and the Agile approach? 

Interviewers ask this Agile development interview question to confuse the candidate. By clearly answering and distinguishing the two concepts shows that you understand the nuances and associated processes. 

The main difference between Agile and Scrum is that Scrum is a form of Agile while Agile is a method for project development. Both of them are flexible project management methods providing insights for structuring releases to achieve the best and quickest results. 

Similarities, on the other hand, include that they both need client feedback. The introduction of sprints into the Agile methodology is the distinguisher Scrum brought about. 

Sprints are sessions in which tech people develop product features. You could say, 'Having the experience of working in Agile and Scrum domain, I prefer using Scrum within the Agile framework to work closely with multiple teams to achieve the release goal.' 

Q 6. When to use the Agile methodology? 

While the traditional waterfall method is more suited for projects with a predefined scope and clear requirements, the Agile methodology is ideal for projects with dynamic requirements. When frequent changes and requirements come up on a regular basis, feature-driven Agile is the suitable framework. 

Q 7. Where can you apply Agile methodology? 

Along with software testing, the industries that benefit from the Agile approach include supply chain management, manufacturing IT, pharmacy, health care, construction and banking among many others. The multitude of benefits Agile affords make it a commonly used methodology for change and transformation. 

Q 8. What are burn-down and burn-up charts? 

Agile uses these charts to track the progress of ongoing projects. While the burn-up chart shows the completed work, the burn-down chart highlights the remainder of the tasks in a project. 

The four types of burn-down charts are: 

Product burn-down chart
Sprint burn-down chart 
Release burn-down chart 
Defect burn-down chart 

Q 9. Define the main roles in Scrum. 

The three main roles in a Scrum team are: 

Product Owner - They hold the responsibility of managing product backlogs. Working with end-users, the development team and customers, product owners provide requirements to the team to build the product. 
Scrum Master - Working with the Scrum team to ensure that it completes each sprint in a timely way, the Scrum master's responsibility is to build a proper workflow for the team. 
Scrum Team - Each member of the team is ideally self-organized, dedicated and responsible for delivering high-quality work. 

Q 10. Explain what is a sprint backlog and product backlog in Agile.

This is a commonly asked Agile project management interview question. The product backlog is the responsibility of the product owner ensuring that the project includes every feature and requirement. 

Treated as a subset of the product backlog, sprint backlog contains features and requirements related to a specific sprint. 

Q 11. What is velocity in Agile methodology? 

A frequently asked Agile business analyst question, the answer is, velocity is a planning tool used to get an estimate of the speed of work and the time required to complete the project. This analyst does this calculation by reviewing the work successfully done in the earlier sprints. 

For example, if the team finished five stories in a two-week sprint and each story had three story points, the velocity of the team is 15 story points for each sprint. 

Q 12. Can you explain pair programming and its benefits? 

A common Agile business analyst interview question, pair programming is a method for two programmers to work as a team. While one programmer writes the code, the other reviews it. Both roles are switchable. 

The benefits of pair programming are: 

Improved Code Quality - as the partner reviews the code simultaneously to reduce the errors. 
Easy Knowledge Transfer - The experienced partner can teach the other about techniques and coding. 

Q 13. What is Kanban? 

Kanban is an Agile tool helping the team keep a close eye to track the work and measure its progress. This frequently asked Agile Scrum methodology interview question is one you should thoroughly prepare for. 

Along with tracking the progress, using a 'Kanban board' it's easy to describe the status of development stories. It helps to write the whole scenario of the project in a single place. That way, you can picture the theme challenges, bottlenecks, tasks done and workflow progress. 

The application of Kanban in Agile is to ensure continuous delivery of the product without overwhelming or overburdening the team. 

Q 14. Can you spot any difference between incremental and iterative development processes? 

Yes, there is a clear difference. 

The iterative approach of software development permits development without any interruption. The software development cycles such as sprint and releases repeat until the final product is ready. 

In the incremental methodology, the product design, testing and implementation are regularly run until the product finishes. This way, it involves both development and maintenance. 

Q 15. Can you differentiate between epic, user stories and tasks in an Agile methodology? 

The answer to this Agile development interview question is: 

User Stories - They define the actual business requirement, and the business owner often creates it. 
Tasks - To accomplish the business requirements or product requirements, the development team breaks it down into tasks. 
Epic - It is a group of related user stores. 

Q 16. What are the qualities of high-performing Agile teams? 

Agile teams are critical for project management in the software industry. Successful and high-performing Agile teams exhibit these seven qualities. 

Self-organization 
Collaboration 
T-shaped skills 
Team agreement as individual roles and responsibilities take a backseat 
Continuous improvement 
Team success over individual achievements 
Supportive leaders 

Q 17. What are the important Agile Matrices? 

The commonly known and frequently used Agile Matrices are: 

Velocity - To keep track of the project's pace so that everyone on the team can have clarity on the progress, status and capacity. 
Work Category Allocation - For a clear idea about where different team members are investing in their team, allocating separate work categories is effective. This shows the order of priority for the project's tasks. 
Defect Removal Awareness - The quality of the end product improves significantly when team members work actively to correct the errors simultaneous to developing and testing the product. 
Cumulative Flow Diagrams - They represent the time (on the X-axis) and the the effort of team members (on the Y-axis). 
Sprint Burn-down Metric - The best way for the Agile team to track and monitor the completion of the work with the sprint is by measuring the burn-down metric. 
Delivering Business Value - Mainly, this entails tracking the overall efficiency of the Agile team. Because the truth is only when all team members are productive and active will the Agile team deliver value to clients. 
Time Coverage - This is the time required to develop each iteration. 
Defect Resolution Time - It implies the time required to detect bugs and fix issues. As the name suggests, this elaborate process requires the Agile team to collaborate and deliver improved products, results or features in a productive way. 

Q 18. What are the responsibilities of an Agile Scrum master? 

A popular Agile coach interview question, remember, in a nutshell, the Scrum Master is the leader and supervisor of the entire Scrum team. The main job of a Scrum Master is to ensure the team follows the Agile values and principles and the set processes and practices. 

The critical responsibilities of a Scrum Master, regardless of the organization's size and industry are: 

Eliminating roadblocks that reduce the productivity of the Scrum team 
Establishing a productive and collaborative work environment 
Protecting the team from interruptions from the outside world 
Maintaining a good relationship between the client, team and all stakeholders 
Supervising the operations of the Scrum team, firefighting internal team issues or inter-team challenges and motivating them, when needed 

Q 19. What is the ideal duration of the Scrum sprint?

The duration of a Scrum cycle, also known as a Scrum sprint, mainly depends on the project size and the team size. 

Suppose the Scrum team has three to nine members and three to four weeks to complete the Scrum cycle. By this calculation, the average duration of the Scrum Sprint is four weeks. 

Q 20. Define a task board in Agile methodology. 

In short, the task board is a dashboard displaying the project's progress. 

The elements in a task board are: 

User Stories - Actual business requirement 
To-do's - Tasks that are just starting or features under development 
To Verify - Tasks that are yet to have verification and testing 
Knowledge Transfer - An experienced partner can teach others about the tasks and coding required. 
 

Q 21. How do you deal with a situation where the requirements are frequently changing? 

This Scrum Master interview question is to test your analytical capability. 

Your answer could be on similar lines using effective Agile change management capabilities. 

Involve the customer throughout the development process 
Design a product backlog that can accommodate continuous change
Involve the client in daily standup meetings 
Use Agile task boards for efficient project tracking

Q 22. Name some tools frequently used in Agile software development. 

Source Control Tools - Git, Mercurial and Subversion. 
Continuous Integration Tools - Jenkins, Travis CI and Strider.
Team Management Tools - ActiveCollab, HP's Agile Manager, JIRA, Agile Bench, VersionOne, Pivotal Tracker, Planbox, LeanKit and Axosoft. 

A successful Agile development process enables flexibility while maintaining discipline in the organization. A good set of Agile project management tools helps track the project and organize the team's progress by not imposing tight deadlines and strict roles but by making it easier for developers to self-manage their goals. 

These tools support the Agile project by allowing the team to identify requirements and splitting them into smaller tasks. From then on, it tracks the developers as they work collaboratively. The Scrum process of the Agile framework splits into shorter cycles that gradually result in the final product. The cycle keeps alternating between planning sessions and running code sprints. 

Q 23. What are some of the Agile quality strategies? 

The answer to this Agile coach interview question is, here are some of the main Agile quality strategies. 

Re-factoring 
Creating small feedback cycles
Undertaking dynamic code analysis 
Continuous iteration 

Q 24. What is the importance of daily standup meetings in an Agile Scrum methodology? 

In brief, a daily standup meeting helps the team members communicate, seek support and track progress or roadblocks. This way, you can understand the colleague's workload and priorities and what is happening within the business. 

The five benefits of daily standups in Agile are: 

Communication 
Transparency
Trust
Highlighting issues 
Empowering the team 

Q 25. What is the Agile Manifesto? 

The Agile Manifesto, published in 2001, is a document with four values and 12 principles vital for Agile software development. This documentation is a result of software development practitioners who found the need for an alternative to documentation-driven and heavyweight software development methodology. 

The four core values are: 

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 
Working software over comprehensive documentation 
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 
Responding to change over following a plan