40+ Agile Interview Questions and Answers

An Agile interview is not to test your ability to memorize a book. The interviewer wants to see if you can apply Agile principles to real-life chaos. You will be asked more than just definitions. You will be asked about specific roles and responsibilities within a framework like Scrum. You will be given scenarios—a difficult stakeholder, an underperforming team member, a consistently missed Sprint goal—to see how you think. They want to see the reasoning behind your answers, not just the answers themselves.

This guide will prepare you for that. We will break down the most common and critical Agile interview questions, not just what to say but the logic and principles that make a good answer.

Foundational Agile and Scrum Concepts

These are the basics. If you fail here, the interview is over.

1. What is Agile? Don’t give me the textbook definition.

Answer: Agile is a mindset for developing products. It’s about accepting that you don’t know everything at the start. So, you build a small piece, get feedback from real users, learn from it, and then decide what to build next. It prioritizes responding to change over sticking to a rigid plan. The goal is to deliver valuable software early and continuously, not just a big pile of features at the end.

2. What’s the difference between Agile and Scrum?

Answer: Agile is the philosophy or the mindset, like a belief system. Scrum is a specific, prescriptive framework for putting that Agile mindset into practice. Agile gives you the principles, like “customer collaboration over contract negotiation.” Scrum gives you the roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Developers), events (Sprints, Daily Stand-ups), and artifacts (Product Backlog) to make it happen. You can be Agile without doing Scrum, but you can’t do Scrum correctly without being Agile.

3. Why does Agile even exist? What problem does it solve?

Answer: It solves the problem of building the wrong thing. Traditional methods, like Waterfall, spend months or years on planning and building. By the time the product is delivered, the market has changed, customer needs are different, and you’ve wasted a massive amount of time and money on a product nobody wants. Agile addresses this by working in short cycles, getting constant feedback, and ensuring the team is always working on the most valuable thing right now.

4. When should you not use Agile?

Answer: Agile isn’t a magic bullet. It’s a bad fit when requirements are truly fixed, completely understood, and will not change. For example, if the project is to build a bridge according to a fixed engineering blueprint, you don’t need iterative feedback on the design. Agile also fails in cultures that punish failure, resist change, or where management requires absolute predictability and detailed long-term plans upfront.

5. Explain the main principles of the Agile Manifesto.

Answer: There are four core values.

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools: People solve problems, not tools. A conversation is better than a 100-page document.
• Working software over comprehensive documentation: A functional product is the best measure of progress. Documentation is necessary, but it doesn’t replace a working product.
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation: Work with the customer throughout the project, not just at the beginning and end. Their feedback is critical.
• Responding to change over following a plan: The ability to pivot based on new information is more valuable than blindly sticking to an outdated plan.

6. What is the difference between iterative and incremental development?

Answer:

• Incremental means you build the product piece by piece. You complete one feature fully, then the next, then the next. Each piece adds to the whole.
• Iterative means you build a rough version of the whole product, then refine it over and over again. You start with a basic skeleton and add more detail in each cycle.

Agile, and specifically Scrum, uses both. Each Sprint delivers a potentially shippable increment of the product, and the overall product is refined through multiple iterations (Sprints).

Roles and Responsibilities

You need to know who does what. Vague answers here are a major red flag.

7. What are the three roles in Scrum? Explain them.

Answer:

• Product Owner (PO): The PO is the voice of the customer and stakeholders. They are responsible for the “what” and the “why.” They own the Product Backlog, prioritize the work to maximize value, and are the single point of contact for all product-related decisions. Their job is to ensure the team is building the right product.
• Scrum Master (SM): The SM is a servant-leader for the team. They are responsible for the “how” of using Scrum. They don’t manage people; they manage the process. They facilitate events, remove impediments, and coach the team and organization on Scrum principles and practices. Their job is to make the team as effective as possible.
• Developers: These are the people who do the work to build the product increment. This isn’t just programmers; it includes testers, designers, writers—anyone needed to create a finished piece of work. They are self-managing and are responsible for the “how” of building the product. They plan the work for the Sprint and hold each other accountable for delivering a high-quality increment.

Read: Difference Between Product Owner and Product Manager

8. Is a Scrum Master the same as a Project Manager?

Answer: No. They are fundamentally different. A traditional Project Manager directs the team, assigns tasks, and manages timelines and scope. They are a “command and control” role. A Scrum Master is a coach and facilitator. They don’t tell the team what to do. They empower the team to manage their own work, remove obstacles blocking their progress, and protect them from outside distractions. The team reports to itself, not the Scrum Master.

9. Who has the authority to cancel a Sprint?

Answer: Only the Product Owner has this authority. This is a serious decision and should only happen if the Sprint Goal becomes obsolete. For example, if an external event makes the goal irrelevant or if the company changes strategic direction. It is not done lightly because it’s disruptive and costly.

10. What does “servant-leader” mean for a Scrum Master?

Answer: It means the Scrum Master leads by serving the needs of the team, the Product Owner, and the organization, not by giving orders. For the team, they remove impediments. For the Product Owner, they help with backlog management techniques. For the organization, they help them understand and adopt Scrum. Their authority comes from their ability to help people, not from a title. Their goal is to make the team self-sufficient to the point where they are barely needed.

11. Can the Product Owner and Scrum Master be the same person?

Answer: No. This is a conflict of interest. The Product Owner is focused on maximizing product value, which often means pushing for more features. The Scrum Master is focused on protecting the team and ensuring a sustainable pace and adherence to the process. Combining these roles means one will suffer. The PO wants to go fast; the SM ensures they go fast sustainably. You can’t do both at the same time.

Agile Ceremonies (Events)

If you don’t know the purpose of each meeting, you don’t know Scrum.

12. What are the five events in Scrum?

Answer:

• The Sprint: A timebox of one month or less during which a “Done,” usable, and potentially releasable product increment is created. All other events happen within the Sprint.
• Sprint Planning: Happens at the start of a Sprint. The whole team collaborates to define what can be delivered in the upcoming Sprint and how that work will be achieved.
• Daily Scrum (Stand-up): A 15-minute daily meeting for the Developers. It’s for inspecting progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapting the plan for the next 24 hours. It is not a status report for managers.
• Sprint Review: Happens at the end of the Sprint. The Scrum Team and stakeholders inspect the increment and adapt the Product Backlog. It’s a demo of the working product, not a PowerPoint presentation.
• Sprint Retrospective: Also at the end of the Sprint. The team inspects itself and creates a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next Sprint. It’s about improving the process, not the product.

13. What is the purpose of a Daily Scrum? What are the three questions?

Answer: The purpose is for the Developers to synchronize their work and create a plan for the next 24 hours. It’s a planning meeting, not a status meeting. The goal is to identify impediments and coordinate activities. The classic three questions are: “What did I do yesterday?”, “What will I do today?”, and “What impediments are in my way?”.

However, many teams find it more effective to focus the conversation on the Sprint Backlog items, asking “What can we do to move this story forward?” or “What’s the most important thing for us to finish today to meet the Sprint Goal?”. The format can change as long as the purpose—inspecting progress and creating a plan—is met.

14. What makes a good Sprint Retrospective?

Answer: A good retrospective is a safe space where the team can have honest conversations about what went well, what didn’t, and what to change. It results in concrete, actionable improvement items that the team commits to implementing in the next Sprint. It’s not a blame session. A good Scrum Master will vary the format to keep it engaging and ensure everyone participates. The most important outcome is not just identifying problems, but creating a specific plan to address at least one of them.

15. What’s the difference between a Sprint Review and a Sprint Retrospective?

Answer: This is a common point of confusion.

• Sprint Review is about the product. The team demonstrates what they built (the increment) to stakeholders to get feedback. The output is an updated Product Backlog.
• Sprint Retrospective is about the process. The Scrum Team discusses how they worked together and identifies ways to improve their collaboration, tools, and processes. The output is an actionable improvement item for the next Sprint.

16. What is a “Sprint 0”?

Answer: Sprint 0 is a controversial term. Some teams use it to describe an initial period for setup activities like defining the architecture, setting up environments, and building an initial backlog before the first “real” Sprint begins. However, this is often seen as an anti-pattern because it’s not delivering a product increment. A better approach is to include these setup tasks in the first few regular Sprints, ensuring that the team is always focused on delivering value, even if it’s small at the beginning.

Agile Artifacts

These are the tools used to make work visible and transparent.

17. What are the three Scrum artifacts?

Answer:

• Product Backlog: A single, ordered list of everything that might be needed in the product. It’s the single source of requirements for any changes to be made to the product. The Product Owner is responsible for it.
• Sprint Backlog: The set of Product Backlog items selected for the Sprint, plus a plan for delivering the product Increment and realizing the Sprint Goal. It’s a forecast by the Developers of what functionality will be in the next Increment.
• Increment: The sum of all the Product Backlog items completed during a Sprint and the value of the increments of all previous Sprints. At the end of a Sprint, the new Increment must be “Done,” which means it is in a usable condition and meets the Scrum Team’s Definition of Done.

18. What is a “user story”? What is a good format?

Answer: A user story is a short, simple description of a feature told from the perspective of the person who desires the new capability, usually a user or customer. It’s a placeholder for a conversation. The most common format is: “As a , I want so that .” This structure ensures the team understands who it’s for, what they want, and why they want it.

19. What does INVEST stand for?

Answer: INVEST is a checklist for creating good user stories.

• Independent: Stories should be self-contained to avoid dependencies.
• Negotiable: They are not contracts; they are placeholders for conversations.
• Valuable: The story must deliver value to the user or customer.
• Estimable: You should be able to guess the size of the story.
• Small: It should be small enough to be completed in a single Sprint.
• Testable: You must be able to verify that the story is done.

20. What is a “Definition of Done” (DoD)? Who creates it?

Answer: The DoD is a shared understanding of what it means for work to be complete. It’s a formal checklist that ensures a consistent level of quality for the increment. Items on the list could include “code reviewed,” “unit tests passed,” “documentation updated,” etc. The entire Scrum Team (Developers, PO, SM) creates the DoD. A strict DoD prevents technical debt and ensures everyone has the same expectations for a finished piece of work.

21. What is the difference between the Product Backlog and the Sprint Backlog?

Answer: The Product Backlog is the master list of all potential features, requirements, and fixes for the entire product, ordered by priority. It is a long-term artifact that is constantly evolving. The Sprint Backlog is a short-term plan. It’s a subset of items from the Product Backlog that the Developers have pulled into the current Sprint to work on. It also includes the plan to deliver those items. The Product Backlog is owned by the PO; the Sprint Backlog is owned by the Developers.

Real-World Scenarios and Behavioral Questions

This is where they separate theory from practice. Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure your answers.

22. A key stakeholder keeps giving new requirements directly to a developer in the middle of a sprint. What do you do?

Answer:

• Situation: A developer is getting work directly from a stakeholder, bypassing the process.
• Task: My task is to protect the team from distractions and ensure the integrity of the Sprint is maintained.
• Action: First, I would talk to the developer and remind them to redirect any stakeholder requests to the Product Owner. I would coach them on the importance of this for protecting the Sprint Goal. Next, I would talk to the stakeholder. I would explain the purpose of the Product Owner role and the Sprint Backlog. I’d explain that while their input is valuable, all work needs to be prioritized by the Product Owner to ensure the team is always working on the most valuable items for the business as a whole. I would then facilitate a conversation between the stakeholder and the Product Owner.
• Result: By doing this, the stakeholder understands the correct channel for requests, the Product Owner maintains control over priorities, and the development team can focus on the committed Sprint Goal without disruption.

23. The team consistently fails to complete all the items in their Sprint Backlog. What are the possible causes and what would you do?

Answer:

• Possible Causes:
  • Overcommitment: The team is too optimistic during Sprint Planning and pulls in too much work.
  • Unclear Requirements: Stories are not well-defined, leading to rework and confusion.
  • External Impediments: The team is constantly being blocked by things outside their control.
  • Scope Creep: The Product Owner or stakeholders are adding work mid-sprint.
  • Growing Technical Debt: Poor code quality is slowing the team down.
• Action: My first step would be to bring this up in the Sprint Retrospective. It’s the team’s problem to solve. I would facilitate a discussion to identify the root cause. If it’s overcommitment, we can look at our historical velocity to make more realistic forecasts. If it’s unclear requirements, we need to improve our backlog refinement process. If it’s impediments, I need to be more aggressive in removing them. If it’s scope creep, I need to coach the PO and protect the team. The solution depends entirely on the cause, and the team needs to own the solution.

24. Your Product Owner is never available to the team. How do you handle this?

Answer:

• Situation: The team cannot get timely answers from the Product Owner, which is blocking progress and creating a risk of building the wrong thing.
• Task: My task is to resolve this impediment and re-establish the communication loop between the team and the PO.
• Action: I would first have a direct conversation with the Product Owner. I would explain the impact their unavailability is having on the team and the project, using specific examples. I would seek to understand their perspective—perhaps they are overloaded with other responsibilities. I would try to find a solution with them, like scheduling dedicated office hours or empowering a proxy from the development team for smaller decisions. If that doesn’t work, I would need to escalate the issue to their manager or the person who sponsored the agile transformation, explaining that the PO role is a serious commitment and the project’s success is at risk.
• Result: This leads to a clear action plan to improve the PO’s engagement or a formal recognition that the role needs to be re-staffed for the team to succeed.

25. A team member is consistently underperforming or being disruptive. What is your approach?

Answer: My first step is to observe and gather data, not jump to conclusions. I would then approach the individual for a private, one-on-one conversation. I would focus on the observable behaviors and their impact on the team, not on personal attacks. I’d listen to their side of the story. Perhaps there’s a personal issue or a skills gap.

I would offer my support as a coach to help them. If the behavior continues, the next step is to bring it to the team during a retrospective, framing it as a team problem: “I’ve noticed we’re having challenges with X. How can we as a team address this?”. The team should be given the chance to resolve its own problems. If the disruption is severe and persists despite these efforts, I would have to involve their functional manager. The Scrum Master’s role is to facilitate, not to manage performance.

26. How do you handle conflict within the team?

Answer: Conflict isn’t always bad; healthy debate is necessary for high-performing teams. My role is to ensure it remains constructive. If a conflict arises, I would first encourage the individuals to resolve it themselves. If they can’t, I would facilitate a meeting between them. I would establish ground rules for the conversation, ensuring both sides get to speak without interruption and that the focus remains on the problem, not the people.

My goal is not to solve the problem for them, but to help them find a mutually agreeable solution. I act as a neutral mediator.

27. Stakeholders are unhappy with the team’s progress. What do you do?

Answer: The key here is transparency. I would first seek to understand why they are unhappy. Is it a lack of visibility? Are their expectations not being met? I would invite them to the Sprint Review to see the actual working software and participate in the feedback process. I would work with the Product Owner to ensure the product roadmap and backlog are clear and visible to them.

I might use metrics like burn-down charts or cumulative flow diagrams to make the team’s progress transparent. The conversation should be about aligning expectations. Often, unhappiness comes from a mismatch between a stakeholder’s perception and the reality of the project. My job is to close that gap with clear communication and transparency.

28. How do you introduce Agile to a team that is new to it?

Answer: You start with the “why.” Explain the problems with the old way of working and how Agile aims to solve them. Don’t just throw the Scrum Guide at them. Start with a workshop or training on the basics of the Agile mindset and the Scrum framework. Then, start small. Don’t try to be perfect from day one. The first few Sprints will be messy.

My role as Scrum Master is to be a hands-on coach, guiding them through each event, protecting them while they learn, and facilitating retrospectives so they can learn from their own experiences. The goal is to get them delivering a small piece of value quickly to build momentum and belief in the process.

Metrics and Continuous Improvement

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

29. What Agile metrics are you familiar with? Which are most important?

Answer: I am familiar with several:

• Velocity: The average amount of work a team completes during a Sprint, usually measured in story points. It’s useful for forecasting how much work the team can take on in future Sprints. It is a measure of capacity, not productivity.
• Cycle Time: The time it takes from when work starts on an item to when it is delivered. Shorter cycle times are generally better.
• Lead Time: The time from when a request is made to when it is delivered. This is what the customer actually feels.
• Burn-down/Burn-up Charts: Visual tools to track progress. A burn-down shows how much work is remaining, while a burn-up shows how much has been completed against the total scope.

The most important metric depends on the goal. For predictability, Velocity is key. For process efficiency, Cycle Time is critical. For customer satisfaction, Lead Time is what matters. Metrics should be used to spark conversations and improvements, not to compare teams or reward individuals.

30. A manager wants to use velocity to compare the performance of two teams. How do you respond?

Answer: I would explain to the manager that this is a misuse of the metric and will lead to negative consequences. Velocity is a forecasting tool for a single team, not a productivity metric. Each team’s velocity is unique because their estimates, skills, and context are different. A team with a velocity of 20 is not necessarily “worse” than a team with a velocity of 40.

If you compare teams based on velocity, they will start inflating their estimates to look better, which makes the metric useless for forecasting and destroys trust. I would offer to provide other, more meaningful metrics about the value being delivered if they want to understand performance.

Also Read: Best Agile Project Management Tools

31. What is technical debt and how should it be managed?

Answer: Technical debt is the implied cost of rework caused by choosing an easy, limited solution now instead of using a better approach that would take longer. It’s like taking a loan; you get a short-term benefit, but you have to pay it back with interest later in the form of slower development. It should be managed proactively. The best way is to have a strict Definition of Done.

For existing debt, the team and Product Owner should agree to allocate a certain percentage of the Sprint’s capacity to paying it down. This can be done by adding technical debt items to the Product Backlog and prioritizing them like any other story. Ignoring it will eventually bring development to a halt.

32. What is the purpose of backlog refinement (or grooming)?

Answer: Backlog refinement is the ongoing process of adding detail, estimates, and order to items in the Product Backlog. The purpose is to ensure that stories at the top of the backlog are ready to be pulled into a Sprint. This is not a formal Scrum event, but an essential activity.

A good practice is for the team to spend about 10% of their time each Sprint on refinement. This prevents Sprint Planning from becoming a long, painful meeting and ensures a steady flow of well-understood work for the team.

Agile Mindset and Culture

These questions test if you truly understand the core philosophy.

33. Sum up the Agile mindset in one sentence.

Answer: Embrace uncertainty and deliver value through rapid feedback loops.

34. In your opinion, what is the most important element of Scrum?

Answer: The Sprint Retrospective. While all elements are important, the retrospective is the engine for continuous improvement (Kaizen). It’s the built-in mechanism that allows a team to learn and adapt. Without it, a team will just keep making the same mistakes over and over. It embodies the core agile principle of reflecting on how to become more effective.

35. How do you foster a culture of continuous improvement?

Answer: By making it a habit. The Sprint Retrospective is the formal mechanism. I would also encourage daily, informal feedback. I would celebrate learning from failures, not just successes. I’d make problems and progress visible to everyone. As a Scrum Master, I would lead by example by constantly asking for feedback on my own performance and actively working to improve. It’s about creating an environment of psychological safety where people feel comfortable experimenting, failing, and learning.

36. What is “sustainable pace”?

Answer: Sustainable pace is an Agile principle that says the team should work at a pace that they can maintain indefinitely without burnout. It means no regular overtime, no “death marches” to meet a deadline. It leads to higher quality work, more predictability, and better team morale. The Scrum Master is responsible for protecting the team from pressures that would force them into an unsustainable pace.

37. Who writes the user stories?

Answer: Anyone on the team can write user stories. The Product Owner is ultimately responsible for the content and prioritization of the stories in the backlog, but the physical act of writing them is a collaborative effort. Often, the best stories are written in a workshop with the PO, developers, and testers all contributing.

38. What is a “Spike” in Agile?

Answer: A Spike is a type of user story or task aimed at answering a question or gathering information. It’s used for activities like research, design, exploration, or prototyping. The purpose is to reduce uncertainty about a future backlog item. A Spike is time-boxed and doesn’t deliver direct user value, but enables future value delivery by providing knowledge.

39. How do you prioritize a backlog? What techniques have you used?

Answer: Prioritization is the Product Owner’s responsibility, but they should seek input from stakeholders and the team. The goal is to maximize the value delivered. Some techniques are:

• MoSCoW: Categorizing features as Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, or Won’t-have.
• Value vs. Effort: Plotting items on a 2×2 matrix to find high-value, low-effort items (quick wins).
• Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF): A more complex method used in SAFe that quantifies the “Cost of Delay” to determine economic priority.

The best technique depends on the context, but the key is to have a clear, transparent system for making priority decisions.

40. What is your favorite thing about Agile?

Answer: My favorite thing is the focus on delivering value. In many traditional projects, teams can be busy for months without delivering anything tangible to the customer. Agile forces the conversation back to “What is the most valuable thing we can do for our users right now?” This relentless focus on value, combined with the short feedback loops, ensures that you build products people actually want and need.

41. What questions do you have for us about our Agile process?

Answer: You must ask questions. Not asking shows a lack of interest or critical thinking. Good questions include:

• “Can you describe how a typical Sprint works on your team?”
• “How are your Product Owners and development teams structured?”
• “How do you handle impediments that are outside the team’s control?”
• “What is the biggest challenge your Agile teams are facing right now?”
• “How does the organization measure the success of its Agile projects?”