Agile Scrum Master Mock Interview
Practice 37 Agile Scrum Master interview questions covering ceremonies, team dynamics, and impediment removal.
Question 20 of 37
What occurs during a backlog refinement meeting?
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Karrie Day is a certified career coach and strategist with a passion for helping her clients define and reach their professional goals. She offers career advancement services such as brand development, resume writing and critiques, job search strategies,
This is a general process knowledge question. Interviewers use it to determine if a potential hire understands the scope of the backlog refinement meeting and the responsibilities of the individuals involved.
Karrie Day is a certified career coach and strategist with a passion for helping her clients define and reach their professional goals. She offers career advancement services such as brand development, resume writing and critiques, job search strategies,
Avoid confusing the goals and outcomes of the backlog refinement meeting with sprint planning. The goal of this session is to groom the product backlog, and discussing task development, time estimates, or creating a sprint backlog would be considered out of scope.
Karrie Day is a certified career coach and strategist with a passion for helping her clients define and reach their professional goals. She offers career advancement services such as brand development, resume writing and critiques, job search strategies,
The Product Owner refines the product backlog continually, but the team meets periodically to review and estimate new stories, discuss information-gathering needs, and adjust story prioritization as necessary.
My main focus for these meetings is to ensure the story adjustment and estimation run smoothly. The team identifies information gaps for any stories that are too vague to estimate. I also weigh in on stories that potentially need to be broken down further or need a spike before their inclusion in a sprint. I also offer guidance as necessary when conflicts arise.
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Anonymous Answer
The product owner owns the product backlog. The product backlog is constantly refined by the product owner. However, the team meets periodically to review the product backlog and to ensure that the user stories are well-prioritized and healthy for delivery.
In this meeting, the team estimates and reviews new stories and also discusses information-gathering needs. As a scrum master, I ensure that the estimation runs smoothly. The team also identifies gaps in stories that are too vague to estimate. I also weigh in on stories that need to be broken down further before adding them to the sprint backlog. I also offer advice if a conflict arises.
Marcie's Feedback
Excellent! Can you talk more specifically about a time when you ran a backlog refinement meeting? Use the STAR method to describe the situation, your task and actions, and the end result. Show the interviewer that you are capable of running this type of meeting. Great job!
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