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Scrum Master Interview Questions 2023: The Scrum Master Role

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-23 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: Scrum Master Interview Guide 2023: The Scrum Master Role

If you want to fill a Scrum Master position in your organization, you may find the following interview questions helpful in identifying the right candidate. They are derived from my seventeen years of practical experience with XP as well as Scrum, serving both as Product Owner and Scrum Master, as well as interviewing dozens of Scrum Master candidates on behalf of my clients. This revised set of questions addresses the Scrum Master role.

Given the remarkable results, ChatGPT recently scored in my fictitious interview for a Scrum Master position; I added extra scrutiny to the nature of the questions. While I find ChatGPT a fascinating technology, I want it to fail in this interview challenge.

So far, this Scrum Master interview guide has been downloaded more than 25,000 times.

Scrum Master Interview Questions 2023: The Scrum Master Role — Age-of-Product.com

ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Developers

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-16 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum Practitioners

Last week, I ran an “interview” with ChatGPT as an applicant for a fictitious Scrum Master position based on questions from Scrum Master Interview Guide. (See below.) While the overall results were broadly acceptable, I thought that changing the ChatGPT prompts might deliver better results. So, this time, I chose to present ChatGPT with three everyday scenarios based on more comprehensive prompts. Lo and behold, it worked very well.

Think twice if you still believe this technology is a fad or a toy. Instead, grab a cup of coffee and read for yourself.

ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Developers — Age-of-Product.com

A ChatGPT Job Interview for a Scrum Master Position

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-09 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: A ChatGPT Job Interview for a Scrum Master Position

Can a large language model, not specializing in anything “agile,” pass a screening interview for a Scrum Master position? In this ChatGPT job interview, I put OpenAI’s latest generative AI to the test. I took several questions from the 73 Scrum Master Interview Questions guide, see below, covering the whole spectrum from the broad picture to more specific questions, only answerable with hands-on experience on the interviewee’s side.

So, read on and learn whether Scrum Masters will soon be replaced with a chatbot.

A ChatGPT Job Interview for a Scrum Master Position — Age-of-Product.com

Free Ebook: 73 Scrum Master Interview Questions to Identify Suitable Candidates

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-06-17 Featured Agile and Scrum

Scrum Master Interview: Demand Creates Supply and the Job Market for Agile Practitioners is No Exception

Scrum has proven time and again to be the most popular framework for software development. Given that software is eating the world, a seasoned Scrum Master is nowadays in high demand. And that demand causes the market-entry of new professionals from other project management branches, probably believing that reading one or two Scrum books will be sufficient. Which makes any Scrum Master interview a challenging task.

Suppose you are looking to fill a Scrum Master position in your organization. In that case, you may find the following Scrum Master interview questions helpful to identify the right candidate. They are derived from my sixteen years of practical experience with XP and Scrum, serving both as Product Owner and Scrum Master, and my training experience as a Professional Scrum Trainer with Scrum.org. Also, I have interviewed dozens of Scrum Master candidates on behalf of my clients.

So far, this Scrum Master interview guide has been downloaded more than 25,000 times.

73 Scrum Master Interview Questions to Identify Suitable Candidates — Age-of-Product.com

27 Product Backlog and Refinement Anti-Patterns

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-04-09 Featured Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: 27 Product Backlog and Refinement Anti-Patterns

Scrum is a tactical framework to build products, provided you identify what is worth making in advance. But even after a successful product discovery phase, you may struggle to create the right thing in the right way if your Product Backlog is not up to the job—garbage in, garbage out. The following article points to 27 common Product Backlog anti-patterns – including the Product Backlog refinement process – limiting your Scrum team’s success.

Scrum Product Backlog Anti-Patterns from the Scrum Anti-Patterns-Guide — Age-of-Product.com

The Scrum Master Salary Report 2022

by Stefan Wolpers | 2022-01-24 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: The Scrum Master Salary Report 2022 — How Do You Compare?

The Scrum Master Salary Report 2022 is the third edition of the industry survey after 2017 and 2019. This free report is based on the answers of 1,113 participants globally. If you are considering a career decision this year, maybe, whether you should join the industry as a junior Scrum Master or move to a new organization or go independent, you will find the report’s information beneficial.

By the way, the average salary of the participants in the survey is $83,687, with a standard deviation of about $48,700. In the complete report, you will find more detailed information; download your copy below.

Moreover, we are considering creating a statistical model to suggest further career steps: The “Scrum Master Salary Toolkit.”

Scrum Master Salary Report 2022 — Free Download from Age-of-Product.com

Hiring: 82 Scrum Product Owner Interview Questions to Avoid Agile Imposters

by Stefan Wolpers | 2021-09-26 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: 82 Product Owner Interview Questions to Avoid Imposters

If you are looking to fill a position for a Product Owner in your organization, you may find the following 82 interview questions useful to identify the right candidate. They are derived from my sixteen years of practical experience with XP and Scrum, serving both as Product Owner and Scrum Master and interviewing dozens of Product Owner candidates on behalf of my clients.

So far, this Product Owner interview guide has been downloaded more than 10,000 times.

82 Product Owner Interview Questions to Avoid Imposters — Age-of-Product.com

Cargo Cult Agile — A Checklist to Open the Discussion

by Stefan Wolpers | 2020-10-24 Featured Agile and Scrum

TL; DR: The Cargo Cult Agile Checklist for Download

Do you want to know the state of agility in your organization? Here we go: Download the checklist, distribute it generously among your colleagues, and run a quick poll. It will only take 5 minutes of their time–and then analyze their feedback. If the average number of checkboxes marked is higher than nine, then you are probably practicing cargo cult agile in one form or another.

If running the cargo cult agile survey is the ‘inspection,’ then consider adapting your approach to being agile by kicking-off a discussion among the stakeholders of your organization’s endeavor.

The State of Agile: the cargo cult agile checklist for your organization by Age of Product

📅 Upcoming Scrum Training Classes, Liberating Structures Workshops, and Events

by Stefan Wolpers | 2020-10-10 Featured Workshops

TL; DR: Scrum Training Classes, Liberating Structures Workshops, and Events

Age-of-Product.com’s parent company — Berlin Product People GmbH — offers Scrum training classes authorized by Scrum.org, Liberating Structures workshops, and hybrid training of Professional Scrum and Liberating Structures. The training classes are offered both in English and German.

Check out the upcoming timetable of training classes, workshops, meetups, and other events below and join your peers.

Upcoming Scrum and Liberating Stuctures training classes and workshops — Berlin Product People GmbH

Agile Metrics — The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

by Stefan Wolpers | 2020-08-23 Featured Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL; DR: Agile Metrics

Suitable agile metrics reflect either a team’s progress in becoming agile or your organization’s progress in becoming a learning organization.

At the team level, qualitative agile metrics often work better than quantitative metrics. At the organizational level, this is reversed: quantitative agile metrics provide better insights than qualitative ones.

Scrum Master Duties, Serving a Single Team (Survey Results)

by Stefan Wolpers | 2018-07-17 Featured Agile and ScrumAgile Transition

TL;DR: Scrum Master Duties, Serving a Single Team

Scrum Master Duties: supposedly, a great scrum master serves only one scrum team — that’s at least a popular narrative in the scrum community. Nevertheless, there is also a loud voice that doubts that approach: what would you do the whole day – with a single team? Aren’t they supposed to become self-organizing over time? And if so, does the scrum then need a scrum master 24/7?

As I worked for years as a product owner on scrum teams without a dedicated scrum master-which was working well-I was curious to learn more about that question, too. Hence I ran a survey in late June and early July 2018, the results of which are presented here.

In total, 261 scrum masters participated in this non-representative survey in the two weeks before July 5th, 2018. 19 participants chose not to provide their consent to Google processing and to store their answers. Hence their contributions were deleted, resulting in a sample size of 242 responses.

Scrum Master Duties, Serving a Single Team (Survey Results) — Age of Product

Food for Agile Thought #377: Spotify Model Critique, Building Products With AI, Gemba Walk Guide, Product or Feature?

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-27 News

TL; DR: Spotify Model Critique — Food for Agile Thought #377

Welcome to the 377th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,609 peers. This week, we start with a Spotify Model critique: Jason Yip dissected what many consider an agile framework from an insider’s perspective. Also, we point to issues contributing to management’s failure to keep pace with innovation, from branded management practices vying for attention to business school complicity to confusing management with exact science, and we appreciate John Cutler’s sketch of a simple framework to become a better leader.

Then, we apply the 5C model to ‘bring some structure and product thinking to AI solutions.’ Additionally, we share practical advice on a common product management challenge: feature or product? Also, we listen to Jason Knight and Jeff Gothelf philosophizing about the necessary shift from output to outcome orientation and why organizations still struggle to do so, and we explain Spotify’s approach to validation employing the broader DIBB framework: Data, Insight, Belief, and Bet.

Finally, John Shook shares his guidelines for Gemba walks as an outside advisor, from asking why to showing respect. Moreover, RebootHQ released a bundle of free self-guided courses, and Puppet made the 10th edition of the State of DevOps Report available. Lastly, we shed light on quality metrics, defining different ones for different stakeholder groups while warning of the risks of gaming them.

Food for Agile Thought #377: Spotify Model Critique, Building Products With AI, Gemba Walk Guide, Product or Feature? Age-of-Product.com

How much Product Discovery Is Enough? Itamar Gilad’s Confidence Meter

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-22 Agile and ScrumVideos

TL; DR: Evidence-guided Product Discovery Using Itamar Gilad’s Confidence Meter

How much product discovery is enough? Figuring out what is worth building often feels valuable in and of itself. The problem is that becoming stuck in an endless discovery cycle neither solves your customers’ issues nor contributes to your organization’s sustainability. Don’t worry; help is on the way in the form of Itamar Gilad’s Confidence Meter!

How much Product Discovery Is Enough? Itamar Gilad’s Confidence Meter — Age-of-Product.com

📺 Watch the video now: How much Product Discovery Is enough? Itamar Gilad’s Confidence Meter Explained — Hands-on Agile #47.

Food for Agile Thought #376: Product Team Performance, Injustice at Work, How to Lead Complexity, ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-20 News

TL; DR: Product Team Performance — Food for Agile Thought #376

Welcome to the 376th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,564 peers. This week, we listen to our two product heavyweights, Lenny Rachitsky and John Cutler, delving into the performance of product teams. We continue with suggesting abandoning the popular framing that Waterfall is the opposite of Agile and that moving from one to the other requires a transformation, and identify four roles, at least one which you will play in a moment of injustice: person harmed, upstander, the person who caused harm, or leader. Moreover, we learn how a major Toyota program was saved by descaling and applying Scrum.

Then, we enjoy Marty Cagan sharing his approach to how teams and companies “can best deal with the challenges of complexity.” Also, we explore “three popular models for product teams,” and point to stakeholder alignment factors, from not trapping yourself to not confusing roadmaps with release plans to treating stakeholders as customers. Moreover, the ProdPad folks compiled a comprehensive list of questions your team may engage in identifying what is worth building.

Finally, Petra Wille shares the first findings from her 2022 survey into what drives thriving communities of practices for product people. Next, JTBD Toolkit released the JTBD Canvas 2.0, and there are new ChatGPT prompts for Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Developers. Lastly, Tami Reiss has a candid conversation with Rich Mironov on product ethics and the corresponding responsibilities of product managers and leaders.

Food for Agile Thought #376: Product Team Performance, Injustice at Work, How to Lead Complexity, ChatGPT Prompts for Scrum — Age-of-Product.com

Food for Agile Thought #375: Acceleration Beats Velocity, Jazz Lessons for Product, 3 Forms of Debt, Becoming a Product Coach

by Stefan Wolpers | 2023-01-13 News

TL; DR: Acceleration Beats Velocity — Food for Agile Thought #375

Welcome to the 375th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 36,502 peers. This week, we add new layers to the old ‘is velocity a useful metric’ discussion, pointing at physics, acceleration, and its multi-dimensionality. While at it, we also analyze the delicate tension between leadership and stakeholders, product management, and engineering, and learn how to make ‘effective decisions and [reduce] human misjudgment.’ As an experiment, we put OpenAI’s latest generative AI to the test: Would ChatGPT pass a screening interview for a fictitious Scrum Master position?

Then, we learn lessons from Frank Barrett’s book ‘Yes To The Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz,’ and we go back in history to shed more light on a divisive term — the ‘feature factory.’ Additionally, Marty Cagan shares his take on how to progress as a product manager in the field of product coaching, explaining prerequisites, the different coaching fields, and customer types.

Finally, we dissect the original idea of “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure” to explore Amazon’s approach, especially working backward. Moreover, we appreciate Will Larson’s deep dive into the details of assessing an engineering organization for various interested parties and Jason Yip’s measures to improve flow, from changing measuring delivery to per-process-step WIP limits. And if you are looking to spice up your Retrospectives, we have you covered with a set of retrospective games, from photo finish to Retrospective bingo to agile Battleship.