Agile Interview Questions and Answers.

Description

With the job market becoming competitive, interviews can be challenging. This is precisely where Agile Methodology comes in handy, as it helps you stand out amongst your peer competitors. Adopting Agile Estimation Techniques can be beneficial while attending an interview session as it will help you face the challenges and highlight your true potential. A glimpse at the commonly asked agile questions can help you prepare for an interview.

Introduction

Agile Interview Questions will provide you with insight into what to expect in a session of discussion and guide you to understand the interviewer's perspective and measure the parameters of an interviewee.

Overview

In the recent past, Agile Methodology interview questions have earned a lot of limelight. With the ingress of these new-age parameters to assess a candidate, it becomes imperative for a person to be aware of such techniques. To excel in the corporate world, adapting Agile Estimation techniques will add a feather to your competencies.

This article will be looking at some prominent Agile methodology questions that are usually asked in an interview session. The answer explanations will throw some light on how to prepare for any such situation.

Below are some most frequently asked Agile interview questions and answers that will help you in your preparation.

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Domain Based Agile Interview Questions and Answers

These questions will enhance the knowledge and concept of the Agile model. Considering the ground reality and nature of the market scenario, staying updated on this topic is a must, and the forthcoming questions and answer explanation will do the same.

1. What do you mean by the term Agile methodology?

Agile methodology is an exercise that involves perpetual recurrence of development and testing throughout the software development lifecycle of the project.

Due to this, the development process serves to the ever-changing business demands.

2. Explain Agile Manifesto in Brief and Tell Us Something About Its Principles?

The following forms the Agile Manifesto:

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

The below-mentioned points are Agile Principles:

• Customer Satisfaction- Through timely and perpetual delivery
• Welcome Changes- Open to change in requirements even in the later stages of development.
• Deliver the working software- Delivering the functional software from time to time.
• Collaboration -Between the business people and the developers during the entire life span.
• Face to Face Communication- This helps to convey information to the developer team.
• Progress Measurement- It is crucial in the preliminary stages of development.
• Maintain Constant Speed- A constant speed will ensure sustainable development
• Motivation – Motivated employees, will ensure efficient results.
• Monitoring- Keeping an eye on the technical aspects will ensure good results.
• Simplicity- Keeping things Simple and not unnecessarily complicating the work.
• Self-organized team- Reliance on other teams and peers should be avoided.
• Review- Periodic review of the work should be practised. 

3. What are the Advantages of the Agile model?

The following are the advantages of the Agile model:

• Customer satisfaction
• Customers can monitor the periodic progress and can recommend alterations.
• Day-to-day interactions enable more transparent communication.
• Developers are open to iterations, even at a later stage.
• A meticulous effort is made on the product design.

4. What are the Flaws of the Agile Model?

The following are the flaws or drawbacks of the Agile model:

• At times in Agile methodology, the requirement is ambiguous, making it difficult to speculate the results.
• Since it is open to changes and ever-evolving nature, the project can go beyond the stipulated time of completion.
• Being evolving in its nature and repetitive work, sometimes it isn't easy to calculate the project's final cost.

5. What Does Burn-Down and Burn-Up Chart Imply?

A Burn-down chart implies the amount of work that is yet to be done in a project development process, and a Burn-up chart suggests the amount of work completed in a project development process. 

Therefore a burn-down and burn-up chart are essential in the project monitoring process.

6. What is a Daily Stand-up in Agile methodology?

A Daily Stand-up is a daily progress meeting of about 15 minutes, wherein all the team members gather to discuss three primary objectives:

• What have we done yesterday
• What is our course of action for today
• Any bottlenecks slowing the project flow.

This meeting is important because it provides visibility in the team. It gives a clear picture of the role of every member and helps them resolve their issues.

7. What is the Definition of Terminology Agile Testing?

Agile Testing means testing software for defects or any other issues and giving feedback or comments for better and quicker development of the project.

Testing and development run parallel in agile testing. It enables to incorporate changes while the project is in the development stage for a better result.

The tester and developer do not adhere to a fixed plan. Rather, there are perpetual alterations that happen.

Testing requires the participation of customers, stakeholders, testers, developers.

8. What are Agile Frameworks?

Agile frameworks are methods of applying agile principles to a project. If agile is a philosophy, these frameworks are tools to drive that philosophy.

Below are the Agile frameworks:

• Kanban: It emphasizes the flow of work of any project and ensures there isn't any hindrance, thereby enabling productive work.
• Focus Driven Development or FDD: This particular framework is client-oriented and pays special attention to their requirement. FDD also tries to deliver regular value addition to the client throughout the life span of the project.
• Dynamic Systems Development Method or DSDM: This framework has its key focus on delivering the project on time and within the stipulated budget.
• Crystal: Crystal focuses a lot on the project team and their ability to make decisions. It emphasizes the principle of self-managing teams.

9. What Do You Mean by Agile Release Planning?

Agile release planning is a method where an incremental approach release of a product is carried out. Here you need to plan your release of the product in stages and break them into several iterations. It helps you plan which product version has to be released into the market and when.

10. What is Agile Transformation?

Agile transformation is the method of transformation of an entire organization to a style based on agile principles.

This transformation aims to develop an ambience that encourages creativity, innovation, facilitates employee empowerment, and eliminates unwanted levels of management.

11. Differentiate Between Agile and Traditional Way of Working

The following are few points to understand the difference:

• The traditional method follows a linear approach of design to development testing, whereas, in Agile methodology, an iterative approach is followed.
• Involvement of client is comparatively higher in agile than traditional way.
• In a situation where a problem arises, the whole team gets involved in solving it in Agile methodology, but in the case of the traditional approach, the problem is escalated to the higher-level manager.
• The Agile method focuses on the product more than the process, and the traditional method focuses on the process more than the product.

12. Explain the Similarity and Difference between Scrum and Agile?

Similarity- Both Scrum and Agile have a similar approach to work, which is based on finishing projects in stages and incrementally. Both are iterative.

Difference- Agile methodology is a practice, and Scrum is a tool used to carry out this practice. Agile is a broad spectrum involving many processes, while Scrum explains the process of agile in a nutshell. 

13. What is agile epic?

It is a huge spectrum of work that includes many teams and projects. It can be broken down into smaller more targeted tasks.

Skill Based Agile Interview Questions and Answers

Having the appropriate skill set will enhance your credibility, and therefore preparing for the skill-based agile interview questions and answers will help you excel in your field of work.

14. List down the Skills of a Good Agile Tester.

The following points can be noted as the critical skills of a good Agile tester:

• Keeping it simple- One of the Agile principles is keeping things simple and getting the maximum results, so a good tester should imbibe this.
• Being focused- Since there will be several scenarios that will be tested, a good Agile tester must be focused on the right thing.
• Explore and Learn- It can also be called exploratory testing. The more you explore, the more you will learn.
• Showing your results- Showing the results of your work from time to time is good. This can be done in statistical reports or an actual working system depending on the customer demand.
• Excel in communication- An excellent Agile tester should be able to communicate with the team and the clients to avoid any doubts.

15. What is an Agile development team, and what are the skillsets it should possess?

It determines a bunch of people working together to achieve the goal of developing software. This is a cumbersome and creative job that requires adapting to the technical challenges and requirements of the business as they evolve. Agile development team tries to achieve their goals by working on principles of Cross Functionality and Self Organization.  

Cross Functionality:

Reduce dependencies and enhance coordination to achieve goals.

Feedbacks in quick succession.

Reasonable control and visibility in the team.

Risk-taking capability in technical requirements.

Self-Organization:

• Teams should be able to solve issues on their own without much escalation up the ladder.
• Be motivated and develop trust amongst team members.
• The entire team should take accountability for the project.
• Be innovative and bring in new ideas from within.

16. What do you understand by the 'Planning Poker' Technique in Agile?

Planning Poker is also known as Scrum Poker. It is a card-based Agile technique that is used for Agile planning and Agile estimation. To start with it, the Agile user story is read by the product owner. The following are the steps performed: 

• Each estimator has poker cards with the values such as 0, 1, 2, 3, and so on to denote story points, ideal days, or something else that the team uses for Agile estimation.
• Each estimator discusses with the product owner and then privately selects a card based on their independent Agile estimation.
• If all estimators select the cards with the same value, it is considered as an estimate. If not, then the estimator discusses the high and low value of their estimates.
• Again, each estimator selects a card and discloses it. This process is repeated to achieve a general agreement.

Scenario-Based Agile Interview Questions and Answers

Even if you have the knowledge and skillsets, they are of little use if you cannot use them in the appropriate situation. Thus, scenario-based Agile interview questions and answers will help you tackle those situations.

17. Describe the length of Iterations in a project that you have carried out.

The real intention behind asking these Agile interview questions is to gauge in which sort of ambience you have worked until now.

You can expect some consequent questions as follows:

• Was the length of iteration fixed at the initiation of the project?
• Did the length ever change?
• Did you try achieving a shorter length or a longer length than what was decided?

18. Mention a few incidents where you have used the Agile Methodology in your work.

Whenever you confront this type of question, always keep in mind that you need to mention those methodologies you are well-versed with. 

Some of the commonly used methodologies are as follows:

• Kanban Methodology – It is a Japanese word meaning 'visual board or signboard'. This method requires transparency and interaction so that the team members are well equipped at any stage of the development.
• Extreme Programming (XP) – XP emphasizes teamwork, communication, and feedback. Here the testing is done from the initial stages and feedback is collected, and if there is any customer requirement, it is taken into account. There is continuous development and customer satisfaction.
• Dynamic Systems Development Model (DSDM) - DSDM generates a comprehensive structure defined and altered to create a plan, execute, manage, and measure the software development process.

19. Discuss your experience as an Agile Team Member, and what were your essential duties?

The key to answering these type of Agile Interview questions is that you are projecting yourself or your team as self-organized and self-motivated, thereby adhering to the Agile principles.

The interviewer will also gauge how much in-depth you have worked in an Agile-based environment and how you will perform any upcoming challenges.

They can also judge you on how good you are in troublesome situations and how you can tackle any conflict.

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Conclusion

Agile is an empowering process that endorses small, perpetual iteration of development and testing throughout the life cycle of project development. Agile helps teams to react quickly to unprecedented comments that they can receive during a project.

Adopting the Agile phenomenon can land you in a better spot in your career, and this article will be your companion and help you grow.