Agile Project Management: Self-Assessment (and Interview) Questions

How would this list benefit you?

If you are new to Agile, keep these questions in mind as you learn. These questions can help put some structure around your learning

If you are an Agile Manager, these questions could help you to assess yourself. They may help to synthesize your knowledge, and point out a few gaps.

If you are a Founder / CEO / MD / VP, then use these questions (plus yours) to evaluate Project Managers

If you are seeking an Agile PM job, these may help you to prepare for the interviews

Why did I prepare this list of Questions?

Like many other Agile Project Managers, I learned Agile principles, benefits, methodologies & applications from multiple sources - classroom training ( e.g.: Scaled Agile Framework Agilist #scaledagile ), online courses, practice (projects), discussions with scrum masters from other companies, newsletters, books, etc. I realized that there's no structure to, and no synthesis of my Agile PM knowledge. And so, I prepared this. Please note that no list can be comprehensive.

What I mean by synthesis is to recall the learning, combine what you studied and what you experienced, reconcile the differences, search for answers, organize the ideas, etc.

History & Roots

1. When and where did the #Agile Originate from?
2. When and where did the #Scrum Originate from?
3. When and where did the #Kanban Originate from?
4. What are the Scrum Values?
5. What's the impact / influence of TQM on Agile? What are the TQM principles you find in Agile?
6. What's the impact / influence of Lean Manufacturing on Agile? What are the Lean Manufacturing principles you find in Agile?
7. How’s Agile different from earlier methodologies, like RUP (Rational Unified Process)?
8. Where’s Agile heading to? What’s the future of Agile?

Benefits, Methods, Appropriateness

1. Does Agile really benefit? What are the benefits?
2. Types of Organizations that have benefited from Agile?
3. When & Where is Agile appropriate, and NOT appropriate?
4. Compare and contrast current Agile methodologies #agilemethodologies
5. Which is the most popular Agile method? Why?

Adoption, Challenges & Teams

1. What are the prerequisites for implementing Agile in a Team, or in an Organization?
2. How do you to get the support of Executives for implementing Agile?
3. How do you to get the support of Project Managers for implementing Agile? Wouldn't they resist a new way of implementing projects?
4. What are the initial organizational challenges to Scrum adoption?
5. What are the major reasons for the failure of Agile projects? Did any of your Agile projects fail? Why? How would you prevent that?
6. How do you build an Agile Team?
7. If there isn’t any PM in Agile, then who manages the Project? Who is accountable? Who sends reports to Management?
8. How do you reward top performers, if it is the Team that performs, not individuals?
9. Agile emphasizes co-location. I have challenges in co-location of team members. How to handle?
10. How do you handle free-riders (those goofing around) in an Agile team?
11. My clients want to meet both Scope and Time constraints. Can Agile help?

User Stories

1. What’s a User Story?
2. Why User Stories? Why not Business Requirement or Scope documents?
3. What are the situations where User Stories may NOT be appropriate?
4. How to prepare and utilize User Stories?
5. What are the challenges in preparing User Stories? And, Solutions?

Current & Future Sprint Planning

1. What is a Sprint Planning?
2. Why Sprint Planning? Why not alternatives?
3. What are the challenges in running Sprint Planning? And, Solutions?
4. When & How do you plan for future Sprints?

Daily Stand-up

1. What is a Daily Stand-up? Types of Daily Stand-up?
2. What are the challenges in running the Daily Stand-up meeting? And, Solutions?

Similar questions for the Sprint Review, and Retrospective

Project Tracking / Reports

1. What are the tracking tools in Scrum?
2. What are the tracking tools in other Agile Methods?
3. What are the challenges in tracking the Sprint? And, Solutions?

Scrum Master

1. What are the responsibilities of a Scrum Master? What does his/her day look like?
2. What are the hard & soft Skills, and mindset required for a Scrum Master?
3. What are some of the challenges faced by Scrum Master?
4. How can Scrum Masters grow in their career?
5. How should SM work with Product Owner & help PO?