Used by many companies to churn out great products, the Agile methodology is probably the most widely used project management approach in the world.
So whether you’re planning to become a Scrum master or an Agile tester in a company, you need to know everything about Agile and Scrum .
But if you’re nervous about your upcoming Agile interview , don’t be!
This article will help you out with those questions and even use some examples from the life of head writer, Liz Lemon, in the show 30 Rock .
To make things fun, Liz and her boss Jack (who manage a team of writers in a broadcasting network), will coach you to answer all the tricky Agile interview questions.
Ready to get coached?
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Summarize this article for me pleaseJust getting started with understanding Agile? The answers to these questions will take you from an Agile beginner all the way to expert status!
The Agile software development and project management approach helps teams deliver customer-centric products in short development cycles known as sprints . Each sprint lasts for about two to four weeks, during which teams develop a working version of the product. After the sprint, a version is submitted to the stakeholders for their feedback, and changes are made accordingly in the next sprint. It’s like being Jack’s mentee… You receive a lot of feedback. But let’s hope that the feedback you receive is better than this:
The Agile manifesto is a brief document that outlines the 4 values and 12 principles of the Agile method . These values and principles help us understand how the Agile methodology is different from traditional project management frameworks, like Waterfall. As such, the Agile manifesto outlines the code of conduct for Agile teams. Pretty much like Liz Lemon’s life advice book, Dealbreaker .
The 12 Agile principles can be clubbed under the following 4 categories:
Note: To learn more about each Agile principle in detail, read this article .
However, none of these values or principles are especially rigid, no matter how much Liz tries to convince you otherwise!
They are simply meant to hone an Agile mindset that helps team members deliver products that customers truly love.
An Agile workflow is the typical process of any Agile project, and it includes the following 5 steps:
Step 1: Conception
You develop a project vision, create your product backlog , and start planning your sprint.
Step 2: Inception
Here, you assign sprints to various teams, give them the resources to work with, and clarify the project timeframe.
Step 3: Iteration
The Agile software development team starts working on the sprint backlog items in this stage. While the objective is to release working software at the end of each sprint, the first few versions usually include very limited features.
Step 4. Release
At the end of a sprint, the developers release the product to customers for their feedback.
Step 5: Retirement
Here, the current product version is retired and replaced with the sprint for a new release.
These 5 steps are repeated for each sprint until the final product is fully developed.
And while the Agile method encourages teams to experiment and tweak their own Agile workflow, they must understand the significance of each step.
Especially if your team members are in a habit of going from 0 to 100 like TV star Jenna Maroney!
Agile is a modern methodology that is intended to meet the dynamic needs of new-age software development .
The biggest difference between Agile and traditional project management methodologies like Waterfall is in the process .
Traditional project management methods have a long, linear production cycle that goes up to six months or more at a time.
Imagine making Liz waiting that long for anything!
On the other hand, an Agile team delivers working versions of the product in shorter sprints .
This ensures that they receive customer feedback along the process and not just at the end, which helps develop customer-centric products.
This difference reflects in all the aspects of how an Agile team functions:
And we’re sure that Jack Donaghy’s management genius will recommend Agile.
Agile is perfectly suited for small, hands-on teams who want to deliver results fast.
But it’s slightly more challenging for a large company that needs to adopt it across several verticals, functions, and projects.
Think of the challenges Jack Donaghy had to face when he took over as the network head.
When scaling the Agile framework , companies need to be prepared to face challenges like:
While a thorough understanding of the Agile method will help them out, they also need the additional support of a scaling framework .
An example of this is the Scaled Agile Framework : a set of principles and workflow patterns that help large organizations become Agile.
The Agile model described in the Scaled Agile Framework addresses problems such as strategy, investment, and coordination between multi-level teams.
One of the key benefits of a model like the Scaled Agile Framework is that it increases transparency and adaptability of large team setups.
An Agile coach is like what Jack Donaghy is to Liz Lemon.
A friendly, helpful, and supportive mentor.
And just like him, an Agile coach helps:
Agile coach interviews specifically test you for skills such as communication, leadership, and mentoring abilities.
If you’ve experienced working in an Agile team, you can join an Agile training institute or take certified online courses to become an Agile coach .
Agile testing is the testing process present in Agile project management.
Testing is absolutely crucial to any Agile project . Unlike traditional project management methodologies, an Agile project continuously tests its products using various test cases .
Much like how ‘The Girlie Show’ star, Tracy Jordan, keeps testing Liz’s patience.
But while Tracy’s shenanigans have no rhyme or rhythm, the Agile testing methodology is very much codified.
You can answer an Agile testing interview question by talking about the 4 types of Agile testing methods:
And each of these tests can be conducted using any of the following Agile testing quadrants :
Basically, the Agile testing methodology is detailed enough to help Liz crack the code for managing Tracy!
An Agile tester is the primary director of any Agile test in a team.
They’re responsible for conducting holistic, in-depth tests on the product, and providing the developers with specific metrics to measure progress.
An Agile tester should:
To do all of this, an Agile tester should have a thorough understanding of the Agile methodology , programming know-how, and elite communication skills.
Pair programming is an Agile technique in which two programmers team up to solve a problem.
Sorta like The Problem Solvers here:
However , pair programmers coordinate better than Tracy and Jenna.
They even share a computer, keyboard, and mouse.
The one with the keyboard is known as the ‘director’ or ‘driver’ and leads the learning for the other programmer, who is known as the ‘observer’ or ‘navigator’. They also switch roles to maximize learning and engagement.
However, just like the Tracy-Jenna combo, pair programming is not without its pitfalls.
Pair programming is known to slow down learning rather than speed it up. It also dials up the cost of operating as it increases the number of man-hours taken per task.
The Agile methodology has inspired a set of project management models that share its basic principles but differ in implementation.
The most widely used Agile development frameworks are:
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