scrum master

##1. What is scrum master?

a person with agile mindset who facilitate the team deliver fast with iterative incremental items including available software or specification of API.  He or she is a coach guide project members , PO , team, stakeholders and sponsors following the agile way.  Scrum is a framework of agile, others like xp ,kanban.  usually, we use scrum and kanban in real project.

##2. What is scope creep?

additional features or functions not be authorized,means that these additional works not be funded.  common case as below：

collect requirements  before sprint

###1. lack of stakeholder and sponsors involvement. 

###2. PO realizes missing requirements from customers 

in sprint

###3. stakeholders or sponsors direct reach to the team

###4. PO sees the team has high velocity and wants to add addtional features.

###5. urgent task verified important and with value to customers

post sprint

###6. length of project , the longer of the project more likely to add additional features. 

##3. How to avoid scope creep?

###1. involve all stakeholders for collecting requirements.

###2. guide the PO writing user story as the classic format,   As a [role], I want[ the goal], so that [reason, benefit, value to customer] 

###3. set working agreement with team, any additional feature redirect to scrum master, team not commit to stakeholders 

###4. for the adding new features, have to folllow the flow of changing requirements,

step1. verify the requirement has value to customer.

step2. the team has to analyze from design level and coding level to avoid impact on existing features or functions.

step3. set up the priority, if add into this sprint, we have to remove a task with same story points as replacement. 

##4. What is the challenging project you ever had?

it was the CVTE project, where I first adapted agile way to manage the project, we have a team of  10 members , one PO from client side, I was the scrum master and tech leader. 40 days, we delivered the first available version to customers. went through lots of pain, such as, changing requirement, add additional features although with additional budget. lack of quality control, too much defects. didn't invite devops, at that times , initial popular in China. also, we can't build the devops tools in customers' environment. for the change requirement, the most impressive one is, implement a feature that offline query the org structure information via memory in mobile device, replacing the existing one of via sqlite , in order to improve the query speed ,offer excellent satisifaction for customers. later proved , this is not a must be done feature, foremore, which interrupted the sprint goal, making all sprint delayed. finally, we have to do OT work to accomplish the whole project.

We didn't follow the rule of inviting sponsors to review the deliveries on each sprint, causing they adding new features which we have to handle, explain this can't be implemented , that need money . bababa. It was painful to response this, distracted my attention on the main goal. I have to take care the tech issues inside my team, meanwhile responding PO and other stakeholders. 

the PO who growing up from a program guy is hard to deal with and also an idealistic person with 100% perfection criterias. I have to spend much time to communicate with him for the details of tech, him love to know how is the solution, and providing strong advice of design and coding. sometimes, we have to consider his idea, due to he is our client.

learn many lessons

1. make working agreement before project, to divide duty of roles. 

2. how to collabrate with, no interruption for the team.

3. each team focusing on their own duty.

4. management of changing requirement , add additional features. even we are using agile way which embracing the change.

5. quality is a key pillar, agile requiring quality on fast delivery pace. the more frequently delivering incrementals doesn't mean lower quality.

6. the user story which should containing the acceptance criteria, performance criteria.

I delivered this project on time but sacrificed the free time of the whole team. the quality is not good, so we spent much time to fix the issues until the final stage of check and acceptance.

we should migrate to spring boot microservice framework, instead of the premium as early as we can. 

I should use TDD on API level for the backend developing , FDD for front end is fine. require client to deploy devops tools , at least from jenkins

##5. How to manage the budget?

##6. Have you failed in a project? How to handle it?

I think the CVTE is failed , we have no margin , lost money, due to the delay and defects happened in the core features , group chat, losing message.  We honestly exposed the fact to our client, that all defects we can't fix unless we refining the design. 

##7. How to monitor your project？

burn chart, kanban,also the daily meeting, 

##8. How to inspire your team?

set the requirement of their own meeting the goal of project. encourage team obtain achievement from several levels, tech, management, communication skills, design and analyz skills

##9. Do you have the experience of managing 3rd party contractors?

yes, I have. the push service is 3rd party provider, weekly, we will communicate, discussing the issue , how to support us effectively.

##10. Do you have the experience of managing international team?

in the last project, I managed 3 team , 2 from India, one is in China. for the Indian team, you have to schedule the plan carefully, and before assign task to them, checking their leave plan, if collabration work, make sure not to waste their time. clarify what you need from them. set up the acceptance criteria , align with them.

##11. How to handle the team member with low performance?

find out the root cause, and then to see how to help him. if he prefer chanlleging project with difficult tech requirement, send him to that project. 

##12. How to handle the confliction?

how is the confliction, between teams, or individuals, for team,commonly is about schedule confliction, no time to support, we have to adjust the plan to follow their schedule. for persons, usually, happened in the discussion of solution, and how to implement a feature.

teams for schedule, plan better , before kick off

individuals for work, the team make the final decision, both can prove their ideas 

if is for persons, we have to control, if the communication go wrong. losing manners, culture misunderstanding.  each should know the other side's pain point. they should have empathy.

##13. How do you manage the software project?

follow the scrum way

groom requirement, sprint plan, daily sprint, sprint review, retrospective meeting.

will merge the milestone into the scrum mindset, like 2 sprints we can go to the milestone one which is intergation test. 

##14. How do you manage the members of the project?

po, team they have to attend the daily meeting, sprint plan meeting, sprint review.

working agreement

##15. How to evaluate the success of a project?

by the scrum criteria, is like

@1.  delivered all user stories as planned with high quality.

@2.  no scope creep

@3. all the risk controlled

@4.  we improved the flow during each sprint , finally the team is a self organized one, proactively to take project from sprint plan, daily sprint,  all task and action are apparent, if there is obstacles , they will seek the solution, and make decision. the team love to learn new knowledge, grain achivement through implementing the project.

##16. How to handle the risk of project?

before sprint,  predict the risk and along with the solution

during sprint, increase the speed of sprint to get response from customer and PO, exposing the risk faster.

think over twice, solution of controlling risk will not create new risk.

if necessary, use risk backlog to track and trace

##17. How to handle the changing requirement?

based on the scenarios  analyzing what is the requirement,  value,  impact, workload, priority

sc1. no impact, non core feature, workload small, priority high,

we can move into sprint backlog, if current sprint, replacing a task with this new one.

sc2. impact high, core feature on flow, better not to change it,  switching to solution of changing the operation flow

sc3. impact high, core feature, have to change,  we should communicate with PO and team, 

fully assessing the value, impact , workload, priority  ; such as the design , test , how to decrease the impact, make sure the quality.  set up the time

sc4. out of scope, go to the procedure of changing requirement.  better to move a the second phrase.

##18. If risks happened during the implementation of project?

what kind of risk, 

tech, requirement, cost, time, resource,  reduce the impact of the risk , and then analyze ,provide solution with team.  then, inform PO, communicate with him, for the current situation;  finally, get approval from stakholders for the action of eliminating the risk.

##19. Heavy delay happened in a project, how to do？

internal discussion 

first, identify the root cause 

find the previous project manager, to know what happened; work with team to locate the cause

second, provide solution

the solution must be feasible , taking the impact and workload into consideration.

third, what support we need to achieve the goal

external communcation with PO, stakeholder and sponsors

##20. What is a good user story?

good user story includes below elements

• description via classic format,  As ,  I want , so that
• acceptance criteria defined
• delivered in a single sprint
• performance criteria defined
• estimated by the team