Agile / Scrum
An iterative approach to project management used by most software teams — work is broken into short sprints, reviewed frequently, and adapted based on feedback.
Agile is a philosophy of iterative, collaborative software development; Scrum is its most widely adopted framework. Scrum organizes work into two-week sprints, with daily standups, sprint planning, and retrospectives as recurring rituals. Familiarity with Agile/Scrum is listed on the majority of software engineering, product management, and technical project management job postings — most companies run some version of it regardless of whether they use the formal Scrum terminology.
Typical time to job-readiness: ~2 weeks.
Learning Agile / Scrum
Beginner
Understand the Scrum framework — roles (Product Owner, Scrum Master, Dev team), ceremonies (sprint planning, standup, review, retrospective), and artifacts (backlog, definition of done).
Intermediate
Run your team's ceremonies effectively, facilitate backlog refinement, write clear user stories with acceptance criteria, and use velocity for sprint forecasting.
Advanced
Scale Agile across multiple teams (SAFe, LeSS frameworks), coach teams on Agile adoption, or earn a Scrum Master certification (CSM, PSM I). The real assessment is whether your team ships predictably.
Key concepts
- Agile: a philosophy of iterative development, customer collaboration, and responding to change over a fixed plan
- Scrum: the most popular Agile framework; organizes work into Sprints with defined roles, events, and artifacts
- Sprint: a time-boxed iteration (1-4 weeks) where the team delivers a working increment of the product
- Backlog: a prioritized list of work; the Product Owner owns prioritization, the team estimates effort
- Daily Standup: 15-minute check-in on what was done, what's next, and what's blocking — not a status report
- Retrospective: after each sprint, the team reflects on what went well, what didn't, and what to change
Common interview topics
- Explain the Scrum framework — what are the roles, events, and artifacts
- How does Agile differ from Waterfall project management
- How do you handle a situation where requirements change mid-sprint
- What makes a daily standup effective vs a waste of time
- Walk me through how you'd run a sprint retrospective