What are Agile and Scrum, and why do companies ask about them in interviews?
The Tadreeb team 4 min read
The short answer
Agile is a way of running software projects that splits work into short cycles, each delivering something that can be reviewed; Scrum is its most popular framework, where a team works in one- to two-week sprints with a short daily meeting and a review at the end of each sprint. Companies ask about it because most teams work this way, and people who have tried it settle in faster.
What are the key Scrum terms?
- Sprint: a short work cycle with a defined goal.
- Backlog: the list of required work, ordered by priority.
- Daily stand-up: a short daily meeting: what you did, what you will do, and what is blocking you.
- Sprint review: showing what was completed at the end of the sprint.
- Retrospective: a discussion of what to improve in how the team works.
How do you talk about Agile in an interview?
Do not stop at the definition. Tell a story: how long the sprint was, which task you took, how you estimated it, and what happened when you ran late or the requirements changed. Real experience convinces more than any definition.
Related questions
Are Agile and Scrum the same thing?
No. Agile is a set of principles for how to work; Scrum is a specific framework for applying them, and the most widely used one.
How can a beginner get Scrum experience?
Work in a team on a project split into real sprints with tasks, deadlines, meetings and review, as in hands-on training programs or well-organised open-source projects.