Interview Questions for Scrum Masters: Assessing PI Planning Skills in SAFe

In my previous article, "Interviewing Scrum Masters: Critical Questions to Ask" , I shared insights on what questions to ask when interviewing for a Scrum Master position in a typical Scrum context. In this article, I focus on the specific questions related to PI (Planning Interval or Program Increment) Planning that should be asked to assess a Scrum Master's fit for supporting your Scaled Agile (SAFe) framework.

PI Planning is a cornerstone event in SAFe, and according to the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) website, the Scrum Master plays a crucial facilitative role. Here are some essential questions to help you gauge a candidate's expertise and experience in PI Planning:

1. Can you elaborate on your recent PI Planning meeting, its agenda, the overall process, and your reflections on it?

This open-ended question is designed to understand the candidate's experience with PI Planning. The response will provide a foundation for further questions and reveal the candidate's depth of involvement and perspective on the process. Key things to observe include understanding the overall complexity of the meeting, the maturity of SAFe implementation, experience with distributed PI planning, and usage of tools.

2.?? What is the role of a Scrum Master in PI Planning? Please describe the three most important activities you perform during this event.

This question assesses the candidate's understanding of their role in PI Planning. It is open-ended to allow the candidate to elaborate on their responsibilities and priorities, showcasing their practical experience and depth of knowledge. The selection of key activities is crucial—does it show facilitation, coordination, or directive nature?

3.???? How do you or your team handle capacity planning during the PI Planning meeting for the upcoming PI?

The answer will reflect the candidate's approach to quantifying capacity, whether through historical velocity or availability. It will also highlight their planning effectiveness and strategies. The discussion might have happened as part of previous questions; if not, asking specifically about it may add value to understanding the Scrum Master's competencies.

4.???? What preparations does your team undertake before attending PI Planning? How do these preparations assist in the PI Planning process, and what would you suggest doing more or less of?

This question explores the candidate's approach to preparation, highlighting their understanding of effective planning and readiness. Mainly focusing on activities around Innovation and Planning and Inspect and Adapt, it gives you an idea of activities done in the Innovation and Planning iteration for PI planning. It also shows how much preparation is done.

5.???? Can you share some of the risks identified by your team during a recent PI Planning meeting and how you addressed them?

This question assesses the candidate's risk management skills and their ability to proactively identify and address potential issues during PI Planning. This detailed example of risk and the process of responding to risk gives you insight into the complete planning readiness and process, and also makes it clear how much the Scrum Master is involved.

6.???? How does your Agile Release Train (ART) plan for dependencies during the PI Planning meeting?

The response will reveal the candidate's experience with managing dependencies, a critical aspect of successful PI Planning. It shows the approach of identifying dependencies before and during PI Planning, how soon agreements are made, and how the sequence of dependencies is tracked to achieve the PI objectives.

7.???? How do you plan for surprises and variability during PI Planning?

This question examines the candidate's flexibility and ability to handle unexpected changes, ensuring they can adapt plans as needed. It may lead to discussions around capacity and load or around uncommitted PI Objectives.

8.???? What are PI Objectives? Can you provide an example from a recent PI Planning, including any use of uncommitted PI objectives and how they benefited the process?

This question evaluates the candidate's understanding of PI Objectives and their practical application, including the strategic use of uncommitted objectives. You can see what constitutes the PI objectives, such as the distribution of features, enablers, events, and other business activities.

9.???? How do you manage timeboxes for breakout or team activities during PI Planning to ensure adequate planning without overdoing it?

This question explores the candidate's time management skills and their ability to facilitate efficient and effective team activities within set time constraints.

10.? What tools do you use for PI Planning?

This question helps to understand the candidate's familiarity with collaboration tools, especially in virtual or remote setups, and their ability to leverage these tools for effective PI Planning. It may have come up in discussion before, as tools are increasingly important in remote and distributed working environments.

11.? Do you assign Business Value to PI objectives? If so, can you explain a recent example and any challenges faced in this process?

This question assesses the candidate's experience with assigning Business Value, a crucial aspect of prioritizing and validating PI Objectives. You can observe if they are giving high business value to many PI objectives or if it is spread across. You can follow up by asking what if stakeholders want to give a 10 to all objectives.

12.? How do you conduct the confidence vote? Can you share an example where some votes were low and what the outcome was?

This question evaluates the candidate's ability to gauge team confidence and address concerns, ensuring alignment and commitment to the PI Plan. The experience of low confidence votes will help you see how open communication is followed in the PI Planning meeting and how the Scrum Master ensures feedback is taken into account.

13.? How have you contributed to creating or improving the overall PI Planning meeting agenda? Can you share some of your recent contributions?

This question highlights the candidate's proactive approach to enhancing the PI Planning process and their ability to facilitate continuous improvement. Usually, Scrum Masters work closely with the Release Train Engineer to ensure relentless improvement of PI Planning meetings.

14.? How do you facilitate communication between teams during PI Planning to ensure alignment and coordination?

This question assesses the candidate's skills in fostering inter-team collaboration, which is vital for achieving coherent and synchronized plans across multiple teams. This might have come up when discussing dependency management.

15.? How do you measure the success of a PI Planning event, and what metrics or feedback mechanisms do you use to continuously improve the process?

This question examines the candidate's approach to evaluating the effectiveness of PI Planning and their commitment to continuous improvement based on measurable outcomes and feedback.

These questions aim to uncover a Scrum Master's practical experience and thought processes regarding PI Planning, helping you identify the right fit for your SAFe implementation. By focusing on real-life examples and specific roles and responsibilities, you can better assess the candidate's capability to support and enhance your Scaled Agile practices.

For those looking to deepen their understanding and enhance their skills in SAFe, I highly recommend checking out our SAFe Scrum Master training and certification class . This comprehensive training will equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to excel in your role as a Scrum Master within a SAFe environment.

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