Preparing for the Certified Scrum Master certification exam takes time and energy. To one day be a Scrum Master with a degree, you need to take your exam.
And for that, you have to study a lot. If you’ve come across this article, you’ve probably already read the Scrum Guide a long time ago. But as you have already understood, it is a short document. And with so little information, you cannot prepare for your certification exam, during which you will be asked serious and many questions.
That’s why I’m presenting sample questions and answers that will help you a lot.
Scrum Master certification exam preparation with sample questions and answers
Although most of these questions and answers are relevant to the BVOP Scrum Master certification program, you may also find them useful for PSMI, PSMII, and CSM.
What is a Certified Scrum Master?
It would be appropriate to present in detail the meaning and benefits of the Certified Scrum Master role and how it will add value to the project. It can start with the fact that the Certified Scrum Master is a person who takes care of several teams according to the Scrum methodology. It helps the team to develop, become more independent and eventually become a “self-organizing” team. ;
Initially organizes and leads, and then helps the team, which gradually organizes and conducts all the necessary Agile “Ceremonies”; Protects the team from any external distractions during the current work cycle (so-called sprints);
Helps the team to use and adapt Agile “Ceremonies” in the most useful and efficient way for them, as long as it is in sync with other teams and units in the bank; Takes care of the continuous improvement of the work process of the team, including various aspects: support, access, administrative and organizational activities; Reference: “Preparing for Scrum Master Certification Exam“, https://www.mmrls.org/preparing-for-scrum-master-certification-exam/
Assists, trains, and gives recommendations and instructions to the Product Owner in his work with the team and the organization of Agile “Ceremonies”; Interprets and adapts the Scrum methodology to the specifics and needs of the specific team within the values, principles outlined in the Agile Manifesto, Marketing Agile Manifesto. Apply and help articulate the core values and strengths of Scrum and Agile to other Bank staff as appropriate. Reference: “Scrum Master certification exam preparation with sample questions and answers”, https://projectmanagers.joomla.com/18-scrum-master-certification-exam-preparation-with-sample-questions-and-answers.html
The Development team shares with you their idea that they want you to be appointed Product Owner and take over his functions, and the Product Owner assigned to your team to go to another team and have no contact with him.
The Product Owner creates a list of tasks ordered by priority. This list helps the team to break the project into smaller and more manageable sub-projects to be executed incrementally – during the sprints. If one doubts whether it has anything to do with other roles on the Scrum team, one should ask whether it has anything to do with the Product. Then the specific obligation lies with the Product Owner and not with anyone else. The SM primarily focuses on facilitating and ensuring that the team can become more independent and eventually become a “self-organizing” team; Initially organizes and leads, and then helps the team gradually organize and lead all the necessary Agile “Ceremonies”. Reference: Sample Scrum Master Certification Exam Prep Questions and Answers, https://projectmanagement.jdevcloud.com/sample-scrum-master-certification-exam-prep-questions-and-answers/
I understand from the assignment that “They want to propose you for the appointment of Product Owner” given that taking Scrum into the role of the Product Owner. If this is the case, having the Scrum Master take on the role of Product Owner is contrary to the Agile methodology for project management. There are too many differences in the roles themselves and the appointment would bring many risks to the projects such as a lack of good prioritization guidelines, delays, disruption of already established good relations with the client, etc.
In 2 days you have a meeting to present the current progress on the product. Your Product Owner role and most of the Development team are on vacation for another 5 days
The Scrum Master should transform his next requirements gathering into a question-and-answer session where stakeholders will answer the following questions for each request they make. See also: “Preparation for Certified Scrum Master certification exam with sample questions“, https://www.shihannews.net/preparation-for-certified-scrum-master-certification-exam/
What end-user goal will you achieve with this requirement?
What business problems will be solved?
What does success look like?
And last:
What is the impact of meeting this requirement versus not meeting this requirement?
If the interested party does not have a clear answer to any of these questions, then this requirement should be placed in a separate “Pending” backlog section rather than the team’s main backlog.
This will greatly reduce what the team has on the agenda. Reference: https://projectmanager.freesite.host/preparation-for-the-scrum-master-exam-and-certification/
Stakeholders must find the answers before placing this request in the main backlog. In this way, the absence of the Product Owner will not be felt so critically. On the other hand, the absence of the developers for 5 days is not a short period at all. This would stress their work through the Sprint, even the next one.
Business stakeholders share their opinion that the product is not progressing according to their expectations.
Deadline dependencies occur whenever a team doesn’t have everything it needs to deliver additional value, whether it’s a service, component, or solution. Addictions often exist to hold people accountable. As such, they are inevitable when implementing Agile at scale. However, some dependencies tend to show up in larger enterprises that can be broken. Managing the following 10 ways will reduce dependencies and position the team to meet their deadlines. Reference: “Preparation for the Scrum Master certification exam (BVOSM, CSM, PSM)“, https://mstsnl.net/preparation-for-the-scrum-master-certification-exam-bvosm-csm-psm/
The Scrum Master should organize a meeting together with the Product Owner and the Project Manager in which to propose 10 ways to meet the project deadlines, and subsequently discuss them with the developers:
1. Make sure the timelines are reasonable from the start. Often, team members tend to underestimate the time needed to complete tasks and do not consider delays or problems.
2. To establish milestones. Identify key project milestones. To set intermediate deadlines for the initiation and completion of each stage.
3. Break down tasks into steps. Estimate the time required for each step.
4. Backwards planning. Starting to work backward toward the deadline and determining when the steps in each task must be completed.
5. Prioritize Highlighting the tasks that are most critical and require the most coordination with others. Find out more: “Preparation for the Certified Scrum Master certification exam for PSM, CSM or BVOSM“, https://securityinformationeventmanagement.com/preparation-for-the-certified-scrum-master-certification-exam/
6. First steps. Avoid the tendency to wait until the deadline is approaching and believe that we work better under pressure.
7. Communication. Maintain and promote close communication with team members and those from whom information is needed.
8. Setting ground rules. Encouraging people to ask for help and clarification so there are no surprises. If there is a problem, it should be detected in time.
9. Create a buffer but not too much, so that the timeline stacks up so much that the team loses motivation and a sense of urgency.
10. Visibility. Post graphs or photos – things that visually track achievements and progress. Reference: “Quick and easy preparation for the Scrum Master certification exam“, https://www.businesspad.org/quick-and-easy-preparation-for-the-scrum-master-certification-exam/
You notice that the team is spending more and more time in the games and entertainment room in your office.
Although online gaming has numerous benefits, there are a few things to keep in mind. One of the main disadvantages of online gaming is the potential for addiction.
The harm to the team can over time be that they start to avoid social events to have more time for games. For example, they may decide to spend less time with colleagues, even though this is necessary for a healthy lifestyle or good collaboration at work. They may also stop being physically active and replace healthy habits with fast food and snacks.
Finally, if we consider the effect that the screen has on our vision, it is easy to conclude that our overall health will deteriorate if we play games too much. See also: “Best Scrum Master certification online”, https://scrumtime.org/best-scrum-master-certification-online/
Organizing a discussion with all team members and delegating time or parts of the day where it is decided equally with the consent of all when to use the entertainment of the office/administrative building.
The Product Owner role in your team is going on a business trip for 2 months to one of your customer’s support centers. No one has made any plans, no comments. The client hasn’t shared anything more, the Development team doesn’t know what they’ll be working on, and your colleagues are confused about the future of the project.
Longer periods of absence bring with them more uncertainty. When will the Product Owner return? If he returns, will they be willing or able to take on the role again? How will business circumstances change? How will it affect relationships with the team and stakeholders?
A longer absence requires a focus on business continuity. As a business, it’s not right to just let the Product Owner go for a few months and then come back and take over again. This will not be fair to the team, the stakeholders, the business, and even the Product Owner. Read more: “Lessons for Scrum Master certification and practicing professionals“, https://newia.info/lessons-for-scrum-master-certification-and-practicing-professionals/
Finding a good Product Owner is difficult, to begin with, but finding someone to take over in circumstances where someone is away for a few months can be even more difficult. To name just two things, they will need to build relationships of trust with the team and stakeholders, they need to become familiar with the Product Backlog and people relationships.
If the Product Owner is going to be gone for months, it’s time for more drastic action.
In the case of appointing a replacement Product Owner, should always include their Scrum Master or Agile Coach to support the new PO, team, and stakeholders during the transition. These transitions are never easy, so they will need all the help they can get.
Bottom line: a replacement Product Owner needs to be found and a Scrum Master or AC should assist in the transition. More on the topic: “Free training to prepare for the Scrum Master Certification exam”, https://www.islandjournal.net/scrum-master-certification-exam/)
One of the programmers on the team asks the designer for regular corrections in the visual concepts he proposes.
The designer is concerned with creating and maintaining the overall aesthetics of the product. To create the aesthetic style of a website or app, we work with basic elements of visual design, arranging them according to design principles. See also: “Example questions for the Scrum Master certification exam“, https://customer-service-us.com/example-questions-for-the-scrum-master-certification-exam/
Before even starting the project or during the prototype stage, designers must have good communication with developers. Everything about the workflow should be clarified. Especially for cases where the PM has little technical knowledge. If they learn about the flow, many problems in the future will be avoided.
The front end must be familiar with the approximate scope of the project. This will help them assess deadlines, resources, and what to expect.
In complex applications/websites, for example, e-commerce with a complex admin panel, back-end teams need to know the flow to organize a better back-end architecture. Reference: “Free preparation for the Scrum Master certification exam (CSM, PSMI, PSMII, BVOP)”, https://brightonbot.com/preparation-scrum-master-certification-exam/
Often the developers offer a better solution than the one proposed by the designer. Many designers don’t like to admit that their way was worse, or they think it might damage their reputation. If you admit that you were wrong – you gain respect. And that’s good for both you and the project.
But if the designer pushes his “mistake” further, it may one day turn into a disaster and he/she will be held responsible. Also, if the designer does this kind of thing all the time, people will learn this and no one will want to work with the designer again.
The collaborative and smoothly synchronized work of programmers and designers is of utmost importance. The Scrum Master should try to understand from both sides exactly where the divergence in understanding of non-team members is. The Project Manager can review the work of the programmer with another designer or the designer with another programmer for some time. After gathering the other colleagues’ feedback on the work together of each of those in the swapped roles, it will be determined whether there is one problem member or two. Reference: https://managementeducationinc.wordpress.com/2023/01/11/preparation-for-the-certified-scrum-master-certification-exam-for-all-certification-organizations/
The QA professionals on your team who test the product consider integrating additional technologies, tools, and testing procedures. According to the Product Owner, this will double the work and the progress after the sprints will decrease.
In most cases, Product Owners work closely with management and/or their customers. Stakeholders usually have a huge number of ideas to implement in the product. But your team, due to its capacity, probably won’t be able to develop all of them. That’s why sometimes you’ll have to say, “no.” In addition to many important duties, the Product Owner is also responsible for deciding what not to include in the Product Backlog.
Can a Product Owner be a tester?
Product Owners are not prohibited from being members of the development team. It is permissible for the Product Owner to participate in the actual creation of the increments that he or she evaluates, including development activities such as testing. Reference: “Preparation with sample questions for Scrum Master certification exam CSM & PSMI”, https://wikipedia-lab.org/preparation-sample-questions-scrummaster-certification-exam/
In conclusion, the Product Owner should not be deterred from evaluating which QA proposal would add value to the Scrum Team and which actions would cause delays or speed up/ensure testing. If, in the end, these actions contribute to optimal and better quality testing, then surely these suggestions should be discussed within the team. Reference: “Preparation for Certified Scrum Master certification exam with sample questions”, https://www.azarnewsonline.com/preparation-for-certified-scrum-master-certification/ (visit website here)
The designer and the programmer decided on their initiative to exchange part of their work.
Designers and developers solve different problems. Designers work on aesthetics and visual appeal, while developers work on product functionality and implement designs. Each problem requires a different solving team member, and both should focus on solving problems that fall within their respective areas of expertise.
You don’t need a formal education to teach one team member’s job. Developers need to know basic design concepts and vice versa. The good news is that both designers and developers will eventually understand their jobs when they work together. Reference: “Scrum Master certification exam preparation with sample questions“, https://www.polyscm.com/scrum-master-certification-exam-preparation-with-sample-questions/ [polyscm’s artcle for scrummasters prep]
According to the reports, it is not uncommon to exchange the duties of one and the other. If this does not interfere with the productivity of the team and the regular release of the project, then a period or part of the project can be agreed upon in which they work together in the proposed way.
QAs want you to assign them good testing tools for the next sprints since you will already be starting development on new components that require a different kind of testing. More SM prep: “Preparation for Scrum Master certification and tips for Scrum professionals”, https://www.kievpress.info/preparation-for-scrum-master-certification/
Additional tests/tools outside of sprints are key benefits and can be achieved by adding a parallel test flow to the Sprint development cycle. This means that after unit testing (by the developers or QA development team) and reviewing the PO, the QA team can perform additional tests such as Functional Testing, System Integration Testing, Performance Testing, Security & Penetration Testing, Usability Testing, User Acceptance Testing or Production Readiness Testing.
While testing outside of Sprints may not be consistent with Scrum, it is consistent with Agile principles of early release and often through testing as early as possible. In addition, testing outside of the sprint by another team provides additional quality assurance and can meet internal management guidelines. Reference: “Professional Scrum Master Certification Online“, https://pm.mba/posts/scrummaster-certification-online/
The reason for pulling functional testing forward, right after the first sprint, is to give the organization a chance to get organized, start getting into the habit of writing test scripts and provide other logistics.
This then reduces the time for the User Acceptance Test, as well as eliminates the risks of possible delays in the Production phase.
In a conclusion, further tools can be implemented for improved tests for the Test Deploy, and Pre-Prod Deploy phases and to grant the successful deploy phase of Sprites
The Development team wants to replace a core part of your product.
Traditionally, programming is a single element in the process of turning user requirements into working applications. Modern application development processes allow you to move away from a process consisting of several (at best) loosely coupled, discrete steps and instead adopt a process where each step is handled by a specialized tool, and the combination of these tools and automation leads to a more seamless, repeatable end-to-end process that allows you to build and deliver the right software to the right time. See also: “Preparation for Scrum Master certification exam on Sprint event“, https://medfd.org/preparation-for-scrum-master-certification-exam-on-sprint-event/
If the Development team has the proposal and believes that it can deliver a problem-free product and the client has no problem with paying for it, then the team can discuss the implementation of the new, more modern tool.
In short, if everything proposed corresponds to the planned budget and improves the work of the testers, then there is no reason to harm the work of the team.
The Product Owner role wants the designer to increase communication with the product testing team.
Designers evaluate software ideas with real users – the acronym stands for user experience. Developers want to create the correct software specification to hand over to the developer to build, rather than verifying that a project adheres to the requirements as testers do. Reference: “Preparation for the Certified Scrum Master exam (PSM, CSM, BVOSM)“, https://mpmu.org/preparation-for-the-certified-scrum-master-exam-psm-csm-bvosm/
A software tester who wants to know how to become a designer will find that many QA skills translate this way. designers dig deeper to understand how and why users react the way they do with software, but it’s usually a smooth transition from one field to another.
Relativity of QA to design skills
To become a designer, one must demonstrate quantitative skills beyond simple data entry into a spreadsheet that one would develop as a tester. Modeling and problem-solving abilities help in design.
In such circumstances, it would be appropriate to direct QA engineers and designers to provide feedback to developers to ensure well-functioning products for end users.
These two roles can learn a lot from each other. More on the topic: “Preparation for PSM, CSM, and BVOSM Scrum Master certification exam with sample questions“, https://www.policymatters.net/preparation-for-psm-csm-and-bvosm-scrum-master-certification-exam-with-sample-questions/
However, testers who want to learn how to become designers will find that QA and initiatives often overlap. Testers’ ability to ask questions, explore and expand use cases, and understand and anticipate the possible uses of software, completely overlap with the desired design skill set.
Your client is not satisfied with the tests and wants you to urgently increase the number of QA specialists in your team, with an additional 6 people, as soon as possible. He also wants three more senior programmers to join the team by the end of the week. The project budget has been increased accordingly.
Choosing the right number of QA team members depends on many aspects. Not all companies follow the golden rule of keeping the ratio of developers to testers equal to 1:1, and the most common ratio is 1 tester to 3 developers. In some cases, it may even be 1 tester per 10 developers. Even more SM prep: “Certified Scrum Master exam preparation with sample questions“, https://customessaysonline.net/certified-scrum-master-exam-preparation-with-sample-questions/
In Scrum, regular meetings are assumed, which can help to discuss what has been done, what needs to be done, and what problems the team has.
This Agile context is a good chance for a software tester to draw attention to the many tasks at hand. But in the case of larger V-model or Waterfall-based projects that do not involve regular design meetings, there should be a mechanism for communication between teams. The project manager must ensure that there are no unspoken opinions and that QA team members are free to discuss the problems they encounter and ideas for solving them. Reference: “Sample questions for Certified Scrum Master Preparation“, https://www.kosovatimes.net/sample-questions-for-certified-scrum-master-preparation/
The point is that in the most optimistic scenario, a QA specialist will have to deal with code written by three different developers. At a minimum. If the workflow is not properly planned, you can very quickly find yourself overwhelmed with tasks. This can lead to decreased productivity, stress, and frustration. Asking the client to have 6 more testers would be impossible, as it would increase the optimal number of Scrum team members by too much. Reference: “Preparation for the certification exam for CSM and PSM I (BVOSM) Scrum Master“, https://www.mu7club.com/preparation-for-certification-exam-scrum-master/
Your director wants you to move temporarily, for about a month, to another team. He has discussed the move with the Product Owner in your role, who will take over the Scrum Master role for a month, as he has shared that he has time for it.
From a product development perspective, Certified Product Owner and Certified Scrum Master are two different roles.
Certified Product Owner
The individual is solely responsible for extracting maximum value from the product developed.
The Product Owner is closely involved with almost every key decision made in product development.
The Product Owner is responsible for creating the product roadmap, release roadmap, and sprints.
The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing value. Visit orignal publication: “Preparation for the Scrum Master certification exam PSM, CSM, and BVOP“ https://projectmanagers.edublogs.org/2022/11/08/preparation-for-the-scrum-master-certification-exam-psm-csm-and-bvop/
Certified Scrum Master
Is the person who ensures that scrum guidelines are followed during product development.
The scrum master is neutral and does not participate in making any decisions.
The scrum master is responsible for removing obstacles that distract the team from the planned roadmap.
The Scrum master is responsible for smooth collaboration and communication between the Scrum team and the Scrum process
These are high-level differences highlighting why a Certified Product Owner and a Certified Scrum Master cannot be the same person. These are two different roles with different responsibilities.
The Product Owner’s role in stand-up should be to help the team with any queries and help the team achieve the sprint goal. His presence at the stand-up will help the Certified Product Owner understand the progress of the stories or sprint goal.
A Certified Product Owner and a Certified Scrum Master have different goals and takeaways in daily meetings.
Organizing a meeting with a presentation of the pros and cons of the proposed move would clarify the impossibility of implementing the director’s wish and how it would affect the processes in the Scrum team.