Passing the Certified Scrum Master certification exam with the titles BVOSM, PSM I, and I or CSM can be easy. You just need to prepare yourself with sample questions for the certification exam.
In the article, we offer a good collection of such. We sent sample questions to Julia Cooper, who is a certified Scrum Master. She sent us her answers, which we share with you.
Table of Contents
Example questions for passing a Certified Scrum Master certification exam
The director of your organization wants to start developing three new products and informs you that for the largest product in terms of volume, he wants a team of 10 people. The available specialists for all new products are a total of 15 people. Reference: “Preparation for the certification exam for CSM and PSM I (BVOSM) Scrum Master“, https://www.mu7club.com/preparation-for-certification-exam-scrum-master/
I explain to the director the requirements for the size of Scrum teams, namely that they are composed of a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 9 people. A team of 10 people would be too large and we risk difficulties in following Scrum methodologies, which will lead to clumsiness, and communication problems and ultimately reduce the efficiency and productivity of the team, although it involves more professionals.
On the other hand, to meet the requirement for a minimum of 3 people in a team, for the other two products we will need at least 1 more person to be able to divide 2 teams of 3 people.
I explain that in fact, it is more important what specialists in terms of experience and competencies we include in the team that will work on the largest product, than how many they are. We emphasize quality at the expense of quantity to get better results and efficiency. Reference: “Certified Scrum Master exam preparation with sample questions“, https://customessaysonline.net/certified-scrum-master-exam-preparation-with-sample-questions/
I suggest that we make a careful selection of the people in each team, striving to comply with the amount of work that each product requires and at the same time comply with the requirement for the size of Scrum teams.
The director thinks that lower priority products do not need to have a Product Owner role.
I remind the director of the main responsibilities of the Product Owner role, namely communication with the customer, preparation of clear and transparent wording for the product and its purpose, compiling and prioritizing the Product backlog. Reference: “Preparation for the Certified Scrum Master exam (PSM, CSM, BVOSM)“, https://mpmu.org/preparation-for-the-certified-scrum-master-exam-psm-csm-bvosm/
The Product Owner role is an integral part of the Scrum team, regardless of product priority. I suggest that one Product Owner be assigned to several teams working on lower priority products, taking into account the similarities like the products and the volume of work.
The director insists that because he has many years of experience in people management, he wants to be the general manager of the largest team, set tasks daily, and request reports from each member of the team.
I understand and respect the director’s desire to exercise more control over the team and explain to him that the idea of the Scrum philosophy is that Scrum teams are structured and empowered by the organization to organize and manage their work, ie. they are self-governing, which means that they decide for themselves who does what, when they do it and how. Reference: “Preparation for Scrum Master certification exam on Sprint event“, https://medfd.org/preparation-for-scrum-master-certification-exam-on-sprint-event/
This helps employees to be more responsible and committed to their work, and to achieve higher results. The director can always contact me, in my capacity as Scrum Master, in case he wants an update status of the project or to set a new task.
The director tells you that for each product, the client has appointed a project manager who, in case of urgent requests, will assign to each member of the team, a priority task for the day.
I tell the director that it’s great to have a project manager on the client’s side. According to the Scrum methodology, his direct contact on our part should only be the relevant Product Owner of the team working on the product to which the request relates. Reference: “Preparation for Scrum Master certification and tips for Scrum professionals”, https://www.kievpress.info/preparation-for-scrum-master-certification/
The Product Owner is the one responsible for prioritizing the tasks in the Product Backlog and all new and urgent requests must be addressed to him first. He, in turn, undertook further communication with the Scrum team to plan work together on the request in question.
One of the senior programmers of the team told everyone that since the team is large and he has a lot of experience, he will officially accept the role of Team Lead. He adds that he will choose technologies, offer a way to work to each member of the team, and monitor the progress of tasks.
I bring the whole team together and explain Scrum’s philosophy about teams, namely that there are no hierarchies in the Scrum team. It is a cohesive unit of specialists focused on one current goal – the Product Goal.
The idea is for team members to interact, complement each other and learn from each other by creating a valuable product. Everyone is free to choose the technology and the way of work that is most comfortable for him and makes him more effective in achieving the goals of the team. Read more: “Preparation with sample questions for Scrum Master certification exam CSM & PSMI”, https://wikipedia-lab.org/preparation-sample-questions-scrummaster-certification-exam/
At the same time, each member of the team can develop their leadership skills by setting a personal example, and helping and advising less experienced colleagues. Pair programming is a great opportunity for this.
A new employee in your organization, recently hired, tells you that because he is a novice specialist and still on probation, he prefers not to interfere in team decisions and does not want to take responsibility for working on the product.
I would put such a colleague to work near an experienced and very active and contact member of the team. It could be two or three. It depends on the organization of the workspace.
I will ask the more experienced staff to pay a little more attention to him at the beginning, asking him for his opinion on the code they are writing or asking him how he would act in their place in a particular situation. We will certainly implement pair programming. This should break the novice’s insecurity and give him confidence. Read more: “Free preparation for the Scrum Master certification exam (CSM, PSMI, PSMII, BVOP)”, https://brightonbot.com/preparation-scrum-master-certification-exam/
I would explain to him that his opinion and assessment of the work that needs to be done is very valuable, as it is new and can bring fresh thoughts and ideas. The team will surely appreciate it. And daily Scrum meetings allow us to quickly determine whether an idea or solution is good or not, and to consider better options together.
You understand that most of your team members have already talked to your HR manager and received permission to work outside the office.
I have been working remotely for 12 years and as we can see, after the advent of the Crown virus, this is emerging as a trend – entire teams are working remotely or hybrid. There is already a wide selection of tools and applications for online collaboration. Good collaboration in an online environment is a matter of team organization. Read more: “Free training to prepare for the Scrum Master Certification exam”, https://www.islandjournal.net/scrum-master-certification-exam/
If people are physically in the same city, I would arrange for them to come to the office at least once a week so that most of them can be spotted and be able to communicate “live” with each other. Separately, we can consider informal meetings outside working hours once a week or every two weeks.
For beer, for example. Usually, at such meetings people have the opportunity to get to know each other better and get closer, which improves teamwork and trust between them, and on the other hand, work topics are inevitable, especially when someone has a problem to solve. Sometimes the best decisions are made “by the glass”. Read more: “Best Scrum Master Certifications for 2022 and 2023“, https://eduwiki.me/best-scrum-master-certifications-for-2021-and-2022/
A member of the Development team introduces you with joy and enthusiasm that outside of working hours, he has written a large collection of program code that he can easily add to the product and through it speed up many of his tasks and some of those of the rest of the team.
Here, as a possible reaction, I can say “Great! Well done!” to the colleague and that I would like to meet with the whole team to discuss together what he has developed and what exactly the benefits will be for the product and the other members of the team. I am organizing the meeting in question as soon as possible.
The development team offers you the idea that you set an estimated time to complete the tasks, and that they focus on their work and devote their time to the tasks. They shared this with the Product Owner role, and he was quite pleased.
I remind the team and the Product Owner that the responsibility for determining the estimated time to complete tasks lies with the development team, as developers know best, based on their experience, how long a task or action would take. As a Scrum Master, I can help by offering and applying various methods for determining forecast time. Read more: “Best Scrum Master certification online”, https://scrumtime.org/best-scrum-master-certification-online/
The teams of the three parallel products being developed by your organization have decided to reorganize. Their desire is to be divided into teams according to their profession and qualifications. One team will be programmers, the second will be designers, and the third will be quality control. You have been nominated as an activity coordinator.
I discuss with the team how exactly this division of teams according to professions will contribute to more efficient, flexible, and timely work on the project. If we agree to work this way, we risk wasting time in unnecessary communication, or due to the lack of such confusion as to who exactly is working on what at the moment, we risk violating the agreed priorities for individual products and teams as a whole will lose of its effectiveness.
Let me remind you that the idea for the Scrum team is to complement its members in terms of functions so that within a sprint they can deliver a working version of the product or a functioning part of the final product. That’s why it’s good to have one or more programmers, designers, and QA specialists in a team to focus on working on one product. Reference: “Preparation for the Scrum Master certification exam (BVOSM, CSM, PSM)“, https://mstsnl.net/preparation-for-the-scrum-master-certification-exam-bvosm-csm-psm/
In this way we limit the communication within the team, the focus remains on one product and what is most important to develop on it, we maintain efficiency and work on all three products will go smoothly.
The development team shares the view that User Story contains too little information and wants more details.
I contact the Product Owner, as he is responsible for formulating user stories, and I discuss the situation with him. I would expect a rewording of the specific story so that my team understands it and has no further questions. 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/
The Product Owner has asked one of the team members not to temporarily report problems and defects on the product publicly in your defect recording system, but to fix them yourself.
Here I am not sure exactly how things would turn out, given that the whole team should be aware of any problems or defects in the product from the daily Scrum meetings and make a timely decision to eliminate them.
Assuming there is only one programmer on the team, he would still not be able to hide his mistake, because the QA will detect and report it. and that a defect or error in the product cannot be hidden from the whole team and in fact, the sooner everyone learns about it, the faster the problem will be eliminated and the relevant conclusions will be drawn, so that in the future makes a similar mistake.