Developing people and teams
Objective 2 of Professional Scrum Master I, worth 33.33% of the exam.
- Share of the exam
- 33.33%
- Questions in a real sitting
- roughly 27 of 80
- Questions in this bank
- 54
- Signed for by a person
- 0
- Machine-checked only
- 54
Partly checked. None of the 54 questions here has been read against the cited source by a person. 54 questions have been checked against their cited clause by an automated pass — which is not the same thing, and is not a signature.
Only questions a person has signed for are used in mock exams here. That is the whole difference between the two kinds of checking above.
How these questions are written — where each question comes from, what the verification ledger records, and what happens when one is found wrong.
What this objective covers
The 54 questions written for this objective cite 18 Scrum Guide sections (Adaptation, Commitment: Definition of Done, Commitment: Sprint Goal, Daily Scrum, Developers, End Note, Increment, Product Owner, Scrum Events, Scrum Master, Scrum Team, Sprint Backlog, Sprint Planning, Sprint Retrospective, Sprint Review, The Sprint, Topic Three: How will the chosen work get done?, Transparency).
They break down as 46 single-answer questions and 8 choose-several questions.
Lessons in this objective
The objective cut into the pieces the blueprint declares. Each one has the material written out and the questions that test it.
- Self-management and what it does not mean
- Facilitating the Scrum events
- Coaching the team and the wider organisation
Drill this objective
The trainer can run a short practice set drawn from this objective alone, which is what the weight column above is for: revise the heavy objectives first.
Practise Developing people and teams
Questions on this objective (page 1 of 3)
- A team lead who sits outside the Scrum Team has taken to opening the board every Monday and assigning each Sprint Backlog item to a named Developer for the week. The Developers say the assignments rarely match who is best placed to pick the work up. Who decides which Developer works on which item? machine-checked
- On day four of a two-week Sprint, a department head tells one of the five Developers to spend the rest of the week on a customer escalation for another product. The Sprint Goal depends on that Developer's work. What should the Scrum Master do? machine-checked
- During Sprint Planning, a solution architect who is not on the Scrum Team hands the Developers a task breakdown for each selected Product Backlog item and asks them to follow it. The Developers had planned to decompose the work differently. What does Scrum say about this? machine-checked
- A Scrum Team is reworking its Daily Scrum. They are tired of three questions each and want to try walking the board right to left instead, and they also want to know how much else about the event they are free to change. Which two of the following are genuinely theirs to decide? (Choose two.) machine-checked
- A Scrum Team has stopped keeping its Sprint Backlog current, and when a stakeholder asks how the Sprint is going the Developers reply that they are self-managing and will show the result at the Sprint Review. Two Sprints in a row have then missed the Sprint Goal. What is wrong here? machine-checked
- With three days of the Sprint left, the Developers agree among themselves to skip the security review and the automated regression suite, both of which are in the Definition of Done, so that two more items can be finished. They argue that as a self-managing team it is their call. Is it? machine-checked
- An organisation publishes a Definition of Done that all its products must meet. In a Retrospective, one Scrum Team decides it wants to add accessibility testing and a documented rollback plan to its own Definition of Done, which the organisational standard does not mention. A programme manager objects that the standard is the standard. Who is right? machine-checked
- A Scrum Team of nine has organised itself into a front-end group and a back-end group, each with its own stand-up, its own portion of the Sprint Backlog and a nominated senior who speaks for it. They describe this as self-management. How should a Scrum Master respond? machine-checked
- A new Scrum Team keeps stalling: nobody picks up the awkward integration work, and each morning the Developers look to the Scrum Master to say who should take what. The Scrum Master has been doing so, and the team is now running smoothly. What is the problem with this? machine-checked
- One Developer has taken no work off the Sprint Backlog for two Sprints and misses most Daily Scrums. When the Scrum Master raises it, the other Developers say that they are a self-managing team and that nobody there manages anybody. What does Scrum actually expect? machine-checked
- A delivery manager has asked that the Sprint Backlog be frozen at the start of each Sprint and that any change to it be requested through her, so that the weekly report to the steering group stays accurate. Which position is correct? machine-checked
- The next Sprint involves a payments integration nobody on the Scrum Team has worked with before. The Product Owner suggests inviting a specialist from another team to Sprint Planning to advise. The Developers say that would compromise their self-management. Are they right? machine-checked
- Six months into a Scrum adoption, teams still need sign-off from a governance board before releasing, and every technical choice above a small threshold goes to an architecture forum. The teams inspect diligently in their Retrospectives but almost nothing they identify actually changes. A director asks the Scrum Master why. What is the most accurate explanation? machine-checked
- In a Retrospective the Scrum Team votes unanimously to drop the Sprint Review, on the grounds that stakeholders read the release notes anyway and that a self-managing team should be free to shape its own process. They ask the Scrum Master to confirm the change. What is the correct answer? machine-checked
- A Scrum Team routinely finishes coding by day seven and then waits until day eleven for a separate quality assurance department to test the work, which means several items miss the Sprint. The Developers say testing is not their job. What does Scrum expect of this team? machine-checked
- A Product Owner and the Developers are arguing about who settles what during refinement. The Product Owner has been rewriting the Developers' estimates downward and reordering the Product Backlog, and the Developers have been proposing a different order for the top ten items. Which two statements are correct? (Choose two.) machine-checked
- Halfway through a Sprint the Developers find that one selected item is far larger than they thought. They can still meet the Sprint Goal without it. Being self-managing, they simply delete the item from the Sprint Backlog and say nothing, planning to mention it at the Sprint Review. What should they have done? machine-checked
- A functional manager has started attending the Daily Scrum and asking each Developer in turn what they did yesterday and what is blocking them, then noting the answers for a weekly report. The Developers have begun addressing their updates to her rather than to each other. What is the Scrum Master's best response? machine-checked
- In every Daily Scrum the Developers stand in a circle and each one reports yesterday, today and blockers to the Scrum Master, who writes the blockers down and answers questions. Nobody has mentioned the Sprint Goal in a fortnight. What should the Scrum Master do? machine-checked
- This Sprint the Product Owner has taken two Sprint Backlog items — a set of content changes — and is working on them herself. The Scrum Master is not working on any Sprint Backlog item. A Developer asks whether the Product Owner should be in the Daily Scrum. What is the accurate answer? machine-checked
Practise Developing people and teams
The other objectives in Professional Scrum Master I
- 1. Understanding and applying the Scrum framework — 33.33% of the exam
- 3. Managing products with agility — 33.33% of the exam