Advanced Scrum Master Practice Test

The 2020 Guide gives us the following instructions:

"The Scrum artifacts and the progress toward agreed goals must be inspected frequently and diligently to detect potentially undesirable variances or problems."

The 2017 version of the Guide was verbose on the role of the Scrum Master in this. As per the 2020 version we can still infer this from the accountabilities of the Scrum Master.

"The Scrum Master’s job is to work with the Scrum Team and the organization to increase the transparency of the artifacts. This work usually involves learning, convincing, and change."

The bottom line is, stakeholders should be invited to the review which is one of the major formal events for inspection and adaptation.

Talking about impediments only makes sense when there are impediments. It is OK not to mention any.

While the Developers may meet right after the Daily Scrum, they do not have to. They may not need it on a given day or they may meet at another time.

Tracking Sprint progress is the responsibility of the Developers. If metrics are not available at Daily Scrum, they will not even know if there is a need for replanning. Though answering the 3 questions takes the team closer to this goal, it is hardly enough alone.

The Definition of Done for the Scrum Team is to assess when work is complete on the product Increment. It is not an arbitrary technique. On the other hand, when a Sprint is already running with an anticipated goal, it should not be impeded. The Retrospective is designed to identify potential improvements in team practices.

Remember the 'Uses of Scrum' chapter: Scrum is used for developing, sustaining and renewing products.

Scrum is an empirical framework therefore feedback is an asset, not an impediment.

The Scrum Master must ensure that the Daily Scrum reaches its goal. Doing nothing is not a good solution.

Developers should be self-managing. The Daily Scrum is a very simple event that does not need to be orchestrated by a Scrum Master. Micromanaging the team is not a good solution.

The Scrum Master is responsible for transparency, thus cannot just ask a stakeholder to leave without ensuring that transparency is not negatively impacted. Furthermore, using the word 'chicken' to a group of people lacks respect and should be avoided. [Note, the 'chicken' term actually originates from an early version of the Scrum Guide but was not meant to be a reference to people.]

The Scrum Master is a coach of the organization and of the Scrum Team, including the Developers, thus it is important to facilitate reaching a solution for their problems.

Let's check the Scrum Guide!

The 2020 version:

"Product Backlog refinement is the act of breaking down and further defining Product Backlog items into smaller more precise items. This is an ongoing activity to add details, such as a description, order, and size. Attributes often vary with the domain of work."

The 2017 version:

"Product Backlog refinement is an ongoing process in which the Product Owner and the Developers collaborate on the details of Product Backlog items. The Scrum Team decides how and when refinement is done."

This would still not eliminate "Tell the Product Owner that there is no such thing as a backlog refinement event in Scrum." - however, the Scrum Master is expected to mentor, coach, serve, advise the Product Owner instead of giving a lecture.

At Sprint Planning it is enough to plan work for the first days of the Sprint. However, setting a Sprint Goal is mandatory.

"The Product Owner proposes how the product could increase its value and utility in the current Sprint. The whole Scrum Team then collaborates to define a Sprint Goal that communicates why the Sprint is valuable to stakeholders. The Sprint Goal must be finalized prior to the end of Sprint Planning." (from the Scrum Guide)

Call-off planning and postpone the Sprint. It is apparent that backlog refinement is needed. - WRONG, since there is no good reason to postpone a Sprint.

Convince the Developers that they should accept one more item. - WRONG, only the Developers are entitled to forecast what they can deliver. Forcing more work would only result in chaos.

Convince the Product Ower to leave the item since the Developers cannot deliver it. - WRONG, since Increments should be potentially releasable/usable. An inconsistent Increment would not meet this criterium.

Facilitate a trade-off between the Product Owner and the Developers. There is a genuine chance to find a solution with which the Increment will be consistent and deliverable in a single Sprint. - CORRECT, the Product Owner and the Developers are expected to make trade-offs during Sprint Planning.

Openness and respect are both fundamental values in Scrum. The Scrum Master is the mentor of the team and should reinforce positive behaviour. Instead of suppressing or exacerbating conflicts, should facilitate their resolution in a constructive manner.

The Scrum Master should not do the job of the Product Owner and the Product Owner should not delegate tasks to the Scrum Master. However, as a coach and mentor the Scrum Master can make sure the communication between the Scrum Team and other organizational units follows good patterns.

Scrum values (openness, courage) suggest that the Product Owner should be immediately notified. Furthermore the Definition of Done should be taken into account, a security gap is a serious issue for a potentially releasable Increment. If the fix has an impact on the Sprint Goal, the Product Owner and the Developers may have to renegotiate it.

The Scrum Master is the coach of the team, thus he or she should ensure the rules of the framework are in place and proper, efficient techniques are applied. Reaching this goal may be a longer journey but should start with inspection and fruitful retrospectives.

"No, the Sprint has been planned, this is what the team is going to deliver." - WRONG, this is the opposite of being agile and would result in pointless waste.

"No, the Sprint Backlog belongs to the Developers, no one else can change it." - WRONG, this is an oversimplification of the question on semantic grounds.

"The Product Owner can decide anytime that a backlog item is not needed anymore. The scope can be re-negotiated with the Development Team which is especially feasible when work is removed." - CORRECT, this answer corresponds best to the Scrum Guide.

With increasing the size of the Team, complexity increases, too. Having two teams and a Nexus instead of one team also increases complexity. The guide states that the ideal team size is 10 or less, however, it does not strictly limit the size. The maximum number of people capable of working together efficiently varies depending on the circumstances. Based on scientific experiments, the efficiency = f(size) function does not have a sharp decline strictly at size = 10. Inspect whether 11 works well and adapt.

When maximizing the value delivered by the team, multiple factors should be considered. If building the most 'important' backlog items is impeded, try to find other backlog items worth delivering.

Managers should not approach Developers directly with their ideas without having an agreement with the Product Owner. This is against transparency and self-management and undermines the Product Owner's work to maximize the value delivered. A Developer should not silently cooperate but ask to follow the rules.

The Developer should avoid having unnecessary conflicts with a manager. Scrum may provide ways for working on urgent great ideas if they are really urgent and great. This can even include cancelling the running Sprint or re-negotiating its Scope. However, it should happen transparently, thus if the developer can explain this in detail, that solves the problem.

The Scrum Master is a coach, trainer, and mentor for the Scrum Team and the organization, thus, it is always OK to turn to the Scrum Master for advice. The Scrum Master should be able to handle the situation while inexperienced Developers may not.

Only the Product Owner can decide to cancel a Sprint. Furthermore, an obstacle to delivering one item does not make the Sprint Goal obsolete, thus it is not a good reason for cancelling the Sprint. The Product Owner may have legitimate reasons for being late with the document but should mind the consequences.

The 2020 version of the Guide states that one of the Scrum Master serves the organization with "Planning and advising Scrum implementations within the organization."

The 2019 version mentions this among the services to the organization: "Working with other Scrum Masters to increase the effectiveness of the application of Scrum in the organization."

Learning about the practices used by other teams is the starting point of this activity.

The request must be rejected since it is against the rules of Scrum. The Scrum Master, as the coach of the team, should explain the reasons, for instance emphasizing cross-functional development, delivery of 'vertical slices', collective ownership, etc.

"The purpose of the Daily Scrum is to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog as necessary, adjusting the upcoming planned work." It is possible to answer the three common questions and failing to inspect, adapt and plan at the same time.