SSM Practice Test 18 — 15 Questions

Question 1

During the first PI Planning on an Agile Release Train, a team's Scrum Master notices that the team has committed to a set of Iteration goals that exceeds their known velocity, and several stories depend on another team that has not yet planned its capacity. The Scrum Master wants to help the team produce a realistic PI plan without taking over. What should the Scrum Master do first?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a conversation where the team compares its planned load to historical velocity and identifies the cross-team dependencies to raise in the draft plan review.. The Scrum Master serves the team by facilitating awareness, not by making planning decisions. Helping the team compare planned work to velocity and exposing dependencies leads to a plan the team owns and can defend during the draft plan review and program board review.

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Advise the Product Owner to remove stories until the plan fits within the team's capacity.

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Reduce the team's committed stories directly in the planning tool so the plan matches velocity.

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Escalate to the Release Train Engineer that the team is overcommitted and ask the RTE to fix the plan.

Question 2

A newly formed SAFe team has been meeting for two weeks. Their Scrum Master observes that they deliver working increments but rarely stop to inspect how they are working together, and they have no scheduled event for doing so. Which Scrum event should the Scrum Master ensure is established to address this gap?

Accepted Answer

The Iteration Retrospective. A team that produces increments but never reflects on its own collaboration lacks the inspect-and-adapt loop that the Iteration Retrospective provides. In SAFe, the Scrum Master ensures this event occurs and that it produces actionable improvements. The Iteration Review inspects the product, the Daily Stand-up coordinates daily work, and the Scrum of Scrums coordinates across teams, so none of them substitutes for team-level process reflection.

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The Scrum of Scrums

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The Daily Stand-up

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The Iteration Review

Question 3

A Scrum Master is explaining to a new Product Owner how the Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Developers interact within a SAFe Scrum Team. The Product Owner asks who is responsible for ensuring the team's backlog items are well understood and ready for Iteration Planning. Which statement best reflects SAFe accountabilities?

Accepted Answer

The Product Owner owns the backlog and ensures items are understood and ready for planning.. SAFe keeps accountabilities distinct: the Product Owner owns the Team Backlog and its readiness for Iteration Planning, while the Scrum Master facilitates and coaches and the Developers contribute estimates and technical insight. Confusing facilitation with ownership, or shifting readiness to Developers or the RTE, undermines the clear accountability that makes team planning reliable.

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The Release Train Engineer owns readiness because they coordinate the Agile Release Train.

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The Developers own refinement because only they can estimate the work.

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The Scrum Master owns backlog refinement because the Scrum Master facilitates all team events.

Question 4

A Scrum Master is helping a team improve how it participates in the ART's Inspect and Adapt event. Which TWO activities correctly describe the team's role in this event? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Participate in the retrospective portion by reflecting on the completed Program Increment and identifying improvement opportunities.. The Inspect and Adapt event is where the ART measures the current state, reflects on the completed PI, and solves a significant problem. Teams contribute by participating in the retrospective reflection and by helping analyze root causes and define corrective actions in the Problem-Solving Workshop. Approving PI objectives, running a confidence vote, and owning the system demo belong to other ART events.

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Facilitate the confidence vote that determines whether the ART will proceed with the next Program Increment.

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Own and execute the system demo for the entire ART, presenting the integrated solution to stakeholders.

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Approve the final Program Increment objectives and re-baseline the Program Board for the next increment.

Question 5

A Scrum Master in a SAFe environment is coaching a team that has just adopted Scrum. The team is struggling to finish all user stories by the end of the iteration and often carries work over. Which metric should the Scrum Master use to help the team understand their capacity and improve predictability?

Accepted Answer

Velocity, calculated as the sum of story points completed per iteration.. Velocity is the most appropriate metric to help the team understand their capacity and improve predictability. By tracking how many story points they complete each iteration, the team can make more realistic commitments during Sprint Planning and reduce carryover. This empirical approach aligns with Scrum's emphasis on inspect and adapt.

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Cumulative flow diagram, showing the distribution of work items across states.

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Program Predictability Measure, calculated as the ratio of actual to planned business value.

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Iteration burn-down chart, tracking remaining work daily.

Question 6

During the PI Planning event, the ART is conducting the draft plan review. A team presents a plan that includes a feature with a dependency on another team, but the dependency is not reflected on the program board. As the Scrum Master for that team, what should you do?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a discussion with the team and the dependent team to make the dependency visible on the program board and adjust the plan if needed.. During the draft plan review, dependencies should be made visible on the program board and discussed collaboratively. The Scrum Master facilitates a conversation between the teams to adjust the plan and ensure alignment. This proactive approach prevents integration issues later and leverages the event's purpose of surfacing and resolving cross-team dependencies.

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Wait until after PI Planning to update the program board with the dependency to avoid disrupting the session.

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Escalate the missing dependency to the Release Train Engineer immediately and ask them to resolve it.

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Instruct the team to remove the feature from the plan to avoid cross-team complications.

Question 7

During a SAFe transformation, a line manager tells a Scrum Master that the manager will assign tasks to team members each morning so the team stays efficient, and will also decide which team member attends the Scrum of Scrums. The team currently self-manages its own work. What should the Scrum Master do first?

Accepted Answer

Coach the manager on self-managing teams and clarify how the manager's accountability for people development differs from directing the team's daily work. Self-managing teams decide how to do their work, while managers in SAFe develop people and improve the environment rather than assign tasks. Because the Scrum Master serves the organization, the appropriate first move is coaching the manager on this distinction and on how attendance at coordination events should be decided by the team. Escalation, compliance, or reassigning direction to the Product Owner all fail to restore self-management.

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Escalate the manager's behavior to the Release Train Engineer and request that the manager be removed from supporting the team

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Accept the arrangement, since the manager owns the team members' performance reviews and career development

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Instruct the team to ignore the manager's task assignments and let the Product Owner assign the daily work instead

Question 8

An organization is introducing Scrum at the team level within a SAFe Agile Release Train. The Scrum Master is explaining how the team's events connect to the broader ART cadence. Which two statements accurately describe how team-level Scrum events align with SAFe? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

The team's Iteration review may contribute to the ART's System Demo, giving stakeholders visibility into integrated value.. SAFe aligns team Scrum with ART cadence rather than replacing it. Iterations build toward the Program Increment, and team events such as Iteration reviews can feed the System Demo. The Daily Scrum, Sprint Planning, and Retrospective remain essential team-level events.

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The team's Daily Scrum is replaced by the ART's Scrum of Scrums, so the team no longer holds a daily event.

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The team's Retrospective focuses only on ART-level impediments and does not address team process improvements.

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The team's Sprint Planning is eliminated because PI Planning already defines all the work for the entire Program Increment.

Question 9

During the Scrum of Scrums (SoS) meeting, a Scrum Master from Team Beta reports that they have a dependency on Team Gamma for an API that is critical for their current iteration goal. Team Gamma's Scrum Master is not present. What should the Scrum Master do first?

Accepted Answer

Record the dependency on the program board and follow up with Team Gamma's Scrum Master after the SoS.. In the Scrum of Scrums, dependencies are made visible. When a team's representative is absent, the Scrum Master should record the dependency on the program board and follow up with the missing team's Scrum Master afterward. This ensures the dependency is tracked and addressed without disrupting the SoS, and it maintains the collaborative spirit of the ART.

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Escalate the issue to the Release Train Engineer immediately during the SoS to force Team Gamma's attendance.

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Instruct Team Beta to work on other backlog items until Team Gamma is available to provide the API.

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Ask Team Beta to proceed without the API and adjust their iteration goal accordingly.

Question 10

A Scrum Master is introducing Scrum to a newly formed team within a SAFe Agile Release Train. Which two actions are appropriate for the Scrum Master to take to help the team adopt Scrum principles effectively? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Facilitate the team's understanding of how their work aligns with the Agile Release Train's PI objectives and cadence.. The Scrum Master should coach the team on self-organization and cross-functionality, and facilitate their understanding of alignment with the ART's PI objectives and cadence. These actions empower the team to take ownership and work effectively within the SAFe framework. Assigning tasks, making technical decisions, or isolating the team would hinder their growth and integration.

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Shield the team from all external stakeholders to prevent interruptions and maintain focus.

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Act as the primary decision-maker for the team's technical implementation to accelerate delivery.

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Assign specific tasks to team members during Sprint Planning to ensure all work is evenly distributed.

Question 11

A Scrum Master is helping a new SAFe team understand what distinguishes their way of working from traditional project management. Which two characteristics describe how the team plans and delivers within the iteration? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

The team pulls work from a prioritized Team Backlog and determines how much it can complete within the iteration. Two hallmarks of Scrum team delivery inside SAFe are pulling work from a prioritized Team Backlog with a capacity-based forecast, and producing an integrated, potentially shippable increment every iteration. Fixed unchangeable scope, percent-complete PMO reporting, and specialist ownership with functional reporting all reflect traditional project management rather than the self-managing, value-delivering behavior SAFe expects.

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The team assigns each user story to a single specialist who owns it end to end and reports status to the functional manager

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The team reports percent complete against a detailed baseline schedule to the Project Management Office each iteration

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The team commits to a fixed scope defined at the start of the Program Increment and cannot adjust it during iterations

Question 12

A Scrum Master on a SAFe Agile Release Train observes that the team treats the Iteration Retrospective as a status meeting where each person reports completed stories to the Scrum Master. The Scrum Master wants the Retrospective to serve its purpose in Scrum. What should the Scrum Master do?

Accepted Answer

Coach the team to inspect how they work and identify improvements they will act on in the next Iteration.. The Iteration Retrospective exists for the team to inspect how it works and choose improvements to carry into the next Iteration. When the event degrades into status reporting, the Scrum Master coaches the team back to reflection and action rather than converting, delegating, or cancelling it. Restoring that purpose also strengthens the team's self-management of its own process.

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Cancel the Retrospective and use the time for additional backlog refinement until the team matures.

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Convert the Retrospective into a metrics review of velocity and cumulative flow so the team focuses on data.

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Ask the Product Owner to run the Retrospective so the Scrum Master can observe team dynamics objectively.

Question 13

A Scrum Master is working with a team that has been part of an Agile Release Train for several months. The team consistently meets its iteration goals but often discovers late in the Program Increment that its work does not integrate with other teams' work, causing delays. What should the Scrum Master do to improve this situation?

Accepted Answer

Encourage team members to actively participate in the Scrum of Scrums and PI Planning to surface dependencies early.. The Scrum Master should encourage the team to actively participate in the Scrum of Scrums and PI Planning to identify and manage dependencies early. These events are designed for cross-team coordination and integration. By engaging fully, the team can avoid late-stage integration surprises and contribute to the ART's overall success.

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Implement a policy that all user stories must be reviewed by the System Architect before development begins.

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Suggest that the team switch to a two-week iteration cadence to allow more frequent integration points.

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Advise the team to focus on their own iteration goals and let the Release Train Engineer handle cross-team coordination.

Question 14

A Scrum team in a SAFe ART has completed two iterations but has not held a Retrospective because the Scrum Master believes the team is too busy delivering features. Team members report they keep repeating the same impediments. What is the most appropriate action for the Scrum Master?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate the Iteration Retrospective so the team can identify and address the recurring impediments.. The Iteration Retrospective is where the team inspects how it worked and identifies improvements, making it the right venue to address recurring impediments. The Scrum Master serves the team by facilitating this event and protecting it from being dropped due to delivery pressure. Skipping it allows the same problems to persist iteration after iteration.

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Replace the Retrospective with a monthly review of the team's velocity metrics.

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Add an extra Daily Stand-up each afternoon to discuss the impediments until they are resolved.

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Escalate the recurring impediments to the Release Train Engineer and wait for the ART to resolve them.

Question 15

A newly formed SAFe team has just started its first iteration. The Scrum Master notices that the Product Owner is writing every User Story, estimating it, and assigning it directly to individual developers before Iteration Planning begins. Team members spend planning meetings passively receiving work. What should the Scrum Master do first to introduce Scrum correctly in this SAFe context?

Accepted Answer

Coach the Product Owner to bring prioritized User Stories with acceptance criteria into Iteration Planning and let the team self-manage estimation and task ownership.. The Product Owner should bring a prioritized Team Backlog to Iteration Planning, and the team should decide how much work to pull and how to organize it. Coaching the Product Owner away from pre-assigning and pre-estimating restores the self-management that Scrum requires at the team level in SAFe, while still respecting the Product Owner's authority over content and priority.

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Let the current approach continue for several iterations so the team can compare velocity before changing anything.

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Take over facilitation of Iteration Planning and personally assign each User Story to the developer with the most available capacity.

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Ask the Release Train Engineer to reassign the Product Owner to a different team where planning is already mature.