SSM Practice Test 21 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A team is struggling to draft their PI Objectives during the first Team Breakout session of PI Planning. They have listed all their Stories on the team board but cannot agree on the objectives. How should the Scrum Master coach the team?

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

Accepted Answer

Encourage the team to synthesize their planned work into business-oriented summary statements.. PI Objectives provide a common language for communicating with business stakeholders. The Scrum Master must guide the team to move beyond a simple list of technical tasks or Story titles. By focusing on the intended business value and outcomes, the team can create a summary that aligns their technical work with the overall mission of the ART.

Answer

Suggest the team use the titles of their highest-priority User Stories as the objectives.

Answer

Advise the team to wait until the Draft Plan Review to receive objectives from the Product Manager.

Answer

Direct the team to list every Story as an individual objective to ensure full transparency.

Question 2

During the Draft Plan Review in PI Planning, a team presents a plan where their capacity is fully utilized, but they have no buffers for several high-risk dependencies. What should the Scrum Master do?

Accepted Answer

Advise the team to reconsider their commitment and add capacity buffers. The Scrum Master must ensure the team's plan is realistic and sustainable. During the Draft Plan Review, the SM should encourage the team to build in buffers or adjust their plan to account for uncertainty, especially when dealing with complex dependencies that are outside of their direct control.

Answer

Ask the Product Owner to increase the team's velocity for the PI

Answer

Recommend the team remove all dependencies from their Program Board

Answer

Wait for the Business Owners to assign a low Business Value to the work

Question 3

A Scrum Master/Team Coach wants to strengthen the team's ability to self-manage and improve continuously. Which TWO actions best support this goal? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Teach the team to facilitate their own events and rotate facilitation among members over time.. Rotating facilitation and using the team's own metrics and retrospectives both transfer ownership of how the team works back to the team. They build skills and habits that persist without the coach, which is the essence of developing self-management. The other actions keep the coach or external roles in control and do not grow team capability.

Answer

Attend every team event and provide detailed instructions on how each should be run.

Answer

Escalate all process problems to the Release Train Engineer so the team can focus on delivery.

Answer

Assign each team member a specific improvement task and track completion in a spreadsheet.

Question 4

Refer to the exhibit. As the Scrum Master for Blue-Squad, which action should you prioritize during the next Team Sync based on the current JSON status report?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a discussion on how to clear the blocked items and reduce the current WIP.. According to the exhibit, the team is significantly exceeding its WIP limit and has multiple blocked items, which directly correlates with the high average cycle time. A key responsibility of the Scrum Master is to facilitate flow by ensuring WIP limits are respected and impediments are addressed immediately. This prevents a buildup of work that delays the feedback loop and delivery.

Answer

Encourage the team to pull in one more Story to ensure they meet their velocity targets.

Answer

Request the System Architect to redesign the solution to reduce the complexity of the Stories.

Answer

Update the WIP limit in the configuration to 8 to reflect the team's actual current capacity.

Question 5

A Scrum Master notices that during Iteration Planning, the Agile Team consistently accepts more work than it can finish, and the Iteration Goals are rarely met. The Product Owner is frustrated and asks the Scrum Master to force the team to commit to fewer stories. What is the most appropriate action for the Scrum Master?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a discussion with the team and Product Owner about capacity, past velocity, and why commitments are missed, then help the team adjust its own forecasting.. When a team consistently over-commits, the Scrum Master facilitates a data-informed conversation with the team and Product Owner about capacity, past velocity, and the reasons commitments are missed. This preserves the team's ownership of its forecast while improving transparency and alignment. Imposing caps, dismissing concerns, or manipulating velocity all fail to address the root causes and undermine self-management or data integrity.

Answer

Tell the Product Owner that over-commitment is normal and that the team will improve on its own without any facilitation.

Answer

Reduce the team's velocity target in the team's metrics so the gap between planned and completed work appears smaller.

Answer

Set a hard cap on the number of stories the team can pull and enforce it during every Iteration Planning session.

Question 6

At the end of PI Planning, the confidence vote results in several '2-finger' votes. What is the Scrum Master's role in this situation?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a discussion to address the concerns of those who voted low.. The confidence vote is a key ceremony that ensures everyone on the ART is committed to the plan. A low vote from any individual is not a failure but an opportunity to uncover hidden risks. The Scrum Master must ensure these voices are heard and that the plan is adjusted.

Answer

Ignore the low votes and proceed with the majority's decision.

Answer

Ask the Release Train Engineer to override the vote and move forward.

Answer

Immediately start re-planning the entire PI for all teams.

Question 7

A Scrum Master / Team Coach is helping an Agile Team improve their collaboration with the Product Owner. Which TWO actions best support this goal? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Coach the Product Owner on effective backlog refinement techniques to ensure stories are ready for Iteration Planning.. Coaching the Product Owner on backlog refinement and facilitating regular refinement sessions both strengthen collaboration by ensuring shared understanding and readiness of stories. These actions are core to the Scrum Master / Team Coach role in SAFe, as they enable the team and Product Owner to work together effectively without overstepping boundaries.

Answer

Require the Product Owner to submit all changes to the team backlog through the Scrum Master for approval.

Answer

Take over the Product Owner's responsibility for ordering the team backlog to ensure the team works on the right items.

Answer

Instruct the Product Owner to attend all Daily Stand-ups to provide updates on priority changes.

Question 8

During the Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event, the Problem-Solving Workshop is conducted. Which THREE activities are part of this workshop? (Choose 3)

Accepted Answer

Root cause analysis. The Problem-Solving Workshop is the final part of the I&A event. It follows a structured approach: identifying the problem, performing root cause analysis (using tools like the 5 Whys or Fishbone diagrams), identifying the biggest root cause, brainstorming solutions, and creating improvement backlog items that are integrated into the next PI Planning session.

Answer

The PI System Demo

Answer

Assigning Business Value to objectives

Question 9

Which THREE of the following are benefits of the Scrum Master fostering cross-team collaboration during PI Planning? (Select THREE)

Accepted Answer

Increased understanding of dependencies between teams.. Cross-team collaboration is fundamental to SAFe, as teams are interdependent. By fostering these connections, the Scrum Master helps manage dependencies, align plans, and share knowledge across the ART. This proactive approach prevents bottlenecks, enables the team to deliver integrated value more smoothly, and ensures that the overall PI objectives are met through a unified, collaborative effort.

Answer

Elimination of the need for the Product Owner role.

Answer

Reduced need for team-level retrospectives.

Question 10

An Agile Team's Scrum Master / Team Coach is asked by a new team member, "Who is responsible for ensuring the team adheres to Scrum and SAFe practices?" Which answer is most accurate?

Accepted Answer

The Scrum Master / Team Coach coaches the team on Scrum and SAFe practices and helps them self-correct when they deviate.. The Scrum Master / Team Coach is accountable for coaching the team on Scrum and SAFe practices and helping them self-correct. This is a teaching and facilitation responsibility, not enforcement. Neither the Release Train Engineer, the Product Owner, nor functional managers are responsible for policing a team's Scrum adherence. Teams are expected to own their process and improve through inspection and adaptation.

Answer

The Product Owner ensures the team follows Scrum because they own the Team Backlog and Iteration outcomes.

Answer

The team's functional manager enforces Scrum practices during performance reviews.

Answer

The Release Train Engineer enforces Scrum compliance for all teams on the Agile Release Train.

Question 11

A newly formed Scrum team in a SAFe enterprise is experiencing low engagement during Daily Stand-ups. Team members spend most of the time reporting status updates directly to the Scrum Master instead of collaborating on meeting their iteration goals. What should the Scrum Master do?

Accepted Answer

Coach the team to focus their discussion on how they will collaborate to achieve the iteration goals using the Kanban board.. The Scrum Master must redirect the focus of the Daily Stand-up from a status reporting ritual to a collaborative synchronization meeting centered on the iteration board. By coaching the team to talk to each other about impediments and progress toward goals, the Scrum Master fosters self-organization and accountability.

Answer

Cancel the Daily Stand-up and replace it with a daily email status report sent directly to the Release Train Engineer.

Answer

Run the Daily Stand-up personally by asking each team member individual questions about their completed tasks.

Answer

Report the unengaged team members to the functional manager so that formal performance counseling can be initiated.

Question 12

After the Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event, the ART has identified several improvement items. The Scrum Master for Team Delta is tasked with ensuring these items are addressed. What is the most appropriate way to integrate these improvements into the team's work?

Accepted Answer

Add the improvement items to the team's Product Backlog and prioritize them with the Product Owner.. The most appropriate way is to add improvement items to the Product Backlog and prioritize them with the Product Owner. This ensures they are visible, prioritized, and integrated into the team's regular work, increasing the likelihood of completion and continuous improvement.

Answer

Create a separate improvement backlog and track it outside of the team's normal work.

Answer

Wait until the next PI Planning to include the improvements in the team's PI objectives.

Answer

Assign the improvement items to specific team members as stretch goals for the next Iteration.

Question 13

During the first day of PI Planning, the team realizes their drafted plan requires dependencies from another Agile Release Train (ART) that have not been committed. What is the most appropriate action for the Scrum Master to facilitate?

Accepted Answer

Escalate the uncommitted cross-ART dependencies to the Management Review and Problem-Solving session at the end of Day 1.. The Scrum Master must guide the team to surface these cross-ART dependencies immediately during the management review and problem-solving session at the end of Day 1. This ensures leadership from both trains can negotiate solutions, adjust scope, or reallocate capacity before finalizing the plan on Day 2, keeping the program increment aligned.

Answer

Ignore the uncommitted dependencies and finalize the plan anyway to avoid delaying the PI Planning schedule.

Answer

Independently rewrite the other team's backlog items to ensure the required functionality is built locally.

Answer

Cancel the PI Planning event immediately and postpone it until the other ART finishes their own planning cycle.

Question 14

Stakeholders are complaining that the System Demo is too long and technical. How should the Scrum Master coach the team to improve this ART event?

Accepted Answer

Focus the demonstration on business value and user-facing stories.. The System Demo is intended for stakeholders to validate business value, not to review every technical detail or line of code. The Scrum Master must coach the team on how to tell a story with their software. By focusing on the user's journey and business outcomes, the team can make the demo engaging.

Answer

Suggest the team only show high-level slides to save time.

Answer

Invite fewer stakeholders to the meeting to reduce the feedback loop.

Answer

Record the demo and send the video link instead of holding a live meeting.

Question 15

Which THREE of the following are key actions a Scrum Master takes during the Iteration Retrospective?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a blame-free discussion about the team's process.. The Retrospective is a vital event for continuous improvement within the team. The Scrum Master must ensure the environment is safe for feedback, facilitate the identification of actionable improvements, and track those items to completion. This is important because it drives the 'Relentless Improvement' core value of SAFe, enabling teams to refine their processes, eliminate waste, and increase their overall efficiency over time.

Answer

Assign specific team members blame for missed iteration goals.

Answer

Present the performance metrics and reprimand the team for low velocity.