SSM Practice Test 2 — 25 Questions

Question 1

Refer to the exhibit. As a Scrum Master attending the ART Sync, what is the most appropriate action to take regarding DEP-102?

Accepted Answer

Highlight the risk to the RTE and discuss potential mitigations. The ART Sync is primarily for coordinating dependencies across teams and identifying risks that require management intervention. In this scenario, a dependency is blocked by an external factor (hardware). The Scrum Master should ensure this is escalated to the Release Train Engineer so it can be addressed at the train level or during a Management Review.

Answer

Tell Team-Beta to move the dependent stories to Iteration 1.4

Answer

Direct Team-Alpha to prioritize hardware procurement over coding

Answer

Update the Program Board to show the dependency is now resolved

Question 2

During the final plan review of PI Planning, the train is ROAMing risks. A team identifies a risk that they cannot resolve themselves, but the Release Train Engineer (RTE) takes ownership of it to find a solution later. How should this risk be categorized?

Accepted Answer

Owned. The ROAM acronym stands for Resolved, Owned, Accepted, and Mitigated. When a risk is 'Owned,' it means that someone (in this case, the RTE) has taken responsibility for the risk because it cannot be resolved during the planning event. The owner will track the risk to ensure it is eventually addressed.

Answer

Accepted

Answer

Mitigated

Answer

Resolved

Question 3

What is the primary responsibility of the Scrum Master during PI Planning?

Accepted Answer

Ensuring the team commits to realistic objectives and manages dependencies.. During PI Planning, the Scrum Master facilitates the team's participation, ensuring they understand the program vision and contribute to the team's PI objectives. They help manage the team's capacity, coordinate dependencies with other teams, and ensure the draft plan is realistic. This phase is critical because it sets the foundation for the entire PI, aligning individual team efforts with the overall business objectives of the train.

Answer

Defining the features and writing the user stories for the backlog.

Answer

Assigning specific tasks to individual team members to ensure total coverage.

Answer

Approving the final program roadmap proposed by the System Architect.

Question 4

A SAFe Scrum Master is facilitating the Iteration Review. The Product Owner has just presented the team's increment, and a key stakeholder expresses strong dissatisfaction with a feature that was not completed as expected. The stakeholder demands an immediate commitment to deliver it in the next Iteration. What should the Scrum Master do?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a discussion where the stakeholder's feedback is captured, the Product Owner prioritizes it against other work, and the team assesses feasibility for the next Iteration.. The Iteration Review is a feedback-gathering event, not a commitment meeting. The Scrum Master should facilitate a discussion that captures the stakeholder's concerns, allows the Product Owner to prioritize the feedback against existing work, and enables the team to assess feasibility. This preserves team ownership and the Product Owner's role in backlog management.

Answer

Tell the stakeholder that their feedback is out of scope for the Iteration Review and should be sent via email to the Product Owner later.

Answer

Ask the Release Train Engineer to mediate the conflict and decide whether the team should take on the work.

Answer

Instruct the team to accept the stakeholder's demand to maintain a good relationship and avoid conflict.

Question 5

When should the Iteration Retrospective occur in a SAFe team?

Accepted Answer

Immediately following the Iteration Review, before the next Iteration Planning.. The Iteration Retrospective must occur after the Iteration Review and before the next Iteration Planning. This timing is essential because it allows the team to reflect on the results of the review and incorporate lessons learned into their next planning cycle. This creates a continuous improvement loop that directly informs how the team organizes and executes their work in the subsequent iteration.

Answer

During the System Demo to ensure maximum attendance.

Answer

At the end of the Program Increment only, to save time.

Answer

Whenever the team feels they have enough to discuss.

Question 6

Which TWO roles are primarily responsible for facilitating the Team Breakout sessions during PI Planning? (Choose TWO)

Accepted Answer

Scrum Master. Team Breakouts are the heart of PI Planning where teams work locally to define their stories and objectives. The Scrum Master and Product Owner work as a leadership pair for the team during these sessions. They ensure the team stays focused, resolves internal conflicts, and aligns their technical tasks with the business priorities.

Answer

Release Train Engineer

Answer

System Architect

Answer

Business Owner

Question 7

During the second day of PI Planning, a team realizes that a critical dependency on another team will likely delay their finishing a Feature. The other team has already finalized their plan. What is the Scrum Master's best course of action?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a meeting between both teams and Product Management to renegotiate the plan and scope.. In SAFe, managing dependencies is a dynamic process that continues until the final plan is accepted. Even if a team has 'finalized' their plan, the Scrum Master must facilitate immediate communication to resolve bottlenecks. This ensures the ART's collective plan remains viable and that risks are addressed before the final commitment is made.

Answer

Instruct the team to mark the Feature as 'Blocked' and move it to the next PI's backlog.

Answer

Escalate the issue to the Release Train Engineer to have them force the other team to change.

Answer

Record the risk on the ART Risk ROAMing board and proceed with the current team plan.

Question 8

During a SAFe team's Iteration Retrospective, the team identifies that their Continuous Integration (CI) pipeline frequently fails due to flaky automated tests. The Scrum Master wants to ensure the team creates an effective improvement action. What should the Scrum Master do?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a discussion to identify the root cause, then help the team define a specific, measurable improvement action and add it to the team backlog.. The Scrum Master facilitates the retrospective so the team can identify root causes and define its own improvement actions. Helping the team create a specific, measurable action and adding it to the team backlog ensures ownership and transparency. Assigning to one person, stopping tests, or escalating immediately all fail to build the team's capability and may not address the systemic causes of flaky tests.

Answer

Decide that the team should stop running automated tests until the flaky ones are fixed to avoid pipeline failures.

Answer

Add a backlog item to fix the flaky tests and assign it to the team's best developer to complete in the next iteration.

Answer

Escalate the issue to the Release Train Engineer and request that the System Team fix the pipeline before the next iteration.

Question 9

During the first Program Increment, a Scrum Master observes that the team's Iteration Review has become a one-way demo to stakeholders with no discussion of whether the Increment is potentially shippable. The Product Owner also wants to know how the team's progress will be evaluated across the train. What should the Scrum Master do?

Accepted Answer

Refocus the Iteration Review on inspecting the Increment and adapting the Team Backlog, and explain that the System Demo gives the ART an integrated view of progress each Iteration.. The Iteration Review exists so the team and stakeholders inspect the Increment and adapt the Team Backlog, while the System Demo provides the ART with an integrated view of progress each Iteration. Coaching both purposes restores the review's working-session character and answers the Product Owner's need for train-level visibility.

Answer

Replace the Iteration Review with the System Demo so the team only participates in the ART-level event and avoids duplicating stakeholder time.

Answer

Ask the Product Owner to present the team's completed stories at the System Demo instead, and cancel the Iteration Review until the team matures.

Answer

Convert the Iteration Review into a status report delivered to the Release Train Engineer so the train has consistent metrics for the Inspect and Adapt workshop.

Question 10

During a Team Increment Planning event, an Agile Team struggles to reach consensus on a specific User Story's estimation, and the debate is consuming valuable planning time. What is the most effective action for the Scrum Master to take?

Accepted Answer

Establish a strict timebox for the discussion, and if consensus fails, use the median estimate or defer the story.. The Scrum Master must facilitate productive discussions without taking over the estimation process. Allowing the team to timebox the debate and apply quick estimation techniques keeps the planning cadence moving forward. This matters because getting bogged down on a single story risks missing the overall PI objectives and team commitments.

Answer

Provide the official team estimate yourself to immediately end the unproductive debate.

Answer

Escalate the disagreement directly to the Release Train Engineer for an executive decision.

Answer

Cancel the remainder of the planning session and reschedule it for the following week.

Question 11

During the first team breakout session of PI Planning, the Scrum Master notices the team is struggling to sequence their stories. What is the best way for the Scrum Master to facilitate this process?

Accepted Answer

Encourage the team to use their historical velocity and discuss story dependencies. During breakouts, the Scrum Master's role is to facilitate the planning process without doing the work for the team. They should guide the team to look at dependencies, use their velocity as a guide, and ensure the most valuable stories are planned for earlier iterations to allow for feedback and risk mitigation.

Answer

Assign the stories to specific iterations based on their own technical expertise

Answer

Tell the team to ignore dependencies and focus only on their own work

Answer

Ask the Release Train Engineer to come and sequence the stories for the team

Question 12

A Scrum Master is helping a newly formed Scrum team in a SAFe ART understand which activities belong to the team's own Scrum events rather than to ART-level events. Which two activities are performed by the Scrum team during its own Scrum events? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Identifying and addressing process improvements during the Iteration Retrospective. The team's own Scrum events include Iteration Planning, the Daily Stand-up, the Iteration Review, and the Iteration Retrospective. Establishing the Iteration Goal occurs in Iteration Planning, and identifying process improvements occurs in the Iteration Retrospective, so both are team-level activities. The Program Board, PI Objectives review, and Scrum of Scrums are ART-level activities.

Answer

Facilitating the Scrum of Scrums to coordinate cross-team dependencies

Answer

Managing and updating the Program Board dependencies during PI Planning

Answer

Reviewing and adjusting the ART's PI Objectives during the Inspect and Adapt event

Question 13

A Scrum Master joins a team that has been calling its Daily Scrum a 'stand-up status report' to the Scrum Master, who then updates the Release Train Engineer. The team complains that the meeting feels like a reporting obligation. What should the Scrum Master do to realign the event with Scrum?

Accepted Answer

Shift the Daily Scrum back to the Developers, who inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt their plan, and stop using it as a reporting channel to the Scrum Master or RTE.. The Daily Scrum is the Developers' event for inspecting progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapting the plan. Using it to report status to the Scrum Master or RTE turns an inspect-and-adapt activity into a control mechanism and erodes self-management. The Scrum Master serves the team by coaching the Developers to own the event and by handling ART-level communication through appropriate channels.

Answer

Invite the Release Train Engineer to attend daily so that cross-team dependencies can be resolved directly in the Daily Scrum.

Answer

Keep the current format but shorten it to five minutes so that reporting to the Scrum Master takes less time away from development work.

Answer

Convert the Daily Scrum into a Kanban flow review where the Scrum Master walks the board and reassigns items to balance workload across Developers.

Question 14

Which of the following best describes the Scrum Master's role in the Daily Stand-up (DSU)?

Accepted Answer

To ensure the meeting remains timeboxed and focused on the iteration goal.. The Scrum Master's role in the DSU is to facilitate the event, ensuring it stays within the timebox and focuses on alignment toward the iteration goal. They do not report to management but rather listen for blockers and dependencies that the team needs help resolving. By keeping the meeting brief and focused, the Scrum Master ensures the team remains synchronized and empowered to manage their daily execution effectively.

Answer

To act as the manager who assigns tasks for the day.

Answer

To collect individual progress reports for external stakeholders.

Answer

To solve all technical problems raised during the meeting.

Question 15

A Scrum Master is preparing a team for its first PI Planning on a new Agile Release Train. The team asks which activities they will participate in during the two-day event. Which TWO activities are part of the team's PI Planning responsibilities? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Creating and committing to team PI Objectives during team breakout sessions.. During PI Planning, each team works in breakout sessions to review its backlog, estimate capacity, draft PI Objectives, and identify dependencies and risks. These outputs feed the program board and the draft plan review. Budgeting, management review facilitation, and solution intent negotiation belong to other roles and are not team responsibilities within the event.

Answer

Establishing the ART's budget and approving the Lean Portfolio Management funding for the next PI.

Answer

Facilitating the management review and problem-solving session that follows the draft plan review.

Answer

Negotiating the ART's top-level solution intent with enterprise architects outside the planning event.

Question 16

During the Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event, the ART's metrics show that the Program Predictability Measure for the last PI was 60%. The RTE facilitates a problem-solving workshop where teams identify 'unclear acceptance criteria' as a root cause. As the Scrum Master for one of the teams, what is your most appropriate next step to support the ART's improvement?

Accepted Answer

Work with the RTE and other Scrum Masters to create an improvement story for the ART's backlog that addresses acceptance criteria clarity across teams.. The Inspect and Adapt event culminates in the problem-solving workshop, where root causes are identified and improvement items are added to the ART backlog. When a root cause is systemic, the Scrum Master should collaborate with the RTE and other Scrum Masters to create an ART-level improvement story, ensuring a coordinated and tracked solution rather than isolated team fixes.

Answer

Schedule a separate meeting with your team's Product Owner to rewrite all user stories with clearer acceptance criteria for the next PI.

Answer

Update the team's Definition of Done to include a mandatory review of acceptance criteria by the Product Owner before sprint planning.

Answer

Escalate the issue to the Business Owners and request additional funding for a dedicated business analyst to write acceptance criteria.

Question 17

During a Daily Stand-up, a team member states that they are blocked by a missing test environment. Which action should the Scrum Master take first?

Accepted Answer

Ask the team member to raise a ticket and continue the stand-up, then follow up after the event to help resolve the impediment.. The Daily Stand-up is a timeboxed coordination event, so impediments should be noted and addressed afterward. The Scrum Master's first action is to ensure the blocker is captured and then actively help remove it, preserving the stand-up's focus. This balances respect for the timebox with the Scrum Master's accountability for impediment removal.

Answer

Instruct the team member to work on a different backlog item until the environment is available.

Answer

Escalate the blocker to the Release Train Engineer during the stand-up and wait for instructions.

Answer

Extend the stand-up to brainstorm solutions with the entire team until the environment issue is resolved.

Question 18

During the Inspect and Adapt event for the first Agile Release Train PI, a newly formed Scrum Team expresses frustration that their velocity dropped significantly in the second iteration due to technical debt and unexpected defect rework. How should the Scrum Master guide the team in utilizing this feedback?

Accepted Answer

Guide the team to analyze the root causes of rework and create specific improvement backlog items to address technical debt during upcoming iterations.. The Inspect and Adapt event provides a structured mechanism for teams to evaluate their performance, identify systemic impediments, and generate actionable improvement backlog items. By framing the velocity drop as a learning opportunity rather than a failure, the Scrum Master helps the team prioritize technical debt remediation. This ensures continuous improvement is systematically integrated into future iteration planning sessions.

Answer

Recommend that the team abandon formal Definition of Done criteria temporarily to restore high story point delivery velocity in the next iteration.

Answer

Advise the Product Owner to remove all complex stories from the team backlog until the team achieves a stable baseline velocity of thirty points.

Answer

Report the velocity drop as an underperformance issue to executive management so they can reassign lower-performing developers to other teams.

Question 19

During the Iteration Review, a stakeholder heavily criticizes a feature. How should the Scrum Master intervene?

Accepted Answer

Encourage the stakeholder to provide specific, actionable feedback that the team can consider.. The Scrum Master must maintain the psychological safety of the team while allowing constructive feedback. By redirecting the conversation toward the specific, actionable aspects of the feedback, the Scrum Master ensures the session remains productive. This professional handling of conflict models the behavior expected in a collaborative environment and prevents the review from devolving into a personal attack on developers.

Answer

Defend the team immediately to prevent the stakeholder from being rude.

Answer

Ask the stakeholder to leave the review if they cannot be respectful to the team.

Answer

Apologize to the stakeholder for the feature and promise to redo it immediately.

Question 20

A team is struggling to implement 'Built-in Quality' and frequently has a high number of defects at the end of an Iteration. How can the Scrum Master best help?

Accepted Answer

Encourage the team to adopt Test-Driven Development (TDD) and Pair Programming.. Built-in Quality is a core SAFe principle. The Scrum Master supports this by coaching the team on technical practices like Test-First, Continuous Integration, and Pair Work. By facilitating the adoption of these practices, the Scrum Master helps the team reduce rework and ensure that quality is considered throughout the development process, not just at the end.

Answer

Suggest the team adds a 'Quality Assurance' phase at the end of each Iteration to catch bugs.

Answer

Ask the Product Owner to lower the acceptance criteria so that more Stories can pass testing.

Answer

Hire a dedicated tester for the team to take over all the validation and verification work.