SSM Practice Test 26 — 15 Questions

Question 1

You are the Scrum Master for a team on a 120-person ART that has just completed PI Planning and is entering the first Iteration of the PI. Midway through the iteration, a developer tells you the team committed to a Feature that depends on an API another team has not started. The other team's Scrum Master says the dependency was never recorded during the Draft Plan Review and is not in the program board. What is the most appropriate action for you to take to support the ART event system?

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

Accepted Answer

Log the dependency as a program risk, then raise it at the next Scrum of Scrums so the ART can re-plan the sequencing of the two teams' work.. Cross-team dependencies that surface during execution must be made visible and coordinated through the ART's own mechanisms. Recording the dependency and raising it at the Scrum of Scrums lets the affected teams, with RTE support, adjust sequencing before the dependency becomes a PI-level failure. Deferring to the I&A, escalating over the other team's head, or silently dropping committed work all break the transparency and coordination the ART depends on.

Answer

Tell the team to drop the Feature from the iteration and pick up an unrelated backlog item that requires no external coordination.

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Wait until the Inspect and Adapt at the end of the PI to raise the dependency so the ART can address it systematically in the problem-solving workshop.

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Escalate directly to the Release Train Engineer and ask them to reassign the API work to your team so the Feature can proceed without waiting.

Question 2

A Scrum Master is helping an Agile Team transition to SAFe. Which THREE behaviors characterize an effective servant leader in this role? (Choose three.)

Accepted Answer

Using active listening to understand team perspectives and encouraging collaborative decision-making rather than dictating solutions.. Effective servant leaders prioritize the growth and well-being of team members, facilitate collaboration, and remove systemic impediments rather than relying on command-and-control tactics. These three behaviors build trust, foster autonomy, and drive sustainable high performance across the Agile Team and the broader release train.

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Assigning specific tasks to individual team members every morning to ensure accountability and track individual productivity metrics.

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Retaining final authority over all technical design choices and coding standards implemented within the software codebase.

Question 3

A Scrum Master is facilitating the team's breakout during PI Planning. Two team members are dominating the conversation about a Feature, while the quieter members have not spoken. What should the Scrum Master do?

Accepted Answer

Actively invite the quieter members to share their perspective so the whole team contributes to the plan.. During PI Planning, the Scrum Master facilitates so that all team members contribute to the plan. Actively inviting quieter members ensures the team benefits from diverse perspectives and builds shared commitment. The other actions either ignore the imbalance, escalate inappropriately, or impose speaking roles that can harm psychological safety.

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Let the dominant members finish and then move on so the team stays on schedule.

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Escalate the behavior to the Release Train Engineer as an impediment to the planning process.

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Assign the quiet members specific Features to present so they must speak.

Question 4

A Scrum Master is preparing a team for its first System Demo. The team has completed several stories that are integrated with another team's work, but the team is unsure what to demonstrate. What should the Scrum Master advise?

Accepted Answer

Demonstrate the integrated functionality in the staging environment so stakeholders can evaluate the current system state.. The System Demo is the ART's opportunity to inspect the integrated solution in a staging environment and gather feedback from stakeholders. The team should demonstrate integrated functionality, not isolated stories or slides. This enables objective evaluation of the current system state and informs the next PI's planning, embodying the SAFe principle of frequent integration.

Answer

Ask the Product Owner to present slides summarizing the team's completed stories instead of a live demonstration.

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Demonstrate only the stories that are fully complete and accepted by the Product Owner, and defer integrated work to the next demo.

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Have each developer demo their own code separately so that all individual contributions are visible to stakeholders.

Question 5

A SAFe Scrum Master notices that during the Daily Stand-up, team members consistently arrive late, check phones, and give lengthy updates to the Scrum Master rather than to each other. The Scrum Master wants to improve the effectiveness of this event. What is the most appropriate action?

Accepted Answer

Coach the team on the purpose of the Daily Stand-up and model a format where members speak to each other about progress toward the Iteration Goal.. The Daily Stand-up is a team synchronization event, not a status report to the Scrum Master. When members arrive late, disengage, or report to the Scrum Master, the Scrum Master should coach the team on the event's purpose and facilitate a format where members speak directly to each other about progress toward the Iteration Goal. This restores ownership and improves communication.

Answer

Require each member to submit a written status update before the meeting to reduce the time spent speaking.

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Ask the Product Owner to attend and lead the Daily Stand-up to ensure it stays focused and on time.

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Cancel the Daily Stand-up for a week to see if the team self-organizes around communication.

Question 6

During the first PI Planning event for a new Agile Release Train, a Scrum Master sees that their team has committed to a full set of Iteration Goals but has no plan for the shared services another team must provide mid-PI. The other team's Product Owner is present but unaware of the dependency. What is the most appropriate action for the Scrum Master?

Accepted Answer

Help the team make the dependency visible on the program board during PI Planning and facilitate a conversation so the two teams agree on how and when the shared service will be delivered.. PI Planning is where cross-team dependencies are made visible and resolved while all relevant people are in the room. Using the program board and facilitating a direct conversation lets the two teams agree on delivery timing and adjust their plans before committing, which is the collaborative behavior SAFe expects during the event.

Answer

Record the dependency in the team's Team Backlog and let the Product Owner handle coordination after the event.

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Instruct the team to remove the dependent features from its PI Objectives and plan them for a later PI.

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Escalate to the Release Train Engineer and ask them to assign the shared service work to a third team after PI Planning ends.

Question 7

A Scrum Master is helping a team get more value from the Inspect and Adapt event. Which TWO activities are appropriate for the Scrum Master to facilitate or support within that event? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Helping the team participate in the problem-solving workshop by using root-cause analysis to address a systemic issue identified in the current PI.. The Inspect and Adapt moves from quantitative measurement of the current state to a retrospective-style review and then a structured problem-solving workshop. Scrum Masters add value by ensuring the team's metrics are credibly represented and by helping the team engage in root-cause analysis that yields durable corrective actions. Presenting business value, running confidence votes, or assigning blame fall outside that facilitation role.

Answer

Facilitating the confidence vote that determines whether the ART accepts the PI objectives at the end of the event.

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Presenting the team's PI objectives and their final business value scores on behalf of the Product Owner during the program review.

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Assigning the root causes to specific team members so accountability for the improvement actions is clearly documented.

Question 8

Refer to the exhibit. Based on the performance report, what should the Scrum Master prioritize to improve the team's effectiveness?

Accepted Answer

Focus on clearing impediments and facilitating flow.. The report indicates a high impediment resolution time and low iteration goal success, suggesting the team is blocked by external factors. A Scrum Master must shift focus from administrative tasks to active impediment removal and process coaching. Improving flow is essential, as high blockage rates prevent the team from meeting their commitments, which ultimately delays the entire ART's delivery cycle and undermines the PI planning outcomes.

Answer

Increase the frequency of status report meetings for stakeholders.

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Request that management increase the team's velocity targets.

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Change the team members to improve skill levels.

Question 9

A SAFe Scrum Master/Team Coach is working with a newly formed Agile Team. The team's Product Owner frequently assigns tasks directly to individual developers, bypassing the team's self-organization. The developers are frustrated but hesitant to confront the Product Owner. What is the most effective action for the Scrum Master to take?

Accepted Answer

Meet with the Product Owner to explain the importance of team self-organization and coach them to communicate priorities through the Team Backlog rather than direct assignments.. The most effective action is to coach the Product Owner on the importance of team self-organization and guide them to communicate through the Team Backlog. This addresses the root cause, respects roles, and avoids putting developers in a confrontational position. It also models servant leadership and reinforces SAFe's principle that teams pull work rather than receive assignments.

Answer

Instruct the developers to ignore the Product Owner's task assignments and instead pull work from the Team Backlog as a team.

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Raise the issue at the next Scrum of Scrums and ask the Release Train Engineer to enforce self-organization across all teams.

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Suggest that the developers accept the assignments for now and bring up the issue during the next Iteration Retrospective.

Question 10

An Agile Team's Scrum Master notices that the team's Daily Stand-up has devolved into a status report to the Scrum Master, with each member speaking only when called upon and waiting for direction. The team is colocated and has been together for three iterations. What is the most effective action for the Scrum Master to take to restore the event's intended purpose?

Accepted Answer

Coach the team to self-facilitate the stand-up, with members pulling the next speaker rather than reporting to the Scrum Master.. The Daily Stand-up is a team-owned event for inspecting progress toward the Iteration Goals and adapting the day's plan. When team members report to the Scrum Master, the event has become a status meeting, which erodes self-management. The Scrum Master's role is to coach the team to facilitate its own stand-up and coordinate peer-to-peer, restoring ownership rather than removing or extending the event.

Answer

Extend the Daily Stand-up to 30 minutes so each member has time to give a complete status report.

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Ask the Product Owner to attend and lead the Daily Stand-up so the team stays focused on priority work.

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Cancel the Daily Stand-up and replace it with a written status update in the team's chat channel.

Question 11

An Agile Team in a SAFe organization is consistently unable to finish all its stories within an Iteration because the Scrum Master often steps in to make technical decisions when the team is stuck. Which action should the Scrum Master take to better fulfill the Team Coach role?

Accepted Answer

Coach the team to make its own technical decisions by asking guiding questions and facilitating problem-solving sessions, intervening only when an impediment is outside the team's control.. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should develop the team's ability to solve its own problems. Coaching through guiding questions and facilitating problem-solving sessions builds autonomy, while intervening only for external impediments respects the team's ownership. Continuing to make technical decisions, withdrawing entirely, or reducing scope all fail to address the dependency and do not build long-term capability.

Answer

Ask the Product Owner to reduce the number of stories in each Iteration so the team has more time to figure out technical issues.

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Continue making technical decisions to keep the team on schedule, since the Scrum Master has more experience.

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Stop attending daily stand-ups so the team is forced to solve problems on its own.

Question 12

A Scrum Master is coaching her team on how to participate effectively in the ART's Inspect and Adapt event. Which TWO activities should she emphasize as responsibilities the team has during this event? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Participating in the PI system demo to show the integrated solution to stakeholders.. During the Inspect and Adapt event, teams contribute to the PI system demo by presenting integrated work, and they help analyze the measurement data and identify root causes in the problem-solving workshop. These activities align with the event's purpose of inspecting the PI outcome and improving the system, and they are the two direct responsibilities teams carry within it.

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Re-baselining the PI objectives for the next PI and committing the team to new business value targets.

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Approving the ART's budget and staffing changes for the next fiscal period during the event.

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Negotiating individual team velocity targets with the Release Train Engineer for the upcoming PI.

Question 13

During a SAFe Scrum Master's facilitation of the Iteration Retrospective, one team member proposes a process change and immediately another team member says, 'That will never work here; we tried something like that before.' Several other team members nod in agreement. What is the most effective action for the Scrum Master to take next?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a brief discussion to understand what was tried before and what conditions have changed, then help the team decide whether to test a small experiment.. The Retrospective is a team event for inspecting and adapting, and the Scrum Master facilitates the conversation rather than controlling the outcome. When a new idea meets resistance based on past experience, the most effective response is to explore what happened before and what has changed, then let the team choose a small, safe experiment. This keeps the team engaged, respects prior learning, and supports continuous improvement without forcing a premature decision.

Answer

Suggest the team park the idea and move on to the next Retrospective topic so the meeting stays on schedule.

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Ask the team member who proposed the change to provide more detail and evidence before allowing further discussion.

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Take a vote immediately to see whether the majority supports the change, and proceed based on the result.

Question 14

An Agile Team's Iteration Retrospective has become a complaint session where the same issues are raised repeatedly without action. The team members are engaged but no improvements are implemented. As the Scrum Master / Team Coach, what should you do to improve the effectiveness of the retrospective?

Accepted Answer

Coach the team to select a small number of high-impact improvements and track them as action items with owners and due dates.. The retrospective's purpose is to inspect and adapt. When the team repeatedly raises issues without action, the Scrum Master / Team Coach should coach the team to focus on a few high-impact improvements, assign owners, and track them. This creates accountability and demonstrates that the retrospective leads to tangible change, reinforcing the team's commitment to continuous improvement.

Answer

Shorten the retrospective to 30 minutes to force the team to focus only on quick wins.

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Replace the retrospective with a problem-solving workshop led by you to ensure actions are defined.

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Invite the Release Train Engineer to attend and prioritize the improvements for the team.

Question 15

In the context of the Inspect and Adapt event, what is the purpose of the 'Quantitative Measurement' section?

Accepted Answer

To review the Program Predictability Measure and other ART-level metrics. The Quantitative Measurement section of the I&A event is where the ART reviews its performance metrics. The primary metric is the Program Predictability Measure, which compares planned Business Value to actual Business Value delivered. This provides a transparent, data-driven view of how well the train is meeting its commitments over time.

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To compare the individual velocities of all teams on the train

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To calculate the total number of story points completed in the PI

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To determine which team members should receive performance bonuses