SSM Introducing Scrum in SAFe Practice Test 6 — 15 Questions

Question 1

During a SAFe Scrum team's Retrospective, several team members express frustration that the Product Owner frequently changes priorities mid-iteration, causing unfinished work. The Scrum Master wants to address this systematically. What is the most effective action to take?

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

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a discussion with the Product Owner and team to establish a working agreement on mid-iteration scope changes.. The Scrum Master should facilitate the creation of a working agreement between the team and Product Owner to manage mid-iteration changes. This collaborative approach addresses the root cause, respects the Product Owner's role, and empowers the team to protect its iteration goal. It also builds a healthier working relationship and promotes self-organization.

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Instruct the team to ignore any requests from the Product Owner until the next iteration.

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Recommend that the team adopt Kanban instead of Scrum to handle changing priorities more flexibly.

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Escalate the issue to the Release Train Engineer to enforce a change freeze during iterations.

Question 2

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?

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 3

During an early iteration in a SAFe ART, a Scrum team's Daily Stand-up has become a status report to the Scrum Master, lasting over 30 minutes while the Scrum Master takes notes and assigns follow-ups. The team is disengaged and members wait for direction. What should the Scrum Master do to introduce Scrum correctly?

Accepted Answer

Coach the team to run the stand-up themselves, focusing on progress toward the Iteration Goal and plan for the next 24 hours.. In Scrum the Daily Stand-up belongs to the Development Team, who inspect progress toward the Iteration Goal and adapt their plan for the next 24 hours. The Scrum Master serves the team by teaching it to self-manage this event, not by acting as scribe or taskmaster. Stepping back and coaching the team to facilitate its own stand-up restores the intended purpose and builds ownership.

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Cancel the Daily Stand-up and replace it with a weekly written status email to the Scrum Master.

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Ask the Product Owner to facilitate the stand-up and prioritize each member's tasks for the day.

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Continue facilitating the stand-up but keep detailed notes and send action items to the team afterward.

Question 4

A newly formed Scrum Team inside an Agile Release Train has just held its first Iteration Planning event. The Scrum Master notices the team is building a detailed, task-level plan for the entire Program Increment and treating it as a commitment to be tracked daily. What should the Scrum Master do to align the team with Scrum as practiced in SAFe?

Accepted Answer

Coach the team that the Iteration is the planning horizon for team-level commitment, while the PI Objectives and team PI plan represent the broader forecast they refine with their Product Owner and during the Inspect and Adapt workshop.. Within SAFe, the Iteration remains the team's commitment horizon, while the Program Increment is a forecast captured through team PI Objectives. Keeping the detailed, committable plan at the Iteration level and refining the PI plan with the Product Owner and during the Inspect and Adapt workshop preserves Scrum's empirical control while fitting the train's cadence.

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Instruct the team to abandon Iteration Planning and instead generate all User Stories for the Program Increment up front so the plan is stable for the whole train.

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Have the team stop using Iteration Goals and instead report only against PI Objectives at the end of each Iteration so leadership has consistent metrics.

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Advise the team to make the Program Increment plan a firm commitment and escalate any deviation to the Release Train Engineer during the daily Scrum of Scrums.

Question 5

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.

Answer

The Scrum of Scrums

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The Daily Stand-up

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The Iteration Review

Question 6

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 7

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 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

A Scrum team new to SAFe is preparing for its first Iteration Review. The Product Owner plans to present a slide deck summarizing the team's work and take questions. What should the Scrum Master recommend to align with Scrum in SAFe?

Accepted Answer

Demonstrate the working increment to stakeholders and use their feedback to adapt the Team Backlog.. The Iteration Review is a working-session event where the team demonstrates the increment to stakeholders and uses their feedback to adapt the Team Backlog. Slides describing work are not the increment and cannot be inspected empirically. The Scrum Master should coach the Product Owner and team to show the actual product and invite stakeholder input.

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Replace the Iteration Review with a written status report distributed to ART stakeholders.

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Present the slide deck but limit questions to the Product Owner to keep the event timeboxed.

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Postpone the review until the end of the PI so all four iterations can be demonstrated at once.

Question 10

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 11

A Scrum Master is helping a brand-new team understand how their work fits into the Agile Release Train. The team asks who owns the decision about what the team will deliver in the next Program Increment and where that decision is made. What should the Scrum Master explain?

Accepted Answer

The team, together with its Product Owner and the other teams, creates and agrees to team PI Objectives during PI Planning, with business value assigned by the Business Owners.. PI Planning is the cadence-based event where each team, guided by its Product Owner, drafts team PI Objectives, identifies dependencies, and commits to a plan it presents to the train. Business Owners then assign business value. This makes the team and Product Owner the authors, with Business Owners evaluating rather than dictating content.

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The System Architect defines the team PI Objectives based on the architectural runway and hands them to the Product Owner for execution tracking.

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The Release Train Engineer alone writes the team PI Objectives before PI Planning and distributes them so the teams can begin execution immediately.

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The Business Owners select the team PI Objectives during the management review and problem-solving session on the second day of PI Planning.

Question 12

A newly formed Scrum team inside an Agile Release Train has finished its first two iterations. The Scrum Master observes that the team keeps accepting work beyond its capacity and never finishes the Iteration Goals. Which action best reflects the Scrum Master's role when introducing Scrum in SAFe?

Accepted Answer

Coach the team to use its historical velocity and capacity when selecting stories during Iteration Planning, and inspect the result in the Retrospective.. The Scrum Master serves the team by coaching self-management and continuous improvement. Guiding the team to forecast from velocity and capacity during Iteration Planning, then inspecting the outcome in the Retrospective, directly builds the Scrum discipline being introduced. Escalation, personnel changes, or asking the Product Owner to shrink the backlog all avoid the team's own accountability for planning and improvement.

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Reassign the lowest-performing team member to another team so the remaining members can meet the Iteration Goals.

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Escalate the team's velocity shortfall to the Release Train Engineer so the ART can re-plan the Program Increment.

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Ask the Product Owner to reduce the number of stories in the Team Backlog so the team can finish everything planned.

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

An organization is introducing Scrum inside a SAFe Agile Release Train, and a new Scrum Master is clarifying how the Scrum Master serves the Scrum Team and the larger organization. Which two services are explicitly part of the Scrum Master's role in this context? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Helping the team and organization adopt Scrum by removing impediments to the team's progress.. SAFe describes the Scrum Master as serving the team by coaching self-management and cross-functionality, and serving the organization by helping it adopt Scrum and removing impediments. Those two services build capability and clear the path for delivery. Backlog ownership, technical direction, and quality approval belong to the Product Owner, the Developers, and the team's Definition of Done respectively, not to the Scrum Master.

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Directing the Developers on technical design and architecture decisions during the Iteration.

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Approving whether completed stories meet the Definition of Done before they are accepted.

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Owning and prioritizing the Team Backlog to maximize the value delivered each Iteration.

Question 15

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.