SSM Supporting ART Events Practice Test 4 — 15 Questions

Question 1

In a large Agile Release Train, the System Demo is often attended by various stakeholders. Why is it important for the Scrum Master to ensure the team is prepared for this event every two weeks?

Accepted Answer

To provide objective evidence of progress and get stakeholder feedback. The System Demo is the primary mechanism for receiving objective feedback on the integrated system. If the team is not prepared, they lose the opportunity to validate their work against stakeholder expectations. Regular demos ensure that any misalignments are caught early, reducing the risk of a significant 'miss' at the end of the PI.

Answer

To allow the team to practice their public speaking and presentation skills

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To ensure the team has a reason to complete their stories before the deadline

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To give the Scrum Master a chance to demonstrate the team's velocity

Question 2

During the root cause analysis phase of the Problem-Solving Workshop, which TWO tools or techniques are most commonly recommended to help teams identify the source of an issue? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

The 5 Whys. SAFe recommends specific structured techniques for root cause analysis during the Inspect and Adapt event. The '5 Whys' is used to drill down into the cause-and-effect relationships, and the 'Fishbone (Ishikawa) Diagram' is used to categorize potential causes into groups like People, Process, Tools, and Environment to ensure a comprehensive view.

Answer

The Program Board

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Pareto Analysis

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Confidence Voting

Question 3

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

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

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

Question 4

Which part of the Inspect and Adapt event involves the demonstration of all the work the Agile Release Train has accomplished over the entire Program Increment?

Accepted Answer

The PI System Demo. The PI System Demo is the first part of the Inspect and Adapt event. It is a high-level demonstration of the fully integrated system, showing all the features that have been completed during the PI. It is attended by stakeholders, Business Owners, and the entire train to celebrate success and gather final feedback.

Answer

The Team Demo

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The Final Plan Review

Answer

The Solution Demo

Question 5

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?

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.

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

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

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

Question 6

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.

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

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

Question 7

How does the Scrum Master best support the System Demo at the end of each iteration?

Accepted Answer

Coordinate with the System Team to ensure the team's increment is integrated and ready.. The System Demo is the primary measure of ART progress, showing a fully integrated system increment. The Scrum Master's role is to ensure the team is prepared to contribute their part of the integrated demo. This involves coordinating with other teams and the System Team to ensure the 'Definition of Done' is met and the work is ready for stakeholders.

Answer

Demonstrate the team's completed User Stories to the Product Manager during the event.

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Write the script for the demo to ensure the team stays within the timebox.

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Cancel the team's participation if they have only completed 50% of their planned Stories.

Question 8

Which THREE activities are essential components of the Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event?

Accepted Answer

PI System Demo. The Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event is a significant milestone at the end of every PI where the ART reviews progress and improves its process. It consists of three main parts: the PI System Demo (the final aggregate demo), Quantitative and Qualitative Measurement (reviewing metrics), and the Problem-Solving Workshop (structured root-cause analysis and improvement planning).

Answer

Confidence Vote

Answer

Draft Plan Review

Question 9

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?

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.

Answer

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 10

During the Inspect and Adapt of a PI, the ART's metrics show that a specific team's velocity dropped sharply in the last two iterations because of unplanned production support. In the problem-solving workshop, the team wants to add a root cause of 'too much unplanned work' to the ART's backlog of improvement items. As that team's Scrum Master, what is the most appropriate action to ensure the workshop produces an actionable result?

Accepted Answer

Help the team apply root-cause analysis to identify the underlying source of the unplanned work, then define a measurable improvement item with an owner and a due date.. The Inspect and Adapt problem-solving workshop exists to move from observed symptoms to root causes and then to a small set of owned, measurable improvement items. Facilitating root-cause analysis and converting the finding into a specific improvement backlog item with an owner and due date produces an actionable result. Restating the symptom, reassigning ownership away from the team, adjusting velocity, or deferring the discussion all leave the underlying cause unaddressed.

Answer

Recommend that the team reduce its planned velocity for the next PI by the average amount of unplanned work so the metrics look more consistent.

Answer

Record 'too much unplanned work' as the improvement item and assign it to the Release Train Engineer, since unplanned work is a program-level concern.

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Ask the team to defer the discussion to their own team retrospective so the ART can focus the workshop on program-level impediments only.

Question 11

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 12

During the Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event, a Scrum Master for Team Alpha notices that the ART's quantitative metrics show a consistent trend of declining team velocity over the last three Program Increments, but the team members seem unaware of this data. What is the most appropriate first action for the Scrum Master to take?

Accepted Answer

Share the metrics with the team and facilitate a discussion to understand the underlying causes during the problem-solving workshop.. The correct action is to share the metrics with the team and facilitate a root-cause discussion during the problem-solving workshop. The I&A event is structured to review quantitative and qualitative data, then collaboratively identify improvement items. The Scrum Master facilitates this process, ensuring the team owns the analysis and subsequent actions.

Answer

Ignore the metrics because velocity is not a valid measure of team performance and focus on team morale instead.

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Immediately escalate the declining velocity to the Release Train Engineer (RTE) and request a re-planning session.

Answer

Ask the team to work overtime in the next Iteration to bring the velocity back up to previous levels.

Question 13

During the ART Sync, the Release Train Engineer asks each Scrum Master to report on team progress toward PI Objectives. The Scrum Master for Team Delta observes that the team's burn-down chart is flattening and two features are blocked by an external vendor. What is the most appropriate action for the Scrum Master to take at this event?

Accepted Answer

Escalate the vendor dependency to the Release Train Engineer and ask the team to reprioritize work on unblocked features.. At the ART Sync, Scrum Masters surface impediments and dependencies that affect multiple teams. The vendor blockage is a cross-team dependency that the RTE can help resolve. Simultaneously, the team should focus on unblocked features to protect PI Objectives. This response combines escalation with pragmatic reprioritization, which is consistent with SAFe principles of transparency and relentless improvement.

Answer

Instruct the team to work overtime to recover the schedule and report a positive burn-down at the next sync.

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Wait until the Inspect and Adapt event to raise the vendor issue so the team can present a complete root-cause analysis.

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Ask the Product Owner to remove the blocked features from the Program Board and replace them with new features.

Question 14

During the Scrum of Scrums, Team Beta reports they will miss a dependency needed by Team Alpha. As Scrum Master for Team Alpha, what is the most appropriate immediate action?

Accepted Answer

Work with Team Beta's Scrum Master to renegotiate the dependency timing and update the ART's program board.. The Scrum of Scrums is the forum for resolving cross-team dependencies. The Scrum Master should facilitate direct collaboration with the other team's Scrum Master to renegotiate timing and update the program board, keeping the ART's plan transparent. Escalating immediately, halting work, or merely logging the risk without replanning all fail to address the dependency effectively.

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Instruct Team Alpha to stop work on the dependent Feature until Team Beta delivers.

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Log the dependency as a risk in the team's backlog and continue with the current plan unchanged.

Answer

Escalate to the Release Train Engineer to force Team Beta to reprioritize the dependency.

Question 15

During the Inspect and Adapt event, the ART reviews metrics and identifies that the predictability measure has dropped from 90% to 70% over the last two PIs. The Scrum Master for Team Echo notices that the team consistently overcommits during PI Planning but meets its iteration goals. What is the most likely root cause the Scrum Master should help the team investigate during the Problem-Solving Workshop?

Accepted Answer

The team is committing to more PI Objectives than it can realistically deliver given its capacity and dependencies.. Predictability measures the percentage of PI Objectives met. When a team consistently meets iteration goals but misses PI Objectives, the problem is usually at the PI planning level: the team is committing to more than it can deliver. The Scrum Master should guide the team to examine its PI planning process, capacity allocation, and dependency management to align commitments with realistic delivery.

Answer

The team is not conducting daily stand-ups effectively, leading to poor coordination.

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The team is not using the Program Board to track dependencies, causing integration delays.

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The team is not breaking down features into stories small enough to fit within an iteration.