SSM Introducing Scrum in SAFe Practice Question
A newly formed Scrum team inside an Agile Release Train has just been chartered. The Product Owner asks the Scrum Master which artifact the team should populate first so that the team can begin planning its own work. What should the Scrum Master recommend?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming the team must first fill in a train-level planning artifact such as the Program Board or ART Kanban before it can plan its own work.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The Team Backlog
The Team Backlog is the team's own ordered list of user stories and enablers, created from the Program Backlog and continuously refined by the team. Populating it first gives the team something concrete to estimate, sequence, and pull into iterations, which is the prerequisite for all other team-level Scrum events.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The Program Board
Why it's wrong here
The Program Board is a PI Planning visualization that shows features, iterations, and cross-team dependencies for the whole Agile Release Train. It is created and maintained at the train level during PI Planning, not by an individual Scrum team as its first planning artifact, so it does not give the team its own work items.
- ✗
The Solution Intent
Why it's wrong here
Solution Intent is a repository for the current and intended solution behavior, including requirements and design decisions, used mainly by Solution Trains and large ARTs. A single Scrum team does not begin by populating Solution Intent; it starts with its own Team Backlog so it can plan and execute iteration work.
- ✗
The ART Kanban
Why it's wrong here
The ART Kanban visualizes the flow of features through the Agile Release Train's continuous delivery pipeline. It is a train-level flow tool used by the RTE and ART stakeholders to manage WIP and bottlenecks, not a team-level artifact that a newly chartered Scrum team populates to begin planning its own stories.
- ✓
The Team Backlog
Why this is correct
The Team Backlog is the team-owned artifact that holds the user stories and enablers the team will implement, and it is the natural starting point once the team is chartered. It is derived from the Program Backlog, but the team owns and sequences its own items, so populating it enables the team to plan and pull work immediately.
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Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Scaled Agile exam blueprint
This SSM practice question is part of Courseiva's free Scaled Agile certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the SSM exam.