SSM Supporting Team Events Practice Question
A Scrum Master is preparing to facilitate the team's Iteration Retrospective. Which two actions best fulfill the Scrum Master's responsibilities for this event? (Choose two.)
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse the Retrospective with a status or performance review, leading to actions that break confidentiality or shift ownership away from the team.
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
✓
Encourage the team to select a small number of high-impact improvements to implement in the next Iteration.
The Scrum Master facilitates the Retrospective by timeboxing it, guiding the team to focus on actionable improvements, and helping them select a few high-impact changes. These actions ensure the event is effective and leads to tangible process improvements. Other actions, such as reporting complaints or having the Product Owner set the agenda, undermine the team's ownership and the event's purpose.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Document all team member complaints and report them to the Release Train Engineer for resolution.
Why it's wrong here
The Retrospective is a safe space for the team to inspect its own process. Documenting complaints and reporting them externally violates confidentiality and undermines trust. The Scrum Master should help the team address its own improvements, escalating only impediments beyond the team's control and with the team's consent, not as a routine practice.
- ✓
Encourage the team to select a small number of high-impact improvements to implement in the next Iteration.
Why this is correct
Helping the team prioritize a few high-impact improvements ensures the Retrospective leads to meaningful change rather than a long wish list. This practice aligns with the Scrum Master's role in coaching the team to take ownership of its improvement actions and integrate them into the next Iteration, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
- ✓
Ensure the Retrospective is timeboxed and that the team focuses on identifying actionable improvements.
Why this is correct
Timeboxing the Retrospective and focusing on actionable improvements are core Scrum Master responsibilities. This keeps the event efficient and ensures it produces concrete outcomes the team can act on. It aligns with the Scrum Master's role of facilitating team events and fostering continuous improvement, rather than letting the Retrospective become an open-ended discussion.
- ✗
Ensure that the Product Owner sets the agenda and prioritizes the improvements based on business value.
Why it's wrong here
The Product Owner may participate, but the Retrospective is a team event focused on process improvement, not backlog prioritization. The Scrum Master facilitates the team in setting its own agenda and identifying improvements. Letting the Product Owner drive the agenda can skew the Retrospective toward product concerns and reduce the team's ownership of its process.
- ✗
Lead the discussion by providing your own assessment of each team member's performance during the Iteration.
Why it's wrong here
The Retrospective is for the team to inspect its process, not for the Scrum Master to evaluate individual performance. Providing performance assessments undermines psychological safety and shifts focus away from systemic improvement. The Scrum Master should facilitate, not judge, and should avoid turning the event into a performance review.
About these practice questions
This SSM question is part of Courseiva's 385-question bank — original exam-style content with full explanations and wrong-answer analysis, never real exam questions or exam dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
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.