SSM Supporting ART Events Practice Question
A Scrum Master notices that the team's representatives arrive at the Scrum of Scrums unprepared, giving vague status and failing to raise dependencies that later surface as blockers. What is the most effective action to improve this ART event?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is fixing the symptom by changing who attends or formalizing the meeting, instead of coaching the team to prepare its representative properly.
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
✓
Work with the team to prepare its representative before the event by reviewing progress, dependencies, and impediments in advance.
The Scrum of Scrums works when representatives come prepared with accurate progress, dependencies, and impediments. Helping the team prepare its representative addresses that root cause and keeps the event a peer coordination forum. Replacing the attendee, converting the event into a status meeting, or having the Scrum Master attend instead all remove the team's ownership and fail to build the preparation habit.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Have the Scrum Master attend in place of the team representative and relay information back to the team afterward.
Why it's wrong here
Attending in place of the representative removes the team member who has the detailed context and makes coordination secondhand. It also creates a dependency on the Scrum Master and prevents the team from developing the habit of preparing and communicating its own status and dependencies, which is the capability the event is meant to build.
- ✗
Ask the Release Train Engineer to convert the Scrum of Scrums into a status meeting with a fixed template that each team must submit.
Why it's wrong here
Converting the Scrum of Scrums into a formal status meeting with mandatory templates shifts it away from peer-to-peer coordination toward reporting upward. This can increase compliance but reduces the open problem-solving that makes the event valuable, and it does not build the team's own capability to prepare and raise dependencies effectively.
- ✗
Replace the representatives with the Product Owner so that priorities and dependencies are communicated more authoritatively.
Why it's wrong here
The Scrum of Scrums is a technical and coordination forum where team representatives share progress, dependencies, and impediments. Substituting the Product Owner changes the nature of the event and removes the people closest to the work. It also does not fix the preparation problem, since the underlying issue is how the team prepares, not who attends.
- ✓
Work with the team to prepare its representative before the event by reviewing progress, dependencies, and impediments in advance.
Why this is correct
The Scrum Master serves the team by helping it prepare for ART events. Coaching the team to brief its representative beforehand ensures accurate status, surfaces dependencies early, and makes the Scrum of Scrums productive. This addresses the root cause, which is preparation, while preserving the event's design and the representative's role as a peer coordinator.
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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.