SSM Defining the Scrum Master / Team Coach Role Practice Question
A Scrum Master / Team Coach notices that during Iteration Planning the team's discussions are dominated by two senior developers, while newer members stay silent. The team's estimates and commitments are often unrealistic, and the Retrospective reveals that quieter members feel their concerns are ignored. What should the Scrum Master / Team Coach do first to improve team performance?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is jumping to a structural fix like changing staffing or meeting length instead of coaching the team on inclusive facilitation and psychological safety.
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
✓
Coach the team on facilitation techniques and psychological safety, such as round-robin input, silent brainstorming, and explicit invitation of dissenting views.
When a few voices dominate and others feel ignored, the Scrum Master / Team Coach should first improve facilitation and psychological safety. Inclusive techniques such as round-robin, silent brainstorming, and explicit invitation of dissent surface diverse perspectives, leading to more realistic estimates and stronger commitment. Staffing changes or shortened meetings treat symptoms and leave the underlying team dynamic unresolved.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Recommend that the Product Owner assign stories only to the two senior developers until the newer members gain more experience.
Why it's wrong here
Restricting work to senior developers would deepen the imbalance, reduce team learning, and contradict self-organization. It also ignores the underlying facilitation and safety issue. While senior expertise matters, the Scrum Master / Team Coach should foster growth across the team, not entrench a two-person bottleneck that makes commitments less reliable over time.
- ✓
Coach the team on facilitation techniques and psychological safety, such as round-robin input, silent brainstorming, and explicit invitation of dissenting views.
Why this is correct
The first step is to coach the team on inclusive facilitation and psychological safety. Techniques like round-robin, silent brainstorming, and inviting dissent ensure all voices are heard, which improves estimate quality and commitment realism. This directly addresses the root cause—dominance by a few and suppressed concerns—rather than applying a symptomatic fix like changing the meeting length or escalating to management.
- ✗
Escalate to the Release Train Engineer that the team lacks the skills to plan realistically and request additional senior engineers.
Why it's wrong here
Escalating for more senior engineers treats a facilitation and team-dynamics problem as a staffing shortage. It bypasses the team's ability to improve its own process and may reinforce the idea that only a few people can plan well. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should first coach the team on inclusive planning practices before considering any escalation.
- ✗
Shorten Iteration Planning by limiting discussion to the two senior developers so the team can start working sooner.
Why it's wrong here
Limiting discussion to a subset of the team would formalize the very exclusion causing the problem. Faster planning is not the goal if commitments remain unrealistic and team members disengage. The Scrum Master / Team Coach needs to broaden participation and improve the quality of dialogue, not accelerate a flawed process by silencing most of the team.
Visual reference
About these practice questions
One of 385 original SSM practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. 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.