SSM Defining the Scrum Master / Team Coach Role Practice Question
An Agile Team in a SAFe ART has a Scrum Master/Team Coach who also serves as the team's technical lead. During the Iteration Retrospective, the team raises that the Scrum Master often makes technical decisions without team input, which stifles ownership. Which action best aligns with the Scrum Master/Team Coach role?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that a Scrum Master with technical expertise should either keep making decisions for efficiency or completely stop contributing technical knowledge, rather than coaching the team to own those decisions.
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
✓
Facilitate a team discussion to redistribute technical decision-making, and coach the team to own technical choices while you focus on process and growth.
The Scrum Master/Team Coach must avoid becoming the team's technical decision-maker, even if they have expertise. By facilitating a discussion and coaching the team to own technical choices, the Scrum Master restores self-management and focuses on process facilitation and team growth. This approach honors the servant-leader mindset and directly resolves the team's concern about stifled ownership.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Relinquish all technical involvement and focus exclusively on process facilitation, even if the team asks for technical guidance.
Why it's wrong here
Completely withdrawing technical expertise can leave the team without needed coaching, especially if they explicitly request it. The Scrum Master/Team Coach role is about balancing process facilitation with situational coaching, not rigidly avoiding technical topics. The goal is to shift decision ownership to the team, not to abandon them. This overcorrection ignores the team's actual request for shared ownership rather than zero involvement.
- ✗
Escalate the team's complaint to the Release Train Engineer and ask them to mandate a separation of roles.
Why it's wrong here
Escalating to the RTE may impose a structural change that the team could resolve themselves. The Scrum Master should first coach the team and adjust their own behavior. Mandating role separation removes the team's agency and does not teach them how to self-manage. It also misuses the RTE's time and avoids the Scrum Master's responsibility to model servant leadership.
- ✓
Facilitate a team discussion to redistribute technical decision-making, and coach the team to own technical choices while you focus on process and growth.
Why this is correct
This action directly addresses the team's concern by returning decision authority to the team and redefining the Scrum Master's role as a facilitator and coach. It preserves the team's self-management while allowing the Scrum Master to provide technical guidance only when requested. This aligns with the SAFe Scrum Master/Team Coach responsibility to build high-performing, self-organizing teams and reinforces psychological safety.
- ✗
Continue making technical decisions but document them in the team's wiki to improve transparency.
Why it's wrong here
Documenting decisions does not address the core issue: the Scrum Master is acting as a technical authority rather than a facilitator. This perpetuates the team's lack of ownership and contradicts the servant-leader stance. The role requires fostering self-management, not centralizing technical choices. Transparency alone will not rebuild psychological safety or shared accountability, so this action fails to resolve the team's concern.
Visual reference
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.