SSM Practice Questions

Question 1

During the Problem-Solving Workshop of the Inspect and Adapt, a team identifies 'Lack of automated testing' as a root cause. What is the next step the Scrum Master facilitates?

Accepted Answer

Brainstorm potential solutions to address the lack of automation.. The Problem-Solving Workshop follows a structured process: identifying the problem, performing root cause analysis, brainstorming solutions, and creating action items. Once a root cause is identified, the focus must shift to creative solution generation to ensure the problem is addressed effectively in the next Program Increment planning session.

Answer

Create an improvement backlog item for the next PI immediately.

Answer

Perform a fishbone analysis to find more potential root causes.

Answer

Update the Definition of Done to include mandatory automated tests.

Question 2

An Agile Release Train is launching in a large enterprise. During the initial Program Increment Planning event, the Scrum Master notices that multiple Agile Teams are struggling to identify dependencies between their team backlogs and are creating isolated plans. Which action should the Scrum Master take to address this challenge effectively?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate direct alignment sessions between the dependent teams to map out dependencies, negotiate delivery sequences, and update the program board.. Facilitating cross-team collaboration during PI Planning is essential for managing inter-team dependencies and aligning delivery. By encouraging teams to actively negotiate dependencies and map them on the program board, the Scrum Master ensures transparency and shared understanding. This collaborative approach directly supports the SAFe principle of synchronizing alignment and execution across all participating teams within the Agile Release Train.

Answer

Escalate the unmapped dependencies directly to the Release Train Engineer to reassign team priorities and objectives.

Answer

Advise each team to finalize their individual iteration plans independently and resolve any missed dependencies during subsequent execution.

Answer

Instruct the Product Managers to unilaterally adjust the team backlogs to eliminate cross-team dependencies without consulting the developers.

Question 3

Which behavior should the Scrum Master demonstrate during the Team Sync to ensure it remains effective?

Accepted Answer

Ensure that the discussion focuses on identifying and clearing impediments to progress.. The Scrum Master acts as a facilitator, ensuring that the Team Sync remains focused on the iteration goal and progress toward the objectives. By fostering an environment where team members feel safe to share progress and challenges, the Scrum Master promotes transparency and collective ownership of the iteration's success, which is critical for identifying and clearing impediments quickly.

Answer

Act as the primary speaker to ensure all status updates are delivered quickly.

Answer

Require each team member to provide a detailed report on every task they worked on yesterday.

Answer

Direct the discussion to only the technical architecture of the upcoming user stories.

Question 4

During the Coach Sync, a Scrum Master learns that two teams on the ART are using different definitions of done, causing integration issues at the System Demo. What should the Scrum Master do to address this?

Accepted Answer

Raise the issue in the Coach Sync and facilitate a discussion among the Scrum Masters to help the teams align on a shared definition of done.. Misaligned definitions of done across teams cause integration problems that surface at the System Demo. The Coach Sync is the right venue for Scrum Masters to collaborate and help their teams converge on a shared definition of done. This preserves team ownership while enabling the integration and frequent delivery that the ART requires, rather than mandating from above or avoiding the demo.

Answer

Ask the Release Train Engineer to mandate a single definition of done for all teams on the ART.

Answer

Advise the teams to skip the System Demo until they have fully aligned their definitions of done and can demonstrate integrated work.

Answer

Instruct each team to document its own definition of done and share it with the other team so they can manually reconcile differences during integration.

Question 5

An enterprise is transitioning to SAFe and introducing Scrum at the team level. The Release Train Engineer wants to ensure that the newly formed Agile Teams understand how Scrum integrates with the broader framework. Which TWO activities are critical for the Scrum Master to champion during this introduction phase? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Facilitating team participation in Program Increment Planning and execution events.. Championing relentless improvement through effective retrospectives and ensuring alignment with PI planning are vital Scrum Master responsibilities. These activities bridge the gap between team-level Scrum execution and enterprise-level value delivery. Mastering these foundational practices accelerates team maturity and fosters sustainable value streams across the Agile Release Train.

Answer

Establishing independent team financial budgets and standalone profit-and-loss statements.

Answer

Redefining corporate governance policies to bypass traditional HR performance reviews.

Answer

Replacing the Product Owner with an enterprise portfolio manager for backlog prioritization.

Question 6

An organization is introducing Scrum inside a SAFe Agile Release Train, and a new Scrum Master is clarifying how the Scrum Master serves the Scrum Team and the larger organization. Which two services are explicitly part of the Scrum Master's role in this context? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Helping the team and organization adopt Scrum by removing impediments to the team's progress.. SAFe describes the Scrum Master as serving the team by coaching self-management and cross-functionality, and serving the organization by helping it adopt Scrum and removing impediments. Those two services build capability and clear the path for delivery. Backlog ownership, technical direction, and quality approval belong to the Product Owner, the Developers, and the team's Definition of Done respectively, not to the Scrum Master.

Answer

Directing the Developers on technical design and architecture decisions during the Iteration.

Answer

Approving whether completed stories meet the Definition of Done before they are accepted.

Answer

Owning and prioritizing the Team Backlog to maximize the value delivered each Iteration.

Question 7

A SAFe Scrum Master is preparing to facilitate the Iteration Retrospective for a team that has just completed a challenging Iteration with several unplanned dependencies. Which TWO actions best fulfill the Scrum Master's responsibilities during this event? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Create a safe environment where team members can speak openly about the challenges and disagreements they experienced.. During the Iteration Retrospective, the Scrum Master facilitates a safe, timeboxed environment and helps the team identify a manageable set of improvements. The team owns the improvement backlog, so the Scrum Master does not assign actions or dictate items. Fostering openness and focusing on actionable outcomes are key responsibilities that enable the team to inspect and adapt effectively after a challenging Iteration.

Answer

Document all team member complaints in detail and report them to the Release Train Engineer for resolution.

Answer

Assign specific improvement actions to individual team members to ensure accountability for the next Iteration.

Answer

Decide on the team's improvement backlog items yourself to save time and avoid prolonged discussion.

Question 8

During an Iteration Retrospective, an Agile Team identifies that they frequently miss their Iteration Goals because they take on too many stories that are not fully refined. The team asks the Scrum Master / Team Coach for help. What is the most effective action to address this?

Accepted Answer

Introduce a Definition of Ready and coach the team to use it during backlog refinement to ensure stories are sufficiently elaborated before Iteration Planning.. The most effective action is to introduce a Definition of Ready and coach the team to use it during backlog refinement. This directly addresses the root cause of unrefined stories. It is a collaborative, coaching-oriented approach that empowers the team to improve their own process, aligning with the Scrum Master / Team Coach role in SAFe.

Answer

Recommend that the team reduce their Iteration commitment by 20% to account for unrefined stories and avoid overcommitment.

Answer

Facilitate a team discussion to estimate stories in story points and use velocity to cap the number of stories taken into the Iteration.

Answer

Ask the Product Owner to stop bringing new stories to Iteration Planning until all existing stories are fully refined.

Question 9

In SAFe, what is the primary role of the Scrum Master regarding the Program Board?

Accepted Answer

Ensuring team dependencies are identified, visualized, and tracked.. The Scrum Master ensures that their team's dependencies are clearly visualized and tracked on the Program Board. They facilitate the communication needed to resolve these dependencies, which is critical for program-level coordination. This role is important because the Program Board is the primary tool for managing cross-team synchronization; if dependencies are not tracked, the entire train's ability to meet PI objectives is severely compromised.

Answer

Updating the entire Program Board for all teams in the ART.

Answer

Delegating the management of dependencies to the Product Owner.

Answer

Removing the Program Board if it becomes too complex to manage.

Question 10

A Scrum Master on an Agile Release Train notices that during the System Demo, teams present polished slide decks instead of demonstrating the integrated solution running in the staging environment. Stakeholders cannot see whether the features actually work together. What is the most appropriate action for the Scrum Master?

Accepted Answer

Coach the teams to demonstrate the integrated solution from the staging environment so stakeholders can assess real progress.. The System Demo is the ART's opportunity to inspect the integrated solution produced by all teams during the Iteration, demonstrated in a staging or production-like environment. Replacing live demonstration with slides or reports defeats its empirical purpose. The Scrum Master should coach teams back to demonstrating working, integrated functionality so stakeholders can give informed feedback.

Answer

Cancel the System Demo and rely on the teams' Sprint Reviews to inform stakeholders of progress.

Answer

Ask the Release Train Engineer to present a consolidated status report on behalf of all teams instead.

Answer

Allow the slide decks but require each team to add a screenshot of their passing automated tests.

Question 11

Which TWO of the following are true about the Scrum Master's role in the PI Planning event?

Accepted Answer

The Scrum Master facilitates the team's breakout sessions.. During PI Planning, the Scrum Master manages the team's breakouts, facilitates the estimation process, and keeps the team focused on their objectives and dependencies. Their contribution is crucial because PI Planning sets the vision and plan for the next several iterations. Without the Scrum Master's facilitation, the team would struggle to produce a realistic and aligned plan that fits into the broader ART schedule.

Answer

The Scrum Master defines the PI objectives for the team.

Answer

The Scrum Master is responsible for presenting the final PI objectives to the ART.

Answer

The Scrum Master acts as the decision-maker for all feature prioritization.

Question 12

During the System Demo for an ART whose Solution Train includes three ARTs, the Product Management representative from another ART notes that a dependency delivered by Team Beta was never integrated, so a Feature cannot be demonstrated. As the Scrum Master of Team Beta, what is the most appropriate immediate action?

Accepted Answer

Capture the integration gap as a Program-level impediment and immediately drive the integration so the Feature can be demonstrated at the next System Demo.. The System Demo is the ART's integrated inspect-and-adapt event, so a missing cross-team integration is a Program-level impediment rather than a local team matter. Surfacing it to the RTE and driving the integration restores transparency and lets the ART adapt. Deferring, isolating, or avoiding the demo all hide the problem and prevent the coordinated fix the dependency requires.

Answer

Ask the Release Train Engineer to move the Feature to the next PI and remove it from the current Program Board so the demo stays clean.

Answer

Direct the team to stop attending System Demos until the other ART has integrated its portion of the Solution.

Answer

Record the issue in the team's Retrospective board and address it only within Team Beta's own improvement backlog.

Question 13

After the Final Plan Review, the ART conducts a confidence vote. If the average confidence is only 2 fingers out of 5, what is the next step for the Scrum Master?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate further planning to address the concerns that led to the low vote.. A low confidence vote indicates that the ART does not believe the plan is achievable. This requires the ART to go back into a planning session to address the concerns. The Scrum Master supports this by helping the team identify the specific reasons for their low confidence and collaborating on plan adjustments.

Answer

Ask the team to reconsider their vote to ensure the event stays on schedule.

Answer

Escalate the low confidence to the Business Owners for immediate approval.

Answer

Document the low confidence as a risk and start Iteration 1.1 immediately.

Question 14

A Scrum Master is helping a new SAFe Scrum team understand why they still hold a Daily Stand-up even though the team is distributed across two time zones. A team member suggests replacing it with a weekly written update to save time. How should the Scrum Master respond?

Accepted Answer

Explain that the Daily Stand-up is kept in SAFe to inspect progress toward the Iteration Goal, synchronize the day's work, and surface impediments, and help the team run it effectively across time zones.. The Daily Stand-up remains a core team event in SAFe because it lets the team inspect progress toward the Iteration Goal, plan the day's work, and surface impediments. Distributed teams adapt how they run it, but removing it or making it weekly would break the daily feedback cycle and reduce the team's ability to self-organize.

Answer

Replace the Daily Stand-up with a weekly Scrum of Scrums so the team can coordinate through the ART instead.

Answer

Let the team decide, since SAFe leaves the format and frequency of team synchronization entirely to each team.

Answer

Agree, because distributed teams cannot benefit from synchronous inspection of progress toward the Iteration Goal.

Question 15

Successful PI Planning requires significant preparation. Which TWO areas are part of the 'Content Readiness' for this event? (Choose 2)

Accepted Answer

The Executive briefing on the current business context. Content Readiness ensures that the 'what' and 'why' of the upcoming PI are clear. This includes having a Program Backlog that is refined and prioritized, as well as Briefings for the vision, context, and any architectural changes. Without this readiness, teams will struggle to create meaningful plans during the breakout sessions.

Answer

Ensuring all team members are assigned to a specific Scrum team

Answer

Setting up the physical or virtual Program Board

Answer

Finalizing the iteration-by-iteration plan for each team

SAFe Scrum Master SSM practice test

Three ways to study

Study SSM by domain

Study SSM by topic

Supporting ART Events practice questions

Introducing Scrum in SAFe practice questions

Defining the Scrum Master / Team Coach Role practice questions

Supporting Team Events practice questions

SSM fundamentals practice questions

SSM scenario practice questions

SSM troubleshooting practice questions

SAFe Scrum Master practice questions