CSM Service to the Scrum Team Practice Question
A Scrum Master joins a team that has been working together for several months. The Developers are technically capable and deliver each Sprint, but they rely on the Scrum Master to decide who works on which Product Backlog item and to chase down every impediment personally. Which action best reflects the Scrum Master's accountability for serving the Scrum Team?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is assuming that a Scrum Master who personally keeps delivery smooth is serving the team well, when that behavior actually prevents the Developers from becoming self-managing.
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 Developers toward self-management, teaching them to pull work themselves and to resolve or escalate impediments as a team.
The Scrum Master serves the Scrum Team by coaching it in self-management and helping it become cross-functional and accountable for its own work. When Developers wait for direction on task assignment and rely on the Scrum Master for every impediment, the appropriate response is to build their capability to decide and act themselves. Shifting decisions to the Product Owner or escalating for an external owner relocates authority instead of growing the team.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Ask the Product Owner to assign each Developer to specific items so accountability is clearly documented.
Why it's wrong here
Moving assignment authority to the Product Owner simply swaps one external decision-maker for another and still leaves the Developers unable to self-manage their own work. The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing product value through backlog ordering, not for distributing tasks among Developers, so this option misplaces accountability and fails to build the team's capability to organize itself.
- ✓
Coach the Developers toward self-management, teaching them to pull work themselves and to resolve or escalate impediments as a team.
Why this is correct
The Scrum Master serves the Scrum Team by coaching it in self-management and cross-functionality, helping the Developers own how they select and complete work. Shifting assignment decisions to the team and building their ability to handle impediments directly addresses the dependency described, so this action matches the Scrum Master's accountability rather than replacing the team's own authority with the Scrum Master's decisions.
- ✗
Escalate to management that the team is not mature enough to self-organize and request a formal process owner.
Why it's wrong here
Escalating for an external process owner contradicts the empirical, self-managing nature of Scrum and treats the symptom as a personnel problem. The Scrum Master's service includes coaching the team through exactly this growth, so requesting an outside authority abandons the accountability to teach self-management and would likely entrench the dependency further rather than resolving it.
- ✗
Continue assigning work and resolving impediments personally so the team keeps delivering predictably.
Why it's wrong here
Taking over self-management keeps the Developers dependent on the Scrum Master and prevents them from growing into an accountable, self-managing unit. The Scrum Master serves the team by coaching self-management, not by becoming its planner and resolver of every obstacle, so this choice reinforces the very dependency that is limiting the team, even though short-term delivery might look stable.
About these practice questions
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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 Scrum Alliance exam blueprint
This CSM practice question is part of Courseiva's free Scrum Alliance 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 CSM exam.