CSM Service to the Scrum Team Practice Question
A Scrum Master notices that the Developers rarely talk to each other during the Sprint and often discover integration problems only at the Sprint Review. The team is co-located but works in silos. Which action best serves the Scrum Team?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is choosing a directive fix such as a mandatory meeting or forced pairing, when serving the Scrum Team means coaching the Developers to self-organize around better collaboration and integration.
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 on the benefits of frequent collaboration and integration, and facilitate a Retrospective where they can decide how to work together more closely.
The Scrum Master serves the Scrum Team by coaching self-management and fostering collaboration. Coaching the Developers on frequent integration and facilitating a Retrospective where they choose how to work together more closely builds ownership. Mandatory meetings, forced reassignments, or backlog prescriptions impose solutions from outside the Developers, which weakens the self-management the Scrum Master is meant to strengthen.
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 add an integration task to every Sprint Backlog item so the Developers are reminded to integrate their work.
Why it's wrong here
Adding integration tasks to backlog items is a process prescription that the Product Owner does not own and that the Developers have not chosen. It treats integration as a checklist item rather than a shared responsibility. The Scrum Master should help the Developers recognize the problem and decide how to address it, not route a solution through the Product Owner or the backlog.
- ✗
Reassign Developers to new pairs each Sprint so they are forced to work with different people and integration problems surface earlier.
Why it's wrong here
Forcing reassignments is a directive solution that removes the Developers' ability to self-organize. While rotating pairs can sometimes help, imposing it from above treats the symptom and ignores the team's ownership of how it works. The Scrum Master serves by facilitating the team's own decisions about collaboration, not by mandating structural changes that the team has not chosen.
- ✓
Coach the Developers on the benefits of frequent collaboration and integration, and facilitate a Retrospective where they can decide how to work together more closely.
Why this is correct
This is correct because the Scrum Master serves the Scrum Team by coaching self-management and helping the team improve its interactions. Teaching the value of collaboration and integration, then letting the Developers choose their own working agreements in the Retrospective, builds genuine ownership. The team, not the Scrum Master, decides how to break down silos, which makes the change more likely to stick.
- ✗
Introduce a mandatory daily integration meeting led by the Scrum Master so the Developers report their integration status to the team.
Why it's wrong here
Adding a mandatory meeting led by the Scrum Master creates a new control point and does not teach the Developers to collaborate. The Scrum Master serves by coaching, not by scheduling compliance events. This action also risks duplicating or undermining the Daily Scrum and keeps the Scrum Master at the center of coordination rather than helping the Developers self-organize around integration.
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.