CSM Service to the Scrum Team Practice Question
Exhibit
Sprint Velocity Data: - Sprint 1: 30 Story Points - Sprint 2: 32 Story Points - Sprint 3: 15 Story Points - Sprint 4: 31 Story Points
Refer to the exhibit. The Scrum Team experienced a significant drop in velocity during Sprint 3. As a Scrum Master, what is your primary step to serve the team?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often focus on 'fixing' the velocity by pressuring the team to work faster, rather than using the data as a trigger to inspect and adapt the process.
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 session to identify impediments that occurred during Sprint 3 and help the team create an improvement plan.
The Scrum Master serves the team by facilitating a deeper investigation into the root cause of the drop in velocity during the Retrospective. Rather than focusing solely on the metrics, the Scrum Master encourages transparency and inspection of team dynamics, process blockers, or environmental issues. Addressing these systemic impediments allows the team to self-organize and implement improvements, ensuring the team remains resilient and capable of delivering consistent value in future Sprints.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Reassign tasks to individual team members to increase accountability and boost the output for the next Sprint.
Why it's wrong here
Scrum teams are self-organizing and cross-functional; assigning tasks individually undermines team ownership and collaboration. When the Scrum Master interferes with task distribution, it reduces the team's autonomy and creates a top-down management style that contradicts Scrum principles. Teams should own their planning and execution process to ensure long-term success.
- ✓
Facilitate a session to identify impediments that occurred during Sprint 3 and help the team create an improvement plan.
Why this is correct
By facilitating a focused discussion, the Scrum Master provides the team a safe environment to surface issues. This service empowers the team to discover the root cause, such as technical debt or external blockers, and commit to actionable improvements. This approach strengthens the team's ability to self-manage and adapt effectively.
- ✗
Report the performance discrepancy to senior management to request additional staffing for the upcoming Sprint.
Why it's wrong here
Escalating internal team performance metrics to management is a violation of the team's trust and autonomy. The Scrum Master serves the team internally; seeking external intervention for velocity issues treats the symptoms rather than the root cause. Effective Scrum teams handle their own challenges through empirical process control and reflection.
- ✗
Adjust the team's definition of done to allow for smaller story point increments to inflate future velocity.
Why it's wrong here
Manipulating the Definition of Done to inflate velocity is a dishonest practice that creates technical debt and hides quality issues. Velocity is a planning tool, not a performance metric. By artificially inflating these numbers, the team loses the ability to accurately forecast future work, leading to unrealistic stakeholder expectations.
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.