Sample Questions from Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) by Scrum.org

Preview a few questions below — answers are revealed when you take the exam.

1. A team is struggling to meet sprint goals due to frequent interruptions and context switching. What strategy should be applied to improve focus and productivity?

   • Implement a strict 'no interruption' policy during the first half of the sprint and encourage batch processing of external requests during the second half.
   • Introduce a daily stand-up meeting to discuss interruptions and find immediate solutions to minimize their impact on the team.
   • Adopt a 'pair programming' approach to ensure that at least two team members are always available to handle interruptions.
   • Increase the team's workload to create a sense of urgency and reduce the time available for interruptions.

2. Identify the best practice for managing technical debt within a Scrum team.

   • Avoid addressing technical debt until the product is fully launched to market.
   • Include a dedicated 'technical debt' item in every sprint backlog to ensure it is addressed incrementally.
   • Only address technical debt when it directly impacts the delivery of a user story.
   • Create a separate sprint focused solely on resolving all identified technical debt.

3. Consider the situation where a Scrum team is consistently delivering low-quality software. Which method solves it best?

   • Introduce a new quality assurance process that includes automated testing and code reviews before any code is merged into the main branch.
   • Reduce the number of user stories in each sprint to allow more time for testing and quality checks.
   • Implement a 'no merge' policy until all unit tests pass, ensuring that only high-quality code is integrated.
   • Increase the frequency of sprint reviews to catch quality issues earlier in the development process.

4. A Scrum Master notices that the team's velocity is decreasing over time. How should they assess the situation?

   • Conduct a retrospective to identify any process bottlenecks or external factors affecting the team's performance.
   • Immediately increase the team's workload to boost velocity and meet sprint goals.
   • Blame individual team members for the decrease in velocity and provide additional training.
   • Remove the least productive team member to improve overall team performance.

5. What configuration is most appropriate for a Scrum team working on a complex project with multiple dependencies?

   • Adopt a 'feature team' structure where each team focuses on a specific feature or component of the project, reducing inter-team dependencies.
   • Use a 'component team' approach where each team is responsible for a specific technology or component, increasing cross-team collaboration.
   • Implement a 'swarming' technique where the entire team works on a single task until it is completed, minimizing dependencies.
   • Create a 'waterfall'-like sequence where teams work on tasks in a predefined order to manage dependencies.