Professional Scrum Master Facilitating Scrum Events 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Who is responsible for ensuring all Scrum events take place and are kept within the timebox?
- The Product Owner, who owns the process
- The Development Team, as self-organizing practitioners
- The Scrum Master, as the servant-leader accountable for Scrum adoption (Correct answer)
- The project manager overseeing the team
Correct answer: The Scrum Master, as the servant-leader accountable for Scrum adoption
The Scrum Master is accountable for ensuring Scrum events occur, are productive, and stay within their timeboxes.
Question 2: The Development Team wants to skip the Sprint Review because they feel the Increment is not impressive enough to show. What should the Scrum Master do?
- Agree and document the decision to skip, then resume next Sprint
- Coach the team that the Sprint Review is mandatory and help them see its value even when the Increment is small (Correct answer)
- Allow the team to skip but require a written summary instead
- Hold the Sprint Review only with the Product Owner, excluding external stakeholders
Correct answer: Coach the team that the Sprint Review is mandatory and help them see its value even when the Increment is small
The Sprint Review is a mandatory inspect-and-adapt event; the Scrum Master coaches the team that transparency and learning are valuable even when the Increment is modest.
Question 3: How long is the timebox for a Sprint Retrospective in a two-week Sprint?
- 30 minutes
- 1 hour
- 3 hours (Correct answer)
- No more than 1.5 hours
Correct answer: 3 hours
For a two-week Sprint, the Sprint Retrospective is timeboxed to a maximum of three hours.
Question 4: A Scrum Master facilitates a Sprint Planning session that runs significantly over its timebox with no Sprint Goal agreed upon. What went wrong?
- The Development Team failed to estimate all backlog items
- The Product Owner did not attend Sprint Planning
- The Scrum Master did not effectively facilitate the team toward a shared Sprint Goal within the timebox (Correct answer)
- The backlog was too large to plan in one event
Correct answer: The Scrum Master did not effectively facilitate the team toward a shared Sprint Goal within the timebox
Facilitating effectively within the timebox and guiding the team to a Sprint Goal is the Scrum Master's responsibility during Sprint Planning.
Question 5: During the Daily Scrum, two developers begin an extended technical debate. What should the Scrum Master do?
- Intervene immediately and decide the technical dispute for the team
- Let the debate continue since technical decisions are important
- Facilitate by noting the topic and suggesting the two developers resolve it in a follow-up meeting after the Daily Scrum (Correct answer)
- Report the conflict to the Product Owner to resolve
Correct answer: Facilitate by noting the topic and suggesting the two developers resolve it in a follow-up meeting after the Daily Scrum
The Scrum Master protects the Daily Scrum timebox by encouraging off-topic deep dives to be taken offline after the event.
Question 6: Which event in Scrum replaces the need for traditional daily status meetings with management?
- Sprint Review
- Sprint Retrospective
- Daily Scrum (Correct answer)
- Sprint Planning
Correct answer: Daily Scrum
The Daily Scrum is the Development Team's synchronization event that eliminates the need for external daily status check-ins by keeping the team aligned.
Question 7: A Scrum Master is facilitating Sprint Planning and the team selects more items than they have historically been able to complete. What is the best approach?
- Accept the team's forecast since they are self-organizing and accountable
- Reduce the Sprint Backlog to match the team's historical velocity without consulting the team
- Facilitate a discussion prompting the team to review their past performance and reconsider whether the forecast is realistic (Correct answer)
- Assign tasks to individuals to ensure all selected items can be completed
Correct answer: Facilitate a discussion prompting the team to review their past performance and reconsider whether the forecast is realistic
The Scrum Master facilitates by helping the team reflect on empirical data and self-correct their forecast rather than imposing a decision.
Professional Scrum Master Facilitating Scrum Events 3
Who is responsible for ensuring all Scrum events take place and are kept within the timebox?