Professional Scrum Master Scrum Master as Leader 2 ā Questions and Answers
Question 1: A Scrum Master notices the Development Team consistently avoids raising impediments during the Daily Scrum. What is the BEST first action?
- Mandate that each Developer must report at least one impediment per day
- Create a private channel so developers can report impediments anonymously
- Facilitate a retrospective focused on psychological safety and why impediments go unreported (Correct answer)
- Escalate the issue to senior management to enforce transparency
Correct answer: Facilitate a retrospective focused on psychological safety and why impediments go unreported
Facilitating a retrospective on psychological safety addresses the root cause of why team members withhold information.
Question 2: Which leadership stance best describes a Scrum Master who asks powerful questions rather than providing answers?
- Authoritative leader
- Servant leader using a coaching stance (Correct answer)
- Manager directing the team
- Technical lead mentoring developers
Correct answer: Servant leader using a coaching stance
A coaching stanceāasking questions that prompt reflectionāis a core servant leadership behavior for Scrum Masters.
Question 3: The Product Owner frequently changes Sprint Goals mid-Sprint. As Scrum Master, what is the MOST appropriate response?
- Allow it since the Product Owner owns the backlog and has authority over the product
- Help the Product Owner understand that changing the Sprint Goal undermines the team's focus and the Sprint commitment (Correct answer)
- Assign a developer to work directly with the Product Owner to manage changes
- Remove the Sprint Goal concept to reduce conflict
Correct answer: Help the Product Owner understand that changing the Sprint Goal undermines the team's focus and the Sprint commitment
The Scrum Master educates the Product Owner on how mid-Sprint Goal changes violate Scrum principles and harm team effectiveness.
Question 4: An experienced developer consistently bypasses the Scrum Master and takes impediments directly to the CTO. What should the Scrum Master do?
- Report the developer's behavior to HR for a formal warning
- Understand why the developer feels this is necessary and work to remove the root cause (Correct answer)
- Forbid direct contact between developers and executives
- Do nothing, as this shows good self-organization by the developer
Correct answer: Understand why the developer feels this is necessary and work to remove the root cause
Understanding the developer's motivation reveals systemic impediments the Scrum Master may be failing to resolve.
Question 5: Which of the following is an example of the Scrum Master leading by example in regard to the Scrum value of Openness?
- Sharing personal mistakes and lessons learned openly during a retrospective (Correct answer)
- Keeping stakeholder feedback private to protect the team from criticism
- Only sharing information that reflects positively on the team's performance
- Encouraging the team to withhold bad news until solutions are found
Correct answer: Sharing personal mistakes and lessons learned openly during a retrospective
Openly sharing personal failures models the Openness value and signals it is safe for others to do the same.
Question 6: A Scrum Master is new to the organization. Stakeholders expect detailed status reports and Gantt charts. What is the BEST initial approach?
- Immediately refuse to provide reports and insist stakeholders attend Sprint Reviews instead
- Provide the requested artifacts while educating stakeholders on how Scrum events provide equivalent transparency (Correct answer)
- Continue producing Gantt charts indefinitely to keep stakeholders satisfied
- Ask the Development Team to produce the reports to free up Scrum Master time
Correct answer: Provide the requested artifacts while educating stakeholders on how Scrum events provide equivalent transparency
Meeting stakeholders where they are while gradually educating them on empiricism is more effective than abrupt refusal.
Question 7: The Scrum Master observes that during Sprint Planning, only two developers speak while others remain silent. What should the Scrum Master do?
- Take over facilitation and call on silent members by name to force participation
- Use facilitation techniques such as round-robins or silent brainstorming to encourage broader participation (Correct answer)
- Let the vocal developers lead since they are likely the most knowledgeable
- Report the quiet developers to the Product Owner for performance concerns
Correct answer: Use facilitation techniques such as round-robins or silent brainstorming to encourage broader participation
Facilitation techniques like round-robins create structured space for all voices without singling out individuals uncomfortably.
Professional Scrum Master Scrum Master as Leader 2
A Scrum Master notices the Development Team consistently avoids raising impediments during the Daily Scrum.
What is the BEST first action?