Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Practice questions for Scrum certifications





Hello Friends, I have prepared the below set of questions while studying about Agile and Scrum.
The questions are prepared on the basis of thorough study of the subject. While preparing for the PSPO assessment, I referred to a lot of study material, websites, books, Scrum.org open assessments and I even don’t remember the name of each study material that I went through. One thing that I noticed was missing everywhere is uniqueness. There were a lot of questions that I went through in open assessment in scrum.org were repeated in mock tests available on websites. So, I always felt why this question is here when one already has access to this in open assessment. So, while preparing for this questionnaire below the underlying idea and intent was “Unique”. The questions are not copied from anywhere. They are formed based on thorough study of the subject and practical experience while working in Agile. I assure you that you won’t find them anywhere else, other than the case if they have been copied from here…. :).  Also, the purpose of having a unique set of questions was to challenge your mind and think for the right answer. While going through the same set of questions every time, I started feeling that I had even stopped reading through the questions and just looking at the structure I knew the answer to the question. This is a very bad practice from an exam point of view. With this practice, chances of me marking a wrong answer are high while going through a similar question I have attempted during mock tests. I am sharing just the questions in this post. Please share your answers in the comments and lets take it as an open forum for discussion. Your feedback is highly appreciated, I will keep sharing accordingly 






Questions: 
  1. What are the pre-conditions to start a Sprint?
a)    There are no preconditions
b)    Completely refined product backlog
c)    Both of these
d)    None of these

  1. What is the minimum required to start a sprint?
a)    Availability of scrum team
b)    List of business ideas
c)    Project Manager who can inspect the progress from start
d)    None of these

  1. From where the team gets its requirements?

a)    Product backlog 
b)    CEO of the organization
c)    Product owner announces it on mail
d)    Scrum master in collaboration with product owner

4.    Select all that is required as inputs for Sprint planning.
 .               
a)    Product backlog
b)    the latest product increment if any
c)    projected capacity of the development team
d)    past performance of the development team
e)    None of these

  1. Development team along with the Product Owner is in the meeting room for sprint planning with Product backlog, latest product increment, past performance of the development team. Scrum master Ramesh checks into the room with few minutes delay and observes that the team is not doing effective planning. Why do you think Ramesh has this observation?
 .               
a)    Team has not enough stationery available in meeting room, and may move out in middle to collect some which will be interruption in the process
b)    They are not taking into account projected capacity of the development team
c)    Ramesh is too critical of the things and interfering with the teams functioning
d)    None of these

  1. Sushil, a very dynamic and proficient Product owner, has asked her scrum master Rashmi to attend the Sprint planning event on his behalf and represent him as he is busy with some other business critical meetings. He has informed Rashmi that he has refined the backlog thoroughly and she won't face any challenge. Despite this Rashmi has declined his request. What do you think is the reason for the decline?
 .               
a)    Product owner cannot delegate his participation in the scrum events
b)    Scrum master is not justified in the decline of request as Sushil is busy with some business critical meetings and business always takes priority.
c)    Rashmi should coach the Product owner for this behavior.
d)    None of these

7.    The product owner is empowered to do the below
 .               
a)    Delegation of participation in scrum events
b)    Delegation of activities of Product backlog management
c)    None of these
d)    Both of these

  1. What is incorrect about Scrum?
a)    Lightweight
b)    Simple to master
c)    Difficult to understand
d)    B and C
e)    None of these

  1. Though scrum is a framework, however if a scrum has to be defined as a process
 .               
a)    Scrum is an a agile process to manage and control development work
b)    Scrum cannot be defined as a process as it is a framework
c)    Both statements are incorrect

  1. Why scrum is referred as a framework and not a process, technique or a definitive method.
 .               
a)    Within Scrum you can employ various processes and techniques.
b)    Scrum doesn't believe in defined processes as it against agility
c)    Process, techniques and definitive method hampers creativity and scrum fosters creativity.
d)    A framework is an approach to solving a problem that provides a rough outline of the process that will achieve a specific goal, but that does not provide the level of specificity found in a process.

  1. Scrum helps to improve the following:
a)    Product
b)    The team
c)    Work culture and environment
d)    All of the above

  1. Manohar is an agilist and has wide experience in implementing Scrum. He has been designated to implement scrum in the organisation. Team is not very convinced with the new way of working and has escalated it to the CEO. The CEO knows Manohar is doing the right things the right way and at the same time doesn't want to make the developers unhappy. He suggests few tweaks in the scrum components and their implementation.
 .               
a)    Scrum is a framework within which we can employ various processes and techniques, so suggestions by the CEO should be implemented.
b)    Each component of the scrum framework serves a specific purpose and is essential for effective usage and success.
c)    Scrum helps in improving work environment, so the happiness of developers should be taken care of and tweaks are justified.
d)    Scrum is about inspection and adaptation, so adapting to suggestions by developer and CEO should be done on priority.

  1. What is the importance of rules in Scrum?
 .               
a)    Rules of scrum bind together the roles, events, and artifacts, governing the relationships and interaction between them.
b)    Scrum doesn't have rules as it hampers agility.
c)    Rules of scrum are described in Scrum guide.
d)    Both A and B

  1. Ravi hates sprint events every sprint and feels that it is a waste of developer’s time. Scrum master Aniruddha has been trying to coach Ravi for quite some time now on the importance of these events.  What all is applicable to each scrum event.
 .               
a)    Each event is time boxed except sprint planning which can continue till end of sprint, till the development team does not break down complete sprint backlog
b)    Each scrum event enables progress through adaptation and transparency except Sprint planning
c)    Daily scrum is one of the scrum events which is time boxed but is optional to have it as per development team decides as they are the ones who must attend it.
d)    None of these is applicable.

  1. Scrum events helps in the below:
 .               
a.            Enable progress through adaptation and transparency
b.            Opportunity for socialization among team members.
c.            Keep scrum master in job
d.            None of these

  1. What are professional scrum competencies
 .               
a)    Understanding and applying the scrum framework
b)    Developing people and teams
c)    Managing products with agility.
d)    Developing and delivering products professionally
e)    Evolving Agile organization

  1. Empiricism asserts that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is known. Living by this belief the senior most member Lakshay of the development team takes decision independently considering the juniors are not capable to handle challenges as of now and will learn with time and let them focus on other work. What is being compromised here?
 .               
a)    Transparency
b)    Respect
c)    Openness
d)    Nothing, Lakshay is living by the value of commitment and is protecting the junior team members from losing focus on the work of the sprint and goals of the scrum team.

  1. The development team in agreement with the product owner commits for a sprint goal. The team always meets its sprint goal, is focussed and is transparent in the deliverables. Product owner is also happy with the quality of deliverables. They are turning the product backlog into potentially releasable work every increment. However, the scrum master feels the development team’s work is not very challenging when looked at the deliverables of other development teams in the organization. Scrum master feels that the team is not living by the value of courage and they lack courage to work on tough problems. What should be done?
 .               
a)    Scrum master should coach the development team
b)    Development team is doing the right thing, letting them work as they are already doing a good job.
c)    Scrum master is too critical and doing comparison between teams which is not appropriate
d)    Scrum master may need to do more investigation and clear his doubts and then take the right approach to solve the problem if it exists.

  1. Today, at daily scrum Kapil has committed to finish a task which is a dependency for the rest of the team to merge their work in the master code base. He leaves by 5 and when he was about to merge his code and leave for the day, the environment has gone down and has been informed it may be up only after an hour. He has nothing pressing back at home and can spare a few hours to finish the work and then leave for the day. What should he do?
 .               
a)    He should leave for the day after sending a mail to the team that why he couldn't complete his work and also inform Scrum master that it is an impediment should be removed.
b)    Should stay back and complete the work as he has personally committed to achieving the goals of the scrum team and the goal can be endangered.
c)    Kapil can stay back late and complete the work, but he doesn't want to set up a wrong work culture at the workplace for junior team members.
d)    He should immediately check with the Environment maintenance team and understand the gravity of the situation and may take his decision based upon his analysis.
  1. Ashiana is the junior most member of the development team, and she performs testing of the software developed. Raj, senior member always ensures that what is being tested by Ashiana is re-tested so that there may not be any slippage. Also while doing estimations the team the dual testing effort is estimated, as they Ashiana is not senior enough to independently handle testing tasks, though there has been no slippage of bugs in quite some time. What scrum value is being compromised in this case?
 .               
a)    Courage
b)    Focus
c)    Commitment
d)    Respect
e)    Openness

  1. Raghav, a junior member in the team always believes in what is being told to him to do. Team is very happy with his behavior and performance and likewise Raghav as well. Navneet, the scrum master, sees that the scrum values are being compromised. What scrum values Navneet needs to coach the team about?
a)    Courage and Openness
b)    Commitment and Respect
c)    Respect and Openness
d)    Focus and Commitment

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