Originally posted on LinkedIn

My friend and fellow Scrum professional, Mike Torrence, posted how he prepares for Scrum.org certification exams. I’ve included a link to his post on LinkedIn here.

In this article, I outline how I specifically prepared for the PSM II exam as Mike’s article serves as an excellent, broad foundational approach to prepare for any Scrum exam. I slightly vary from Mike’s angle and want to add my standard disclaimer regarding any content that might conflict with Mike’s view; the preparation method is not right, is not wrong, just different.

I used a formula Professional Scrum Trainer and SmoothApps founder, Ravi Verma, taught us prior to taking the PSM I exam after attending the Professional Scrum Foundations course.  I added some steps below that helped me focus on the potential scenarios I would be asked about on the PSM II exam after attending the PSM II class —

• Using the Open Assessments on Scrum.org, I completed 3x Scrum exams, 3x Product Owner exams and 1x Agile Measurement exam; focused on passing the exams with a 100% accuracy
• I re-read the Scrum Guide for the 7th or 8th time to review what was debated, discussed and presented during the class
• I reviewed the PSM II course guide and my personal notes
• I reviewed the pictures of the activities we completed in class and the posters we covered through-out the time together

Outside of the materials online and in class, I had purchased a copy of “Mastering Professional Scrum” by Stephanie Ockerman and Simon Reindl. It was published in 2019, so I had the advantage of reflecting on what Ravi presented in the PSM II class which was a match for the book’s content.

The book can be ordered at this link.

I estimate the total time for exam preparation between 5 and 6 hours.

During the exam, I read each question carefully. I asked, “Does this answer match the Scrum Values?” or “Does this action match what the Scrum Guide suggests?” The questions are behavior based, so knowing the mechanics of Scrum are important. Questions about artifact scenarios, role scenarios, timebox scenarios, etc. are asked as well as questions about multiple or distributed teams working together. Understanding the spirit and intent of Scrum helped me to answer the questions correctly.

I will say that I failed to correctly answer any of the “leadership styles” questions which has caused me to reflect on my understanding of leadership styles within the Scrum framework. Passing the exam is possible while failing one or two focus areas. I achieved 0% passing for “Leadership Styles” and 60% passing for “Coaching & Mentoring”. As both Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland state at the beginning of the Scrum guide, “Easy to understand, difficult to master.”