Preparing for your Professional Scrum Master Certification(PSM I) Exam

PSM I

I passed my Professional Scrum Master Certification (PSM I) exam with a 95% score in August 2020.

I would like to give my exam preparation guidelines so that it will be useful for the people who are planning to write their scrum master certification exam.

When I decided to write an exam for the scrum, I started looking for different scrum certifications available in today marketplace.

I found there are two certifications which are highly rated and industry-recognized certifications for scrum process, those are

1. PSM is from the Scrum.org
2. CSM is from Scrum Alliance

PSM is for a lifetime, there is never a renewal fee. CSM has a renewal fee every 2 years ($100).

The PSM is more difficult and passing grade is 85%.

For CSM passing grade is 74%.

The time limit for both is 60 minutes.

PSM has 80 multiple choice and True/False Questions. CSM has 50 multiple-choice questions.

PSM does not require a course(optional course). CSM does require the course.

After a lot of reading and discussed with many other scrums certified, I decided to move with the PSM I from scrum.org and is more respected and credible.

Preparation Guidelines:

I took nearly one month time for preparation(Every day I spent 1 to 2 hours)

I did not attend any formal training and relied only on my own experience and exam preparation.

1. The foremost important study material is “The scrum guide” by en Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland is mandatory — I read this guide several times and prepared my own notes. Understanding each and every line is very important and relate each topic with real workplace scenario — Personally, I find the Scrum Guide to be an excellent document

The scrum guide can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.scrumguides.org/

2. I highly encourage to take the course on Udemy. https://www.udemy.com/course/scrum-master-certification-preparation-mock-exam-questions-psm-i/ — Both the lecture and the material was very good. It will really help you to prepare for the PSM exam.

3. Take free open assessments from scrum.org. Attempt these as many times as you can. There are some direct questions that appeared in the real exam that saves a lot of time. every time you take the open assessment it’s an investment in getting ready for the Professional Scrum Master I assessment.

4. Apart from the scrum open assessment, I encourage you to attempt the other open assessments available for Product Owner, Nexus and Developer. This will enhance your overall understanding of scrum.

Link to open assessments https://www.scrum.org/open-assessments

5. Mikhail Lapshin has prepared a wonderful quiz for PSM-1 aspirants.

There are 2 variants — “learning mode” and “real mode”

Attempt the quiz once you are fairly confident

You can find the quizzes here: http://mlapshin.com/index.php/scrum-quizzes/

Thanks to him for the nice questions and good explanations.

6. Review the Agile glossary for quick definitions of key terms https://www.scrum.org/resources/scrum-glossary

7. Try Scrum Master preparation course from volkerdon — There are a lot of explanation and 100 questions and it is free

8. Register and follow Scrum.org Forum https://www.scrum.org/forum/scrum-forum — You can find very good Agile/Scrum discussions

9. I practise free questions from mplaza. It covers confusing and difficult questions very well.

10. Take practise tests in testtakeronline. — Retake test every time to get new questions

Note: I haven't bought this test- I only repeat several times to get different set of questions

Exam tips :

1. Pay attention to the questions contains the word ‘NOT’ — Generally we forget about the not and pick the wrong answer.
2. Careful with multiple-choice questions — Some questions ask you to select multiple answers, some people forget about these type of questions and choose only answer and move to next. Pay attention here.
3. Pay attention to should vs could.
4. Careful with attending vs participate.
5. Be focused and manage your time.
6. Answer all questions and review your answers at least once.
7. Don’t worry about changing your answers.
8. Don't panic about the results at the exam, just focus and give your best.

Passing the Professional Scrum Master I assessment is not easy though. As I work as a scrum master in the current role, I found there were many gaps in my knowledge. I spent a considerable amount of time, do the right preparation, practise until you get confident. At the end it was good I passed the Professional Scrum Master assessment at the first attempt.

I wish you very all the best for your PSM exam. It would be very nice to hear from you if you pass the exam :)