How to pass the Professional Scrum Master I Assessment from Scrum.org (PSM I)

April 30, 2021

The Professional Scrum Master I from Scrum.org is a challenging online assessment where you’ll answer 80 multiple choice questions within an hour.

Here are some ideas on taking and successfully passing the Professional Scrum Master (PSM I) assessment achieving the Professional Scrum Master Certification.

How to Prepare for the Assessment

If possible, attend a Professional Scrum Master course by Scrum.org and ensure you thoroughly understand and review the course notes at least 3-4 times.
Make sure you read the Scrum Guide a number of times, understand it and memorise the concepts – use mind maps, note-taking and mnemonics to get the concepts in your head
Make sure you are thoroughly happy with the five Scrum Competencies
1. Understanding and Applying the Scrum Framework
  - Scrum Roles
  - Scrum Events
  - Scrum Artifacts
  - Done
  - Scaling
2. Developing People and Teams
  - Facilitation
  - Leadership Styles
  - Coaching and Mentoring
3. Managing Products with Agility
  - Forecasting
  - Product Vision
  - Product Backlog Management
4. Developing and Delivering Products
  - Emergent Software development
  - Managing Technical Risk
  - Optimizing Flow
5. Evolving the Agile Organisation
  - Organisational Design
  - Do the Scrum Open Assessment until you can achieve 100% at least 5 times in a row

Do our Scrum Open Assessment until you can achieve 100% – these are different to the Scrum.org questions and we use them to prepare our consulting clients to pass the Scrum.org assessments
Optional Reading
Contact us with any questions!

When You’re Ready To Take The Scrum.org PSM I Assessment

You’ll need to purchase the PSM I Assessment from Scrum.org
Ensure you have a good internet connection – the last thing you need is the connection dropping halfway through the exam – yes it has happened, and no, its not fun
Have the Scrum Guide and Scrum Glossary open in another browser so you have them to hand if you need to search for anything factual– ctrl F is your friend!
Read the Scrum Guide once before the exam (You read it at least 5 times when you were preparing right? )
Do the Scrum Open Assessment at least 2-3 times to get your mind warmed up to the style of questions
80 questions in an hour means you need to be moving calmly but briskly – note down hard questions and come back to them, get through the easy questions quickly
Hard questions can be made easier by eliminating the obviously wrong options
Make sure you check the Scrum Guide if you want to check the factual questions – for example how long is the Sprint Review event?