Scrum Master Certification Flashcards

1
Q

What were some early influencers of Scrum?

A
  • Extreme Programming (XP)

- Test Driven Development (TDD)

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2
Q

What ideas drove Scrum to be developed?

A
  • Just enough, just in time
  • Do detail design right before development
  • Incorporate the customer into the team
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3
Q

What are some descriptors of Agile Development?

A
  • Highly flexible

- Adaptive framework

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4
Q

What are the contrasting values of Scrum?

A
  • Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
  • Working software over comprehensive documentation
  • Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
  • Responding to change over following a plan
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5
Q

With Scrum, what did defined project management as a value evolve to?

A

Empirical process

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6
Q

What are 3 valued characteristics of Scrum?

A
  1. Lightweight
  2. Easy to understand
  3. Difficult to master
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7
Q

What are the 3 Scrum Pillars?

A
  1. Transparency - process is visible so the work and definition of done are agreed upon
  2. Inspection - Timely checks on work to assess progress toward the goal
  3. Adaptation - Adjustments are made to processes when work is not getting done
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8
Q

What are the 4 Scrum Events?

A
  1. Sprint Planning
  2. Daily Scrum
  3. Sprint Review
  4. Sprint Retrospective
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9
Q

What are the 5 Scrum Values?

A
  1. Commitment
  2. Courage
  3. Focus
  4. Openness
  5. Respect
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10
Q

What is the Scrum Master role?

A
  • Not the same as Project Manager
  • Process owner for Scrum
  • Provides balance between Development Team and Product Owner
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11
Q

How does the Scrum Master help the Product Owner?

A
  1. Ensures backlog is updated

2. Makes sure sprints are appropriate

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12
Q

How does the Scrum Master help the Development Team?

A
  1. Protects against outside distractions
  2. Protects against overwork and burnout
  3. Prevents complacency
  4. Owns the Scrum Framework - only makes changes that remain in the Scrum philosophy and values
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13
Q

Why is the Scrum Master sometimes called the Scrum Servant Leader?

A
  1. Owner and leader of the process
  2. Responsible for educating the Product Owner, Development Team and Organization - tells them what actions do and don’t benefit the Development Team
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14
Q

What are 5 ways the Scrum Master serves the Product Owner?

A
  1. Clarifies goals and objectives
  2. Coaches best practices for backlog management
  3. Guides on process and planning
  4. Facilitate Scrum Events
  5. Shares knowledge of agility and scrum
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15
Q

How does the Scrum Master help the whole Scrum Team and the product?

A

Ensures that the work that comes to the Development Team is in the best condition possible. This will maximize the value the Development Team can deliver.

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16
Q

What are 5 ways the Scrum Master serves the Development Team?

A
  1. Coaching the Development Team on self-organization and becoming cross-functional
  2. Helping the Development Team understand the Scrum Philosophy and values
  3. Guiding the Development Team on the Scrum Framework
  4. Facilitating the Development Team in problem solving
  5. Removing impediments
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17
Q

What are 4 ways the Scrum Master serves the organization?

A
  1. Coaches the adoption of Scrum
  2. Guides awareness and understanding
  3. Helps other Scrum Masters
  4. Assists their Development Teams
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18
Q

What is the role of the Product Owner?

A
  • Sole accountable party for product the Development Team is building - just one person, not a committee
  • Recommended to be a person from the Business
  • Should have enough influence in the organization to be able to negotiate Product Backlog items (PBIs) with their peers and leaders
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19
Q

What are some Product Owner responsibilities?

A
  • Responsible for maximizing the value of the Development Team’s efforts and the value it delivers
  • Manages the product backlog - determines and communicates what is the right thing to do and when is the right time to do it. Only the PO can make changes to the Product Backlog
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20
Q

What happens when the PO can’t dedicate enough time for the Development Team’s needs?

A

A proxy may be selected to act in their place. However, the named PO has the ultimate responsibility and accountability for the product.

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21
Q

What are the 5 key PO responsibilities?

A
  1. Clearly express PBIs
  2. Order the PBIs efficiently
  3. Ensure backlog is accessible
  4. Clarify requirements
  5. Provide status report and forecast
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22
Q

What are some reasons that a PO might abnormally terminate a sprint?

A
  1. The PBI being worked on is found to no longer have value.

2. The output from the current design doesn’t meet expectations of quality or performance.

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23
Q

What are the 3 entities that make up the Scrum Team

A
  1. Scrum Master
  2. Development Team
  3. Product Owner
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24
Q

What is the best size for the Development Team?

A

3 to 9 people

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25
Q

Who should make up the Development Team?

A

The Development Team is the group of people with the skills needed to do the work defined in the Product Backlog

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26
Q

What is the purpose of the Development Team?

A

To produce a potentially shippable product increment at the end of the sprint.

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27
Q

Is the product increment always shipped at the end of the sprint?

A

Not always, but the Development Team will always receive feedback at the end of the sprint

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28
Q

What are 3 Development Team qualities?

A
  1. Self-organizing
  2. Cross-functional
  3. Doesn’t acknowledge roles or titles
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29
Q

Who owns the PBIs

A

Ownership of the PBIs is shared collectively by the team. Team members will sign up for tasks on a PBI, but the whole team has responsibility for the PBI.

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30
Q

How can the Scrum Master minimize disruption when shared resources are being used on the Development Team?

A
  1. Early inclusion (of shared or temporary resources)
  2. Big-picture perspective
  3. Backlog understanding
  4. Timing estimations
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31
Q

What are 4 Interaction Team norms to facilitate?

A
  1. Considering all ideas (all ideas treated equally)
  2. Asking for help
  3. Keeping commitments
  4. Holding team accountable
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32
Q

What are 2 Communication norms to facilitate?

A
  1. Respect

2. Gratitude

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33
Q

What are 3 Meeting Interaction norms to facilitate?

A
  1. Device usage (used only with team consensus)
  2. Start/end time (arrived at by consensus)
  3. Preferred hours
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34
Q

What are 3 Decision Making norms to facilitate?

A
  1. Consensus standards
  2. Voting rules
  3. Tie-breakers
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35
Q

What are 3 Conflict Resolution norms to facilitate?

A
  1. Process
  2. Expectations
  3. Escalation (try to resolve among team first before escalation outside the team)
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36
Q

How often should team norms be revisited?

A

Every sprint or two. Add or remove from the list as needed.

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37
Q

Do agile methodologies work best when team members are co-located or distributed?

A

Best when co-located, but can also work well when distributed with compensating approach and tools

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38
Q

What are 3 things to focus on with regard to co-location?

A
  1. Caves and commons
  2. Digital file sharing and collaboration
  3. Chat and video conference tools
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39
Q

Scrum Alliance doesn’t refer to Scrum Events. What do they call them and what additional activity do they proscribe?

A

Scrum Activities

Product Backlog Refinement

40
Q

All events provide a formal opportunity for what?

A

Transparency, Inspection and Collaboration

41
Q

All events take place in what context?

A

In the context of the sprint

42
Q

How long should a sprint be?

A

Usually 2 weeks, but not more than one month

43
Q

What is a timebox?

A

How an event expands and contracts as it relates to the sprint

44
Q

How long is the Daily Scrum?

A

15 minutes

45
Q

What event is the lifeblood of the sprint?

A

Sprint Planning

46
Q

What happens in Sprint Planning?

A

The Product Vision and the Product Backlog are transformed into an actionable plan for the delivery of a product increment.

47
Q

What is essential for good Sprint Planning?

A

Must be performed every sprint, with the right people and in the right timebox.

48
Q

What are the Sprint Planning Inputs?

A
  1. Ordered Product Backlog
  2. Record of completed items
  3. Knowledge of past performance/velocity
  4. Development Team capacity (who’s OOO etc.)
49
Q

What are the two questions for Sprint Planning?

A
  1. What will we do that results in a product increment?

2. How will we do it?

50
Q

What goes on in Sprint Planning?

A
  1. The Product Owner presents a list of candidate items.
  2. The Development Team decides which items should come into the sprint.
  3. The Scrum Team determines what the sprint goal
  4. The Development Team decides how the goal will be achieved by defining tasks to complete the product increment.
51
Q

What is the Sprint Goal?

A

Summary of the work and the value that will be delivered in the product increment.

52
Q

How long should each task the Development Team performs take?

A

Less than 1 day.

53
Q

What are the 3 Sprint Planning Outcomes?

A
  1. Sprint Goal
  2. Backlog items for Sprint
  3. Sprint Plan
54
Q

What makes up the Sprint Backlog?

A

The Backlog Items for Sprint and the Sprint Plan

55
Q

According to the Scrum Guide, who attends the Daily Scrum?

A

Team member attended and facilitated
No attendance by Scrum Master
No participation by Product Owner

56
Q

According to the Scrum Alliance, who attends the Daily Scrum?

A

Entire Scrum Team attends
Any scrum team member can provide updates
Any interested party can attend (so long as they don’t contribute)

57
Q

What 3 questions does each Development Team member answer in Daily Scrum?

A
  1. What did I do yesterday to help meet the sprint goal?
  2. What will I do today to help meet the sprint goal?
  3. What impediments do I have that are blocking me from meeting the sprint goal?
58
Q

What is Backlog Refinement?

A

An ongoing process used by the Product Owner to get more information about product needs and requirements. Iterative process. Progressive elaboration.

59
Q

When does Backlog Refinement occur?

A

Scrum Team meeting after the midpoint in the sprint (In 2-week sprint, target days 5, 6 or 7. Late enough to get the right order but early enough to get more answers)

60
Q

What are the Refinement Event agenda items?

A
  1. PO presents candidates for the next sprint
  2. Development Team evaluates the candidates
  3. Development Team guides PO on what is needed to get the team ready for the coming sprint
61
Q

What are the 4 characteristics of items ready for a sprint?

A
  1. Proper size (can be completed in a single sprint)
  2. Dependencies identified (upstream or down)
  3. Story has been sized by the Development Team.
  4. Acceptance criteria have been defined (definition of “done”)
62
Q

Does the Scrum Guide call for a Backlog Refinement event?

A

No, Scrum Alliance does.

63
Q

What is the Sprint Review?

A

It is the inspect and adapt event for the Scrum Team and their key stakeholders. It is held at the end of the sprint (2nd to last event). Usually held the afternoon of the last day of the sprint. Questions are encouraged from stakeholders and answers are provided by the Scrum Team

64
Q

What are the Sprint Review steps?

A
  1. PO gives goal and PBIs overview
  2. Team demonstrates product increment and answers questions. Also, share challenges faced and solutions found during the sprint.
  3. PO shares product backlog and new PBIs. Can also provide overall product projection based on current progress
  4. PO encourages open discussion with stakeholders. PO or their delegate will capture information that may help the Scrum Team.
    PO incorporates feedback into the backlog.
65
Q

How long is the Sprint Review?

A

If sprints are 2 weeks, Sprint Review is about 2 hours.

66
Q

How can you assure a productive Sprint Review?

A

PO hosts this event. As Scrum Master you want to be sure the PO and Development Team understood its purpose and timebox. Help to maximize the value in the Product Backlog

67
Q

What is the Sprint Retrospective?

A

It is a meeting focused on the Scrum Team and their practices, designed to elicit ideas for improvement. The Scrum Team needs to closely inspect and adapt how things went. As a Scrum Master it is up to you to bring in ideas to help trigger their thoughts.

68
Q

What is the outcome of Sprint Retrospective?

A

Outcome is a plan for improvements they intend to make for the next sprint.

69
Q

What are the 4 areas of focus in Sprint Retrospective?

A
  1. How they worked as a team
  2. Health of Team relationships
  3. Collaboration
  4. Processes and tools functionality
70
Q

What are the questions to ask during Sprint Retrospective?

A
  1. What went well during the sprint?

2. What didn’t go well during the sprint?

71
Q

What is the Sprint Retrospective process?

A

Create an ordered list of things that went well. Consider why those things were great and how to keep that momentum going.
Create an ordered list of what didn’t go well. Consider how to improve those areas.
Finally, choose one or two items to work on in the next sprint. Focus on items that will bring the most value.

72
Q

What is the Product Backlog?

A

An ordered list of all the work that needs to be done for the product

73
Q

What are Product Backlog Items(PBIs)?

A

The work items listed in the Product Backlog

74
Q

What are Product Backlog Items’ characteristics?

A
  1. Feature
  2. Functionality
  3. Requirement
  4. Defect
  5. Enhancement
75
Q

Should a Product Backlog be split among multiple teams if it is large?

A

Avoid splitting the backlog across multiple teams. If the body of work is large enough that more than one team is needed, you’d have them all aligned to a single Product Backlog. This is preferred because you can order the work most easily in a single place.

76
Q

Who sets the priority of Product Backlog Items?

A

Only the Product Owner. The Product Owner manages the Product Backlog.

77
Q

How is the Product Backlog sequenced?

A

At the top of the Product Backlog are items the team knows the most about, are ready to be added to a sprint and represent the highest value items for the product. Larger, less well understood and les valuable items are at the bottom of the backlog.

78
Q

How do PBIs get to move upward on the Product Backlog?

A

Through the process of backlog refinement, more detail is added to the PBIs. As their details are refined, they’ll move to the top of the Product Backlog, when they represent sufficient value.

79
Q

Who can add PBIs?

A

Anyone can add PBIs, but only the PO can decide their value and subsequent order.

80
Q

Who can estimate the development effort to complete a PBI?

A

Only the Development Team

81
Q

What is the Sprint Backlog?

A

It is a subset of the Product Backlog that lists the team-selected PBIs for the sprint. Though the PO can select items they want in the sprint, only the Development Team chooses the PBIs they will include in the Sprint Backlog. The Development Team is best suited to identify PBIs that will create the product increment.

82
Q

Who can change the Sprint Backlog during the sprint?

A

Only the Development Team. They do this as they uncover more information and decide additional work is needed or that some work isn’t needed after all.

83
Q

What is the Product Increment?

A

The team produces a potentially releasable working product increment at the end of every sprint. It is the functionality of all the PBIs delivered and accepted in a sprint. You can think of the Product Increment as the completion of the PBIs in this sprint, plus the PBIs of the previous sprints.

84
Q

Are PBIs always immediately merged into the product at the end of the sprint?

A

No, they may not be merged until later.

85
Q

What are the Product Increment requirements?

A
  1. Team’s definition of “done”
  2. PO’s acceptance criteria
  3. Value envisioned in the sprint goal

These comprise the working software.

86
Q

What determines whether a product increment is releasable?

A

It must be relevant to the market needs. This is determined by the PO.

87
Q

Is documentation part of the product increment?

A

Any required documentation specified in the Team’s definition of “done” is also considered part of the product increment. If these items aren’t completed, the product increment can’t be accepted as done by the PO.

88
Q

What is the meaning of definition of “done”?

A

Product Team needs to have the same definition of done. They are expected to apply this criteria to all the work they do. This is not the same as the acceptance criteria the PO places on a PBI. Acceptance criteria is specific to that PBI. Definition of Done (DoD) applies to all PBIs.

89
Q

What are some examples of Definition of Done Criteria?

A
  • Developer has unit-tested the functionality
  • All acceptance criteria have been met
  • Regression tests have been completed
  • Code has been reviewed by another developer
90
Q

What is the purpose of Definition of Done?

A

Helps Team ensure that best practices and quality standards are applied to every product increment.

91
Q

Should Definition of Done be scaled?

A

Yes. If your team is working on a Product Backlog with other teams, all the teams should collaborate on a common DoD. The entire organization can share the same DoD and practices.

92
Q

Should Definition of Done be reviewed and amended?

A

Yes. The Scrum Master should ensure the team regularly reviews their DoD.

93
Q

What are some ways that progress can be tracked toward the product increment?

A
  1. Team members are responsible for helping by keeping their progress updated on their tasks.
  2. Scrum expects Teams to show working software to stakeholders in the Sprint Review
94
Q

Whose job is it to ensure that progress toward the product increment and the product itself are transparent?

A

As Scrum Master, your role is to ensure the transparency of all the artifacts of the scrum team.

95
Q

Whose job is it to remove impediments form the Development team?

A

As Scrum Master, it is your job to remove impediments. Often you may be the first to recognize an impediment.

96
Q

What is a Burn-down Chart?

A

The burn-down chart should be updated and available at each Daily Scrum meeting. It is very visual and factual and helps provide insight on the actual health of the sprint.
X-Axis shows number of days in sprint.
Y-Axis shows number of point remaining to be completed based on what PBIs were selected.
You can also change this from point to estimated hours remaining, but this can lead to micromanagement.
It shows 2 lines:
1. Ideal Burn Line - Shows what progress should be made each day to complete the product increment over the 2-week sprint
2. Actual Burn Line - Tells the team how they’re actually progressing toward the completion of the product increment.

97
Q

What is a Burn-up Chart?

A

The Burn-up Chart shows how the team is progressing toward the overall project or workstream goals. You can create one for a specific release or one that represents the whole project.
X-Axis - Shows the sprints, to track progress by sprint toward the overall release goal
Y-Axis - Shows the number of points needed to completed the release and hit the target.
Top line is the release scope
Ideal Burn Line - Shows the team how much they need to produce each sprint to stay on track. If the scope line changes, the slope of this lline will also change to reflect the number of points the team needs to burn or complete more points each sprint.