I have taken the PSM I exam and have some clarification needed on some topics. I asked scrum.org and it was recommended to use this forum to gain clarification on these topics. I greatly appreciate your insight and expertise from this forum. I think I know the material well but there are some topics that seem to have specific nuances to that are just not clear to me or any of the training and text I came across.
These are topics for clarification and the numbering below is my nomenclature for ordering the topics for responses versus any specific numbering on an assessment.
1. I know the dev team is self-managing. I also know the scrum master needs to remove impediments. If a person is disruptive to the team is it the self-managing team that removes the individual or is it the scrum master. I believe it’s the dev team.
2. I understand the product backlog created by product owner. At the sprint planning meeting the scrum team develops the goal then dev team creates the spring back log. Is it the spring goal or the actual spring backlog that provides the overall target and direction to the team? I think the goal is the overall target and the sprint backlog are the specifics.
3. I know the scrum master insures the scrum process is followed for the daily scrum and insures the dev team keeps it to <= 15minutes. There are times he/she can do this without being present all the time therefore I don’t think the scrum master is REQUIRED to attend the daily scrum. What are your thoughts?
4. I understand how a single scrum team works off the product backlog via sprints. I am not clear how I can implement a project with multiple scrum teams. Do you recommend that even with multiple scrum teams we all work off the same sprint backlog and same sprint with same sprint time box / timing or can I have multiple teams working on different spring backlogs with different start dates for the sprints?
5. Want to clarify who makes the product burn down charts and sprint burn down charts. I don’t believe it’s the scrum master since creating anytype of status / progress chart is a type of management and this position is process focused and doesn’t manage the effort. For the product log burn down chart I believe it’s the product owner. Now it gets more confusing for the spring burn down chart for me. I have read that the product owner tracks the sprint burndown chart for the “sprint review” but the dev team tracks the sprint burn down chart during the sprint. Any thoughts?
6. My understanding is that the dev team selects the sprint log and estimates to implement. The dev team then works toward completing the sprint log within the time box. Not sure what to do if before we start the sprint if the tools needed are ALL not ready for us to use. Does the dev team just do what it can within the time box or reiterate sprints focused on getting the tools ready before working off the product backlog items selected for the sprint backlog? One can just not start the sprint until all tools are ready to start the sprints. Need some help clarifying this idea.
7. I understand if QA testing is not done during the actual sprint that more bugs will be added to the next sprint. Also we run the risk of not delivering working software. If I am looking for the benefit lost rather than results of not conducting QA test during the sprint I think its not delivering working software but not sure.
8. I know I need to keep the dev team members constant during the sprint. For the assessments do we mean the ideal goal of scrum (ie constant) or literally. I can’t control if someone quits the company, gets ill, etc. So literally I can’t guarantee constant team but I think for scrum the ideal goal is to keep it constant.
9. Need to clarify that the product owner can provide feedback and respond to questions during both the sprint planning meeting and the entire sprint. I believe feedback and response from dev team clarification questions is fine. Direction is not fine. Not sure for exam purposes feedback is non-requested feedback offered by product owner which I don’t think is fine during sprint planning meeting versus feedback from dev team questions.
10. My understanding is that product owner creates product backlog with user stories which the dev team selects for sprint backlog and breaks down to tasks. Product backlog has more user stories than the subset selected for the sprint backlog. From an exam perspective if we are asked to determine product back.log is the same size of the sprint back log not sure of the definition of size? Clearly it has a subset of user stories selected to implement therefore from a user story perspective sprint is smaller. But the sprint backlog can breakdown the subset user stories into many many tasks in theory that the list of items on the sprint backlog is more than the product backlog. Can some help with the actual intent of this type of question?
11. I understand the dev team does what it can to accomplish the sprint goal. When planning we use “ideal days” which only considers actual productive time coding / testing. From a scrum framework perspective is there a maximum amount of time a developer should work for a given day? I have always worked as much time it takes to get the job done but I see some documentation referring the max time should be the “ideal day” to maintain a consistent pace for the long term. I thought I also read to sustain the consistent pace for the long term developers shouldn’t work more than 40 hours per week which is 7-8 hours per day.
12. I believe the scrum team (po, scm, and dev team) together develop the sprint goal during the sprint planning meeting. But if the dev team is self-managing then the dev team should create their sprint goal. I can also see though the product owner develops the release plan (releases gone away with current scrum) then product owner sets overall goal for which the dev team creates the product backlog it can handle that supports it.
13. Are there any other reasons to keep sprints <= 1 month besides a) reduces risk, b) reduces complexity of what to build, 3) reduces cost risk/waste to no more than a month? I have not come across anything that says it allows team time to synchronize with other business initiatives.
Thanks.
These are topics for clarification and the numbering below is my nomenclature for ordering the topics for responses versus any specific numbering on an assessment.
1. I know the dev team is self-managing. I also know the scrum master needs to remove impediments. If a person is disruptive to the team is it the self-managing team that removes the individual or is it the scrum master. I believe it’s the dev team.
2. I understand the product backlog created by product owner. At the sprint planning meeting the scrum team develops the goal then dev team creates the spring back log. Is it the spring goal or the actual spring backlog that provides the overall target and direction to the team? I think the goal is the overall target and the sprint backlog are the specifics.
3. I know the scrum master insures the scrum process is followed for the daily scrum and insures the dev team keeps it to <= 15minutes. There are times he/she can do this without being present all the time therefore I don’t think the scrum master is REQUIRED to attend the daily scrum. What are your thoughts?
4. I understand how a single scrum team works off the product backlog via sprints. I am not clear how I can implement a project with multiple scrum teams. Do you recommend that even with multiple scrum teams we all work off the same sprint backlog and same sprint with same sprint time box / timing or can I have multiple teams working on different spring backlogs with different start dates for the sprints?
5. Want to clarify who makes the product burn down charts and sprint burn down charts. I don’t believe it’s the scrum master since creating anytype of status / progress chart is a type of management and this position is process focused and doesn’t manage the effort. For the product log burn down chart I believe it’s the product owner. Now it gets more confusing for the spring burn down chart for me. I have read that the product owner tracks the sprint burndown chart for the “sprint review” but the dev team tracks the sprint burn down chart during the sprint. Any thoughts?
6. My understanding is that the dev team selects the sprint log and estimates to implement. The dev team then works toward completing the sprint log within the time box. Not sure what to do if before we start the sprint if the tools needed are ALL not ready for us to use. Does the dev team just do what it can within the time box or reiterate sprints focused on getting the tools ready before working off the product backlog items selected for the sprint backlog? One can just not start the sprint until all tools are ready to start the sprints. Need some help clarifying this idea.
7. I understand if QA testing is not done during the actual sprint that more bugs will be added to the next sprint. Also we run the risk of not delivering working software. If I am looking for the benefit lost rather than results of not conducting QA test during the sprint I think its not delivering working software but not sure.
8. I know I need to keep the dev team members constant during the sprint. For the assessments do we mean the ideal goal of scrum (ie constant) or literally. I can’t control if someone quits the company, gets ill, etc. So literally I can’t guarantee constant team but I think for scrum the ideal goal is to keep it constant.
9. Need to clarify that the product owner can provide feedback and respond to questions during both the sprint planning meeting and the entire sprint. I believe feedback and response from dev team clarification questions is fine. Direction is not fine. Not sure for exam purposes feedback is non-requested feedback offered by product owner which I don’t think is fine during sprint planning meeting versus feedback from dev team questions.
10. My understanding is that product owner creates product backlog with user stories which the dev team selects for sprint backlog and breaks down to tasks. Product backlog has more user stories than the subset selected for the sprint backlog. From an exam perspective if we are asked to determine product back.log is the same size of the sprint back log not sure of the definition of size? Clearly it has a subset of user stories selected to implement therefore from a user story perspective sprint is smaller. But the sprint backlog can breakdown the subset user stories into many many tasks in theory that the list of items on the sprint backlog is more than the product backlog. Can some help with the actual intent of this type of question?
11. I understand the dev team does what it can to accomplish the sprint goal. When planning we use “ideal days” which only considers actual productive time coding / testing. From a scrum framework perspective is there a maximum amount of time a developer should work for a given day? I have always worked as much time it takes to get the job done but I see some documentation referring the max time should be the “ideal day” to maintain a consistent pace for the long term. I thought I also read to sustain the consistent pace for the long term developers shouldn’t work more than 40 hours per week which is 7-8 hours per day.
12. I believe the scrum team (po, scm, and dev team) together develop the sprint goal during the sprint planning meeting. But if the dev team is self-managing then the dev team should create their sprint goal. I can also see though the product owner develops the release plan (releases gone away with current scrum) then product owner sets overall goal for which the dev team creates the product backlog it can handle that supports it.
13. Are there any other reasons to keep sprints <= 1 month besides a) reduces risk, b) reduces complexity of what to build, 3) reduces cost risk/waste to no more than a month? I have not come across anything that says it allows team time to synchronize with other business initiatives.
Thanks.