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I had a question during PSM1 assessment:

During a Sprint Retrospective, the Development team proposes moving the Daily scrum to only occur on Specific days of week. Not daily. Which two are the most appropriate responses for the Scrum Master? (Select two best answers)

  • Coach the team on why the Daily Scrum is important as an opportunity to update the plan
  • Learn why the Development Team wants this and work with them to improve the outcome of the daily Scrum
  • Consider the request and decide on which days the Daily Scrum should occur.
  • Have the developers vote
  • Acknowledge and support self-organizing team’s decision

Can any one suggest me correct option out of all?

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    Are you going to post your entire exam here? What does your book or teacher say about it? Is there a specific reason you cannot find the answer to this?
    – nvoigt
    Commented Apr 17, 2019 at 6:46
  • @nvoigt I had some of the questions in PSM 1 assessment that could not answer and pm.stackexchange is only reliable community that can help me to find proper answers. Even teacher (scrum.org) has not posted answer to some tricky questions on their community. Please guide me, If this is violating this community rules. I'll remove all of my questions. Thank you for looking at my questions.
    – Krunal
    Commented Apr 17, 2019 at 8:27
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    Stack Exchange requires you to do prior research. If you look at the downvote button for questions, the tooltip says "does not show any research effort". What did you do to find the answer on your own? What is unclear in your teaching material about this topic?
    – nvoigt
    Commented Apr 17, 2019 at 8:48
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    Keep in mind that the meeting is called the Daily Scrum. The Scrum Guide says anything that doesn't adhere to the framework's requirements is not Scrum. That should help reduce your field of possible answers.
    – Todd A. Jacobs
    Commented Apr 17, 2019 at 20:07

3 Answers 3

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The struggle with questions about exams is that for many of these, we don't know what the right answer is. I know which I would pick, but I've read the scrum guide multiple times and can assure you that there is no cannonically correct answer to this questions. So, I am answering with some thoughts to help you understand how I'd get to an answer, but I cannot promise that this answer is correct by any means.

If this were to happen in real life (and it does. In fact, it did yesterday for me) There are a few things I want to look at.

1) Why does Scrum advise that this occurs daily? There is the assumption in Scrum that things can change very rapidly. There is also the assumption that the team is helping each other and can best adapt to rapid change if they check in with each other at least daily.

2) Does the team feel they need these benefits from rapid checkins? Maybe the work they are doing is so by-the-book that nothing really changes day-to-day. This doesn't describe most work, but I have on occassion encountered this. On the other hand, it may be that the team doesn't really work as a team, and that is why they don't feel they need it. Or, maybe they do need it but...

3) Is the daily scrum not delivering on the benefits it is supposed to create? There may be many reasons why this is happening. Perhaps it isn't well facilitated or perhaps the team doesn't understand the purpose and therefor they aren't leveraging it effectively. I worked with one team that had a separate synch meeting an hour before their daily scrum, so of course they got no benefit out of what was essentially a second scrum.

Now, in truth, there are probably two answers that are perfectly valid, but the Scrum.org exams like to play with word use. There is one answer that is arguably valid but uses a phrase in a way that is, on its face, counter to scrum.

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  • +1 on word playing. There's a considerable difference on what certifications in general ask and their actual value in the real world. Certificates only exist because its easier to assess a bunch of theoretical questions rather than real life experience. Commented May 5, 2019 at 8:16
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I am trainer myself and I know that it is not helpful to tell right answers straight away. Training is not about learning right answers, but learning for your work life.

I will give you right answer to this question and offer to guide you with other questions, that you find the right answer yourself.

  • Coach the team on why the Daily Scrum is important as an opportunity to update the plan
  • Learn why the Development Team wants this and work with them to improve the outcome of the daily Scrum

Why I think those are the right answers? Question should be answered from Scrum Master perspective. So you need to remember what kind of role is Scrum Master, what is her/his main activities?

"The Scrum Master is responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. Scrum Masters do this by helping everyone understand Scrum theory, practices, rules, and values." from ScrumGuides

Both answer options fit perfectly for Scrum Master(SM) role. SM asks the team why they want to changed it. When SM knows where misunderstanding lies, SM can provide necessary information and explain why it is important to have daily status exchange.

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    I think this is the right answer, too, but to be an SE Answer-with-a-captial-A it really needs an explanation of why you think this is the right answer instead of one of the other pairs.
    – Todd A. Jacobs
    Commented Apr 17, 2019 at 19:54
  • @ToddA.Jacobs thank you for reminding me that :)
    – kriscorbus
    Commented Apr 18, 2019 at 12:01
  • ...update the plan? Is that in the Scrum Guide or is that a Scrum dot org ism... Commented Apr 18, 2019 at 17:16
  • @Venture2099 can you please be more specific? I do not understand your question.
    – kriscorbus
    Commented Apr 18, 2019 at 19:34
  • I believe Venture means that the first option you mentioned as potentially right "Coach the team on why the Daily Scrum is important as an opportunity to update the plan" may not be entirely correct as the Daily Scrum (by the book) is where the daily plan is made, not updated: At it, the Development Team plans work for the next 24 hours. Commented May 5, 2019 at 8:13
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I too found this question confusing. Thanks for raising in this forum. After much consideration I decided to go with:

  • Learn why the Development Team wants this and work with them to improve the outcome of the daily Scrum

  • Acknowledge and support self-organizing team’s decision

As a result I believe I got the question wrong in the exam. As an experienced SM and coach I feel it is you should to support an suggest put forward by the team even if you do not feel it will actually leads to an improvement or if it goes against the framework. I would be transparent as to why not having a Daily Scrum might lead to problems and let the team experiment and learn for themselves. Help them to evaluate the change and it's impact. Continue to coach the team around effective communication and the importance of a Daily Scrum. This I feel will lead to better results than forcing a team to do something against it's will.

I'm hoping to get tops marks and will be retaking the exam soon. I feel that option A in combination with option B will get me a correct answer.

  • Coach the team on why the Daily Scrum is important as an opportunity to update the plan

I feel this is also a bit of a trick question as 'the plan' could be many things. If 'the plan' means the teams plan for the day to make progress towards the Sprint Goal, then this is a correct answer, albeit a confusing one.

Hope this helps. Open to hear other people's views

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  • I think a SM is not acknowledging the team. So this cannot be the answer.
    – kwoxer
    Commented Jan 31, 2023 at 8:09

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