Agile, Coaching, and AI

PSM I, PSM II, PSPO I certifications

How to Pass PSM I, PSPO I, and PSM II

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by

szymon
in

What are PSM I, PSPO I, and PSM II?

These are some of the most popular certifications from Scrum.org:

  • PSM I – Professional Scrum Master I (fundamental)
  • PSM II – Professional Scrum master II (advanced)
  • PSPO I – Professional Scrum Product Owner I (fundamental)

For all certifications, see: https://www.scrum.org/professional-scrum-certifications

Are Certifications Worth It?

Certifications trigger many questions in my mind:

  • Are they confirming anything?
  • Are they hiding incompetence behind a paper signed by a known brand?
  • Are they just a marketing trick to make me purchase a product?
  • Are they only serving my self-promotion and growing ego?
  • Am I worse or better than someone with or without a certification?

I’m careful with myself considering these questions. Observe yourself:

  • These are “yes/no” questions (“closed” questions, “binary” questions, which are more closely related to emotional reactions like “good/bad” than to rational thinking).
  • These are “general” statements targeting “all” certifications from all institutions and every person holding them.
  • These are “subjective” questions that hold emotional weight due to the words used and can be easily assigned a wide range of interpretations, depending on the speaker’s standpoint and intention.

What questions will you ask yourself to decide whether you want to pursue or not pursue a certification?

It took me a few years to get to the roots of what I want regarding Scrum certifications, on a deeper level than the questions above. I had my first encounter with Scrum in 2007. I used it in my own startups, in projects I led, and I promoted it across companies. However, it was only in 2017 that I passed my first test and got the PSM I certification while working at Intel. It was thanks to coaching that I found the questions that helped me figure out how I want to approach certifications and motivated me to pursue them further:

How will you measure your progress?

How will you know if you’re heading in the right direction?

How will you motivate yourself?

These questions worked for me because I value efficiency (at all organizational levels :)) and learning (at all levels :)). (Notice, I ground my answer in values – and this is also where you should look for your own answer.) I like to learn hands-on, through challenges, applying knowledge, learning by doing, and through experience and experimentation. Scrum.org helps me measure my progress and challenges me further with gradually more difficult tests that come with more advanced certifications.

Does this mean I don’t have enough challenges at work? It’s like a blood test in a laboratory – it helps you see things that may be invisible in your daily work, especially if you’re a professional athlete or an agile leader doing challenging work. 😉 But it’s also very easy to stagnate if you’re doing a “great job”. In such cases, a good test question can help you falsify some of your assumptions about your own greatness, ultimately helping you grow.

So, you may not need these certifications, or you may need them for a different reason than I do. I maintain the “white belt” attitude, acknowledging that I don’t know everything despite having certifications, and I will use them to revise what the agile world has waiting for me to discover.

Which Certification First?

In most cases, the answer is PSM I:

For more details, I recommend this article: https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/best-order-get-all-scrumorg-certifications, where the author provides a more complete path (note that this list doesn’t include all current certifications):

PSM-I > PSPO-I > PSD > SPS > PSM-II > PAL-I > PSK-I > PSPO-II > PSM-III

If you are considering collecting these certifications, you may also be interested in becoming a Professional Scrum Trainer (PST) and using the requirements for PST to guide your way: https://www.scrum.org/become-professional-scrum-trainer/the-pst-candidate-journey

Set Up Your Learning Environment

Learning is something to be managed. There are ways to make it efficient and reduce wasted time and effort. If there are some technical prerequisites common to any certification at Scrum.org, I’d list these:

  1. Create an account at https://www.scrum.org/user/register to store your learning progress, favorite articles, and later – your certifications. Learn how to use the pathways available there.
  2. Set up Anki (https://apps.ankiweb.net/) or another tool for spaced repetition, and create notes whenever you find valuable information. (If you use public flashcards, ensure they are up to date with the Scrum Guide.) Study every day, but don’t be too strict with yourself – rebel sometimes to feel the wind. 😉
  3. Immerse yourself in learning through your environment. Look for Scrum teams around you, ask to visit them during their events, understand how they work, inspect their backlogs, ask questions, and try to align what you see with the Scrum Guide. Focus on the differences.

I will reinforce the idea of learning through your environment and daily activities – make it part of your regular working day. This is where agile is needed, and it’s where you’ll have to apply it – certification is just a self-check that you’re on the right track. If you don’t enjoy the agile, complex reality of “requirements changing late in the development,” the accountability that comes with autonomy, or focusing on what’s not known (uncertainty), reconsider if you really want to approach projects where agile is needed. There’s a place for everyone – not everyone needs to work in Scrum, and not every project should use Scrum.

How to Pass PSM I and PSPO I

I scored 100% on PSM I and 95% on PSPO I, while you need only 85% to pass the assessment. So my recipe may seem more than enough if you just want to get the certification. However, I appreciate the learning that came from these sources and the long-lasting value I gained from it. And most importantly, we have completely different backgrounds and years of experience with Scrum.

Recipe for PSM I and PSPO I

  1. Set up your learning environment (see the previous section).
  2. Understand the scope of the PSM I or PSPO I:
  3. Go through all the sections required for the scope of the exam:
  4. Start doing the open assessments until you consistently get 100% over several days – and read the explanations on why a given answer is correct or not:
  5. Know the Scrum Guide – CHALLENGE it, and figure out why it is written the way it is. You’ll still need to remember some numbers and facts:
  6. Do these assessments as well, until you consistently get 100% or can prove their answers are wrong:
  7. Understand all these terms:
  8. Make sure that you know the foundations:
  9. Realize there is still a lot to learn by exploring other assessments. Agile doesn’t begin or end with PSM I, PSPO I or any other certification:

Don’t just read about it – experience it. If you’re not in a place to practice Scrum, you can always use your imagination, talk with your friends, or visit the Scrum.org forum. If you’re still looking for guidance, that’s fine too – feel free to reach out to me to talk more.

What to Expect After the Assessment?

Besides the final score, you will receive scores by focus area. This feedback is valuable for identifying which areas you may want to explore further. You paid for it, so use it to guide your future learning and realize the value of your investment!

How to Pass PSM II

Currently (December, 2024), PSM II has been issued 46,928 times, making it 15 times less popular than PSM I (issued 685,553 times). Is it because PSM II is so difficult (advanced vs. fundamentals in PSM I)? Or costly ($250 vs. $200 for PSM I)? Or not as valuable as PSM I? All of these reasons, and more, may be true. There may be a different set of reasons why you might want to pursue PSM II compared to PSM I or PSPO I.

For me, it was about going back to my values, which are more lasting than temporary drivers. Since PSM II is an advanced certification that is more difficult to pass and more costly than PSM I, the motivation that was enough for PSM I might not be sufficient for PSM II. I capitalized on my coaching experience and clarified why and how I wanted to pursue agile, then enabled my environment to support me on this path.

Recipe for PSM II

  1. Set up your learning environment (see the previous section).
  2. Understand the scope of the PSM II:
  3. Go through all the sections required for the scope of the exam (I went through almost everything, but I enjoyed it!):
  4. If something feels unclear or doesn’t make sense, explore the other learning paths for a different perspective:
  5. Start doing the open assessments until you consistently get 100% over several days, and read the explanations for why a given answer is correct or not:
  6. Know the Scrum Guide:
  7. Know the Nexus Guide:
  8. Read a good book to understand the mechanics behind Scrum, for example:
  9. Continue reading on topics that interest you the most:
  10. Do these assessments as well until you consistently get 100% or can prove their answers are wrong:
  11. Understand all these terms:
  12. Make sure that you know the foundations:
  13. Realize there is still a lot to learn by exploring other open assessments:
  14. Consider taking a class. My friends recommended taking a class (ideally in person, not online) for PSM II, as it offers several benefits that significantly increase your chances of passing the assessment. Plus, you get a discount on the test.

Important note: If you take a class, ensure you take the class in the language you will use for the certification!

I personally decided to skip the class and took the risk, so I’d say it’s not a must-have. However, I’m skeptical about 2-3 days of workshops, as the learning doesn’t always have a chance to be fully incorporated into daily experience and may evaporate if it’s only meant to pass the test. What’s the return on investment for a result that fades away?

Taking the class in addition as a final touch makes much more sense to me (I may consider it for PSM III).

Check out the recommended courses here: https://www.scrum.org/courses/recommended-courses-scrum-masters

What to Expect After the Assessment?

I completed the PSM II test in much less than half of the allotted time, if I remember correctly, so I think time management shouldn’t be an issue if you give yourself time to think. There were one or two particularly long questions that I had to re-read and consider whether I wanted to spend more time on them, as I felt I might have missed the point. This highlights the importance of feeling comfortable with the language you choose for the assessment.

I scored 94%, and I’m really curious about where I went wrong. However, the single score for the various focus areas provided some hints on the direction I should explore further. Still, these focus areas are not the only criteria I use to guide my growth – just as this post is not meant to be your single source of truth for planning your path toward PSM I, PSPO I, and PSM II certifications.

You’ll write your own plan and may consider sharing it with others, just as I’m sharing mine with you. It’s part of my personal satisfaction in making a positive impact on the world of agile. 🙂

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