My Experience With The PSM I Exam
A few months back, I managed to get the Professional Scrum Master I certification, while being a Software Developer.
In this article, I will be talking briefly about my experience studying and practicing for this exam, what resources I used (e.g. courses, websites, etc…), and what tips I can give out to help others who are going for this exam and certificate.
My Personal Experience
Throughout my career, I had to be part of different teams working on a software product. Working on the products required teamwork and communication. You, as a developer, had to understand the requirements of the product, what you needed to complete during that period of time, how to communicate with the other members of the team, and so on.
In my first job (my internship), they used to use Scrum as their way of working. It was my first time being introduced to Scrum. We had daily Scrum meetings, a proper Kanban board where we tracked the tickets and tasks, and a standard for how the output should look like and what it should comply with. This made the communication with the other developers very simple, we could ask each other for help during those daily meetings, and we knew what each task was handled by which developer.
Later on, I had similar experiences in my next jobs. We had a Kanban board where we organized tasks, in some companies we had daily meetings, but it was never as complete as my first job, or my internship.
Having experienced using Scrum as a framework, I believed I should have a better understanding of it, therefore I decided to take on the Professional Scrum Master I. Since I had some experience with it already, understanding the framework was not difficult, rather it was a refresher for some parts of it. I saw the same daily meetings, the Product Goal, and even how Scrum was built on empiricism.
I spent a few days studying for the exam and managed to pass it was a 96.3% score!
Below, I list down the resources that I have used to study for the exam.
Resources I Used
The exam is actually pretty straight-forward, that is why, studying for it is not a difficult task, some people online have even talked about how they spent only 1 day studying for it and passed!
There are three main resources that I focused on and kept coming back to:
- The Official Scrum Guide
- The Scrum Open Assessment
- The Scrum Glossary
These three resources will go over everything you need to know to pass the PSM I.
The first resource is the Scrum Guide. This is basically the manual for Scrum and is basically the origin. It goes through the whole framework, from the team members, to the events that occur, and even the artifacts. It defines what Scrum is and the theory of, the values of it, and everything related to Scrum in general. Therefore, this is the most important thing you need to focus on to pass the PSM I exam.
The third resource was the Scrum Glossary. This The second resource was the Scrum Open Assessment. This is basically a short quiz consisting of 30 questions which focuses mainly on the Scrum Guide. It is a great resource for practicing what you learned from reading the Scrum Guide.
The third resource was the Scrum Glossary. This includes all the keywords used in Scrum, such as the Definition of Done. Some of these keywords won’t be found in the Scrum Guide, that is why it is necessary for you to go through this glossary.
I also took a Udemy course that went through Agile and Scrum, and how to get your PSM I certification, and it even provided over 300 practice questions to prepare you for the exam. While this course was great, it was not necessary for me to take it in order to pass the exam. That is why I have not actually completed the whole course and just finished the first few sections.
After passing the exam, I believe the most important resources were the Scrum Guide, the Scrum Open Assessment, and the Scrum Glossary. Master these three and you should be able to pass the exam with ease.
Tips To Help You Prepare For The PSM I
Tip 1: Read and Reread The Scrum Guide
In order to really be good at Scrum and passing the PSM I, you need to understand (and in some cases memorize) the Scrum Guide. It contains everything related to Scrum and goes through everything very well. Every time you read it, you discover a new detail about Scrum. It is a great resource and a well written one as well. In order to pass the exam, you will probably need to read it multiple times.
Tip 2: Practice The Scrum Open Assessment
I have completed the Scrum Open Assessment tens of times. It is a great resource for practicing your skills and testing your knowledge. Note that it is also presented by the official Scrum website, which makes it a more trusted resource.
Tip 3: Read The Scrum Glossary
Some keywords are not mentioned explicitly in the Scrum Guide, but might be important for the exam, these keywords will probably be found in the Scrum Glossary, that is why it is very important to go through this resource multiple times before going to the exam.
Tip 4: Do Not Focus On Outside Material
I typically over-study for exams and this exam was not different. I sought out other resources to improve my knowledge and skills in Scrum to be able to pass the PSM I, but I, unfortunately, stumbled upon resources that worsened my knowledge. There were some websites that did not have accurate information, some forums had different answers than other for some questions. It was not pleasant because I started to answer wrong answers to questions I had previously answered correctly, and this was due to me ingesting wrong information from other, unofficial, websites. My advice is to not seek out other materials to learn from and focus on the three I mentioned above, or if you need more, then study only those recommended by the official Scrum website.
Conclusion
While I remain as Software Developer, taking the PSM I helped me get a better understanding of how to improve communication between team members, and how to make work run more smoothly. It is good knowledge to know Scrum and to understand how it works, especially knowing it actually works in real life scenarios.
I hope you gained some value from this article, and hope to see you in the next one!