Practice Scaled Agile SSM with sample questions, timed mock exams, topic drills, and detailed explanations for SAFe Scrum Master decisions.
Scaled Agile SSM is the SAFe Scrum Master route for candidates who need team coaching, team events, impediment handling, PI Planning support, and ART-level coordination inside SAFe. If you are searching for SSM sample questions, a SAFe Scrum Master practice test, or a PM Mastery simulator route, start here.
Scaled Agile now brands the route as AI-Empowered SAFe Scrum Master (SSM), but the current exam guidance still centers on the established SSM course objectives. This page keeps the practice focus on Scrum Master / Team Coach responsibilities, team events, ART events, dependencies, impediments, and inspection/adaptation rather than standalone AI policy trivia.
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SSM usually rewards the option that makes work visible, preserves team ownership, protects event purpose, escalates systemic blockers at the right level, and keeps the team’s plan connected to ART-level alignment.
| Topic | Weight | Estimated questions |
|---|---|---|
| Introducing Scrum in SAFe | 25% | about 11 |
| Defining the Scrum Master / Team Coach role | 28% | about 13 |
| Supporting Team Events | 19% | about 9 |
| Supporting ART Events | 28% | about 13 |
| If you are deciding between… | Main distinction |
|---|---|
| SSM vs Leading SAFe | SSM is the role-specific SAFe Scrum Master route; Leading SAFe is the broad enterprise-agility baseline. |
| SSM vs PSM I | SSM is Scrum Master work in SAFe; PSM I is Scrum fundamentals in a one-team Scrum setting. |
| SSM vs SASM | SSM is foundational; SASM is the advanced SAFe Scrum Master route. |
| If you need to practice… | Best page | Why |
|---|---|---|
| broad SAFe baseline | Leading SAFe | Best live route for enterprise agility, ARTs, PI planning, and SAFe vocabulary. |
| one-team Scrum fundamentals | PSM I | Best live route when your actual gap is still Scrum basics rather than SAFe context. |
| advanced SAFe Scrum Master comparison | SASM | Best route when you already know the SSM baseline and need the next step. |
These sample questions are selected from the SSM practice bank and cover the main exam domains. Use them to check your readiness here, then move into the full PM Mastery simulator for broader timed coverage.
Topic: Introducing Scrum in SAFe
Two Agile teams on the same ART are comparing delivery approaches. Team A integrates and reviews one large feature at the end of the Iteration. Team B slices the feature into smaller increments, integrates each slice during the Iteration, and gets quick feedback from the Product Owner. What is the main reason Team B’s approach improves learning and defect detection?
Best answer: A
Explanation: Smaller batches improve empirical learning by reducing the time between building, integrating, reviewing, and adapting. Because each change is smaller, defects are easier to isolate and feedback can be applied before more work accumulates. The core concept is fast feedback through incremental delivery. When a team works in smaller batches, each increment can be integrated, reviewed, and validated sooner. This makes learning more frequent and reduces the amount of unverified work in progress. If a defect appears, the team has a smaller set of recent changes to inspect, so the likely cause is easier to identify and fix. Large batches delay feedback and often hide problems until many decisions and changes have piled up. The key takeaway is that smaller batches make learning and quality signals more immediate.
Topic: Defining the Scrum Master / Team Coach role
An Agile team missed its Iteration Goals for the second time and points to an unresolved dependency on another team. The team asks the Scrum Master / Team Coach to “handle the explanation” at the ART sync so the team is not blamed. Which response best shows servant leadership without shielding the team from accountability?
Best answer: C
Explanation: Servant leadership is not the same as protecting the team from consequences or difficult conversations. The Scrum Master / Team Coach helps expose impediments, facilitates problem solving, and supports the team in owning improvement actions. The core distinction is service versus rescue. A Scrum Master / Team Coach serves the team by creating transparency, helping remove impediments, and coaching the team to inspect and adapt. In this scenario, the dependency may be a real ART-level concern, so it should be made visible at the right forum. But the team still owns how it plans, communicates risk, follows up, and improves its working agreements. Shielding the team from accountability would hide learning and weaken trust. The key takeaway is to support the team’s success while preserving ownership of commitments and improvement.
Topic: Supporting Team Events
During iteration planning, an Agile team is using the agenda below. The Product Owner has presented the top stories, but the conversation has shifted.
Iteration Planning Notes
Goal draft: Reduce checkout errors
Capacity: 38 points estimated
Story 1: SM assigns Ana
Story 2: Tech lead assigns Ravi
Story 3: Manager assigns Mei
Open question: dependency on API team
Next: confirm individual owners
What is the best Scrum Master / Team Coach action?
Best answer: B
Explanation: The exhibit shows iteration planning becoming a task-assignment meeting, which undermines team ownership and self-management. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should intervene by facilitating a collaborative plan around the iteration goal, capacity, and known dependency. In iteration planning, the team collaborates with the Product Owner to understand priorities, define an achievable iteration goal, consider capacity, and decide how to accomplish the work. The Scrum Master / Team Coach does not assign tasks or let managers turn the event into individual work allocation. A good intervention is to pause the anti-pattern, make the dependency visible, and guide the team to pull work, identify collaboration needs, and create a realistic plan they own. The key takeaway is to protect the purpose of planning while coaching self-management, not to replace it with command-and-control assignment.
Topic: Supporting ART Events
A Scrum Master is coaching an Agile team the week before PI Planning. The team has refined several stories and understands its capacity, but members have not reviewed the ART vision, upcoming features, or known cross-team dependencies. Why is this preparation incomplete?
Best answer: D
Explanation: A team needs both local readiness and ART context before PI Planning. Capacity and refined backlog items help the team plan, but ART vision, features, and dependencies help the team align its plan with the larger train. PI Planning is not only a team-level planning meeting; it is an ART alignment event. Local readiness means the team can make realistic commitments because it understands capacity, candidate work, and likely constraints. ART context means the team can connect that work to business priorities, features, architectural direction, and cross-team dependencies. Without both, the team may create a plan that looks feasible locally but fails when integrated with other teams’ plans. The key takeaway is that pre-PI coaching should prepare the team to plan well and to collaborate across the ART.
Topic: Introducing Scrum in SAFe
During iteration planning, a Scrum Master / Team Coach reviews the team’s draft plan before the team commits.
Exhibit: Draft iteration planning notes
Draft Iteration Goal:
- Build account API
- Update mobile login screen
- Write regression tests
- Fix defects 142 and 156
PO value statement: Field reps can securely sign in and view assigned accounts on mobile.
What is the best coaching response?
Best answer: D
Explanation: The exhibit shows a list of work items labeled as an iteration goal. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should help the team express the goal as a coherent outcome tied to the Product Owner’s value statement, not as a checklist of assigned tasks. An iteration goal is a team commitment that describes the purpose of the iteration and the value the team intends to deliver. The listed API, UI, testing, and defect work may be valid backlog items or tasks, but they do not explain the integrated outcome. A stronger goal would focus on the field rep capability described by the Product Owner, such as enabling secure mobile sign-in and account viewing. The team can still use the task list to plan how to achieve that outcome. The key distinction is that tasks describe work to do; an iteration goal describes why the work matters as a shared team objective.
Topic: Defining the Scrum Master / Team Coach role
During iteration planning, the team discovers that two top-ranked stories do not fit its available capacity. A sales stakeholder is pressing for one item, while another item supports an ART dependency. The Product Owner asks the Scrum Master to choose which story should be moved out so the team can finish planning. What is the Scrum Master’s BEST action?
Best answer: B
Explanation: The Scrum Master should protect role boundaries while helping the team make the decision transparent. In SAFe, the Product Owner is accountable for Team Backlog priorities and content decisions, so the Scrum Master should facilitate the discussion rather than decide for the PO. The core concept is Scrum Master / Team Coach role boundary. The Scrum Master helps the team expose capacity, dependencies, risks, and stakeholder impacts so the Product Owner can make an informed backlog and scope decision. Taking the decision away from the Product Owner weakens accountability and can create confusion about who owns value-based prioritization. The Scrum Master can also help capture any dependency impact for ART visibility, but that support does not transfer decision authority. The key takeaway is to coach and facilitate the Product Owner’s decision, not replace it.
Topic: Supporting Team Events
During a team sync, an Agile team spends most of the time giving verbal status to the Scrum Master / Team Coach. The team board has not been updated for two days, and a dependency on another team may put an Iteration goal at risk. What is the best action for the Scrum Master / Team Coach?
Best answer: A
Explanation: An effective team sync is not a status meeting for the Scrum Master / Team Coach. It uses visible, current work to help the team inspect progress, coordinate next steps, and surface impediments or dependencies that threaten the Iteration goal. The core concept is making work and progress visible so the team can manage flow together. In this scenario, verbal updates hide the real state of work because the board is stale, while the dependency creates risk to the Iteration goal. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should coach the team to use the board during the sync, update current progress, and discuss what is blocked, aging, or dependent on another team. That creates shared understanding and lets the team decide the next coordination action. Escalation may be needed later, but the first move is to make the work visible and inspect it as a team.
Topic: Supporting ART Events
During PI Planning team breakouts, an Agile team discovers that a shared test environment is unavailable for the first two iterations. The dependency affects two other teams’ PI Objectives, and 20 minutes of discussion has not produced an owner or workaround. What is the Scrum Master / Team Coach’s best action?
Best answer: C
Explanation: PI Planning breakouts should surface issues, not bury the ART in unresolved debate. When an impediment affects multiple teams and PI Objectives and the team cannot resolve it quickly, the Scrum Master / Team Coach should escalate it for ART-level visibility and help. The core concept is timely escalation during PI Planning. Teams should solve what they can locally, but a shared environment blocker that affects multiple teams and PI Objectives is no longer just a team-level discussion. The Scrum Master / Team Coach helps the team make the impediment visible, identify the impact, and involve the RTE or appropriate ART participants so planning can continue with realistic dependencies and risks. This preserves event flow while improving the chance of resolution before commitment. The key takeaway is to timebox local debate and escalate blockers that need ART-level coordination.
Topic: Introducing Scrum in SAFe
During iteration planning, an Agile team discovers that a new technical dependency will affect another team’s work and may put a shared PI Objective at risk. What response best reflects how the team operates within an Agile Release Train rather than in isolation?
Best answer: C
Explanation: Agile teams in SAFe are part of an ART that delivers shared value through coordination. When work affects another team or a PI Objective, the team should make the dependency visible and collaborate across teams instead of treating it as only a local issue. The core concept is that an Agile team on an Agile Release Train is accountable for its own work while also coordinating with other teams toward shared PI Objectives. A cross-team dependency is an ART concern because it can affect flow, sequencing, and predictability beyond one team’s iteration backlog. The Scrum Master / Team Coach helps the team surface the dependency, update the relevant dependency or impediment information, and coordinate with the affected team through normal ART communication channels and events. The key takeaway is that local team execution still happens in the context of train-level alignment.
Topic: Defining the Scrum Master / Team Coach role
During PI Planning, an Agile team wants to change its iteration sequence to reduce context switching. The change will move a feature with a committed dependency from Iteration 2 to Iteration 4. Which Scrum Master / Team Coach response best distinguishes healthy team autonomy from unaligned local decision-making?
Best answer: A
Explanation: Healthy self-management does not mean a team optimizes locally without regard for ART commitments. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should support the team’s autonomy while ensuring dependencies and impacts are transparent and coordinated with affected teams. The core concept is aligned autonomy: Agile teams manage their own work, but their choices must stay connected to PI Objectives, dependencies, and other teams on the ART. In this scenario, changing iteration sequence may be a valid team-level decision to improve flow. However, because the change affects a committed dependency, the Scrum Master / Team Coach should facilitate transparency, collaboration, and adjustment with impacted teams rather than blocking the team or handing the decision to another role. The key takeaway is that self-management is strongest when teams make informed decisions within shared ART alignment.
Topic: Supporting Team Events
An Agile team is refining candidate stories for the next Iteration. One story has unclear acceptance criteria, and another depends on an API change from a different team on the ART. What should the Scrum Master / Team Coach encourage the team to do?
Best answer: D
Explanation: Backlog refinement helps the team make upcoming work ready enough to plan and execute. Acceptance questions and dependency concerns should be surfaced early so the Product Owner, team, and related teams can clarify work before commitment. The core concept is refinement for readiness. During backlog refinement, the team reviews upcoming backlog items, improves shared understanding, clarifies acceptance criteria with the Product Owner, and identifies dependencies that may affect planning. A dependency on another ART team is especially important to make visible early so it can be discussed, tracked, or escalated through the appropriate ART channels if needed. Waiting until planning or review increases the chance of surprise work, blocked stories, or missed objectives. The key takeaway is that refinement is not just sizing; it is also a readiness conversation for unclear acceptance and dependency risk.
Topic: Supporting ART Events
During PI Planning, two Agile teams discover their draft PI objectives conflict. Team Payments plans to stabilize an API by Iteration 3 to meet a committed objective. Team Mobile plans to change that same API through Iteration 4 for its own objective. As the Scrum Master/Team Coach for Payments, what is the best response?
Best answer: B
Explanation: Conflicting PI objectives are not just a team-level scheduling issue; they create an ART dependency or risk. The Scrum Master/Team Coach should help the teams make the conflict visible, collaborate with the right people, and adjust plans or objectives during PI Planning. In PI Planning, the Scrum Master/Team Coach supports transparency and collaboration across the ART. When two teams’ objectives conflict, the best response is to facilitate a discussion among the affected teams and Product Owners, make the dependency or risk visible on the ART planning artifacts, and help the teams work toward a realistic adjustment. This allows the RTE, Product Management, Business Owners, and other teams to see the impact before objectives are finalized. Delaying the issue until execution hides an important planning risk. Forcing another team to change or sending the decision to functional managers bypasses the collaborative planning and alignment purpose of PI Planning.
Topic: Introducing Scrum in SAFe
During iteration planning, an Agile team notices that most stories wait several days between analysis, development, testing, and security review. A stakeholder is pressing for faster delivery, and the Product Owner wants stories completed within the iteration without lowering quality. As the Scrum Master / Team Coach, what is the best action to improve flow?
Best answer: B
Explanation: Cross-functional collaboration improves flow because team members work together to move value through the system instead of passing work between specialties. In this situation, swarming on end-to-end stories directly addresses waiting, handoffs, and quality within the iteration. The core Lean-Agile concept is reducing delays caused by handoffs and queues. A cross-functional Agile team should collaborate across analysis, development, testing, and related skills so each story can move from idea to done with fewer waits. The Scrum Master / Team Coach does not take over the work or assign specialists; they facilitate better collaboration habits, make the bottleneck visible, and coach the team toward shared ownership of completed value. Swarming or pairing on end-to-end stories is a practical way to improve flow while preserving quality and team accountability. The key takeaway is that faster delivery comes from shortening the path to done, not from adding more coordination around the same handoff-heavy process.
Topic: Defining the Scrum Master / Team Coach role
A Scrum Master / Team Coach reviews the impediment log before the ART sync.
Exhibit: Impediment log excerpt
ID: IMP-23
Issue: Shared performance-test environment is down
Affected teams: Payments, Mobile, Compliance
Impact: Integration stories for PI Objective 4 blocked
Team actions tried: local mocks; vendor ticket opened
Current owner: Payments Scrum Master
Needed by: Iteration 4 system demo
What is the best next action for the Scrum Master / Team Coach?
Best answer: D
Explanation: A blocker that affects several teams and a PI Objective is no longer only a single-team impediment. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should make it visible at the ART level and work with the RTE and affected teams to coordinate resolution. The core concept is escalation of systemic impediments. Team-level blockers should first be handled by the team where possible, but this exhibit shows cross-team impact: three teams are affected, integration work for a PI Objective is blocked, and the issue threatens the system demo. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should not silently own it inside one team. The better path is to raise it in the ART sync or similar ART-level coordination forum, involve the RTE, and keep it visible until ownership and resolution are clear. The key takeaway is that escalation in SAFe is about enabling fast coordination and transparency, not handing off responsibility or waiting for a later ceremony.
Topic: Supporting Team Events
During an iteration review, stakeholders praise the demo but ask for a workflow change that would better support an upcoming ART dependency. The Product Owner is present, the team has already met the iteration goals, and several unrelated backlog items are planned next. As the Scrum Master / Team Coach, what is the best action?
Best answer: C
Explanation: Iteration review feedback is an input to future backlog decisions, not an automatic commitment to change current work. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should help make the feedback visible and support the Product Owner and team in considering it during refinement and ordering. The core concept is that an iteration review inspects the increment and gathers stakeholder feedback that can influence future backlog decisions. In this situation, the workflow change may matter because it supports an ART dependency, but the Scrum Master / Team Coach does not own backlog ordering. The best action is to facilitate clear capture of the feedback, ensure the Product Owner and team understand the dependency context, and support refinement so the Product Owner can decide how it affects the team backlog and future iteration plans. The key takeaway is to convert review feedback into actionable backlog input while preserving Product Owner accountability for ordering.
Topic: Supporting ART Events
During the IP Iteration, an Agile team has three unfinished stories, two unresolved dependencies for the next PI, and an upcoming Inspect and Adapt workshop. The Product Owner wants to fill the week with spillover work to improve the team’s predictability. What is the Scrum Master / Team Coach’s best action?
Best answer: A
Explanation: The IP Iteration is not meant to become a routine catch-up or hardening sprint. The Scrum Master helps the team use it productively by protecting time for innovation, learning, Inspect and Adapt preparation, and readiness for the next PI while transparently managing unfinished work. In SAFe, the IP Iteration provides capacity for innovation, continuing education, Inspect and Adapt, and preparation for PI Planning. A Scrum Master / Team Coach should not simply accept pressure to fill the iteration with unfinished work. Instead, they help the team and Product Owner make spillover visible, discuss trade-offs, preserve ART-level readiness activities, and address dependencies before PI Planning where possible. Some carryover work may be handled, but it should not consume the purpose of the IP Iteration. The key takeaway is to facilitate a balanced plan that supports both team completion and ART readiness.
Topic: Introducing Scrum in SAFe
A Scrum Master / Team Coach is reviewing how a new Agile team is using its events. Which observation most clearly shows that an event is being used for the wrong purpose?
Best answer: A
Explanation: The iteration retrospective is being used for the wrong purpose because it is focused on showing completed work to stakeholders. In Scrum and SAFe team events, that feedback and demonstration activity belongs in the iteration review, while the retrospective focuses on improving how the team works. Team events have distinct purposes even when the same people may attend several of them. Iteration planning helps the team commit to an achievable iteration goal and work plan. The team sync inspects current progress and blockers. Backlog refinement prepares upcoming work with the Product Owner. The iteration review demonstrates completed work and gathers feedback from stakeholders. The iteration retrospective is different: it is a team improvement event where the team reflects on its process, collaboration, quality, and actions for the next iteration. Using it mainly as a stakeholder demo removes the improvement focus and duplicates the review.
Topic: Defining the Scrum Master / Team Coach role
A newly formed Agile team is in iteration planning. Team members believe SAFe requires them to load every person to 100% capacity and ask the Scrum Master / Team Coach to assign each story owner. Several people say they are unsure how iteration planning is supposed to work. What is the best next step?
Best answer: B
Explanation: Direct instruction is appropriate when the team lacks basic knowledge needed to participate effectively. Here, the Scrum Master / Team Coach should teach just enough about capacity, self-management, and iteration planning, then return ownership of the plan to the team. A Scrum Master / Team Coach uses different stances depending on the situation. Pure coaching works best when people have enough knowledge and ownership to inspect their choices. In this case, the team is newly formed and explicitly misunderstands core planning concepts. The next step is to provide brief, targeted instruction so the team can make an informed decision, then facilitate the team’s own planning discussion. Teaching does not mean taking over the work. The key is to close the knowledge gap and then let the Agile team self-manage the iteration plan.
Topic: Supporting Team Events
During an iteration retrospective, a Scrum Master / Team Coach reviews the team’s prior improvement action log.
Improvement action log
Action: Reduce build queue delays
Reason: Developers wait daily for test results
Owner: Team-selected pair with DevOps
Due: Last iteration
Status: Not started
Note: Same concern raised in 3 retrospectives
What is the best next action for the Scrum Master / Team Coach?
Best answer: C
Explanation: The retrospective is where the team inspects how it works and identifies improvements to team effectiveness. Since the same problem and unfinished action keep recurring, the Scrum Master / Team Coach should help the team understand why follow-through stalled and create a manageable next step. The core purpose of the iteration retrospective is continuous improvement of the team’s ways of working. The exhibit shows a valid improvement item that has not moved despite repeated discussion, so the issue is not just identifying the problem; it is improving follow-through. A Scrum Master / Team Coach should facilitate transparency, help the team inspect what prevented progress, and support a realistic action with ownership and visibility. The goal is not to take over the work, assign blame, or defer the issue to a larger event when the team can make the next improvement step now.
Topic: Supporting ART Events
During Inspect and Adapt, one Agile team reports that its local deployment script needs cleanup. However, the ART metrics show that four teams missed integration targets because the shared test environment was unavailable and dependency handoffs were late. Stakeholders want a quick commitment before the next PI. What is the best action for the Scrum Master / Team Coach?
Best answer: D
Explanation: Inspect and Adapt problem-solving is used when metrics reveal systemic issues across the ART. Because multiple teams are affected by the shared environment and dependency flow, the Scrum Master / Team Coach should help make it an ART-level improvement rather than treating it only as one team’s local action. The core distinction is whether the issue can be solved within one team’s control or requires broader ART coordination. A local deployment script cleanup may belong in a team retrospective, but the decisive facts are that four teams missed integration targets due to a shared environment and late cross-team handoffs. In Inspect and Adapt, the problem-solving workshop helps the ART identify root causes, agree on improvement actions, and make them visible for the next PI. The Scrum Master / Team Coach supports this by surfacing the systemic impediment and facilitating improvement, while respecting Product Owner and ART role boundaries. A team-level fix may still be useful, but it is insufficient for the ART-wide constraint.
Topic: Introducing Scrum in SAFe
During PI Planning, an Agile team says it can release every Iteration if the business asks. The Scrum Master / Team Coach reviews the team’s recent delivery notes.
Exhibit: Team delivery notes
Iteration 1: 8 stories done; regression found 6 defects later
Iteration 2: Feature code complete; tests finished next Iteration
Iteration 3: Manual integration took 4 days before demo
Release prep: 2-week hardening needed before production
Automation: Unit tests partial; acceptance tests mostly manual
What is the best interpretation supported by the exhibit?
Best answer: D
Explanation: Frequent release depends on each Increment being close to releasable, not on finding quality issues after development. The exhibit shows late testing, manual integration delays, and hardening, all signs that built-in quality practices are missing or weak. Built-in quality is necessary for release on demand because defects, integration problems, and validation delays must be addressed continuously rather than postponed to a release phase. In the exhibit, stories are counted as done before regression, testing, and integration are complete. That creates hidden work and makes release timing depend on later hardening instead of business need. A Scrum Master / Team Coach should help the team improve its Definition of Done, test automation, integration practices, and quality conversations so each Iteration produces more releasable value. The key takeaway is that frequent release is enabled by quality built into daily work, not by adding more end-of-PI cleanup time.
Topic: Defining the Scrum Master / Team Coach role
During iteration planning, an Agile team is debating whether to pull a high-priority story needed for a PI Objective. The Product Owner wants a quick commitment because another team depends on it, while developers say the acceptance criteria are unclear and would displace planned defect work. As the Scrum Master / Team Coach, what is the best action?
Best answer: C
Explanation: Facilitation should improve the quality of the decision, not simply speed the team toward agreement. Here, unclear acceptance criteria, limited capacity, defect work, and a dependency all create real trade-offs that need to be surfaced before the team commits. A Scrum Master / Team Coach supports Lean-Agile decision-making by creating transparency around competing concerns. In this case, the team must understand the impact on capacity, quality, dependency timing, and the PI Objective before making a plan. The facilitator should guide a structured discussion so the Product Owner can clarify value and priority, the team can assess feasibility, and the dependency risk can be made visible. The Scrum Master does not choose the priority, force consensus, or bypass the team’s planning responsibility. The key takeaway is that pressure for speed is not a reason to hide trade-offs; it is a reason to make them explicit and decide consciously.
Topic: Supporting Team Events
An Agile team has started combining the Iteration Review and Iteration Retrospective into one 30-minute “demo and status” meeting. Stakeholders see a quick slide update, but there is no working-solution feedback and no improvement action is captured. What should the Scrum Master / Team Coach do next?
Best answer: B
Explanation: Merging events is not automatically wrong, but losing their outcomes is an event-health anti-pattern. The next step is to help the team and Product Owner restore the intended outcomes: inspect the working solution with stakeholders and identify a concrete improvement action in the retrospective. The core concept is preserving event outcomes. In SAFe team events, the Iteration Review is used to inspect the working solution with stakeholders and get feedback, while the Iteration Retrospective helps the team inspect its way of working and commit to improvement. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should not simply protect the calendar as a rule; they should facilitate understanding of what outcomes are missing and help the team adjust the agenda, timing, or separation of events so those outcomes occur. Escalation to the ART is unnecessary unless there is a broader dependency or impediment the team cannot resolve.
Topic: Supporting ART Events
During an Iteration, an Agile team discovers that a Feature acceptance criterion has changed and the dependent API from another team will not be ready. The issue could put two teams’ PI Objectives at risk. What should the Scrum Master / Team Coach do next?
Best answer: A
Explanation: Cross-team dependencies and potential PI Objective impacts are ART concerns, not only team-level concerns. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should help make the issue visible and coordinate with the RTE, Product Management, and other Scrum Masters as needed. The core concept is recognizing when an impediment is larger than one Agile team. In this scenario, the changed Feature acceptance criterion involves Product Management, the API dependency involves another team, and the PI Objective impact involves ART visibility and coordination. The Scrum Master / Team Coach should not solve the product decision alone, but should help connect the right people and forums so the dependency, scope trade-off, and objective risk are addressed quickly. Team-level actions may still follow, but the decisive factor is that the blocker affects multiple teams and ART outcomes.