Try 10 focused PSM II questions on Developing People and Teams, with answers and explanations, then continue with PM Mastery.
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Exam route | PSM II |
| Topic area | Developing People and Teams |
| Blueprint weight | 24% |
| Page purpose | Focused sample questions before returning to mixed practice |
Use this page to isolate Developing People and Teams for PSM II. Work through the 10 questions first, then review the explanations and return to mixed practice in PM Mastery.
| Pass | What to do | What to record |
|---|---|---|
| First attempt | Answer without checking the explanation first. | The fact, rule, calculation, or judgment point that controlled your answer. |
| Review | Read the explanation even when you were correct. | Why the best answer is stronger than the closest distractor. |
| Repair | Repeat only missed or uncertain items after a short break. | The pattern behind misses, not the answer letter. |
| Transfer | Return to mixed practice once the topic feels stable. | Whether the same skill holds up when the topic is no longer obvious. |
Blueprint context: 24% of the practice outline. A focused topic score can overstate readiness if you recognize the pattern too quickly, so use it as repair work before timed mixed sets.
These questions are original PM Mastery practice items aligned to this topic area. They are designed for self-assessment and are not official exam questions.
Topic: Developing People and Teams
During a Sprint Review, stakeholders start arguing about three new feature ideas. The Product Owner tries to note every request, Developers stop asking questions, and the discussion drifts into defending past choices instead of inspecting what to do next. As Scrum Master, which facilitation move is most likely to help the group make progress?
Best answer: A
What this tests: Developing People and Teams
Explanation: The best facilitation move is to bring the group back to the purpose of the Sprint Review and make the needed decision explicit. That helps surface assumptions, reduce unproductive conflict, and turn stakeholder input into adaptation rather than debate theater.
In this scenario, the problem is not a lack of ideas; it is a loss of purpose. A Sprint Review exists to inspect the outcome of the Sprint and adapt what to do next based on feedback and current conditions. When stakeholders argue, Developers disengage, and the Product Owner starts merely collecting requests, the Scrum Master should facilitate a clearer conversation instead of letting volume or authority drive the result.
A strong move is to pause, restate the event purpose, and ask the group which decision needs to be informed by the feedback. That creates focus, surfaces differing assumptions, and channels conflict into useful inspection. It also preserves accountabilities: stakeholders give input, the Product Owner considers value and ordering, and the Scrum Team collaborates on adaptation. The closest distractors either defer the conversation, turn it into politics, or shift prematurely into solution mechanics.
This re-centers the group on inspection and adaptation by making the purpose and needed decision explicit.
Topic: Developing People and Teams
During a Sprint Retrospective, two Developers say the Product Owner always disrupts the Sprint with urgent requests. The Product Owner replies that the Developers hide behind the Sprint Goal to avoid customer feedback. The Scrum Master wants to coach the Scrum Team so they inspect assumptions and find their own improvement. Which response is best?
Best answer: B
What this tests: Developing People and Teams
Explanation: The strongest coaching response helps the Scrum Team inspect its assumptions and generate its own options. Asking about urgency, commitment, and a possible experiment keeps ownership with the team while building its capability to resolve similar tensions in the future.
Coaching is different from solving the problem for the Scrum Team. In this situation, the conflict is fueled by assumptions about what makes a request urgent, how much flexibility exists during a Sprint, and how customer feedback should influence ongoing work. A coaching response makes those assumptions visible and invites the Scrum Team to discover options together.
That approach preserves ownership because the Scrum Master does not decide the rule, arbitrate the dispute, or turn the issue into paperwork. Instead, the team inspects the situation and designs an experiment it can evaluate in the next Sprint. This builds capability, supports self-management, and strengthens empiricism. The closest distractors may feel efficient, but they create dependency on the Scrum Master rather than helping the team learn how to handle the tension themselves.
It uses coaching questions to surface assumptions and lets the Scrum Team create its own next step.
Topic: Developing People and Teams
A Scrum Team has completed four Sprints with stable quality and no major external blockers. In each Sprint Retrospective, Developers respectfully raise useful improvement ideas and can explain Scrum well, but the discussion ends with a long list of actions and no clear choice, so nothing changes in the next Sprint. The Product Owner is supportive and there is no sign of personal conflict. What is the Scrum Master’s best next action?
Best answer: D
What this tests: Developing People and Teams
Explanation: This is primarily a decision-process problem. The stem rules out a Scrum knowledge gap, skill gap, interpersonal conflict, and organizational impediment, so the Scrum Master should facilitate a better way for the Scrum Team to decide and make the improvement visible.
The key issue is not lack of Scrum knowledge, lack of technical skill, conflict, or an external blocker. The Scrum Team can explain Scrum, interacts respectfully, and has no stated organizational constraint. The problem is that the group does not converge on a decision, so the Retrospective produces ideas without adaptation. In that situation, the Scrum Master’s best stance is facilitation.
That preserves self-management because the Scrum Team still chooses the improvement; the Scrum Master improves the decision process rather than deciding for them.
The evidence points to a decision-process problem, so facilitation that helps the Scrum Team choose and follow through on one improvement is the best stance.
Topic: Developing People and Teams
A Product Owner is new to the product domain but has already learned Scrum basics. Two days before Sprint Review, she tells the Scrum Master, “I understand the purpose of the event, but I have never handled four senior stakeholders pushing different priorities. You have done this before—what approaches have worked for you?” The Product Owner will remain accountable for stakeholder collaboration and Product Backlog ordering. What is the best action for the Scrum Master? Select ONE.
Best answer: C
What this tests: Developing People and Teams
Explanation: Mentoring is appropriate when someone understands the basics but lacks situational experience and explicitly seeks experience-based guidance. Here, the Scrum Master should share patterns and trade-offs from similar situations without taking over the Product Owner’s accountability.
The key issue is not a lack of Scrum knowledge, but a lack of practical experience in a difficult stakeholder situation. That makes mentoring the best fit. Mentoring means offering experience-based guidance, examples, and cautions from similar situations while preserving the other person’s ownership of the decision. In this scenario, the Product Owner already understands the Sprint Review and remains accountable for stakeholder collaboration and Product Backlog ordering, so the Scrum Master should not take over. Teaching would be too basic, and coaching alone is weaker because the Product Owner directly asked for practical guidance from prior experience. The best response builds capability without replacing accountability.
This is mentoring: the Product Owner understands Scrum basics and is asking for practical guidance while still owning the decision.
Topic: Developing People and Teams
A Product Owner wants to move a customer-requested feature to the top of the Product Backlog after a lost sale. Developers push back because recent shortcuts have increased defect risk, and the discussion has become personal. Team members ask the Scrum Master to “make the call” so the tension stops. Which response best increases trust while keeping accountability and transparency intact?
Best answer: B
What this tests: Developing People and Teams
Explanation: The Scrum Master should help the right people have the right conversation, not take over the decision. Direct facilitation keeps the Product Owner accountable for Product Backlog ordering, keeps Developers accountable for quality and implementation concerns, and improves trust through transparency.
This situation is about a boundary: the Scrum Master serves the Scrum Team by enabling a productive conversation, not by becoming the decision owner. When value pressure and quality risk collide, trust grows when concerns are discussed openly and respectfully, with accountabilities kept clear.
A private workaround or a substitute decision may reduce tension temporarily, but it weakens transparency and creates dependency. The closest distractor is letting the Product Owner decide alone, which preserves one accountability but avoids the shared inspection needed to rebuild trust.
This uses facilitation to rebuild trust while preserving the Product Owner’s and Developers’ distinct accountabilities and making trade-offs transparent.
Topic: Developing People and Teams
A Scrum Master coaches a Scrum Team during the Sprint Retrospective after repeated handoff delays between Developers and the Product Owner. The team leaves aligned around the statement, “We need to collaborate better,” but no specific change is made. In the next Sprint, the same delays happen and team members describe the retrospective outcome differently. What is the next most appropriate step for the Scrum Master?
Best answer: C
What this tests: Developing People and Teams
Explanation: The problem is not lack of intent; it is lack of inspectable action. The Scrum Master should help the Scrum Team turn the abstract outcome into a concrete experiment, with clear behaviors and a point to inspect results in a later event.
Coaching is useful only if it helps the Scrum Team create conditions for inspection and adaptation. In this case, “collaborate better” is too abstract: different people interpreted it differently, so the team cannot inspect whether anything actually changed. The best next step is to facilitate the team in defining one small, Sprint-sized experiment they own and can evaluate.
This preserves self-management while making improvement empirical. Escalation, reminders, or more abstract coaching would avoid the real gap: no inspectable action.
This turns a vague intention into an inspectable change the Scrum Team can try and review empirically.
Topic: Developing People and Teams
Over the last four Sprints, a functional manager has reassigned one or two Developers mid-Sprint to urgent support work. The Sprint Backlog shows 25%-35% unplanned work each Sprint, and the Sprint Goal was missed three times. In each Retrospective, the Scrum Master has facilitated action items about “better commitment” and “clearer task ownership,” but the pattern continues.
What change in leadership approach is most appropriate now?
Best answer: B
What this tests: Developing People and Teams
Explanation: This is no longer mainly a team facilitation issue. A manager is repeatedly disrupting Sprint focus, so the Scrum Master should make the impact visible and work with the organization to remove the impediment.
The core issue is a systemic organizational pattern, not a lack of team effort. A functional manager is overriding Sprint focus, unplanned work is consistently high, and Sprint Goals are repeatedly missed. That means the Scrum Master should change stance from primarily facilitating team conversations to creating organizational transparency and helping remove the impediment.
Teaching finer slicing, reserving capacity, or tightening a working agreement all adapt to the dysfunction instead of addressing its source.
The evidence shows a recurring organization-level impediment, so the Scrum Master should shift from team-only facilitation to transparency and impediment removal.
Topic: Developing People and Teams
During a Sprint Review, product usage data shows a new self-service feature is rarely used. Support reports incident volume is rising, and Developers say the incidents are slowing delivery. A sales director insists the next Sprint must add competitor-matching features. The Product Owner asks the Scrum Master, “Can you settle this so we leave aligned?” What is the best Scrum Master response?
Best answer: C
What this tests: Developing People and Teams
Explanation: The Scrum Master should help the right people inspect evidence, hear different perspectives, and discuss trade-offs together. That preserves the Sprint Review’s purpose and keeps Product Backlog decisions with the Product Owner instead of replacing facilitation with a verdict, a vote, or administrative follow-up.
This situation calls for facilitation, not arbitration. In a Sprint Review, the Scrum Team and stakeholders inspect the outcome of the Sprint and discuss what to adapt next. The usage data, incident trend, stakeholder demand, and Developers’ delivery concerns are all relevant evidence. The Scrum Master best serves the group by structuring a conversation around that evidence and the Product Goal so assumptions, risks, and value trade-offs become visible.
After that discussion, the Product Owner remains accountable for deciding how to adapt the Product Backlog to maximize value. Giving the answer personally, forcing majority agreement, or turning the discussion into an administrative handoff weakens empiricism and reduces the quality of the decision.
It makes evidence and perspectives transparent in the Sprint Review while preserving the Product Owner’s accountability for Product Backlog adaptation.
Topic: Developing People and Teams
A Scrum Team ends each Sprint Retrospective with five or six improvement actions, yet the same flow problems keep returning. During the Sprint, those actions are kept in a separate document and rarely discussed. A manager asks the Scrum Master for a weekly red-yellow-green report on those commitments. What response best exposes and addresses the real constraint?
Best answer: D
What this tests: Developing People and Teams
Explanation: The main problem is not missing reports; it is that improvement work is outside the team’s normal Sprint transparency. Putting one or two small experiments into the Sprint Backlog, with visible evidence of progress, supports empiricism and follow-through without creating status theater.
When retrospective actions live in a separate list, they often become good intentions rather than inspectable work. A Scrum Master can help the team make improvement progress visible by treating it as real Sprint work: select a small experiment, make it transparent in the Sprint Backlog, and agree on what evidence would show movement, such as shorter review wait time or fewer late defects. That lets Developers inspect and adapt during the Sprint and evaluate results in the next Retrospective.
This approach exposes whether the real constraint is lack of capacity, vague actions, or a larger impediment. Separate reporting, Product Backlog ordering, or simple owner-and-date tracking can create activity visibility, but they do not create the same learning-focused transparency.
This makes improvement work transparent in normal Sprint inspection and adaptation instead of turning it into external status reporting.
Topic: Developing People and Teams
During a Sprint Retrospective, the Scrum Team is discussing why three Product Backlog items were not Done. Developers blame urgent Product Owner requests; the Product Owner says the Developers started too much work. Two vocal people dominate, several others are silent, and 15 minutes remain to agree on one improvement for the next Sprint. What is the best action for the Scrum Master?
Best answer: D
What this tests: Developing People and Teams
Explanation: The strongest facilitation move is to make the Retrospective purpose explicit, balance participation, and separate observations from assumptions. That helps the Scrum Team manage conflict productively and decide on its own next improvement.
Effective facilitation helps a group have the conversation it actually needs. In this Retrospective, the need is not to decide who is right; it is to inspect what happened and leave with one improvement for the next Sprint. The Scrum Master should therefore refocus the discussion on that purpose, use a structure that includes every voice, and ask for observable facts before interpretations. That reduces blame, surfaces hidden assumptions, and keeps ownership of the improvement with the Scrum Team.
This preserves self-management better than either passive observation or prescribing the solution.
It clarifies the purpose, surfaces assumptions through facts, and helps the Scrum Team make its own improvement decision.
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