Try 10 focused PSM II questions on Scrum Master Accountability and Service, with answers and explanations, then continue with PM Mastery.
| Field | Detail |
|---|---|
| Exam route | PSM II |
| Topic area | Scrum Master Accountability and Service |
| Blueprint weight | 21% |
| Page purpose | Focused sample questions before returning to mixed practice |
Use this page to isolate Scrum Master Accountability and Service 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: 21% 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: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
Over the last three Sprints, one Scrum Team met the Sprint Goal once. In the Daily Scrum, Developers take turns reporting to the Scrum Master, and blocked work often waits until two senior Developers decide who should help. In the last Sprint Retrospective, the line manager said, “We need a delivery lead to keep people accountable.” What is the best Scrum Master response? Select ONE.
Best answer: B
What this tests: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
Explanation: The evidence shows a shared-accountability problem, not a lack of supervision. Developers are reporting upward and waiting for direction, so the Scrum Master should teach the existing Scrum accountabilities and coach the Developers to inspect and improve how they coordinate their own work.
In Scrum, Developers are accountable for creating the plan for the Sprint, adapting it each day, and holding each other accountable as professionals. The observed behavior shows dependency and hidden hierarchy: the Daily Scrum has become reporting to the Scrum Master, and work waits for senior Developers to redirect it.
The best Scrum Master response is to teach that Scrum already defines accountability, then coach the Developers to use Scrum events as intended and improve peer accountability. That can include making Sprint Backlog changes visible, surfacing blocked work earlier, and agreeing how they will swarm or re-plan without waiting for authority.
Adding a lead or policing individuals may create compliance, but it weakens self-management instead of strengthening true accountability.
This response teaches the existing Scrum accountabilities and coaches the Developers toward shared ownership instead of blame or added hierarchy.
Topic: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
A vice president tells a Scrum Master, “We want Scrum’s faster feedback, but line managers will keep assigning work to individual Developers and must approve any Sprint Backlog changes.” The Scrum Master is asked to enforce this policy for the next Sprint. Which response best fits the Scrum Master’s accountability? Select ONE.
Best answer: C
What this tests: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
Explanation: The Scrum Master serves the organization by helping leaders understand which behaviors support Scrum and by removing barriers to the Scrum Team’s effectiveness. Managers may set goals and constraints, but assigning work and approving Sprint Backlog changes breaks self-management and should be treated as an organizational impediment.
In Scrum, Developers decide how to turn selected Product Backlog items into a Done Increment and adapt the Sprint Backlog during the Sprint. A policy that assigns work to individuals or requires external approval for Sprint Backlog changes replaces self-management with command-and-control, even if leaders still want Scrum’s benefits.
The Scrum Master’s best response is to work with leadership to change the conditions around the team:
The key distinction is that this is not a team-only problem to absorb or work around; it is a leadership behavior that undermines Scrum effectiveness.
This addresses command-and-control as an organizational impediment while preserving Developers’ ownership of the Sprint Backlog plan.
Topic: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
A senior leadership group tells a Scrum Master that executives should no longer see failed tests, open risks, or changing forecasts in Sprint Reviews. They want a weekly status deck instead, and they want the group-not the Product Owner-to reorder the Product Backlog each Friday. What is the best response by the Scrum Master?
Best answer: C
What this tests: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
Explanation: The issue is a leadership misunderstanding of Scrum, not a team decision to optimize locally. When leaders want to hide real progress and take backlog ordering away from the Product Owner, the Scrum Master should teach why those changes weaken empiricism, transparency, and accountability.
The core issue is preservation of Scrum as defined. Replacing Sprint Review transparency with a sanitized status deck hides the real state of the product, and moving Product Backlog ordering to a leadership group removes Product Owner accountability. In this situation, the Scrum Master should teach leaders what Scrum requires and why those requested changes reduce empiricism and the Scrum Team’s effectiveness.
Teaching is the best fit because the request reveals a knowledge gap about the purpose of Scrum events and accountabilities. Facilitation can help with local learning only after the non-negotiable parts of Scrum are understood. Taking over reporting creates dependency, and stepping back ignores the Scrum Master’s service to the organization.
The key takeaway is to protect transparency and accountability while helping leaders understand Scrum rather than customizing those fundamentals away.
This is primarily a teaching moment because the leaders are proposing changes that conflict with Scrum’s required transparency and accountabilities.
Topic: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
At a company using Scrum, Sprint Reviews regularly produce useful customer feedback. Yet the next Sprint often starts with unfinished work from the prior Sprint. Three patterns keep recurring: functional managers reassign specialists to urgent departmental work during the Sprint, a security department requires approval before work can be considered releasable, and leaders ask for individual utilization reports to improve accountability. The CTO asks the Scrum Master to help improve results. What should the Scrum Master infer and address first?
Best answer: D
What this tests: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
Explanation: The evidence shows an organizational impediment, not mainly a team execution problem. The Scrum Master should help leaders and support functions understand how reassignment, utilization pressure, and external approvals weaken self-management and prevent a Done Increment within the Sprint.
This scenario points to the Scrum Master’s service to the organization. Mid-Sprint reassignment by managers disrupts Developers’ ownership of the Sprint Backlog, utilization reporting encourages local efficiency over product value, and an external approval step after development shows quality and releasability are not integrated into the team’s way of working. Those are conditions created by leaders and support functions, so the Scrum Master should make these effects transparent and help the organization change them.
Improving planning detail or item size may help at the margin, but those actions do not remove the primary organizational barriers.
The recurring evidence points to organization-level policies undermining self-management and integrated quality, which the Scrum Master should address through leadership education and barrier removal.
Topic: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
For three Sprints, the Product Owner has assigned work directly to individual Developers, and the Scrum Master has run the Daily Scrum as a status round for managers. Developers now wait for direction, urgent work is done outside the Sprint Backlog, and Sprint Reviews keep exposing surprises. Management asks the Scrum Master to “fix accountability” this week. What is the best next step?
Best answer: C
What this tests: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
Explanation: The core issue is blurred Scrum accountabilities, not a lack of tighter control. The Scrum Master should first help the Scrum Team inspect how it is currently working, restore the purpose of Scrum events, and make all Sprint work transparent so the team can adapt.
Role confusion is a Scrum Team effectiveness problem, so the Scrum Master should first create transparency around the current behaviors and facilitate learning. In this scenario, the Product Owner is directing Developers, the Scrum Master is misusing the Daily Scrum for status reporting, and some work is hidden outside the Sprint Backlog. A facilitated inspection with the Scrum Team is the right next step because it lets people compare what they are doing with Scrum accountabilities and agree on a better way of working.
Immediate control mechanisms or escalation would deepen dependency; first restore transparency and self-management.
This addresses the whole pattern of role confusion by restoring Scrum accountabilities and making all Sprint work inspectable without the Scrum Master taking over.
Topic: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
A functional manager tells the Scrum Master, “Starting next Sprint, I want a daily utilization report by person, and I will decide which specialist takes each task. Last Sprint’s delays were not visible early enough.” The Developers already work in component silos and wait for manager approval when work shifts. What is the best response by the Scrum Master? Select ONE.
Best answer: D
What this tests: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
Explanation: The best move is to make the organizational barrier visible and help the manager inspect its effects on transparency and self-management. Facilitating a conversation around Sprint Goal-focused visibility addresses the real need without turning Scrum into person-by-person task control.
The core issue is not a lack of reporting; it is a management policy that undermines empiricism and the Developers’ self-management. In Scrum, Developers own how they turn selected work into a Done Increment, and the Scrum Master serves the organization by helping people understand which structures and behaviors reduce effectiveness.
A strong response is to:
This teaches Scrum while addressing the barrier where it exists. Replacing the manager as task assigner or adding more utilization reporting keeps the same control pattern in place and does not improve real transparency.
This addresses an organization-level impediment by helping leaders inspect a policy that harms transparency and self-management.
Topic: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
A Scrum Team creates a Done Increment each Sprint, yet release to customers is delayed by a central architecture review board. The same pattern affects four Scrum Teams.
Exhibit: last 4 Sprints
Average wait after Sprint: 11 days
Typical review findings: minor configuration issues
Stakeholder feedback: "Value arrives too late to learn from it"
Management proposal: mandate a company-wide Agile transformation plan
As the Scrum Master, what is the best response?
Best answer: B
What this tests: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
Explanation: The recurring delay is an organizational constraint, not a team-level planning problem. A Scrum Master best serves the organization by using Scrum Team evidence to make the bottleneck visible and facilitating a change experiment with the people who own the policy.
This situation calls for organizational service. The evidence shows a cross-team policy constraint: multiple Scrum Teams finish Done work, but learning and value are delayed by an external review step that mostly finds minor issues. The Scrum Master should connect that evidence to the broader system by helping the relevant leaders and specialists inspect the policy’s actual impact and adapt it empirically.
A strong response does three things:
That approach preserves leadership accountability and supports change through evidence. The closest trap is solving around the bottleneck inside the Scrum Team, which reduces visibility but does not remove the organizational barrier.
This makes the systemic constraint transparent and supports broader change through inspection and adaptation rather than authority.
Topic: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
A Scrum Team works in two-week Sprints. Their Definition of Done includes a mandatory security review performed by a central support group. The support group reviews requests only once each month, so work often waits 10-15 days after development is finished. Managers now tell the Scrum Master to “increase team productivity” because too little work becomes Done each Sprint. Which response best exposes and addresses the real constraint?
Best answer: A
What this tests: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
Explanation: The main constraint is not Developer effort; it is an organizational policy that batches a required activity outside the Sprint. The Scrum Master best serves the organization by making that bottleneck visible and helping leaders and support functions change the conditions that prevent Done work.
This situation points to an organizational impediment: a central support function performs a required review too infrequently for the Scrum Team to regularly meet its Definition of Done. A Scrum Master serving the organization should increase transparency around the actual constraint, such as queue time, blocked work, and its effect on creating a Done Increment, and then help leaders and the support group inspect and adapt the policy.
That response fits Scrum Master accountability because it teaches the organization how its current operating model undermines empiricism and Scrum Team effectiveness. It also aims at a systemic fix, such as earlier collaboration, embedded expertise, or review availability that works within the Sprint. Reducing the forecast or adding reporting only works around the bottleneck, while counting unfinished work as complete damages transparency.
This addresses the organizational bottleneck directly by using transparency and leadership education to remove a condition that prevents effective Scrum.
Topic: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
A Scrum Master notices a pattern: during Sprint Planning, Developers wait for her to confirm who should take each selected Product Backlog item. During the Sprint, when Developers and the Product Owner disagree on a trade-off, work pauses until she decides. Last Sprint, she was away for two days and progress dropped sharply. What is the best action?
Best answer: A
What this tests: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
Explanation: The key signal is dependency: progress drops when the Scrum Master is absent because people are waiting for approval and conflict resolution. The best action is to coach and facilitate clearer decision ownership so the Scrum Team can work within its own accountabilities without the Scrum Master as a bottleneck.
The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team’s effectiveness, not for acting as its approval gate or permanent referee. In this scenario, the bottleneck is visible because Developers wait for the Scrum Master to assign or confirm work, conflicts stop progress, and the team’s pace drops when the Scrum Master is unavailable. The best response is to make that dependency transparent and help the team build its own way of deciding and resolving tension within the proper accountabilities.
Faster intervention may help today, but it preserves the same dependency for the next Sprint.
This reduces Scrum Master dependency by helping the Scrum Team own decisions and handle conflict within its accountabilities.
Topic: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
A Scrum Team is halfway through a Sprint with a clear Sprint Goal. An engineering manager has started assigning tasks directly to individual Developers from a separate department board to “improve utilization.” At the same time, an architect outside the team is deciding which solution approach each Developer must use. The Developers have stopped updating the Sprint Backlog because they say the manager’s board is now the real plan. As Scrum Master, what is the best action?
Best answer: C
What this tests: Scrum Master Accountability and Service
Explanation: The problem is not just coordination; Developers’ accountability is being replaced by external control. The Scrum Master should act now to restore transparency and help the team re-own the Sprint Backlog and technical planning around the Sprint Goal.
In Scrum, Developers are accountable for creating the plan for the Sprint, adapting it as needed, and deciding how to turn selected work into a Done Increment. In this scenario, a manager’s task board has displaced the Sprint Backlog and an architect is dictating implementation choices, so self-management and transparency are both weakened. The Scrum Master’s best action is to facilitate an immediate discussion with the people involved, reconnect the work to the Sprint Goal, and help the Developers re-establish the Sprint Backlog as the single transparent plan for the Sprint. The manager and architect may still provide constraints, expertise, or organizational context, but they should not assign work inside the Sprint or take over the Developers’ technical decisions. Waiting or taking over the coordination would preserve the accountability gap instead of correcting it.
This re-establishes Developers’ accountability for the Sprint Backlog and how work is done while addressing the boundary problem immediately.
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