A programme manager tells the Scrum Master: "You are accountable for this team, so I need you to guarantee that all twelve forecast items are finished by the end of the Sprint, and to sign off their quality." Which TWO statements correct him?
Professional Scrum Master I, objective 2. Developing people and teams hard
Machine-checked — no person has signed for it. This question was read against the source cited below by an automated pass, which found no contradiction. That is a weaker claim than it sounds: the same kind of process wrote the question, so it can confirm its own mistake.
Treat it as a good draft rather than as settled fact, and read the source below before you rely on it. It is not used in mock exams here — only questions a person has signed for are.
The options
Choose 2.
Correct The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team's effectiveness, which he serves by enabling the team to improve its practices within the Scrum framework
Correct. Effectiveness is about the team's capacity to produce value and improve, and it is discharged by enabling improvement — not by underwriting a forecast.
Correct The Developers are accountable for the work itself — the plan for the Sprint, instilling quality by adhering to the Definition of Done, and adapting the plan each day
Correct. The work and its quality sit with the Developers, which is exactly why the Scrum Master cannot sign either of them off.
Not correct The Scrum Master may commit to the forecast on the team's behalf provided the Developers agree in advance
Wrong. A forecast is not a commitment in Scrum, and the Sprint's commitment is the Sprint Goal, which the Developers hold. Agreement does not move an accountability.
Not correct Quality is signed off by the Product Owner at the Sprint Review before the Increment may be released
Wrong, and it is the near miss. Scrum has no sign-off gate; an item either meets the Definition of Done or it returns to the Product Backlog, and the Sprint Review is never a gate to releasing value.
Why
This is the distinction the paper returns to again and again. The Scrum Master is accountable for how well the team works — its practices, its events, its impediments — while the Developers are accountable for what the team produces. Collapsing the two turns the Scrum Master into a delivery manager with no authority, which is the worst of both roles. When an option makes the Scrum Master answerable for scope or quality, it has crossed the line.
Where this comes from
- Cited
- Scrum Guide section Scrum Master
- What it says
- The Scrum Master is accountable for the Scrum Team's effectiveness. They do this by enabling the Scrum Team to improve its practices, within the Scrum framework.
Practise this
Reading one question is not practice. The trainer will draw a set from objective 2 and space the ones you get wrong.
Practise Professional Scrum Master I
More questions on this objective
- A team lead who sits outside the Scrum Team has taken to opening the board every Monday and assigning each Sprint Backlog item to a named Developer for the week. The Developers say the assignments rarely match who is best placed to pick the work up. Who decides which Developer works on which item? machine-checked
- On day four of a two-week Sprint, a department head tells one of the five Developers to spend the rest of the week on a customer escalation for another product. The Sprint Goal depends on that Developer's work. What should the Scrum Master do? machine-checked
- During Sprint Planning, a solution architect who is not on the Scrum Team hands the Developers a task breakdown for each selected Product Backlog item and asks them to follow it. The Developers had planned to decompose the work differently. What does Scrum say about this? machine-checked
- A Scrum Team is reworking its Daily Scrum. They are tired of three questions each and want to try walking the board right to left instead, and they also want to know how much else about the event they are free to change. Which two of the following are genuinely theirs to decide? (Choose two.) machine-checked
- A Scrum Team has stopped keeping its Sprint Backlog current, and when a stakeholder asks how the Sprint is going the Developers reply that they are self-managing and will show the result at the Sprint Review. Two Sprints in a row have then missed the Sprint Goal. What is wrong here? machine-checked
- With three days of the Sprint left, the Developers agree among themselves to skip the security review and the automated regression suite, both of which are in the Definition of Done, so that two more items can be finished. They argue that as a self-managing team it is their call. Is it? machine-checked