How to pass Scaled Professional Scrum (SPS) certification test in #6 steps

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Hello Team! Last week I passed the new Scaled Professional Scrum – SPS – Certification Test, the latest certification provided by Scrum.org and now I will share with you how was my preparation for it. I hope it really helps you to achieve your SPS – Scaled Professional Scrum- Certification too. So, let’s start!

Step #1: Read the Nexus Guide in your native language and really understand it! In other words, you must study it and know it totally, in a level you can explain all the events, rules, roles and artefacts in details to a friend, for example.

For the events you must know: What are the purposes for this event? How many parts does it have? What is the time box for it? Who need to attend? Are there any questions that must be answered? What is the outcome for this event? What this event provides to the whole Nexus framework? If this event does not occur or it was not well done, what kind of problems may the Teams have? Does this event substitutes another Scrum event? Does this event generates an input to another scrum event?

For the roles/players in nexus you must know: What are them? What are the key activities for each role/player? What the Nexus expect for them? What is the team of this player/role? Does he/she can work in other teams? If yes, in which ones? Which teams has more priority in this situation and why?

Step #2: Read about Nexus real cases, so you will learn a little more about how to implement the Nexus, its difficulties and situations. This is very important, because many questions in the test are based on given scenarios that you need to analyze. So, the more cases you read the more experience you achieve. You can access the nexus articles and papers on Scrum.org resources area and blog.

Before getting the SPS – Scaled Scrum Professional Certification, I got the PSPO – Professional Scrum Product Owner Certification and the PSM – Professional Scrum Master Certification, and after these three tests I can certainly say that the SPS was the one with more questions based on given scenarios to analyze. In some parts, for example, you have three or four questions related to the same scenario. So, please, don’t think that 40 questions in 60 minutes will be easy to answer. This time you have much more things (and teams) to think about! 

Step #3 – Read the U.S. English Nexus guide version. This step is important to make you feel comfortable with the terminology used in the test. Currently the test is applied only in English language.

Step #4: Start to do the Scaled Professional Scrum Open Assessment provided by Scrum.org. Pay attention to each answer and learn with your errors. You must know why that answer is the correct one and why the other ones are not correct. This kind of analyses helps you to eliminate wrong alternatives during the test, and brings you near to the correct choices.

The SPS – Scaled Professional Scrum – Open Assessment has just 15 random questions, so after the third time you complete it you will see repeated questions. So, you must learn with all questions you complete, especially with the ones you had mistaked in the past. Learn with your mistakes!

As the questions quantities are short (40) on the Scaled Professional Scrum – SPS – Open Assessment, do the Assessment until you achieve 100% of correct questions. Try to achieve this score each time you do the assessment, for more consecutive times you could!

Step #5 – Discuss the questions you answered wrongly in scrum community and forums, for example on the scrum.org forum.  This will make you contact with other people that already took the test and had the same doubts you have.

Step #6 – Some important tips during the test:

Pay attention in strategic words in answers, scenarios or questions, because some of them can change the meaning of the phrase and make that alternative correct or not. So, pay attention to words like:  “actually”, “never”, “all”, “must”, “may”, “same” and etc.

Don’t try to do online research about the questions. You have 40 questions to solve in 60 minutes, this kind of action will only get you late and nervous, and as the questions refer to daily decision, you will not find answers on Google. Believe me! Important info too: The test price is $250 for each try and you must achieve at least 85% of correct answers.

After this steps you will be more than prepared to pass SPS – Scaled Professional Scrum Test! Please, let me know how these steps also worked for you and if you added more steps during your preparation.

I hope I could help you to pass the SPS – Scaled Professional Scrum – Test and join the list bellow. If you have any doubts, please email me on eduardo.sucena@getscrum.com.

Success, Peace and Hugs.
Eduardo Rodrigues Sucena
MBA | MCP | PSM | PSPO | SPS | Business Analyst

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4. How to pass Scaled Professional Scrum (SPS) certification test in #6 steps