Feb 9, 2020
PSM 1 Certification — How to pass successfully
Plan.Prepare.Pass.
It was late 2018. I was coming out of a teleconference when I had a quick random chat with one of my senior colleague. He had just shifted back to India after a long stint in Ireland and was explaining me the knowledge he gained recently in scrum/certification/cloud, i.e., overall study in general.
It was an eye opener for me.
The 15 mins talk with him kind of change my perception on study, in knowledge and life,in general.
1. Plan
Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) entered in my radar next. The main advantage for this certification was the quick knowledge gathering and study at your own pace/online. There was no mandatory need for classroom training.
Yes, I know there is a debate on PSM vs CSM, but that’s for another day.
From the home of Scrum( Scrum.org) -
You make a rough plan on your study schedule. Take out time for your daily life, evening browsing time…For me, it was rather easy. I stopped the Facebook time, and got back the time needed.
I did lot of internet searching and followed the blogs on people who have passed already.
Once I realized what is the scope of the study, then it’s time to deep dive into it.
2. Prepare
From preparation perspective , this is a rather easy exam to manage.
2.1 Scrum Guide
Scrum Guide is the first and most important document to read. It’s a 14 page document in detail. Read the document line by line, as a question can be formed from a single sentence outlined there. Read it multiple times but don’t try to memorize anything. The exam questions will be more situational so memorization will not come that handy.
2.2 Practice Exams
Once you have read the Scrum guide, start with the scrum.org practice exams.
Once you are comfortable, you can start with practice exams.
Below are the links which has helped me -
There are 3 “paid” practice service available —
All the above ones give you a lot of practical tips and to their set of question banks with hundred of questions. I have personally used both mlapshin.com and www.volkerdon.com and found more of them in similar nature.
Once you are scoring around more than 90% constantly, then it’s time to go for kill.
2.3 Additional Study
Don’t forget to read the https://www.scrum.org/Resources/Scrum-Glossary as well, because it will help you to gain information on uncovered stuffs.
Also, the knowledge of Nexus (Scaled Scrum) doesn’t do any harm as some question can touch upon it briefly.
Official Nexus guide (https://www.scrum.org/resources/scaling-scrum -> https://www.scrum.org/node/4709)
3. Pass
Just book the exam online and appear for it from the comfort of your home. Yes, there is time pressure as the exam is open book, but you will hardly get time to search for the right answer.
Passed
Score: 92.5% (74 points scored out of 80 maximum points)
3.1 Bonus Input
With the knowledge gathered for PSM1, it’s more than enough to appear for Professional Scrum Product Owner I (PSPO I) and pass. Yes, I did it as well.
If you enjoyed this post, please clap or leave a comment; they are appreciated. ;-) Good luck with your certification 🤞
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