The Ultimate Scrum Master: PSM Exam Prep Course (10 PDUs)

Discover how Scrum as a lightweight, iterative framework solves complex problems and delivers value through sprints, a product backlog, and continuous inspect and adapt through reviews and retrospectives.

Learn the scrum team roles—developers, product owner, and scrum master—and how a cross-functional, self-managing unit works toward a single product goal with a shared backlog.

Learn how the product owner maximizes product value by managing the backlog, defining the product goal, and ordering work by value, while being accountable for outcomes and making final decisions.

Serve the team as a servant leader by establishing Scrum per Scrum Guide, promoting retrospective-driven improvement, refining backlog with the product owner, and enabling empirical planning and time-boxed events.

Explore the three scrum artifacts—the product backlog, sprint backlog, and increment—and how transparency, inspection, and adaptation guide value delivery toward the product goal and definition of done.

The sprint backlog defines the sprint goal and selects items to deliver. A real-time, visible plan updated daily guides progress via a Kanban board and daily scrums.

Deliver a usable increment that advances the product goal, validated at the sprint review, and ensure it meets the definition of done for release and transparency.

Learn the scrum events—the sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review, and sprint retrospective. Operate within a two-week sprint to inspect and adapt while delivering value.

Backlog refinement is an ongoing activity where the team breaks backlog items into smaller user stories, assigns size and priorities, with developers sizing and the scrum master protecting the team.

Sprint planning timeboxes to eight hours maximum, shorter for smaller sprints; the team defines the sprint goal, selects backlog items that can be completed this sprint, and plans delivery.

The daily scrum is a 15-minute stand-up where developers inspect progress toward the sprint goal, update the sprint backlog for the next 24 hours, and raise blockers.

Inspect the sprint outcome, demonstrate the increment to the product owner and stakeholders, and decide next steps based on progress, empiricism, and the real product.

Master the sprint retrospective as a timeboxed event that inspects team ways of working—individuals and interactions, processes and tools, and definition of done—to identify improvements and maintain an action register.

Scrum theory through transparency, inspection, and adaptation, grounded in empiricism and lean thinking, and see how cross-functional teams use backlog artifacts and events to inspect and adapt.

Explore the five scrum values—commitment, focus, openness, respect, and courage—and how they shape team behavior, psychological safety, blockers, and the pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation.

Learn rolling wave planning to balance planning and detail, decompose epics into user stories, apply work breakdown structure and product breakdown structure, and map to sprints in Scrum.

The three c's guide user story creation with the three amigos—the customer, developer, and tester—covering card, conversation, and confirmation for backlog refinement, acceptance criteria, and definition of done.

Explore the definition of ready and definition of done with real-world examples, and apply invest (independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, small, testable) to create usable vertical slices with acceptance criteria.

Learn how to define acceptance criteria using test driven development (red, green, refactor), behavior driven development, and user stories, process steps, use cases, and feature driven development.

Use mockups, designs, and prototypes to remove ambiguity in acceptance criteria and user stories, and explore wireframes, storyboards, and process maps to visualize flows and refine features with lo-fi drawings.

Apply the v-model and testing pyramid to map requirements to testing levels, from unit tests to user acceptance tests, using test driven development and continuous integration or delivery.

Estimate with ranges and use t-shirt sizing to plan epics within sprints, applying rolling wave planning and narrowing uncertainty as details and acceptance criteria mature.

Explore estimation methods for scrum teams, including analogous, parametric, three-point, beta/pert (PERT), and bottom-up estimating, with story points guiding agile sizing.

Apply planning poker and wideband delphi to estimate features and reach consensus. Use relative sizing, fibonacci, and affinity estimating to size user stories and promote collaboration and psychological safety.

Facilitate the creation of a team charter that clarifies values, agreements, and ways of working, inviting input from product owners and sponsors, and defining ceremonies, definitions of done and ready.

Co-locate the team to share information quickly, learn by osmosis, and keep everyone aligned with an information radiator and a visible kanban board and product backlog.

Pair programming, two developers working side by side, shares knowledge across the codebase and speeds learning, improving design, testing, and overall code quality.

Learn how peer review and swarming boost collaboration in scrum teams, with code inspections, user story checks, and team-wide mobbing to resolve blockers quickly.

Identify and brainstorm business and project risks with stakeholders using pre-mortem and risk workshops, applying normal and agile risk approaches, organized by a risk breakdown structure including technical risks.

Rate risks by likelihood and impact on a 1–5 scale, compute an overall risk rating, and document owners, status, definitions, and risk appetite in a centralized risk register.

Identify risks by probability and impact and assign risk ratings, then apply responses to threats—avoid, transfer, escalate, mitigate, or accept—and explore opportunities to exploit or enhance.

Explore risk adjusted backlog in agile by brainstorming risks with the team, placing risk responses in the backlog to prioritize against user stories, visualized by a tornado chart.

Leverage kanban systems to visualize work with kanban boards, remove blockers, and support problem solving within agile ceremonies, using a pull system of signal cards that circulate based on capacity.

Explore how Kanban boards reveal bottlenecks, blockers, status, and limit work in progress, acting as information radiators, while teams pull user stories through columns from to do to done.

David Anderson's kanban setup guides scrum teams to map start and end points, define work item types, and create a visual card wall with work in progress limits.

Explore how a Scrum master applies servant leadership to remove impediments, facilitate ceremonies, grow cross-functional teams, and balance leadership with management to sustain vision and wellbeing.

Lead by serving the team, remove blockers, and grow skills through pairing, T-shaped people, and whole team approach. Shield the team from interruptions to preserve focused work and psychological safety.

Explore how psychological safety lets team members speak up without fear of repercussion, fostering diverse ideas and safe experimentation through retrospectives and team mood charts.

Explore Maslow's hierarchy in organizational theory to boost team engagement and efficiency. Meet physiological and safety needs first, then belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization to master work.

Explore Herzberg's motivation theory, linking hygiene and motivational factors to Theory X and Y, and explain how job security, fair pay, recognition, responsibility, and meaningful work drive engagement.

Parkinson's Law says work expands to fill the time allotted, causing scope to increase or last-minute delays; two-week sprints and time boxes help deliver increments in shorter cycles.

Lead with coaching and servant leadership to guide teams and influence beyond your circle, exploring power types—from positional and informational to referent, situational, and expert—plus reward, coercive, and carrot-and-stick dynamics.

Master stakeholder management by identifying and mapping stakeholders within the organization, using the impact and influence grid and salience model to prioritize engagement and guide influence directions.

Document stakeholders in a stakeholder register with names, positions, roles, and contact details; classify internal or external and apply the stakeholder engagement assessment matrix to tailor communications.

Embed external resources into the team to reduce task switching, boost collaboration, and speed output, while getting the right people on the bus and cultivating a co-located, t-shaped team.

Master negotiation skills for stakeholders using a whole-team approach, leveraging BATNA, bracketing, and non-monetary terms to reach consensus while managing deadlines and concessions.

Guide decisions and help the team solve problems through effective facilitation, ceremonies, and workshops. Build consensus, enable participation, and ensure transparency with information radiator, clear purposes, and accountable follow-ups.

Develop conflict management skills by addressing issues early, directly, and collaboratively, escalating when needed, and applying techniques such as withdrawing, smoothing, conceding, compromising, forcing, or collaborating to resolve disputes.

Develop emotional intelligence to recognize, understand, and manage emotions. Foster self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, active listening, and social skill for effective facilitation, problem solving, and Scrum team leadership.

Master the five C's of communication to reduce misunderstandings by using correct grammar and spelling, concise language, a clear reader-focused purpose, coherent flow, and graphics or summaries.

Explore basic and interactive communication models, including encoding, transmission channels, decoding, noise, and feedback, and learn to use assertive inquiry and open-ended questions to achieve shared understanding.

Learn to use open and closed questions to guide team problem solving, gather information, and confirm details efficiently, with prompts that start with what, why, how, where, and when.

Explore how tone and body language convey meaning beyond words, enabling co-located teams. Learn how inflection and facial cues shape interpretation, especially in emails.

Billy uses facilitation to help the team resolve a disagreement about a project's impact. Crucial conversations require emotional intelligence to manage opposing views, high stakes, and protect trust and outcomes.

Explore how stories influence responses in crucial conversations and how to build a safe pool of shared meaning using state your path, amp, and crib.

As a Scrum Master, learn to measure team progress with agile metrics and velocity, deliver value through small releasable increments, and maintain a sustainable pace by sizing stories.

Compare cycle time, lead time, and throughput to measure time from task start to finish, backlog to release, and completed items per period; monitor first pass yield to reduce defects.

Learn how burn down and burn up charts track sprint progress, comparing planned versus actual story points and features toward the sprint goal.

Learn how to use work in progress limits to reveal bottlenecks in a Kanban team, prevent context switching, and empower the Scrum Master to unblock and improve flow.

Explore the cumulative flow diagram and product roadmap to track completed, in-progress, and backlog items, visualize delivery order, and focus on delivering value through agile metrics.

As a neutral facilitator, the scrum master leads problem solving across sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review, and sprint retrospective, revealing blockers and brainstorming solutions with Kanban boards.

Explore systems thinking to understand how processes interact, and drive incremental change by reducing work in progress, delivering often, and using tools like process maps and Ishikawa diagrams.

Reduce work in progress to lower lead times and defects by limiting items in development on the Kanban board; deliver small, frequent releases to build trust and boost morale.

Identify the constraint with a Kanban board, then improve the process to boost throughput. Stabilize the flow at capacity, then add resources after fixing bottlenecks.

Identify and reduce waste by eliminating non-value activities in lean and the Toyota production system; empower the product owner to minimize processing and keep teams to ten or fewer members.

Attack variability by standardizing work item sizes and reducing defects, and use kanban insights to minimize external variability with prototypes and mockups, clearer requirements, and a whole team approach.

Use Pareto analysis to identify the biggest problems or opportunities with the 80/20 rule, sorting issues by frequency, and prioritizing the top items on a Pareto chart.

Apply visual management to reveal work at a glance for the team. Display radiators like product backlog, product roadmap, kanban board, burndown chart, and sprint backlog to make progress explicit.

Explore Ishikawa and the five whys to perform root cause analysis, using a fishbone diagram to brainstorm information, process, and system issues and identify actionable root causes.

Learn how a scrum master coaches agile teams by assessing team health, defining meaningful purpose and goals, and fostering mutual accountability.

Apply a feedback framework that links action, its impact, and the desired outcome to coach teams effectively and communicate improvements clearly.

Diagnose skill and will, set the coaching context, build trust, and motivate the coachee through feedback, praise, and demonstration, then conclude with reflection and next steps.

Learn to deliver ongoing coaching with the grow model, using twenty to sixty minute sessions, goal and reality checks, options, wrap-up actions, and timely feedback to develop your coachee.

Conclude effectively by guiding the coachee to reflect, solicit feedback, agree on next steps, and set Smart goals—specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-boxed—for progress.