SMC Sample Questions Answers

Risk is explicitly one of the principal factors considered when constructing and prioritizing the Prioritized Product Backlog. SCRUMstudy identifies value, risk or uncertainty, and dependencies as three primary factors on which backlog prioritization is based.

Option A is therefore incorrect because dependencies may materially affect sequencing. One User Story may rely on functionality supplied by another, and such relationships must be considered during prioritization. SCRUMstudy also identifies splitting or combining stories as possible approaches for resolving dependencies.

Option B is too restrictive. Business value is important, but prioritization is not based only on subjective value. Risk, dependencies, business requirements, estimates, and other relevant considerations influence the ordering of work.

Option D is also incorrect because Scrum can use multiple prioritization techniques, including collaborative methods where appropriate. The framework does not establish a universal prohibition on voting.

Risk-aware prioritization allows high-risk or high-uncertainty work to be addressed early enough to expose problems and enable mitigation.

Study Guide reference: Business Justification - > Value-based Prioritization; Risk - > Risk-adjusted Prioritized Product Backlog.

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Option C reverses the actual Scrum-versus-traditional distinction. In Scrum, Return on Investment and business value can begin early and continue throughout the project lifecycle because potentially valuable increments are produced iteratively. Traditional sequential projects frequently defer realization of substantial value until the completed product is delivered. SCRUMstudy's comparison explicitly lists Scrum ROI as “early/throughout project life” and traditional ROI as occurring at the end of project life.

The other statements correctly reflect SBOK's comparison. Scrum organizations are self-organized rather than centrally managed. Scrum places greater emphasis on people and collaborative responsibility, whereas traditional management generally emphasizes formally defined processes. Scrum's quality philosophy is customer-centric and centered on delivering working outcomes that satisfy customer requirements and Acceptance Criteria, whereas traditional approaches are described as more process-centric.

Therefore, C is not merely a subtle difference—it states the ROI relationship in exactly the opposite direction.

Study Guide reference: Introduction to Scrum/Business Justification - > Scrum versus Traditional Project Management; Value-driven Delivery.

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Sprint length should be selected deliberately and consistently, with consideration for the nature of the project, anticipated rate of change, risk, and planned release dates. SCRUMstudy specifically identifies planned product or service release dates as a factor that should be considered when determining Sprint length.

Option B is incorrect because the expected frequency and impact of changes matter considerably. Environments with substantial uncertainty or frequent changes often benefit from shorter feedback cycles, allowing the team and Product Owner to inspect results and adapt more frequently.

Option C reverses the logic. A highly stable environment does not automatically require the shortest Sprint purely because little change is expected. Sprint length should reflect the project's context rather than follow that blanket rule.

Option D is also incorrect. SBOK guidance uses relatively short Sprint intervals and emphasizes consistent time-boxes. A universal six-week Sprint is not the recommended rule.

Once an appropriate Sprint length has been agreed upon, unnecessary variation between Sprints should be avoided because changing duration undermines historical velocity and forecasting comparability.

Study Guide reference: Initiate - > Conduct Release Planning - > Length of Sprint; Principles - > Time-boxing and Iterative Development.

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Successful release depends fundamentally on the Scrum Team creating the agreed deliverables so that completed and accepted work can eventually be transitioned to the customer or other relevant business stakeholders. The Release phase's Ship Deliverables process handles accepted deliverables, while the Product Owner coordinates deployment with the customer.

Option B describes activities associated with the Product Owner following validation and backlog/release-plan management rather than the specific condition the Scrum Master must ensure for successful creation of releasable work.

Option C is incorrect because the Release Planning Schedule is developed during Conduct Release Planning, involving the Product Owner and Scrum Core Team; it is not simply created by the Scrum Team during Ship Deliverables.

Option D incorrectly assigns acceptance authority. During Demonstrate and Validate Sprint, the Product Owner, not the Scrum Team, accepts or rejects completed User Stories against their Acceptance Criteria.

Therefore, ensuring that the Scrum Team creates the committed deliverables as agreed provides the necessary basis for later acceptance and release.

Study Guide reference: Release - > Ship Deliverables; Implement - > Create Deliverables; Review and Retrospect - > Demonstrate and Validate Sprint.

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A deliverable that fails its User Story Acceptance Criteria is a Rejected Deliverable. It is not marked Done and normally returns to, or remains in, the Prioritized Product Backlog where it can be reprioritized and completed during a future Sprint. SCRUMstudy explicitly states that rejected User Stories are added back to the updated backlog for future Sprints.

Option A is therefore false because future correction is specifically permitted and expected when necessary. Option B incorrectly states that the Scrum Master defines Acceptance Criteria. They are primarily defined by the Product Owner based on customer requirements. Option D is incorrect because the objective is not to create increments that may satisfy Acceptance Criteria; completed deliverables should satisfy the applicable criteria before acceptance.

Carrying rejected work into a later Sprint is undesirable because the aim is to create potentially shippable, acceptable results during each Sprint, but Scrum provides a clear mechanism for managing such incomplete work.

Therefore, C accurately describes the handling of a rejected deliverable.

Study Guide reference: Review and Retrospect - > Demonstrate and Validate Sprint - > Accepted and Rejected Deliverables.

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In the legacy SBOK Create Sprint Backlog process represented by this question, important inputs include the Effort Estimated Task List, Length of Sprint, Previous Sprint Velocity, Dependencies, and Team Calendar, together with the Scrum Core Team. Therefore, the four factors listed in option C are all legitimate inputs.

Length of Sprint defines the available time-box. Previous Sprint Velocity provides historical evidence of how much work the team has been able to complete and therefore supports realistic commitment. Dependencies influence the order in which work should be executed. The Team Calendar records member availability, including leave, holidays, and other events affecting capacity.

The remaining options introduce artifacts that do not constitute this specific combination of Sprint Backlog creation inputs, such as Proof of Concept or Done Criteria.

In newer SBOK editions, the terminology has evolved toward Update Sprint Backlog, because an initial Sprint Backlog is created when User Stories are committed and is subsequently enriched with task-level information. The underlying capacity concepts—Sprint length, dependencies, team availability, and historical performance—remain relevant.

Therefore, C is the verified legacy SMC answer.

Study Guide reference: Plan and Estimate - > Create/Update Sprint Backlog - > Inputs; Sprint Planning.

Mark should inform the Scrum Master, who can address the resource interference with the Product Owner. One of the Scrum Master's fundamental responsibilities is to maintain an environment conducive to team success and remove impediments or organizational interference that threatens Sprint execution.

Option A is incorrect because Sprint deadlines are not simply extended when resource problems occur. The Sprint is a fixed time-box. Option B is also inconsistent with self-organization because the Scrum Master should not act as a traditional manager by directly assigning Mark's task to another team member. The Scrum Team determines internally how work is allocated.

Option D incorrectly assumes that the Product Owner can automatically move unfinished work while disrupting the active Sprint. If work cannot be completed, backlog consequences are handled through the normal Sprint and backlog processes rather than by arbitrarily extending or reallocating committed work.

A mid-Sprint reassignment can undermine capacity, predictability, and Sprint commitment. The Scrum Master should therefore raise the issue with Andy and protect the team's ability to perform its committed work while facilitating an appropriate organizational resolution.

Study Guide reference: Organization - > Scrum Master as Facilitator/Supporting Leader; Self-organization; Impediment Removal.

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The SBOK framework identifies six Scrum principles: Empirical Process Control, Self-organization, Collaboration, Value-based Prioritization, Time-boxing, and Iterative Development. These principles are fundamental and apply across Scrum projects regardless of industry or product type.

Self-organization allows team members to determine how best to accomplish their work rather than relying on command-and-control assignment. Collaboration supports shared value creation and effective interaction among the Scrum Core Team and stakeholders. Value-based Prioritization ensures that higher-value requirements receive appropriate priority so that business value can begin to be delivered early.

Linear product delivery, however, is inconsistent with Scrum. Linear or sequential delivery is characteristic of approaches in which major project phases occur predominantly one after another. Scrum instead relies on short, repeated iterations in which work is planned, developed, reviewed, and adapted continuously.

Therefore, linear product delivery is not one of the Scrum principles.

Study Guide reference: Principles - > Six Scrum Principles - > Self-organization, Collaboration, Value-based Prioritization, Iterative Development.

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The Product Owner has primary accountability for project-level business justification, including ensuring value delivery and maintaining the project's business rationale. The Scrum Master's role is facilitative: helping ensure that desired outcomes are understood, coordinating with the Product Owner and Scrum Team, and supporting Continuous Value Justification throughout execution.

SBOK's responsibility model assigns the Product Owner responsibility for value delivery and maintenance of project business justification, while the Scrum Master supports continuous justification and ensures that the project's desired outcomes are communicated and understood by the Scrum Team.

Therefore, A is incorrect because creation and confirmation of project business justification belong principally to the Product Owner. B likewise represents Product Owner accountability. D is also primarily assigned to the Product Owner, who is responsible for maximizing and ensuring project value.

Option C best represents the Scrum Master's supporting role. Through Sprint execution, risk/change facilitation, communication, and coordination with the Product Owner, the Scrum Master helps verify that continued investment remains aligned with the expected business outcomes.

Study Guide reference: Business Justification - > Summary of Responsibilities; Continuous Value Justification; Product Owner and Scrum Master roles.

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Scrum Master Certified (SMC®) — 100 Questions

The Prioritized Product Backlog is not listed as an input to the SBOK Conduct Daily Standup process. In the relevant SBOK process model, inputs include the Scrum Team, Scrum Master, Scrumboard, Impediment Log, Sprint Burndown/Burnup Chart, Product Owner, previous workday experience, and dependencies. The Product Owner is not mandatory for the meeting, but may contribute as an input to the process.

The Sprint Burndown Chart provides visibility into Sprint progress and remaining work. Dependencies may surface during the Daily Standup because they can create impediments or affect sequencing. The Product Owner may be available where clarification or business input is relevant, although the Daily Standup remains principally a Scrum Team synchronization forum.

The Prioritized Product Backlog is instead the overarching project requirements repository managed and refined through backlog processes. The active Sprint is driven by its Sprint Backlog, not by repeatedly replanning directly from the entire Prioritized Product Backlog each day.

Therefore, among the options presented, B is the exception.

Study Guide reference: Implement - > Conduct Daily Standup - > Inputs; distinction between Prioritized Product Backlog and Sprint execution artifacts.

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Story points are a relative estimation unit, not a direct representation of elapsed hours. They allow the Scrum Team to compare the overall size of User Stories by considering characteristics such as effort, complexity, uncertainty, and risk.

SCRUMstudy states that Relative Sizing/Story Points assigns a point value according to the overall size of a User Story, considering factors including the effort required and level of complexity. Once one item has been estimated, other User Stories can be estimated relative to that reference item.

Option A incorrectly equates story points with hours. Scrum can use time-based task estimates, but story points intentionally support relative rather than absolute estimation. Option C describes a count of completed stories rather than story points. Option D incorrectly assigns estimation responsibility to the Product Owner. Estimation is performed by the Scrum Team, because those performing the work are best positioned to judge its technical complexity and effort.

Story points consequently support velocity measurement and future forecasting without pretending that complex knowledge work can always be predicted precisely in hours.

Study Guide reference: Plan and Estimate - > Estimate User Stories - > Relative Sizing/Story Points.

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SBOK deliberately defines Scrum as broadly applicable. SCRUMstudy states that Scrum can be applied to portfolios, programs, and projects in any industry; to products and services; and to projects of varying sizes and complexity.

Each scenario therefore represents a condition Scrum can accommodate. Existing products receiving incremental updates can use Sprints to prioritize and release new value. Innovative products with uncertain outcomes particularly benefit from iterative development, frequent inspection, feedback, and adaptation. Scarce specialist skills can be addressed as shared-resource and organizational constraints, although careful capacity management is required. Distributed teams introduce communication and coordination challenges, but geographical distribution does not make Scrum inapplicable.

The question is testing an important principle: constraints influence how Scrum is implemented, rather than automatically disqualifying a project from Scrum. The framework can be scaled or organizational practices adapted to accommodate these conditions.

Accordingly, all four project scenarios can be candidates for Scrum, making D the intended SBOK answer.

Study Guide reference: Introduction to Scrum - > Applicability of Scrum; Organization - > Distributed Teams/Shared Resources; Principles - > Iterative Development.

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SBOK defines risk as an uncertain event or set of events that can affect project objectives. Importantly, risk is not necessarily negative. Risks with potentially favorable consequences are classified as opportunities, whereas risks capable of producing adverse outcomes are called threats. SCRUMstudy explicitly distinguishes these two categories.

In this scenario, additional orders have not yet materialized, so they remain uncertain. However, if they occur, they would generate a positive business consequence attributable to successful project performance. That makes the event a positive risk—an opportunity.

An issue differs from a risk because an issue has already occurred and therefore is no longer uncertain. “Weakness” may be used in analytical techniques such as SWOT Analysis but is not the correct risk classification in this scenario. A threat would apply if the uncertain event could negatively affect objectives.

Because future orders represent uncertainty with a beneficial potential impact, the correct classification is Opportunity.

Study Guide reference: Risk - > Definition of Risk - > Opportunities and Threats; Risk Identification and Assessment.

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C is the intended answer in the legacy SMC question bank, but the wording is technically defective because of the word “only.” Older SMC practice material keys C because SBOK historically described approximately 6–10 members as the ideal Scrum Team size. The intended concept is therefore that a typical individual Scrum Team should remain relatively small.

However, this must not be interpreted to mean Scrum itself can only be used when an entire project contains 6–10 people. Current SCRUMstudy guidance explicitly states that Scrum can be applied to projects of any size or complexity and can scale to large projects containing many Scrum Teams.

Options A, B, and D are clearly false: Scrum is not restricted to small projects, software development, or large corporations.

Thus, for the historical SMC item, C is the expected exam answer, but the accurate SBOK interpretation is: a Scrum Team is ideally small; Scrum as a framework is not limited to projects having only 6–10 total participants.

Study Guide reference: Introduction to Scrum - > Applicability of Scrum; Organization - > Scrum Team Size and Scaling.

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The described condition is fundamentally Poor Team Collaboration. Large Scrum projects depend on effective interaction among multiple Scrum Teams, particularly where deliverables, dependencies, shared components, or resources cross team boundaries. If teams begin working in isolation, communication decreases and coordination problems can develop even when each individual team appears internally productive.

The Scrum of Scrums mechanism exists specifically to improve coordination among multiple Scrum Teams by sharing progress, dependencies, impediments, and work that could affect other teams. Failure to communicate across those boundaries undermines one of Scrum's core principles—Collaboration.

Technical debt refers to accumulated future cost or rework caused by expedient technical decisions, incomplete engineering practices, or deferred quality work; that is not what the scenario describes. A risk is an uncertain event, whereas the lack of communication is already occurring. It could produce issues or risks, but its immediate organizational diagnosis is poor collaboration.

Thus, the Chief Scrum Master should identify this as a team collaboration problem and facilitate mechanisms that restore transparency, coordination, and cross-team communication.

Study Guide reference: Organization - > Scrum in Large Projects; Principles - > Collaboration; Scrum of Scrums.

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The intended answer is Continuous stakeholder involvement because it is not one of the specific SBOK characteristics listed for achieving flexibility.

SCRUMstudy identifies the principal mechanisms supporting flexibility as iterative product development, time-boxing, cross-functional teams, customer value-based prioritization, and continuous integration. These mechanisms allow Scrum projects to absorb changing business needs while protecting stability within an active Sprint.

Iterative development creates repeated opportunities to inspect outcomes and adjust requirements. Time-boxing constrains uncertainty and establishes predictable review intervals. Cross-functional teams reduce handoffs and external dependencies by containing the required skills within the team.

Stakeholder involvement is certainly important in Scrum and supports feedback, validation, and value realization. However, the question asks for the item that is not part of the specific enumerated SBOK list of characteristics used to explain flexibility. The formally listed concept is customer value-based prioritization rather than “continuous stakeholder involvement.”

This is therefore a terminology-sensitive SMC question: option C describes a useful Scrum practice, but it is not the designated characteristic in this particular SBOK framework.

Study Guide reference: Change - > Flexibility versus Stability; Principles - > Iterative Development and Time-boxing.

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The Daily Standup is a highly focused, time-boxed synchronization meeting for Scrum Team members. Members normally communicate what they completed, what they intend to do next, and what impediments are affecting their work. Every team member's participation supports transparency, coordination, collective ownership, and self-organization.

Option B directly conflicts with these principles. Inexperience does not justify excluding Scrum Team members. Less-experienced participants need visibility into the team's work just as much as experienced members and may require collaboration or assistance from colleagues. Exclusion would reduce transparency and weaken the team's collective responsibility.

Option A corresponds to discussing planned work. Option C corresponds to reporting progress since the previous meeting. Option D identifies an external environmental impediment—the distracting noise—which is appropriate to surface. The Daily Standup is not intended to become a lengthy problem-solving session, but impediments should be identified there and addressed subsequently, often with Scrum Master facilitation.

The Scrum Master therefore should reject the proposition that particular Scrum Team members need not attend merely because colleagues consider them inexperienced.

Study Guide reference: Implement - > Conduct Daily Standup; Organization - > Self-organizing Scrum Team; Scrum Master - > Impediment removal.

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Time-boxing does not exist to avoid change. Scrum explicitly accepts that change is inevitable, particularly in complex projects where stakeholder understanding and market requirements evolve. Time-boxing provides controlled boundaries within which work remains stable, while allowing change to be incorporated at appropriate inspection and planning points.

SCRUMstudy defines time-boxing as allocating a fixed amount of time to an activity or process. It prevents unlimited expansion of tasks and supports disciplined management of uncertainty and deadlines.

For example, once a Sprint begins, its scope is protected so the Scrum Team can maintain focus. New requirements can still be incorporated into the Prioritized Product Backlog and prioritized for a subsequent Sprint. Therefore, time-boxing manages change rather than attempting to eliminate it.

It also limits exposure to uncertain work by forcing regular inspection of results and preventing indefinite analysis or development. Deadlines become visible and predictable because Scrum events and Sprints have bounded durations.

Thus, “using time-boxing as a medium to avoid changes” contradicts Scrum's adaptive philosophy and is the exception.

Study Guide reference: Principles - > Time-boxing; Change - > Flexibility and Stability.

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After development is completed, the increment must be validated and demonstrated. The Scrum Team is responsible for ensuring that Sprint Deliverables satisfy the agreed quality conditions before presenting them in the Sprint Review/Demonstrate and Validate Sprint process. During that review, the team demonstrates completed functionality to the Product Owner and relevant business stakeholders, including customers or users where appropriate.

Acceptance Criteria provide the objective basis for checking whether a User Story satisfies the required functionality. Formal acceptance or rejection authority belongs to the Product Owner, not the Scrum Master.

Consequently, statement II is incorrect: the Scrum Master does not independently deploy the functionality into production merely because Sprint development has finished. Release is a business decision and follows the appropriate Ship Deliverables process. Statement IV is also incorrect because the Scrum Master cannot reject a User Story based on stakeholder feedback.

Statements I and III correctly represent demonstration and validation activities associated with completed Sprint work. Therefore, A is the intended answer.

Study Guide reference: Review and Retrospect - > Demonstrate and Validate Sprint; Quality - > Acceptance Criteria.

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The Retrospect Project Meeting is the meeting described in the relevant SBOK edition as not Time-boxed and capable of being conducted either in person or virtually. Its objective is broader than a Sprint-level retrospective: participants evaluate the overall project, document lessons learned, discuss positive and negative experiences, and identify opportunities to improve future projects.

SCRUMstudy specifically describes this meeting as not being Time-boxed and notes that it may take place physically or in a virtual format.

The other choices are Time-boxed Scrum events. The Daily Standup has a strict short duration. Sprint Planning is Time-boxed according to Sprint length, and Sprint Review/Demonstrate and Validate Sprint is also conducted within a defined time-box.

The rationale is that Retrospect Project occurs after the broader project lifecycle and may involve examining substantial lessons, organizational practices, knowledge transfer, transition matters, and stakeholder feedback. It therefore does not carry the same fixed execution-cycle constraint as recurring Sprint events.

Accordingly, the correct answer is B.

Study Guide reference: Review and Retrospect/Release - > Retrospect Project Meeting; Lessons Learned; Continuous Improvement.

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Statement C is false because risks differ substantially in both probability and impact. Risk assessment exists precisely to distinguish more significant risks from less significant ones.

SCRUMstudy defines risk as an uncertain event or set of events capable of affecting project objectives positively or negatively. Positive risks are called opportunities, while negative risks are threats.

Risk management is iterative and begins during project initiation, continuing throughout the project lifecycle. Risks are assessed primarily on their probability of occurrence and potential impact. Risks with high probability and high impact should generally receive greater attention than low-probability, low-impact risks.

This prioritization enables limited resources to be allocated rationally. Techniques such as Probability Impact Grids, Probability Trees, Expected Monetary Value, and Pareto Analysis help teams assess and compare exposures.

Therefore, the claim that all risks possess equal probability and impact directly contradicts the central mechanism of SBOK risk assessment and prioritization.

Study Guide reference: Risk - > Definition of Risk; Risk Assessment and Risk Prioritization.

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SBOK emphasizes behavioral characteristics that enable a self-organizing and cross-functional team rather than requiring every individual to possess narrow specialist mastery or extensive Scrum theory. SCRUMstudy identifies desirable Scrum Team members as independent, self-motivated, customer-focused, responsible, and collaborative.

A Scrum Team member must be capable of working collectively toward shared Sprint objectives while taking personal ownership of assigned or selected work. “Independent” in this context does not mean isolated; it means being capable of taking responsibility without requiring command-and-control supervision. Collaboration remains essential because knowledge, work, risk, and accountability are shared across the team.

Options A, B, and C contain useful competencies, but they are not the defining combination sought by the question. A Scrum Team may contain generalist-specialists with differing domain and technical abilities, and not every member needs mastery of Scrum-specific tools or sophisticated negotiation capabilities.

The combination of collaborative, highly motivated, and independent most closely reflects the qualities needed for successful self-organization and collective ownership.

Study Guide reference: Organization - > Scrum Team - > Team Characteristics; Principles - > Self-organization and Collaboration.

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SCRUMstudy defines the Scrum Master primarily as a facilitator who ensures that the Scrum Team is provided with an environment conducive to successfully completing product development.

Options A and B describe Product Owner responsibilities. The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing business value, representing the Voice of the Customer, articulating customer requirements, and maintaining the business justification of the project. The Scrum Master supports these processes but does not own them.

Option C also improperly combines responsibilities. In larger Scrum initiatives, scaled roles such as Chief Scrum Master, Program Scrum Master, Chief Product Owner, or Program Product Owner may coordinate corresponding roles across teams or projects. A standard Scrum Master is not responsible for maintaining business justification across multiple Product Owners.

The Scrum Master's central duties instead include facilitating Scrum processes and meetings, coaching participants, removing impediments, protecting the team from disruptive interference, and maintaining a working environment in which a self-organizing team can succeed.

Therefore, D precisely reflects the SBOK definition.

Study Guide reference: Organization - > Core Roles - > Scrum Master; Product Owner; Supporting/Servant Leadership.

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The Skills Requirement Matrix, also described as a competency framework, is specifically intended to map the competencies available within a team and identify development needs. SCRUMstudy's SBOK glossary states that this matrix is used to assess skill gaps and training requirements while mapping team members' skills, capabilities, and interest in applying those capabilities to the project.

This makes option A an exact match to the scenario.

An Organizational Deployment Method concerns how a release or organizational change may be introduced and does not map individual competencies. A Daily Standup enables coordination, status synchronization, and identification of impediments, but it is not a formal competency-assessment tool. “Organizational Resource Matrix” is not the SBOK tool defined for the detailed skills analysis described.

A Skills Requirement Matrix can therefore help identify whether sufficient expertise exists to satisfy project needs, where cross-training may be appropriate, and which team members require additional training. It also assists during team formation and capability planning.

Study Guide reference: Organization - > Form Scrum Team - > Skills Requirement Matrix/Competency Framework; Team capability and training requirements.

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Ownership of grooming—or in current terminology, refining—the Prioritized Product Backlog belongs primarily to the Product Owner, not the Scrum Master. SCRUMstudy explicitly states that the Product Owner leads backlog refinement, adds or revises User Stories, reprioritizes work, and ensures upcoming requirements are sufficiently refined.

The Scrum Master may facilitate Prioritized Product Backlog Review Meetings and help ensure that communication, estimation, and Scrum practices remain effective, but facilitation is not the same as owning or grooming the backlog.

The Scrum Master also coordinates creation of the Release Planning Schedule as part of Conduct Release Planning. SCRUMstudy's role mapping explicitly lists that responsibility.

Similarly, the Scrum Master can represent Scrum Core Team experience and lessons learned so that organizational knowledge and Scrum Guidance Body recommendations can improve.

The critical distinction is between facilitating backlog refinement and being accountable for the contents and prioritization of the backlog. The latter belongs to the Product Owner.

Therefore, A is the activity that is not a Scrum Master responsibility.

Study Guide reference: Organization - > Scrum Master Responsibilities; Implement - > Groom/Refine Prioritized Product Backlog.

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All four questions are explicitly associated with the Scrum of Scrums (SoS) Meeting. The purpose of the meeting is to coordinate multiple Scrum Teams working on the same large project or on strongly interdependent work.

SCRUMstudy lists all four questions: what the team has worked on since the previous meeting; what it will work on before the next meeting; what other teams expected it to finish that remains incomplete; and what upcoming activities might affect other teams.

The first two provide cross-team visibility into progress and upcoming activity. The third exposes delayed inter-team dependencies. The fourth identifies potential future conflicts, shared-resource issues, interface changes, or other work that can affect neighboring teams.

These questions make SoS more than a status meeting. They support dependency management, early risk identification, integration, transparency, and coordination across team boundaries. The Chief Scrum Master, or another facilitating Scrum Master, normally facilitates the meeting.

Since I, II, III, and IV are all standard SoS questions, D is correct.

Study Guide reference: Organization - > Scaling Scrum - > Scrum of Scrums Meeting.

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A sustainable pace is a level of effort that the Scrum Team can maintain consistently without burnout, chronic overtime, deterioration in quality, or progressively declining effectiveness. Therefore, option C most accurately reflects the concept: Sprint effort should normally be comparable with previous Sprints and remain comfortable and repeatable for the team.

Sustainable pace does not mean continually increasing workload as experience grows. Productivity may improve as the team learns, but that improvement should arise from better collaboration, technical practices, reduced waste, and accumulated knowledge—not from continually demanding greater physical effort.

Likewise, sustainable pace does not imply that effort must steadily decrease. Different Sprint contents will vary, but the team's workload should remain within a manageable long-term capacity.

SCRUMstudy links sustainable pace directly to quality. Excessive overtime and end-loaded testing tend to increase defects and reduce maintainability, while regular development and testing throughout Sprints produce a more stable working environment.

Thus C expresses the central idea: consistent, repeatable, healthy effort across Sprints.

Study Guide reference: Quality - > Sustainable Pace; Scrum Master Responsibilities Relevant to Quality.

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