PROFESSIONAL
SCRUM MASTER
LEVEL 2
(PSM II)
EXAM PREP
BOOTCAMP Instructor: Barb Waters, MBA, PMP
Class will begin at 11:00 am Eastern Time
TARGET AUDIENCE
This Bootcamp is for: This Bootcamp is:
• anyone who would like to prove their underlying • not ideal for those with no Scrum knowledge or
knowledge of Scrum principles and show that experience
they can apply these in the real world • (it is better to start with PSM I or Intro to Scrum
Bootcamp)
• anyone who would like to better understand the • not a starting point for the PSM II exam. (it is
Definition of Done, Maximizing value, Product better to be PSM I certified or to start with the
backlog management, and Scaling fundamentals PSM I Bootcamp)
• certified Professional Scrum Masters who might • not limited to PSM I and PSM II candidates.
be interested in pursuing the PSM II exam. Also, Everyone is welcome!
students who would like to combine PSM I and • It is helpful if you have basic Scrum knowledge
PSM II learning to pursue the PSM II exam.
Progression of certifications
PSM III
PROFESSIONAL PSM II
SCRUM MASTER • Deep Scrum
JOURNEY PSM I understanding
• Complex situations
• Definition of Done
• Maximizing value
• Product backlog
• Scrum framework
• Scaling
• Scrum theory
• Cross-functional teams
• Coaching and facilitating
COMPARISON OF PSM I AND PSM II CURICULUM
TOPIC PSM I PSM II
Scrum framework ✓ ✓
Scrum theory and principles ✓ ✓
Cross-functional teams ✓ ✓
Coaching and facilitation ✓ ✓
Done and not done ✓
Maximizing value ✓
Product backlog management ✓
Scaling fundamentals ✓
PSM II EXAM DETAILS
$250 per attempt Multiple choice, Recommended reading
Multiple answer, True/False Scrum.org
90 minutes PSM I recommended 30 questions,
No formal prerequisite partial credit
Passing grade = 85%
The PSM II is a lifetime certification. Renewal is not required.
INDEPENDENT STUDY
Articles Videos Podcasts Practice
https://www.scrum.org/resources/suggested-reading-professional-scrum-mastertm-ii
Ken Schwaber & Jeff Sutherland
SCRUM GUIDE The Scrum Guide
BY KEN SCHWABER & JEFF The Definitive Guide to Scrum: The Rules of the Game
SUTHERLAND
November 2020
https://www.scrumguides.org/
THE NEXUS GUIDE
BY KEN SCHWABER & JEFF SUTHERLAND
• The Nexus Guide builds upon the
foundation established by The
Scrum Guide.
• It is the Body of Knowledge (BOK)
for scaling Scrum.
https://www.scrum.org/resources/scaling-scrum
https://www.scrum.org/resources/nexus-guide
ADDITIONAL
SUGGESTED READING
A Formal Approach to Measuring and
Maximizing Value
THE
EVIDENCE-
BASED
MANAGEMENT
GUIDE
EVIDENCE-BASED
MANAGEMENT
Four Key Value Areas (KVAs):
• Current Value (CV)
What value is currently being delivered by the organization
and its products?
• Time to Market (T2M)
How quickly can we deliver new value, such as a product,
service, or feature?
• Ability to Innovate (A2I)
Are we able to deliver new or improved value (such as a new
feature) to better meet customer needs?
• Unrealized Value (UV)
What additional value could we deliver if we met all of the
customer needs now?
BALANCING VALUE AND AGILITY
Current situation – market value
Current
Value Unrealized
Value (UV)
(CV)
Time to Ability to
Market Innovate
(T2M) (A2I)
Ability to deliver value - capabilities
PRODUCT OWNER
• Develops product vision
• Serves as voice of the stakeholders
(liaison) Product Owner
• Collects requirements from stakeholders
• Determines value of features
• Prioritizes backlog items based on value
• Controls the budget
• Oversees return on investment Stakeholders
• Validates product quality
PRODUCT OWNER’S
#1 Responsibility
Maximize Value
Product Owner works with the rest of
the Scrum Team to create value
COLLABORATION LEADS TO VALUE
Product Owner Developers
Understands effort vs. value Keep stakeholders needs in mind
If the Product Owner is not available, the developers make the best decisions they can and touch base when possible.
VALUE METRICS
• Responsibility of the Product Owner
• Return on Investment (ROI)
• Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
• The sum of all costs across the product life cycle
conceive + develop + operate + maintain
• Product Owner can choose any metric
TECHNICAL DEBT
• Impacts Value
• More time and money to be spent on
maintenance
• Less time and money spent on new functionality
Ward Cunningham coined the term “Technical Debt”
and likened it to a bank loan.
Vision, Mission, Goals
Vision Statement
Describes the high level impact or Vision
change the organization wants to make
Mission Statement
Explains why the organization is in a Mission
unique position to deliver on the vision.
“Why us?”
Goals Goals
Marks of incremental progress toward
achieving the mission and vision
GOAL SETTING
Strategic Goal
• High level, aspirational
• States “what” is needed, but “how” is not clear
Intermediate Goal
• Milestones that show progress toward the strategic
goal
Tactical Goal
• Immediate
• Focus of current efforts
EXPERIMENT LOOP
Form
Adapt Hypothesis Small Steps to
• Gather learning
and evolve your
• Identify an action
to help move Achieving Goals
experiments toward next goal
• Move from the current state to
the strategic goal incrementally
• Empiricism: fact-based decisions
Inspect
• Interpret the Experiment
data. Did the • Take the action
action make it and gather data
better or worse?
DELIVERING VALUE
Benefits Analysis Challenge: it can be easy to measure activities and outputs, but it can be
difficult to translate and track to outcomes and value.
Inputs Activities Outputs Outcomes Impacts
Investment, What we do What we create Customer experience Measurable
funding value
FEEDBACK LOOPS AND
VALUE
• Release frequently
• Validate assumptions
• Incorporate feedback
• Reprioritize as needed
WHAT IS A NEXUS?
A Nexus is a connection or series of
connections linking two or more things.
WHAT IS A NEXUS IN SCRUM?
In Scrum, a Nexus is a group of between 3 -9 Scrum teams that work together to deliver a product. It
creates a network among teams.
BEST PRACTICES OF SCALING
• Deciding whether to scale or not to scale
• Apply Scrum in more complex situations
• Evaluate trade-offs and cost/benefit of scaling
• Maintain Scrum core values and principles
• Transparency, Inspection, and Adaptation
• Self-organizing teams
• Continuous improvement
SCRUM FRAMEWORK
“The Nexus minimally extends the Scrum framework only where absolutely necessary”.
It isn’t ideal, but in today’s working environment it is realistic.
Inputs from Executives, Team,
Stakeholders, Customers, and Users
Daily Scrum
meeting
Every
24 hours
Product Scrum
Owner Master 1-4 week
Developers Sprint Sprint Review
A Task
F Developers breakout
R select as many Finished work
C items as they
can commit Sprint end date and
J Sprint Team deliverable
to deliver by Backlog
B end of Sprint do not change
Product
Backlog Sprint Planning Sprint Retrospective
“Without first implementing the foundational Scrum concepts, any scaling will be painful and will actually reduce productivity.
– Ken Schwaber
OPTIMIZE GOOD PRACTICES FIRST
800 Developers surveyed
81% say that they practice Agile
software development
But…
22% use short iterations
21% use daily standups
13% use retrospectives
Most are not using Agile practices
“What is Nexus? An Introduction to the
Framework for Scaling Scrum”, by Patricia Kong
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jln5J-bwr0
MAXIMIZE VALUE OR OUTPUT?
Task
breakout
Task
breakout
Task
breakout
INCREASE VALUE AND REDUCE COMPLEXITY
REDUCE DEPENDENCIES
Sprint 1 Sprint 2 Sprint 3
Scrum Team 1
A D G
Scrum Team 2
B E H
Scrum Team 3
C F I
MULTIPLE TEAMS
NEED THE
SAME RESOURCE
AT THE
SAME TIME
What should the Scrum Master do or say?
Consider:
• The Tuckman Ladder
• (stages of team development)
• Task switching
CROSS-TEAM A
1 9 10 2 20
REFINEMENT
6 16 18 12 7
22 14 5 21 25
19 8 24 11 15
13 4 3 23 17
• Minimize or eliminate
dependencies across the teams
• Determine which team will
deliver backlog items
• This is ongoing
https://www.scrum.org/resources/cross-team-refinement-nexus
NEXUS FRAMEWORK
NEXUS
DAILY
SCRUM
NEXUS SPRINT PLANNING
NEXUS
NEXUS SPRINT RETROSPECTIVE
NEXUS SPRINT RETROSPECTIVE
Task SPRINT REVIEW
breakout Team 1
Retro
A
1
6
9
1
6
1
0
1
8
2
1
2
2
0
7
Team 2
Task 2
2
1
4
5
2
1
2
5 Retro
breakout 1
9
8
2
4
1
1
1
5
1 2 1
4 3 3 7
3
SINGLE INTEGRATED Team 3
NEXUS SPRINT PRODUCT INCREMENT
BACKLOG Retro
Task
breakout
MULTIPLE SCRUM TEAMS NEXUS INTEGRATION TEAM
• The Product Owner (there is only one)
• Scrum Master(s) - can serve more than one team • The Product Owner (there is only one)
• Each team has its own Sprint backlog • A Scrum Master
• One Definition of Done for the combined increment • Nexus Integration Team Members
A
1 9 10 2 20
6 16 18 12 7
22 14 5 21 25
19 8 24 11 15
13 4 3 23 17
Nexus Backlog
1 6 4
5 3 2
Team 1 Team 2 Team 3
Membership in the Nexus Integration Team takes precedence over membership on a Scrum team.
The purpose is to 1) help the Scrum Teams with practices that deliver value, 2) provide ongoing
coaching and consulting to the Nexus and 3) preserve bottom-up intelligence.
SCRUM FRAMEWORK
SPRINT GOAL
C
The result of the latest Sprint
J Must deliver a valuable and useful product
H
C
J
C
J
NEXUS FRAMEWORK
D D SPRINT GOAL
H H
Must deliver an INTEGRATED, valuable, and
useful product at least once every Sprint
C C
J J
D D
H H
NEXUS FRAMEWORK
CHALLENGE:
“COMMUNICATION”
Reducing the number of communication
channels helps to reduce complexity.
COMMON SCALING
ASSUMPTION
Scaling the value that is delivered will
require adding more people.
True or False?
COMMON SCALING
ASSUMPTION
Scaling the value that is delivered will require
adding more people.
False
Adding more people can increase complexity
and dependencies. It can also increase the
number of communication channels.
Delivering more value may sometimes be
accomplished by scaling down.
✓ FEATURE TEAM COMPONENT TEAM
• More modern • Older approach
• Focuses on customer view • Focuses on developer view and a specific technical layer (UI,
database, etc..)
• Requires cross-functionality
• Team members are specialized
• Whole team ownership of tasks
• Tasks are divided and assigned
• Reduces bottlenecks
• Can create dependencies
• Requires strong team collaboration
• Tasks are more sequential/waterfall
• Communication centered around the user story
• Communication centered around tasks
FEATURE TEAMS
WORK MORE
COHESIVELY
• Every team member is focused on how the
product will be used
• Team members tend to be cross-functional
with broad skillsets
• Create end-to-end functionality
• Fewer bottlenecks
• When switching from component team to
feature team, productivity will temporarily
drop
TRADITIONAL MULTIPLE SCRUM
SCRUM TEAMS
Product Backlog Items
Selected to create the Sprint Backlog Sprint Backlogs
1 6 4
5 3 2
4
Team 1 Team 2 Team 3
5
• Each Scrum team has its own Sprint backlog
• How can we detect and minimize dependencies
6 across teams?
NEXUS SPRINT Nexus Sprint Goal
PLANNING
• Nexus Sprint Goal
• Sprint Goal for each Scrum Team
• Aligned to the Nexus Sprint Goal
• Single Nexus Sprint Backlog
• Sprint Backlog for each Scrum Team
• Minimize dependencies, or make them
transparent
• The goal is fixed, the Sprint backlog can evolve
Team 1 Team 2 Team 3
Sprint Goal Sprint Goal Sprint Goal
SPRINT BACKLOGS NEXUS SPRINT
BACKLOG
A
1 9 10 2 20
1 6 4
5 3 2 6 16 18 12 7
22 14 5 21 25
19 8 24 11 15
13 4 3 23 17
Team 1 Team 2 Team 3
• Nexus Sprint Goal (single objective)
• Teams work together on this backlog
INTEGRATED
INCREMENT
• The sum of all teams’ work
• Integrated, valuable, and useful product
• Represents incremental progress toward the product goal
• Has its own Definition of Done
• Unfinished work is not demonstrated and goes back to the top of
the Product Backlog
DEFINITION
OF DONE
ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL
AND
PRODUCT LEVEL
If the Definition of Done for an increment is part of the standards of the
organization, all Scrum Teams must follow it as a minimum.
Sometimes called If it is not an organizational standard, the Scrum Team must create a Definition of
“Conditions of Satisfaction” Done appropriate for the product.
ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA AND DEFINITION OF DONE
Acceptance Criteria Definition of Done
Specific (user story) Applies to all work
Meet user needs Team’s shared understanding
Functional features for users Includes non-functional and quality
requirements
Acceptance Criteria and Definition of Done
• agreed to as a team
• updated as new learnings come to light
• testable
• clear
• concise
Development Organization may
have standards for security and
compliance
DEFINITION OF DONE
“Organizational DoD”
Established by the Development
Organization and/or by the
Developers
Team A Team B Team C
Developers may have standards for “Organizational DoD”
product requirements And
“Product DoD”
Team A
IS IT DONE?
We have just a little more testing to do on
this product increment.
Is it done?
Can it be released?
NON-FUNCTIONAL
REQUIREMENTS
• Part of Definition of Done
• Often invisible, but critical features
• Specified by subject matter experts
• Customer may not think about these
• Examples:
• Security
• Regulatory
• Scalability
• Reliability
The site must be available 99.9% of the time and must be
able to accommodate 1,000 simultaneous users.
What if….
STAKEHOLDERS ARE
NOT HAPPY DURING
THE SPRINT REVIEW?
Possible reasons:
• Lack of stakeholder engagement and communication
• Product Owner has not kept stakeholders
adequately informed
• Scrum Master has not emphasized the importance
of transparency and inspection during the Sprint
Review
SCRUM EVENTS
What should you do?
• The Developers would like to change the
daily standup to 2-3 times per week.
• The Developers want to expand the time
block for certain Scrum events.
REMINDER
Scrum Master coaches the team
and teaches techniques for:
COACHING
•
AND problem solving
FACILITATING • decision making
• adhering to Scrum best
The Scrum Master will challenge practices
Scrum Team members to work
through problems and
collaborate to reach solutions. The Scrum Master does not:
• solve the team’s problems
• make decisions for the team
• dictate how work will be done
TEAM CULTURE
AND
PROBLEM-SOLVING
PMI RECERTIFICATION (PDUs)
If you have a PMI certification, you may use the PDU claim code below to claim
three (3) Professional Development Units (PDUs) for this course.
PDU Claim Code 10082Q1VQ2
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