Here are some tips on taking (and passing) the Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master III (PSM III) assessment and gaining certification from Scrum.org.
To strengthen your chances of passing you should first consider attending a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master course. This course covers the core material you will need to prepare for PSM III. The theory will be brought to life with real-world examples from your instructor and will set you up well to take. You should also consider attending a Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master – Advanced course. The content covered and the 2 days spent exploring advanced Scrum Master topics will make passing the PSM III assessment significantly more likely.
An alternative lower-cost way to gain the knowledge you need is with our Ultimate Scrum & Agile eLearning courses. Take our Ultimate Scrum Master Course to cover the core Scrum Master content. Then take the Ultimate Scrum Master Advanced Course which covers the more advanced topics.
To prepare for the assessment, firstly review the guidance from Scrum.org on how the PSM III assessment is structured so you know what to expect logistically.
Here are some important things to note about the PSM III assessment:
- There assessment is comprised of 24 essay based questions.
- The time limit is 2.5 hours.
- Scoring is Pass/Did Not Pass.
- The assessment is manually graded by Scrum.org staff so it will take a few weeks to receive your result.
Tips to help you prepare:
- The key to passing PSM III is having a very strong understanding of Scrum theory, combined with a number of years of solid experience using Scrum in the real world. A strong pass mark in the PSM I and PSM II assessments should mean you are well on the way to having the right level of theory knowledge.
- Review my tips on passing the Professional Scrum Master I (PSM I) and the Professional Scrum Master II (PSM II) assessments. These assessments are prerequisites and so you must pass them before moving onto the more challenging PSM III assessment.
- If you have attended a Scrum.org course, review all the examples from the class material and practice writing out short paragraph answers for the best way to solve the exercises.
- Completing the PSM III assessment within the timebox is challenging. You need to ensure you balance your time and allow enough time to answer each question fully. Some questions require more detail in the answers than others. Allowing some time at the beginning to review all the questions and identify these is a good practice. You will have approximately 6 minutes per question.
- If you want to see some sample questions and learn how to answer them, try our Free Scrum Master III (PSM III) Practice Questions. This provides 5 sample questions and guidance on creating good answers for each.
- If you want more practice questions and guidance on creating good answers, try our Ultimate Scrum Master III (PSM III) Practice Questions. This is a larger selection of sample PSM III questions with detailed suggestions to help you create answers. It will help you know what sort of questions to expect and be able to create good answers in the real assessment..
- If you want to verify if you are ready to take the assessment and likely to pass, try our Ultimate Scrum Master III (PSM III) Practice Assessment to experience a realistic practice assessment and receive graded answers you can use to gauge your current level. The practice assessment is 5 star rated and had been used by hundreds of people to help them prepare for PSM III.
I would also strongly suggest reading these books as a minimum:
Scrum – A Pocket Guide by Gunther Verheyen
The Professional Product Owner: Leveraging Scrum as a Competitive Advantage by Don McGeal & Ralph Jocham
Some final tips to help you during the assessment:
- Aim to make a few strong points in each answer to showcase what you know.
- Short answers are not necessarily a bad thing, but make sure you answer all parts of the question. This is really important! Failure to answer all parts of a question is where people most commonly lose points.
- Use real-world examples from your own experience where you can.
- Ensure you use the correct Scrum terminology from the latest Scrum Guide. Its Developers (not Development Team), they are Events (not ceremonies) and it is a Daily Scrum (not a Daily Standup). Failure to get the basic language correct demonstrates a lack of correct and up to date understanding of Scrum which will make a pass unlikely.
- You are not graded on your spelling, but you need to make sure whoever is grading your answers can understand what you mean so you should do your best to minimise mistakes.
- Abbreviations are fine as long as they are in common usage and Scrum.org will not struggle to know what you mean. If in doubt, write out the full word.
- Do not include material copied verbatim from other sources or other assessment takers. This does not demonstrate knowledge or understanding and Scrum.org are likely to detect it. Use your own words.
- Remember that Scrum is about inspection and adaptation and you may need to utilise this approach to successfully navigate the advanced assessments.
PSM III is difficult and less than 2000 people have achieved it to date. However it is not impossible so if you prepare well, understand the theory underpinning Scrum and have some solid real-world experience with Scrum you should be well placed to pass and achieve this distinguishing certification.
If you would like to join one of our classes, you can see our upcoming class list. We operate all over the world so you will find a course running at a time to suit you.
Please let me know how you find the PSM III assessment via the comments section below. Good luck!
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Hi Simon,
Would you share me with sample questions for PSM III? I am preparing for PSM III.
Best regards,
Piotr L.
Hi Piotr,
I have sent you an email.
Regards
Simon
Hi Simon,
Can you please share with me sample questions for PSM II and PSM III? The reason is, I understand Agile/Scrum from practical working perspective, not so much from theoretical context. Need to understand if I should go for PSM II or directly to PSM III.
Best!
Golam
Hi Golam,
You should do PSM II, then PSM III.
I have sent you a message with further details.
Regards
Simon
Dear Simon,
Would you share me with sample questions for PSM III?
Thank you in advance.
Best regards,
Sion
Hi Sion,
I have sent you a message.
Regards
Simon
Hi Simon,
Could you please send me few sample questions on PSM III ?
Hi Kaushik,
I have sent you a message.
Regards
Simon
Like Sanjay Saini did, is it possible to reattempt after passing in next attempt to improve your score so that you are in line as per PST expectations.
Vivek,
Scrum.org allow you to retake the assessment. This will incur an additional charge and be aware that you may not see the same questions on your next attempt.
Regards
Simon
Hi Simon,
I just finished my PSM-iii assessment, waiting for full results. I have following queries, can you please answer them?
1. It shows 9% (19 of 212), I guess this is for multiple choice evaluation. What does this really mean, as I don’t think there were really 19 multiple choice questions. I guess they were around <10 out 34 questions. Can you please help me understand this better? Is this a good score?
2. When will I get final result (ie., how long will it take to a PST to evaluate my essay questions)
thanks and regards
Krishna
I did PSM III with 88% in July but my target is to get 95%, I am going to give it another try very soon.
The exam time is really hard, try to be as crisp as you can, avoid writing too much.
Hi Sanjay,
Go for it. 95% is hard but possible.
Regards
Simon
Sure Simon
I am planning to re-take it in Aug itself, let’s see how it goes.
Regards
Sanjay
Hi Simon,
I will certainly do your test assessment within the next weeks/months. One question already popped up: Your test has 6 questions in 30 minutes – is this consistent with the real one (around 24 questions in 2 hours)?
Bye,
Marcus
Hi Marcus,
It’s a practice shortened version of the real thing. The real PSM II assessment is 120 mins and contains proportionately more questions to fill the time. The standard and type of questions is representative of the real thing.
I look forward to seeing your attempt.
Regards
Simon
Hey Benn
Do you mind sharing the type of questions you got in the assessment, not necessarily the exact question
Hi Sanjay,
The questions vary quite a bit so it’s not easy to explain what to expect.
An example would be – ‘What is Product Backlog Refinement, who does it, how is it done and why is it important?
If you want some more realistic examples take a look at this page:
https://www.thescrummaster.co.uk/assessments/professional-scrum-master-ii-psm-ii-practice-assessment/
Hi Simon,
I finished the test last friday and I’m waiting for my result.
I just wanted to say that this test his really hard. English is not my mother tongue.
I regret the fact that there are multiple questions in one question.
Having the clock in your head just to be sure to have the time to answer all the questions is not enough.
You have also to take care of answering the question as a whole.
Right now, I’m waiting for my result and cross my fingers.
Thank you a lot for your feedback.
If I had known PSP before, I would have passed it has a check. I will pass it soon ;-)
Hi Benn,
I agree completely that it is hard and even more so for non native English speakers.
I also agree that many of the essay based questions tend to be multi part which makes it even tougher to answer them with the limited time available.
Let me know how you score. Good luck.
Regards
Simon
Simon, I’m a little angry about myself, I failed with a 81% score.
I’ll take some time to read the Lyssa Adkins’ book about coaching agile team and read some blogs.
I’ll test myself by taking the PSP assessment.
I misread a question about scaling agile how to do it, the pros and cons.
I think it could be good thing to follow a PSM course to check my knowledge and improve (I never took the time to do it before).
Thank you for your help
You came very close. No need to be angry with yourself!
A PSM course will certainly help you, but you may find now that you know what to expect you may be able to pass with a little more reading.
Hmm OK :)
Hi Simon
Can u send me the PSE assessment link pls and discount code if any
Hi Venkatesh,
There are no discounts currently on the PSE assessment unless you attend a Professional Scrum Master course first, which I would advise anyway if you are serious about passing PSE.
You can register for it on the scrum.org site here:
https://www.scrum.org/Assessments/Professional-Scrum-Master-Assessments/PSM-II-Assessment
Regards
Simon