The Scrum.org Scaled Professional Scrum (SPS) assessment is a 60-minute timeboxed assessment. You need to score over 85% to pass and gain the SPS certification. The assessment contains 40 questions in English of multiple choice type.
You decide when and where to take the assessment. You are not required to attend an assessment centre and can take it online from a location of your choosing. There is no expiration date once you have purchased the assessment attempt.
Further details on what to expect from the assessment can be found on the Scrum.org assessment page.
- Ideally, attend a Scaled Professional Scrum With Nexus course.
- Read the Nexus Guide and get really familiar with it. This is the primary source of all answers for the assessment.
- Read my pages on Scaled Professional Scrum and Nexus – The Definitive Guide.
- Take the Nexus Open Assessment a few times until you have seen all the questions and can score 100%.
- Take our Free Scaled Scrum (SPS) Practice Assessment. This offers different questions to the Nexus Open assessment so is an additional opportunity to test your knowledge in advance of sitting the real assessment.
- Take our paid Ultimate Scaled Scrum (SPS) Practice Assessment. This offers more practice questions and is the best and most comprehensive practice assessment available anywhere. It is 5-star rated and has been used by thousands of people.
- Since the SPS assessment is an intermediate-level, doing the other Open Assessments may also help you prepare. I would especially recommend the Scrum Open and Product Owner Open assessments.
When you are ready to take the assessment for real:
- Have the Nexus Guide, Scrum Guide, Scrum Glossary and our Scrum 1 Pager to hand and use them to look up what you need.
- Answer all the questions even if you have to make an educated guess. The assessment is not negatively marked.
- Read the questions and answers carefully. One word misread can lead you to the wrong answer.
- Don’t spend too long on each question. If unsure of an answer, note down the question number and move on. Completing all the questions in the timebox can be challenging.
- Be aware of the difference between “must” (a mandatory thing) and “should” (an optional thing).
- Make sure you select the required number of answers as the platform will not prompt you. Choosing only 1 answer on a “Pick 2” style question is a quick way to drop points.
- Come back to the hard questions at the end and use your time to think them over.
- Aim to leave time to check all your answers before the end.
- Google the question if really unsure, but be careful as this takes time and there are lots of unreliable sources out there.
You can resit the assessment if you need to, but you will need to purchase another attempt from Scrum.org. The only exception to this is if you attend a Scrum.org Scaled Professional Scrum course, and then fail the SPS assessment within 14 days of completing the course. In this case Scrum.org will provide you with a 2nd free attempt.
I hope this information will help you to pass and achieve the Scaled Professional Scrum certification from Scrum.org. Let me know how you get on via the comments below and good luck!
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Hi, my name is Simon Kneafsey and I am a Professional Scrum Trainer with Scrum.org & TheScrumMaster.co.uk. I am on a mission to simplify Scrum & Agile for 1 million people. I have helped 10,000+ people so far, and I can help you too. Find out more & get in touch.Scrum.org Launches Professional Scrum Product Backlog Management Skills Training Course
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Comments 12
Hi Simon,
I just finished your SPS’s practice assessement, for the question
– “How many parts are there to a Nexus Sprint Retrospective ?”
– I choose “3” and I have wrong for that question(you choose the good response as “This is not describred by Nexus”)
– but in the response feedback it’s writen “The Nexus Sprint Retrsoepctive consists of three parts”.
Are you agree that the good response is “3” ?
Thanks
Author
Hi Ibrahima,
Good spot. I have updated the feedback on this question to the following:
The Nexus Guide used to describe the Nexus Sprint Retrospective consisting of 3 parts. This is no longer true as of January 2021.
Thank you for making me aware.
Simon
Simon,
Your site exposed a lot of my NEXUS blind spots. Even though none of the questions in your OPEN assessment showed up in my real test, they truly solidified my understanding of Nexus flow, roles, artifacts, rules, and the binding fabric between them.
I don’t think I would have passed my PSP without understanding why I couldn’t get 100% on your assessments (shhhhh, sharing this in a very “quiet mode”: my first 5 tests in your assessments were consistently 60% pass, initially making me scratching my heard thinking something wrong with your test b/c I get ~90%+ in Scrum. org open assessments… then I realized how lucky I was coming across your website)
Thanks a lot,
TechGuy –
VA- USA
PS:
I wish you had an SPS full course online, and I wouldn’t have minded paying for it even if it was more than regular long courses online like DevOps, ML, etc (Edx).
Author
Thank you for the useful feedback. That is exactly what my assessments are designed for – to help you learn.
Hi Simon,
I have just started to look at various resources etc. for the SPS certification and will definitely be using the resources mentioned in your blog.
I have recently completed PSM certificate and one of the reasons that I liked this certification is that apart from being quite detail oriented, it does not require renewal.
I am looking for details around validity of SPS certificate – is that valid for lifetime as well?
Regards,
Madhura
Author
Hi Madhura,
All the Scrum.org certifications including SPS are for life. They do not require the payment of any fees to maintain them once you have them.
Regards
Simon
Thanks Simon for a quick response – much appreciated !
Regards,
Madhura
Thanks a lot Simon for an excellent articles on on Scaled Professional Scrum. SPS Definitive Guide blog published here is a great reference for me along with Nexus Guide.
I also utilized your SPS practice tests/Mocks for best preparation.
These things really helped me to pass the SPS assessment recently in my first attempt.
Regards
SureshBabu Thadikamalla
CSM|CSP|SAFe Agilist|PSPO|SPS|ICP-ACC
Dear Simon Kneafsey
Thanks to your great SPS Definitive Guide & SPS Practice Test, I’ve passed the SPS assessment today (first attempt).
Kind Regards,
Khalil
Thanks a lot Simon for an excellent article on on SPS and I really loved your way of presenting your SPS Definitive Guide blog here. I also utilized your SPS practice test.
These things really helped me to pass the SPS assessment just now in my first attempt.
– Ashok
Dear Simon, Your site is – besides being a very professional scrum site – a big help for passing the SPS exam. Thank you very much. Best regards, Xander Prins.
Author
Good to hear. Thank you Xander