PAL exam - venting a little here

Hi Jim,

This will sound like a bit of a boast, but I promise you it's more to do with my own particular agile journey, and I hope it helps you and others who are considering taking the exam or associated training.

I took and passed the PAL I exam a couple of months ago, and I didn't do a lot of specific preparation for it. It's been a busy time for me since then, so I no longer remember much about the questions; but I did personally find that it was one of the easier exams I had taken.

I think the reason I found PAL I straight-forward is the extensive research I've done on Scrum and agility, and involvement I've had in this forum, and with the wider Scrum community at local events. Particularly, I've encountered a lot of smart people (many of them are Professional Scrum Trainers with Scrum.org) who both practice and preach servant-leadership, the Scrum Values, autonomy, and team accountability.

Last year I attended a PSM course led by Gunther Verheyen, and a large part of it was spent on breaking down invalid assumptions about Scrum, or working life in general. This inspired me to dive deeper, and really challenge views that had been planted by default, simply because previous employers and cultural norms had made me think in a certain way.

With this experience (combined with a good understanding of words and phrases that Scrum.org would never put in a correct answer), I was able to answer most questions instinctively.

I think it would be interesting to know how many people have PAL I in combination with various Scrum.org qualifications/training, because my gut feeling is that the pass rate for anyone who already has PSM II will be very high (even though the topics are different), whereas PSM I or PSPO I aren't necessarily that helpful.

Put another way, to pass PAL I, I believe it is necessary to appreciate the values espoused by Scrum.org around servant-leadership and teams, and ideally you will have a good understanding of why the contents of the Scrum Guide exist, rather than just what those contents are.

I personally did not study a lot for this exam as I have a good graspy over agile and scrum. It is more or less Agile based and the questions are mostly scenarios and tests your understanding of agile and servant leadership beyond any text book. The exam is not an easy one and is comparable more or less to the PSM II so as Simon mentioned, having the PSM I and PSPO I won’t help a lot or be an indicator in anyway that you will be able to pass the PAL-I. 

Scrum.org did a good job I believe in administering this exam and questions because if the exam were super easy then the credential wouldn’t be as credible and valuable especially that you do them online. 

On the other hand,  I would not call the level of the exam Intermediate, it is definitely a higher level than intermediate so if there is a plan for PAL-II, then this is definitely PAL-II, not PAL-I so a basic and general understanding of agile won’t guarantee that you will pass the current PAL-I so you need a deep understanding of the concepts especially that like you said, there is more than one correct answer and you have to chose the most correct or best answer.

Good Luck ! 

To both your points, PSM I and PSPO I are really irrelevant to the PAL outside of the sections relating to a few questions on SM and PO.  While I can appreciate the viewpoint offered here I don't find a direct correlation to Simon's comments regarding what Scrum.org would "never" use in a correct answer and to your point Rami regarding there being more than one correct answer, this is obviously related to the subjectiveness, character of the creator, which is actually open to interpretation for the candidate to select their best answer versus the question creator. (again because there is more than one correct answer)

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

there being more than one correct answer, this is obviously related to the subjectiveness, character of the creator, which is actually open to interpretation for the candidate to select their best answer versus the question creator.

This may be the case, but imagine there is a question where a CEO is asked by a stakeholder to intervene when a Product Owner is not functioning well, and the possible answers are:

• A  The CEO should take the information and pass on the feedback to the Product Owner
• B  The CEO should overrule the Product Owner
• C  The CEO should tell the stakeholder that the Product Owner is responsible for maximizing value, and advise the stakeholder to raise the issue at the Sprint Review
• D  The CEO should raise this at the next Sprint Retrospective 
• E  The CEO should meet privately with the Scrum Master and Product Owner to discuss the situation

It might be that in real life, there's a better solution than all of these. But perhaps there's one answer that really supports the empiricism of the Scrum framework, bearing in mind that the pillars of empiricism are transparency, inspection and adaptation.

Some answers are completely incompatible with the Scrum Guide (and should be ruled out). For the rest, the best is somewhat subjective, but I feel that there's one that enables empiricism much better than the others.

I believe there was a lot of consistency in the questions, and if it feels open to interpretation, you would probably benefit from getting a feel for the teachings of Scrum.org, perhaps by viewing the webcasts, reading the blog, and following content made by Professional Scrum Trainers.

Note: this is a question that I made up on the spot. It's the kind of topic that may be covered, but as far as I know, the specific question and answers do not feature on the exam.

Is it me or is it that there are too many possible "select the best answer" choices in the selections given? 

I can’t recall whether or not there are more “best answer” questions, but I think it would be surprising if this was not the case for a leadership-focused exam. Perhaps an enhanced ability to discern the optimal course of action based on situational context is a characteristic of a good leader.

touché Ian!

The PAL is for Agile Leaders, like Agile Coaches. Agile Coaching is very different than filling the role of Scrum Master and Product Owner. As an Agile Coach, I need to be knowledgeable in Agile and th various frameworks within the umbrella of Agile. As a SM or PO, the focus is primarily, and in many cases strictly, Scrum. Scrum is a bit more refined and direct where as Agile is far more broad. The PAL tests a person’s ability to train others in Agile and they want to make sure that a person taking the exam will be able to look in various scenarios and pick out “the best” approach. In many cases as a SM or PO, there is only 1 option, such as the timeboxes for each event and the differences between the Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog. Agile Leadership, however, is a bit different. You have to be able to interpret Agile from seemingly similar options in the same situation. Case in point is the question/scenario that Simon offered. The PO is not doing his/her job well and the stakeholders complain to the CEO about this; finding the “best” option from an Agile point of view can be challenging because there may be several options that would be acceptable. Answers C and E are both viable options. The CEO should absolutely support the PO and explain to others, even and including customers, that the PO is maximizing value above all so give them some breathing room and trust them. However, I disagree with C in that putting someone on blast in a group setting is definitely not appropriate. That’s why I would say E is the “best” approach in terms of Agile. The CEO relays the feedback to the PO and SM privately so they can work together to resolve the issue.

Agile Coaching is very different than filling the role of Scrum Master and Product Owner.

I disagree. In a Scrum organization, a good Scrum Master will take on the role that is so often described as being an Agile Coach.

The Scrum Master role is pretty broad, and here are a few things from the Scrum Guide, which I feel support my point:

The Scrum Master is a servant-leader for the Scrum Team. The Scrum Master helps those outside the Scrum Team understand which of their interactions with the Scrum Team are helpful and which aren’t. The Scrum Master helps everyone change these interactions to maximize the value created by the Scrum Team.

...

Understanding and practicing agility

...

Causing change that increases the productivity of the Scrum Team

In fact, the only times agile (agility) and leadership (servant-leader, Leading) are mentioned in the Scrum Guide are under the Scrum Master section.

I'm not saying I would make a good CEO (I've never tried doing it), and such a person may make more effective decisions than me, for a whole host of reasons; but keep in mind that the exam definitely has a Scrum flavour, and is of course from Scrum.org, so I think it's reasonable to expect the best answers are considered to be those that support Scrum as explained in the Scrum Guide.

I disagree. In a Scrum organization, a good Scrum Master will take on the role that is so often described as being an Agile Coach.

Simon, I believe you missed the context of my comment saying that Agile Coaching is different than a SM and PO. Read the first 4 sentences in my comment above again. In MOST cases, the SM is coaching on Scrum while helping people understand the Agile mindset. How often are SM's coaching on Kanban, XP, DevOps, SAFe, etc etc? Not that often in my experience; that is where the Agile Coach comes in. The SM is (at least should be) an expert in Scrum, they should be "great" at Scrum. Agile Coaches should be more of a "jack of all trades" and be "good" at the multiple frameworks that fall under Agile; not just 1 framework. SM's are coaching the team to stay within the Scrum Framework but an Agile Coach may say that Scrum is not the right path for a team and they should switch to Kanban instead. I don't know many SM's that would do that considering there are no SM's in Kanban so they would basically talk themselves out of their job.

Saying Agile Coaches are different than Scrum Masters does not mean that SM's are not Agile Coaches; it just means there is a difference.

passus, passer, passed - I truly did not like the exam but it is done.

I spent time on Scrum a pocket guide, Software in 30 days, The Nexus Framework, The Nexus Guide, The Scrum Guide, The Professional Scrum Product Owner, watched the videos here, read the blogs, and read the forums.  I also read most everything over at the Scrum Alliance site.  One point to note here, I found the "Cadence" video here on the Scrum site very informative.

All the best!

Hi Jim,

Would you mind sharing the "Cadence" video URL that you just mentioned?

Thanks!

https://www.scrum.org/resources/deliver-cadence-release-demand

Hi to all,

Anyone of you find useful/valuable the "Agile Leader Learning Path" (https://www.scrum.org/pathway/agile-leader-learning-path) in order to pass the PAL I exam?

Thanks a lot,

Ismael

Thank you José Ismael Nuñez Reyna :)

Just passed the PAL-I exam myself, with success, but to me, although I found most of the questions fairly easy, there were a few very tough and subjective ones.

Picking the right "best" or "best two" answers to those were HARD. And even after the exam, I was very curious and did quite a bit of search on one or two of them, without knowing if I did get them right or not of course, and I'm still not sure there is a definite "right" answer.

To prepare, I did follow most of the suggested learning path's articles, blogs and videos (but not the very long ones). I was also already quite familiar with Management 3.0 and have had several experiences as coach in various organisations. That helped a lot.

Good luck!

@Curtis :

"How often are SM's coaching on Kanban, XP, DevOps, SAFe, etc etc?"

Are you sure you are talking about coaching ? Or more probably mentoring/teaching/consulting ?

I took and passed the exam a while ago, and not to boast but to me the test was not difficult to me.

Here is the thing with the PAL exam, but either you are ready for it or you are not. I hate to sound so black and white about it. However if you're expecting to just read up a little or cram and study I don't know how well you are going to do. A lot of this cert in my opinion is about having done the job for a while.



If you have an SM or PO role, and you only exclusively worry about your team? You may not be ready for this. The L stands for Leadership which is why you're ready or you're not. If you're close then studying can get you over the edge, but just because someone has one or two certs doesn't help that much. This is about the bigger picture which you need to remember is the key to Agile working is it's not a process change, but a mindset change. If a company or group changes the process but not the mindset, agile will not be executed well, and will likely have problems with adoption. 



This is just my opinion and everyone is entitled to theirs. 

Hello everyone, 

I have a basic question, as I read the following discussion I understand that most of the questions and answers are base on best possible answer then why scrum.org's open assessment (agile leadership) are base on true/false basis?

Hi Kayum, 

I just passed PSPO I (90%) and PAL I (96%). 

PAL I open assessment just gave us a very basic awareness of the exam. In actual exam, the questions are tougher and most of them are MCQ instead of True/False. 

To get it passed, it may needs to have agile mindsets which is more than Scrum, as they will ask more scenario questions and you need to put yourself in the shoes of manager/project sponsor who managing the development org. 

Hope it helps you for exam preparation. Good Luck.

Hi,

I just took PAL-I exam and got 30 out of 36, so just short of passing. I can empathize with Jim. However I choose to take the exam without the class/training, and without reading the Agile Leadership Tool Kit book from Scrum.org.  However I hold four other Scrum.org certifications.

Having now read that book, I should be ready given I covered the areas the exam results said I needed to review. And the answers I missed the first time I believe were due to me over thinking the questions I missed. 

And I am glad I failed, because I would not have read the Agile Leadership Tool Kit book.

Best of Luck to all...

Hi, I've just passed PAL I assessment - got 98.7% which is 77 points out of 78 max - and decided to share a few things which might be useful to people wanting to give a shot at the PAL I. 

However, be aware that I'm not new to Agile nor Scrum. I've been working in Agile environments (or transitioning from Waterfall to Agile) for a few years and was lucky to work with amazing professionals, coaches and leaders (LSS, Agile, Scrum, Kanban), learnt from them and had opportunities to deal with some challenges presented in the exam myself.

So if you're quite new to Agile and/or Scrum and want to get certified: 

- consider passing PSM I first (go through all suggested materials here at Scrum.org and attend the Scrum Master training)

- study the Scrum Guide and the Nexus Guide

- learn about all roles in Scrum and their responsibilities

- get a deep understanding of what Agile and Scrum are about and when/why they are used/introduced

- understand what Empiricism is

- get a deep understanding of the Scrum Values and what 'value' is to the organization

- think which actions are most beneficial to those around you (the Scrum Team, stakeholders/customers) which support the Scrum Values

More experienced professionals might want to refresh some of the above topics. I also read that lots of people are recommending the Agile Leadership Toolkit book. Honestly, I've got no opinion because I haven't read it yet.

If you have experience working with senior management and understand their point of view, that's great! Surely will help give answer to some of the questions.

Regarding the form of the exam - there was only a few True/False questions, maybe 2 Multiple Answer and all the rest were MCQ. I was expecting more MAs, therefore it turned out to be easier than I had thought. But it's not an easy assessment though. Anyway, the key is to think like a Servant Leader.

Best and good luck!

This may be the case, but imagine there is a question where a CEO is asked by a stakeholder to intervene when a Product Owner is not functioning well, and the possible answers are:

• A  The CEO should take the information and pass on the feedback to the Product Owner
• B  The CEO should overrule the Product Owner
• C  The CEO should tell the stakeholder that the Product Owner is responsible for maximizing value, and advise the stakeholder to raise the issue at the Sprint Review
• D  The CEO should raise this at the next Sprint Retrospective 
• E  The CEO should meet privately with the Scrum Master and Product Owner to discuss the situation

@Simon Mayer Nice question, and does require some thought.  I my view,

• (A) could be possible,
• (B) should never happen,
• (C) seems like a good choice accept that I would expect the sprint review to focus on the increment & business value and not how members of the scrum team are working,
• (D) probably not as the retrospective is for the scrum team,
• (E) would probably be a real world scenario, as the CEO is not part of the scrum team but is part of the organisation, the PO obviously has stakeholders within the organisation with the CEO most likely being one of them, and part of the SM job is to serve the organisation as well as the PO so they would most likely facilitate this meeting as well as provide guidance to both parties. 

Please let everyone know which is the right answer. 

Please let everyone know which is the right answer. 

The purpose was to get the reader thinking about the right type of question far more than to tell the correct answer - it was made up on the spot as was said in the post.

I took this exam less than a month ago. I had already passed PSM1 and PSPO1 quite some time ago. I completed this exam as my personal effort to ensure I had taken on the new edition of the scrum guide, and to balance out some IIBA related content regarding "product owner analysis"...

My preparation consisted of doing the open exam repeatedly for what was clearly far too long (although I had no pressing need to be certified so I guess there is no such thing as over-prepared).

I found myself thinking the questions were all rather too obvious. Everything was "dogmatic" - you've either taken on the dogma, as such the answer is obvious; or you have not. I don't know how in a level 1 exam to deal with "sometimes the dogma is the problem." 

The purpose was to get the reader thinking about the right type of question far more than to tell the correct answer - it was made up on the spot as was said in the post.

I know it was made up on the spot.  I provided my thoughts on the possible answers so that Simon could let me know if my deductions are correct or not. 

I'm studying for my PAL 1 at the moment..I'm glad I read this blog..I felt good about my prep and was going to do the exam tomorrow. And I'm clearly not ready now.

It's a bit worrying the open assessment questions don't reflect the real exam question format.

 We'll see how I do :/

Update: I passed PAL-1 with 92.2%

Overall the exam was very fair the open assessment I believe was a good indicator of the standard needed to do well in the exam. There is a lot of scenario based questions which may surprise people, I actually really enjoyed these.

You really do need to put yourself into the shoes of an agile leader before you start the exam. 

I passed the PAL yesterday without any prep with 94% score on last day of quarantining.  Out of curiosity took the open exams couple of times and the questions intrigued me to check how complex it could be in real test. Some questions were easy and most were advanced type. Only 10% were similar to open exam. At least 33% were like where you pick the answer and say even if it is wrong I don’t care this is what I will do in real situation!. Meaning I had no idea what the correct answer was. PAL is similar to PSM-II but with different perspective. I do have experience as SM, PM, and as agile advisor to management.  Recipe to pass PAL or any coach level cert:  a) internalize agility to the point one is not tied with specific framework, b) have desire to explore and embrace tough situations at work, c) continuously sharpen the saw to "serve" the customer and teams, better and better and better.

I studied pretty much everything for the PAL I exam.  Sigh...I did not pass (again).  There were a couple of questions that stumped me, such as a behavior that can impede the adoption of agile.  Could anything impede it (specialization, budgeting, etc)?  I feel pretty good that I have some knowledge in Agile Leadership, but I have not passed the exam. Any help would greatly be appreciated.  Thank you.

I studied pretty much everything for the PAL I exam.  Sigh...I did not pass (again).

Hi Sean, your profile shows that you have passed the PAL exam.  :-)

I took the assessment yesterday and cleared it successfully. It was my first attempt. 

Some very tough questions, gets you really thinking. If you are an experienced scrum professional am sure you would have come across or heard about some of the scenarios highlighted in the questions. Really enjoyed working out what would be the best answer for the given situation. 

Thank you Scrum.org :) 

@Simon Mayer Nice question, and does require some thought.  I my view,

• (A) could be possible,
• (B) should never happen,
• (C) seems like a good choice accept that I would expect the sprint review to focus on the increment & business value and not how members of the scrum team are working,
• (D) probably not as the retrospective is for the scrum team,
• (E) would probably be a real world scenario, as the CEO is not part of the scrum team but is part of the organisation, the PO obviously has stakeholders within the organisation with the CEO most likely being one of them, and part of the SM job is to serve the organisation as well as the PO so they would most likely facilitate this meeting as well as provide guidance to both parties. 

Please let everyone know which is the right answer. 

I only just saw this

Of course it's just my opinion, but I believe the best answer would generally be C, as it enables a more transparent conversation amongst stakeholders (although with hindsight, I wish I'd said "accountable" and not "responsible").

My my main problem with options A and E is that I don't see why a CEO should place themself in the middle of such feedback, as it'd most likely impede transparency (of what the actual feedback is, who is sharing it, and how strongly they feel), and could easily cause a communication bottleneck. It might also put the CEO in a rescuer stance, as modelled by the Karpman drama triangle.



Depending on context, I'd also quite likely advise an approach that's not there.

The appropriate response might also depend if the CEO agrees with the particular stakeholder, and what the stakeholder has tried already.