How to pass the Scaled Professional Scrum (SPS) in #6 steps! Worked with me =)

Congratulations Eduardo. I have question regarding "Step #2: Read about Nexus real cases", how to get it? Even in Scrum.org I don't find much. Do you have any other source for this?

Hello Pradip! I updated the article comments with the case studies I used in my preparation:

http://getscrum.com/2016/02/14/how-to-pass-scaled-professional-scrum-sp…

Please, leave your comment there too. Your opinion is very important.

Hugs.

Hi Eduardo,

I read your article and it was super helpful. I am planning to take the SPS in July. Are there any other real cases that you could point me towards? I would like to further my understanding of the logic because from your article I understood that in the exam the majority of questions will be scenario-based.

Best,
Jamal

Hi,

personally, I worked a lot, I read the Nexus guide and I passed the Open assessments a lot to well understand the Nexus.
I passed others open assessments on mikhail lapshin and Simon Kneafsey sites.
I also read on Simon's site the nexus definitive guide. It helped me a lot to have another point of view and more explanations.

I hope my post will help you

Hello everyone,

I passed the Scaled Professional Scrum assessment today so i thought i should also share my own tips. Everything Eduardo wrote in the first post it true. If you stick to that, you will certainly pass. ANyway, this is what i did

1 - Read the Nexus Guide once every day for 10 days. Read to understand.

2 - On the fifth day of reading the Nexus Guide, i started reading Simon Kneafsey's 'Scaled Professional Scrum and Nexus Guide - The definitive edition' http://www.thescrummaster.co.uk/scrum/how-to-pass-the-scaled-profession… .It goes into a bit more detail and you will find this an invaluable source. 

3 - Take the open assessment on Scrum.org. There are only 15 questions in total so write down what you failed and read to understand the correct answer to the failed question. Rinse and repeat until you score 100% three times. 

4 - Take the open assessment on Simon Kneafsey's site. There are 20 questions and a few new ones appear each time you restart. Write down what you failed and read to understand the correct answer to the failed question. Rinse and repeat until you score 100% three times. 

5 - If there are any questions or aspects of the Nexus Guide you do not understand, ask people in the scrum.org community. 

6 - Read posts by people in the community and youtube videos regarding SPS

I think, if you do this and what other previous posters have mentioned, you will certainly pass. 

Congratulations Opuada on passing your SPS assessment!!

And thank you all for sharing your valuable inputs on preparing for the SPS assessment. I just passed it with 92.5%.



Like Ben mentioned I also utilized Simon Kneafsey's site for his preparation steps, Definitive Guide and Practice Test. And of course I also used Scrum.org's Nexus Open and Mikhail Lapshin's Scaled Scrum Quiz as well.

Thanks a ton to Simon, Mikhail and of course to Scrum.org team for helping me get pass this assessment. All of the above said things really helped me to pass the SPS assessment my first attempt.



So with this assessment completed, I now earned all of these 4 Certificates PSM I, PSPO I, PSM II and SPS within the past month and a half time.

- Ashok

Hi Ashok/Eduardo

I am planning to take SPS certification. Can you please provide the link for Simon Kneafsey's sites for open assessments?

-Thanks

Supriya

thescrummaster.co.uk

Thank You Chris!

Thanks for sharing valuable tips.

Thank you for valuable tips shared as above. It helped a lot. I could clear SPS certification.

Thank you all. Eduardo, Benjamin, Opuada and Ashok - Your inputs helped me a lot to prepare. I passed the test with 92.5% and glad to join you guys and others as a certified SPS.

Congrats Jegadish. I have two questions:

1- Was there enough time to answer all questions and review ? 

2- Were the questions very difficult ? 

Thanks Rami. For your first question, yes, the time was enough to answer all the questions. I had only 2 minutes left to review after I answered all questions. Not all questions were difficult. It is a good blend of simple, medium and hard questions. So it was interesting and sometimes challenging. Overall, it was a great experience.

I have been wondering. Is the SPS an equivalence of SAFe Scrum Master? Can someone help explain the difference please?

@Isidore Ngoh Dong I would not say it is an equivalence of SAFe at all. It's a wholly different framework. SAFe certifications are for SAFe, this cert is for Nexus.

Passed today with 97,5%. Everything listed from Opuada & Eduardo are accurate. Good luck y'all !

I already purchased the exam voucher for SPS last December. Is the SPS more difficult than the PSPO I exam? I just barely passed the PSPO I exam despite my diligence in my self-paced study.

Hello Harley.

The SPS is more advanced than PSM or PSPO because the root of SPS is to coordinate Scrum Teams. The Ceremonies of Scrum are enhanced. So I advise you study more before going through SPS.



SPS is more about understanding and less cramming than PSM and PSPO I found.



The best way would be to take some course, of course.

It is such a pleasure when professionals like yourself take the time to share tips to aspiring scrum professionals.

Thank you all!

I intend on writing the exam and hopefully, I can share some tips as well, once successful.

It is not clear from where to read all the Nexus Real cases while preparing for SPS certification as suggested by EDUARDO RODRIGUES SUCENA.

Will it help if we purchase the Nexus book recommended in Scrum.org Suggested Reading for SPS Certification:

Nexus Framework for Scaling Scrum, The: Continuously Delivering an Integrated Product with Multiple Scrum Teams (The Professional Scrum Series) 1st Edition by Kurt Bittner (Author)

Thanks all. 

I barely managed to pass the SPS exam on 3rd Oct, 2020 with exact 85%. I would like to share my experience with all the people aspiring to appear for Scaled Professional Scrum in future. Please bear with me through this long post and I sincerely hope it will be of some use to you.

I did not attend any trainings for SPS. I only read the material that was available online. Let me give a little background which will clarify why I decided to appear for exam directly instead of first attending a training.

• I have nearly 4 years of experience of working with Scrum Framework. My initial experience was being a part of the development team and later I moved to the role of a Servant leader.
• I had cleared PSM I with 92.5% in first attempt, without attending any formal trainings, mostly based on the knowledge I gained from my work experience. And this is probably why I felt that I would be able to do the same with SPS.

But in the retrospect, I feel that I not only took an unnecessary risk, but I also lost a valuable learning opportunity. Although I had experience in Scrum but not in scaling. The coaches and trainers who give the trainings are much experienced and knowledgeable. In case anyone has any doubts, I suggest you check the stringent criteria needed to become a listed trainer. I highly recommend attending a training for SPS for the following reasons.

• The trainings hopefully cover the much-needed practical insights about the 50 practices to help you launch and sustain a Nexus. These are very important from the exam point of view and of course beyond. Please keep in mind that PSM I is more about the fundamentals, while SPS is also about applying the nexus practices in real world scenarios. There is no harm in learning from experience of other especially when you don’t have enough experience in the field yourself.
• Again I don’t have the experience myself, but I am assuming the trainings will also help you understand how to visualize and minimize the dependencies in a Nexus. This can be a useful experience irrespective of whether you decide to scale up or not, or whether you narrow down to Nexus or any other Scaling framework.
• I also think that the trainings will give the insights on following topics specific to Scaling fundamentals like Scaled Product Ownership, Feature teams, De-scaling, Scrumble etc.
• And if you are lucky, you may find that some of the trainers also give you a free second attempt which could be availed in 14 days after the first attempt. This is a safety net and a stress reliever.

In the end, scoring just about the minimum led me to think whether I am ready to participate in scaled software and product development with multiple teams working together. And I realised that learning does not has to stop just because I hold the certification.

Note:

1. This is my personal view. Only one can be best judge of the one’s potential. If you think you have the knowledge or the experience to crack the exam without any training, You can undoubtedly go ahead.
2. It would really help, If the people who have passed the SPS exam or have attended trainings for the same, can share their view of how valuable these trainings were for certification and otherwise.

Hi all,



two and a half years after I did my PSM I and PSOP I certificates and worked as a product owner, today I went on the the next level and got successful with my SPS exam. I finished with 92.5% on the first try.



So here are my expeciences for preparation. I can agree with all the tips here, in particular Mikhail Lapshin's quiz and also Simon Kneafsey's open assessment have helped me getting fit for the exam. Except for those and the nexus guide plus nexus open, I did not use any other material. So for those of you who might ask if it is possible to manage the exam without any books or courses, I would say yes.



Nevertheless the scenario based questions were quite different from alle those questions in the open assessments. Luckily I tried to think of my practical expeciences which helped a bit. I could imagine that an official training course might cover these scenarios in preparing for those kind of questions.



Best regards,

Long

 

Hi all,

In last month after I did my PSM I certificate and worked as a Scrum Mater (I also worked as a developer of 4 years as a part of Scrum Team), today I went on to the next level and got success with my SPS exam. So far my journey with scrum org is as PSM 1 --> PSK 1 --> SPS. 

I am working in a large organization who opted Scrum with multiple teams and I used that experience to prepare for SPS. I read through,

1. Scrum Guide,

2. Nexus Guide.

I did not read any other books. Using this two guides and past experience, I successfully passed SPS. So yes, if you are following Scaled Scrum properly than experience is enough to answer some of practical questions. For rest, Nexus and Scrum guide is enough.

Again, just like all Scrum Org assessment, this requires some intense studying. So prepare hard. Good Luck you all.

First attempt 82.5%, have to learn more scaling fundamentals. Any further help to make me pass? Much appreciated.