Completed PSM 1 with 96.3% first attempt

Hi all, thanks to those who have answered questions here in these forums, because I was able to pull up so many questions and read clear explanations and get links to sections of the guide or other examples that helped me understand concepts during my studies.

I took six days to prepare for the exam, I was familiar with Agile concepts and have used Agile Management on certain projects since 2013. I chose Scrum.org over Scrum Alliance because of the more serious assessment and my research indicated the materials here are an improvement and evolution of the CSM materials. I am pleased with my choice.

The materials I foccussed on to prepare were:

1) Read the Scrum guide six times completely, and referenced it numerous times when going through study guides or practice exams. I made sure to read the scrum guide again one more time before sitting the exam because this is the bible in terms of the assessment. 

2) I bought the kindle book Called Scrum Narrative and PSM Exam Guide - by Mohammed Musthafa Soukath Ali and read parts 1 and 3 and did the 80 question exam at the end. I found this book to be confusing and some of the questions had the author's personal interpretation of the Scrum Guide in the content and answers. I couldn't verify all the answers in Scrum.org writings or in the Scrum Guide directly and didn't necessarily agree with his interpretations. Unless you're already feeling comfortable at a fairly deep level with other Scrum materials I wouldn't pick this book up. 

3) The online help attendant at Management Plaza was great in setting me up on their PSM Preparation Practice Exam bundle and I did each of their 80 question exams (3 different versions) at least three times until I was scoring between 92 and 97%. They also have a free Training Manual that was a very well written and laid out expansion on the Scrum Guide that I read twice and made notes from. Overall I found the content from Management Plaza to be very high and I recommend the two products I studied from, they both definitely helped me pass the assessment. They also have an online course that is more detailed but I didn't buy that.

4) I took the Open Assessments for the three Scrum Team roles multiple times. The one for Developers gets into detailed technical tools and that won't appear on the PSM assessment but there were good questions in there about the Scrum Team roles and the events so it's worth doing this for practice anyway. The Product Owner open assessment is good to take multiple times too. Make sure you're consistently getting 100% on the Scrum Master and Product Owner open assessments before you take your exam. There were a good number of these that appeared on my actual exam so it's great practice.

5) Mikhail Lapshin has a free 80 page practice exam that I recommend highly. It uses exact terms from the Scrum Guide and has very good explanations of the correct answer, again using terms from the Scrum Guide. There was almost no interpretation here, and I felt confident I wasn't getting confused or misled by practicing on this exam. Take it until you're getting over 95%. Make sure that if you want to review your answers that you do so BEFORE you hit finish. There is no option afterwards to read correct answer, you can't go back and see the questions either. 

SOME TIPS FOR WHEN YOU'RE TAKING THE EXAM

a) Don't think you can google for the right answer. You should be able to rely on your notes to confirm tricky questions, if you know the Scrum Guide very well you'll be able to get to the relevant section where a lot of the answers lie. But you need to get through the whole exam before you start trying to look things up. Save that time for tricky questions to the end. 

b) Read carefully about how many answers you should select. And select the BEST answers. Often there is an additional answer that might also be true, but is not the most critical answer out of your options. Make sure to read whether you're being asked to pick TRUE or UNTRUE statements out of the answers. You need to read the question twice before you start picking options.

c) When it comes to questions involving the Development Team, lean towards them being in full control of the Sprint Log, HOW they will work, what work they add to the Sprint log, they don't update stakeholders outside of the Sprint Review... they have their heads down creating the product during the sprint. In your answers understand that their time is shielded by the Scrum Master who makes sure that the organization understands how to interact with the Development Team (let them do their thing) and the Product Owner who keeps the Stakeholders informed. The Development Team manage themselves.

d) Print the Scrum Glossary and have it with you. Print the Values poster and have it with you. Print the Scrum Guide and have it with you. Take your own notes and organize them into "Roles", Artefacts, Events, Rules. Have them with you. Lay all your info out in a way that you know where to go to grab each resource when you need to.  

DON'T BOTHER WITH:

1) You don't need to read the recommended books in the knowledge areas link, you'd take months to prepare for the assessment if you did. For your ongoing improvement in Scrum then certainly pick up whichever ones you find interesting

2) Avoid the SBOK Scrum Body of Knowledge, it won't prepare you for PSM and mixes other Agile domains

3) Don't pay a lot of money to take any online prep courses. If money is no object to you then go ahead with an in-person course in your area, and sit the exam shortly after and you should have a good shot at passing. But there's no reason to pay over $300 for a prep course to get ready for a $150 exam. 

4) Don't sit the actual exam until you're consistently getting 100% on the open assessments and mid 90s on the other practice exams I listed above.