New PSK Open Assessment

Great!!

If you want to pass the PSK certification either PSK Open or PSK I, Keep in mind, 

Scrum with Kanban DOES NOT change Scrum, it adds to it with a set of great PRACTICES that make work more visible.

The Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams 

This guide is NOT meant to REPLACE or DISCOUNT any part of The Scrum Guide. It is designed to enhance and expand the practices of the Scrum framework. This guide assumes the reader is operating a process using the Scrum framework. Therefore, The Scrum Guide applies in its entirety.

It is interesting and most of the questions are true or false ones. 

Ching-Pei, I have a question: How did you crop and post this section of the guide here. I see often people crop are of the conversation and insert it. Do you just do screen shot and insert ? 

@Rami

Could you see the QUOTE button in the toolbar?

I just click the button to insert a QUOTE area and copy the content to past into it.

Thank You Ching-Pei

The Scrum Guide still applies when using Scrum with Kanban however the Scrum Events are impacted.

Hi.  Whats a batch?  The word batch does not appear in the The Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams.  It does appear in the assessment though.  If you're from Coventry then a batch is a bread roll e.g. you may go to the chippy and ask for a 'chip batch'.

If you're from Coventry then a batch is a bread roll e.g. you may go to the chippy and ask for a 'chip batch'.

That is what they would give you, regardless of whether you could eat all the chips or not, and you’d have to pay for it.

A batch can be thought of as a set of items, each of which provides value, but which for one reason or another you agree to deal with in one go.

Generally speaking batch sizes ought to be minimized to avoid waste (e.g. pay for and get one chip at a time), but that would have to be balanced against waste incurred from the increase in transaction costs.

Could you equate the sprint backlog to a batch?

Hi all,

I already passed PSK assessment, but I just tried PSK Open Assessment, in order to re-assess and improve my knowledge on SCRUM with Kanban topics.  

I would share my thoughts about the following question from the PSK Open Assessment:

• True or False: When using Scrum with Kanban you can release multiple times during the Sprint.

The answer is yes, but, in my opinion, it could be "apparently" in contrast with what is written in the SCRUM Guide:

The Development Team consists of professionals who do the work of delivering a potentially releasable Increment of "Done" product at the end of each Sprint. A "Done" increment is required at the Sprint Review. Only members of the Development Team create the Increment.

What do you think about this kind of re-phrasing: 

• True or False: When using Scrum with Kanban you can have multiple items in a "releasable" state during the Sprint

or (with a small change in the SCRUM Guide):

the work of delivering a potentially releasable Increment of "Done" product by the end of each Sprint

?

I'm not a native English speaker, so this doubt could be due to my erroneous translation of the sentences. 

Thank you in advance for all the clarification and  comments/suggestions.

BR,

Aniello

Could you equate the sprint backlog to a batch?

Only up to a point, because it is a forecast of work for meeting a Sprint Goal and is subject to replanning by the Development Team. In other words items can be added, modified, or removed from the Sprint Backlog if it helps the goal to be achieved. That characteristic is not typical of a batch.

Nevertheless a Sprint Backlog (or any station in a workflow) may be constrained to function as a batch via policies which define WIP limits and protocols. Batching is not generally desirable, as it can impede flow as well as inspection/adaptation to meet a goal, but it may be advantageous if it reduces the time spent on replanning or hand-offs. From a team perspective, any station with a WIP limit > 1 represents a potential batch.

In terms of stakeholder experience, the best way to identify a batch is perhaps to look at the increment. If it consists of more than one valuable item then by definition it represents a batch, and some sort of batching behavior or policy will lie behind it.

Thanks Ian.

Just keep in mind that the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams is not sufficient to pass the exam. Deeper Kanban knowledge is required. See the Suggested Reading: Professional Scrum with Kanban.

Especially the two books mentioned are helpful (probably even a must - unless you take a course that fills that gap):

• Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability: An Introduction by Daniel S. Vacanti
• Practical Kanban: From Team Focus to Creating Value by Klaus Leopold

I was not aware of that at first and paid twice for the exam - entirely my own fault.

+1 Stefan, I was literally about to say that in response to Steven's comment.

Not even the PSM1 is passable on the Scrum guide alone; you need more knowledge than just what is in the guides. If more people would read the suggested reading materials prior to taking an exam, they would have a better passing rate.

@Aniello 

When using Scrum with Kanban you can release multiple times during the Sprint.

The answer is yes, but, in my opinion, it could be "apparently" in contrast with what is written in the SCRUM Guide:

The Development Team consists of professionals who do the work of delivering a potentially releasable Increment of "Done" product at the end of each Sprint. A "Done" increment is required at the Sprint Review. Only members of the Development Team create the Increment.

There is no conflict between the two. Scrum is a Framework, not a Process.

Scrum simply requires that at the end of each Sprint the development team must deliver a potentially released product increment. But there is no limit to delivery only once.

Moreover, the decision to release the product is the responsibility of the Product Owner.

Scrum with Kanban only changes some of the processes in practice and does not change the scrum Framework.

In fact, even without Kanban practice, many Scrum teams still release multiple increments in a Sprint to implement the CI/CD or DevOps. For these teams, Scrum offers better candence and rhythms than Kanban. 

Thanks a lot, Stefan. I will read these books.

However the books are a litle bit difficult to understand for non-native speaker. :(  For example Scrum Guide and Scrum pocket Guide are much more easy to read. 

Hi!

Someone who did the PSK exam can tell me if the open assessment is very similar to the exam?

I score 100% on the PSK Open but I'm not confident because I read many people saying that the PSK is difficult...

Thanks,

Hi Cássio

I will suggest you to go through the blog entries listed on PSK resource page and the whitepaper on Little’s Law as well.

If you’re unfamiliar with the topic on agile metrics, do have a read on Daniel Vacanti’s Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability: An Introduction.

The above have helped me in my preparation and a score of 92.1% before the open assessment was made available.

Thank you for your help, Cheng Fu

I will read these.

@Orkhan 

However the books are a litle bit difficult to understand for non-native speaker

I suggest finding a Kanban book written in your native language. 

Scrum with Kanban DOES NOT change Scrum, it adds to it with a set of great PRACTICES that make work more visible.

Once you know what Kanban is, then learn how to apply it in Scrum, and that's enough.

To learn how to apply Kanban to Scrum, the following articles should be sufficient for you to pass the certification exam.

• Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams. 
• Understanding the Kanban for Scrum Teams Guide
• 4 Key Flow Metrics and how to use them in Scrum's events
• Limiting Work in Progress (WIP) in Scrum with Kanban - What? When? Who? How?
• Kanban Service Level Expectations and how to use them in Scrum
• Little's Law for Professional Scrum with Kanban

Hi, Can anyone say whether or not the Open PSK bears any resemblance to the actual exam? There seem to be an unusual amount of True/False questions, Does the exam have such a high amount of T/F questions?

I came across a few question banks on just Kanban at:

https://agile-mercurial.com/practice-tests/kanban-knowledge-test/

Basic kanban questions based on IBQMI Certified Kanban Coach

And:

https://scrumandkanban.co.uk/quizzes/kanban-reports/

That tests some interpretations of flows and metrics using Actionable agile (Daniel Vacanti's website/tool)

While the Test wont be based on these types of questions, they will still quiz you on Kanban. 

Thanks.

Hi Wilmark Johnatty

I believe the idea behind the T/F questions in PSK Open Assessment is to test your fundamental understanding on the concepts introduced in the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams. Nonetheless, there are some T/F questions in the actual assessment but not many; about 5-6 in my case.

Having taken both IBQMI-CKC and PSK I, I would say PSK I poses a certain level of challenge. Perhaps by looking through the subject areas and blog entries listed on PSK resource page will shed some light.

I just passed PSK two days back. To me this is a much harder exam compared to a lot of other level 1 exams. Reading the book on Actionable Agile is necessary to gain a better insight to the usage of Kanban and how to effectively make use of the metrics.

I did not see overlapping exams from the open assessment, although the concepts gained after trying out the open assessment does help to focus on some of the key concepts.

Hi everyone, I just passed the PSK I today. Based on the comments of this post, I expected a very hard exam, and study a lot to pass it. But I did not find it very hard, I have enough time to finish it, review it and still had time. I did not take any course or read any book, just the guide, articles and posts given in the page, as well as my previous experience.  Few hints to pass it:

1. You have to have a good knowledge of Scrum (read the Scrum guide and pass the Scrum and PO open assesments with a 100% scores in no more than 10 minutes). Take them as many time as needed until you get 100% always.

2. Kanban within Scrum DOES NOT change any Scrum basis.

3. Read the Scrum with Kanban guide until you really understand it.

4. The 4 metrics article given in the page was key to understand them and when to use them.

5. Take the PSK open assesment as many time as needed to get 100% score in no more than 10 minutes. Take it as many time as needed until you get 100% always.

6. Understand the Little's law and how to apply it.

7.Understand CFD chart.

8.Beyond the PSK guide basis, you need to understand how to apply it. I had doubts in several questions, but you can have more chances knowing  which ARE NOT FOR SURE the answers.

Hope these hints can help!!

Good luck!!!