The Scrum.org Professional Agile Leadership (PAL I) assessment is a 60-minute timeboxed assessment. You need to score over 85% to pass and gain the PAL I certification. The assessment contains 36 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 PAL I assessment page.
Here are some tips on taking (and passing) the Scrum.org Professional Agile Leadership Essentials (PAL I) assessment and gaining certification:
- Ideally, attend a Scrum.org Professional Agile Leadership Essentials course.
- An alternative lower-cost way to gain the knowledge you need is with our Ultimate Scrum & Agile eLearning courses. Take our Ultimate Agile Leadership Course to learn more about agile leadership.
- Explore the Scrum.org Agile Leader Learning Path. If you have taken the class this will allow you to revise the import topics. If you have not taken a course this will be a vital learning resource to help you pass PAL I.
- Refresh your knowledge of Scrum. Read the Scrum Guide again as a minimum. You will need to understand the fundamentals of Scrum in order to see how it fits with Agile Leadership.
- Read the Evidence-Based Management Guide and get familiar with it. Expect questions on goals & measures.
- Take the Agile Leadership Open Assessment a few times until you have seen all the questions and can score 100%.
- Take TheScrumMaster.co.uk's Free Agile Leadership Essentials I (PAL I) Practice Assessment.
- Take TheScrumMaster.co.uk's Ultimate Agile Leadership I (PAL I) Practice Assessment. This offers more practice questions and is the best and most comprehensive practice assessment available. It is 5-star rated and has been used by thousands of people.
- Consider reading The Professional Agile Leader by Ron Eringa, Kurt Bittner & Laurens Bonnema. This book will really help if you haven’t attended a course.
When you are ready to take the assessment for real:
- Have the 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 Professional Agile Leadership Essentials (PAL-E) course, and then fail the PAL I 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. 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 for a million people. I have helped over 10,000 people so far and I can help you too.
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