How to pass PSPO successfully?
Krystsina Yunchyts (Andersen BA)“If you’re someone who is comfortable with the "business side" of projects, you are probably the right person to aim for a Certified Scrum Product Owner® certification.
-Scrum Alliance
Why you need it?
How to pass PSPO (Professional Scrum Product Owner) certificate successfully? Well, it depends on your end goal.
First of all you have to consider what is a successful result for you personally. Just getting the certificate in order to reach the goal set by your resource manager? Or you really interested in such area as product ownership, want to gain enough knowledge and as a logical confirmation of it to get the PSPO certificate?
What are the benefits of PSPO certification?
Among the main benefits I can specify the following:
1. More job opportunities in companies using Scrum framework;
2. Higher preference for individual's resume among job recruiters;
3. A successful career path as a Professional Scrum Product Owner.
What is a PSPO certificate?
While you try to answer these questions, let's talk a little bit about this certificate itself. PSPO stands for Professional Scrum Product Owner, a course and certification offered by Scrum.org. It is the globally accepted certification that helps to validate the holder’s expertise and skills as a product owner in the Scrum framework. So, lets summarize the main attributes of PSPO certificate:
- three types - PSPO I, PSPO II and PSPO III;
- no prerequisite of attending a training;
- no validity period;
- online assessment;
- number of questions is limited to 80 (most of questions with multiple choice)
- 60 minutes max (45 seconds per question in average)
- minimum passing score - 85%
- cost: 200 USD
- English language only;
How to prepare for an assessment?
On Scrum.org you can find an exhaustive list of resources recommended as a way to learn about Scrum. But I want to specify which resources I found useful during my preparation for the PSPO I assessment:
This is a ‘must have’ resource that should be considered as a starting point of your preparation. My suggestion is to read it multiple times: at the start of your preparation, along the way and before the assessment. Basically Scrum Guide is not just a resource used to prepare for an assessment - it is a handbook for everyone who is interested in such Agile framework as Scrum.
Useful resources to collect deep understanding in the Scrum framework, empiricism, terminology.
It is a two-day paid training led by professional Scrum trainers. It has different prices and schedules, so you can choose the training based on your preferences. There are two options here: find a public class or request a private class. I took a public class that was held in Russian and it was my crucial mistake while the assessment is taken in English. So, if you decide to take such training it should be in English only. The training itself is interesting and informative but I couldn't say that it was really helpful for me in assessment. It is mostly about general Scrum and product ownership theory while successful passing a PSPO assessment needs more deep and detailed preparation.
So, talking about Professional Scrum Product Owner training I can highlight the following advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages:
- one attempt for an assessment is already included in price;
- PSPO class participants who attempt the PSPO I assessment within 14 days of receiving their free password and do not score at least 85% are granted a second attempt at no additional cost;
- 40% discount for PSPO II assessment;
Disadvantages:
- relatively high costs;
- no guarantee for a successful PSPO assessment;
- Book “The Professional Product Owner: Leveraging Scrum as a Competitive Advantage” by Don McGreal and Ralph Jocham
This is my favorite one when we`re talking about preparation for PSPO I assessment and not the only. I highly recommend reading this awesome book for everyone who is involved in software development and product value delivery. It seems to be the best Scrum Product Owner book ever written. Just read it and you will understand why I'm so excited.
Open assessments are free study tools that provide practice for the professional Scrum certification assessments. The assessment consists of 15 questions randomly selected from a larger pool. I took open assessments for Product Owner Open and Scrum Open.
Please, note that the questions on the Open Assessments do not have the same level of complexity as the certification assessments. But most of the questions that I saw during these open assessments were included in the real PSPO I assessment along with more difficult ones.
I find this course VERY helpful. It includes 6 practice tests with overall 800 questions close to the real PSPO I assessment along with corrections and explanations. It helps you not only gain product ownership knowledge, but train to answer the questions fast which is very important for time-limited assessment.
Conclusion
So, this is my honest overview of resources I used during my preparation for PSPO I assessment. It took me about 2 months to cover all the needed theory and then practice it with Open assessments and questions from the Udemy course. In conclusion I would say that the main result of this long process was not the PSPO I certificate itself, but the overall understanding of the Product Owner role and value-driven approach in software development. Hope this list of resources will be helpful for everyone who wants to pass the PSPO assessment successfully. Good luck!