Yipee! I cleared PSPO I exam in the first attempt. It feels great to be a certified Product Owner!. This blog is dedicated to my preparation for this certification.
To be honest, I believe that PSPO I requires a lot of preparation and is not easy to pass (That's how I feel atleast :-)).
The rules of the exam are the same as PSM I: 80 questions, 60 minutes and minimum 85% to clear the exam. The suggested reading material for this exam is given on this link, https://www.scrum.org/resources/suggested-reading-professional-scrum-product-owner
I think that the right way to prepare for PSPO I is to first prepare & clear PSM I. Not only will this approach help to cover the same topics (Scrum guide) but it will also increase the confidence. I cleared PSM I on 29 May after a preparation period of 2 weeks and cleared PSPO I on 20 June. Below is the list of study material that I used for the exam -
- Scrum guide: This guide is extremely important for the preparation. It needs to be read (and re-read) and understood. The questions that will come in PSPO I will not be straight forward. The questions are manipulated and so are the answers (options) and that is why it is very important to get the gist of scrum guide. One single choice question that I remember was about roles in a scrum team, the options had two sentences. First sentence was same for three options (out of four) but the second sentence created confusion as to which of these three option was the correct answer.
- You will need to cover a lot more reading material than PSM I. I read the scrum guide (https://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html), nexus guide (https://www.scrum.org/resources/online-nexus-guide), scrum glossary (https://www.scrum.org/resources/scrum-glossary), EBM guide (https://www.scrum.org/resources/evidence-based-management-guide), a book - The Professional Scrum Product Owner: Guide to Pass PSPO 1 Certification by Mohammed Musthafa Soukath Ali (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1521476047) and blog from scrumcrazy (https://scrumcrazy.wordpress.com/2018/09/22/the-new-new-product-owner/).
- Take the scrum open, product owner open and nexus open (https://www.scrum.org/open-assessments) exams until you score 100% in all these repeatedly. Take the PSPO I open assessment (learning and exam mode) from Mikhail Lapshin's website (https://mlapshin.com/index.php/scrum-quizzes/po-learning-mode/) for practise.
Additional tips -
- There are around 1000 questions on quizlet about PSPO I exam. Link, https://quizlet.com/de/481288138/pspo-1-pspo-2-flash-cards/. These questions are really good and close to the format of the questions that you will encounter in the exam. But they are too many to go through and remember. I did not finish all of them.
- Do not rely on googling. The time is so limited for this exam that searching google for answers is not a viable option. The questions are selected from a bank of questions which are not available on web that easily. The answers are also manipulated so it's difficult to find the exact match.
- It will help if you have experience working as a product owner. I had to use my practical experience of working as a PO for some questions.
- You will receive the assessment result that can be used to identify the focus areas that can be improved. This is a good way of finding the topics that requires more efforts. Few topics that I plan to work with are Empiricism, Product backlog management, Forecasting & release planning.
- There are also some classroom trainings available (as per scrum.org) so do take them if you have the time & budget. I did not take any.
- One challenge with PSPO I exam was that there was no set of standard reading material (as is also clear from the link on top about suggested reading). There is a lot to cover. So, how do you know if you are ready to take the exam? For me, it was the gut feeling based on experience of PSM I.
As always, please let me know below if this blog helped you in your preparation or if you have any feedback about the blog.
Thank you and good luck!
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