Several days ago, I took and passed the Professional Scrum Product Owner I with a grade of 98.8% which means I had 79 questions right out of the 80 questions available on the test. I would like to share how I prepared and how long it took me to study and finish the exam. I hope this can help you to get a good grade and understand the Scrum framework which is the main purpose of the certification.
General Information for the PSPO I Certification
The PSPO I exam consists of 80 questions of multiple-choice or true/false. It is limited to 60 minutes and it costs $200 US dollars per attempt. If you fail, you can take the exam as much as you can. But, you will need to pay 200 dollars each time that you take this test. Therefore, it is better to study and be prepared so you don’t waste money and most importantly, your time.
The ScrumAlliance has a similar certification named Certified Scrum Product Owner that has the same level of recognition. Nevertheless, you are required to take their course before you are eligible to take the test.
With Scrum.org, you are not required to take any courses and the course is only available in English. You can download the Scrum Guide in most languages. But, the actual exam will be in English only.
The following are the steps I would suggest to understand and pass the Professional Scrum Product Owner I Certification:
Read the Scrum Guide
This step is obvious because all the questions are based on Scrum. However, you must have a deep understanding of the roles, rules, and artifacts used in Scrum.
Read the latest version of the Scrum guide. I would suggest reading it at least several times for 5 days. Each day, I read the Scrum guide twice, one during the day and one at night. The Scrum guide is short, so it should take you around 30 minutes to read the pages. I was able to find the audio version of the guide so I could listen to it when laying on my bed. By the fourth day, it was second nature and I was able to complete the sentences of the Scrum guide when the audio was playing.
Complement your Reading
Even though, the test is your knowledge is about being a Product Owner using the Scrum guide, in reality, the Scrum guide is not enough for you to pass it. Therefore, you are required to find other sources that might help you complement your knowledge for being a good Product Owner using the Scrum framework. For instance, you should get over the Product Owner Learning Path at least once because the questions are coming from there as it is expected for you to read the check those boxes as you go.
Take Multiple Quizzes
Scrum.org provides an Open Assessments page that helps you test your knowledge of the Scrum framework from different perspectives. In your case, you should take the Scrum Open, Product Owner Open, and Evidence-Based Management Open quizzes several times. But for sure, take the Product Owner Open and Scrum Open until you get 100% in 5 tries in a row.
For a lot of people, the test goes too fast and they are forced to answer questions without thinking to at least get to the last question. However, you should have some training if you use the ScrumQuiz.org website and take the Product Owner Practice Test. Do the same as the quizzes in Scrum.org and take it several times until you get 96% or more in your attempts. Also, another good source is Mikhail Lapshin’s Scrum Quizzes. The majority of the questions are correct but there are some differences between the Scrum Guide 2017 and the latest Scrum guide version. So, it serves well as a practice after you read the Scrum guide several times, you will know the differences.
Other Resources
The other resources that helped me were the mobile apps on Android (I don’t know if they are available for iOS): Scrum Guru, Scrum Quiz, and Scrum Test. There were excellent resources because they help me to reduce the time it took to answer one question. If I have to pick one resource that helped me to answer all the questions in 30 minutes was Scrum Guru.
Lastly, make sure that you take your time, be relaxed, and drink some water before the exam start. It is open book. But, you won’t pass the exam if you think that you will be able to find the answers online to 80 questions in just 60 minutes.
I hope that this helps you to pass the exam. But, if you have any questions or need some advice, don’t hesitate to contact me and I will try my best to answer shortly.