PSM II Passed

Hi All

Cleared the PSM II certification on 28th Oct ( scored 89% ) and thought of sharing my experience with other PSM II aspirants. 

I passed PSM I last december and since then PSM II was in my radar. After going through couple of threads in the forums i soon realized that PSM II not only expects us to demonstrate an advanced working of scrum roles/ rules/ events etc but it sort of validates your real time scrum experience. My real life scrum experience  helped me in understanding what is being "actually" asked in the question and what is expected as an outcome from SM or PO. 

Anyways i am sure there will be many PSM II aspirants out there and this is what i can share from my experience - 

1.  PSM II stresses more on - Coaching, facilitation, Understanding of Backlog ( how to maximize value) , Scrum Team as Cross functional and Self organizing teams

2.  PSM II expects you to have exposure to Scaling Scrum ( Nexus ) 

3. Materials/ Books i would recommend ( All are part of PSM II recommended Subject Areas as well ) 

     ==> Scrum Guide and Nexus Guide - If you are PSM I and SPS holder pls refresh your fundamentals again. Unlike PSM I questions in PSM II will not be directive but will be situational e.g. scrum events/ values applied to a situation etc. 

     ==> Scrum Pocket Guide from Gunther is a must. It explains lot of concepts in limited pages so needs to re-read this again and again. 

     ==> Scrum Mastery - Geoff Watts - What i like here is lot of examples which excites your brain cells to think in every direction  

     ==> User Applied Stories/ Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohen - Fundamentals explained with lot of examples and summary part after each chapter is something helps you in revision  

     ==> Coaching Agile Teams by Lyssa  - Helped me in understanding what it takes to be agile coach ( there is no end point though ) 

     ==> Agile Retrospective (Esther and Diana) and Software in 30 days by Ken and Jeff -  Explained with lot of examples and exercises

     ==> Our Iceberg is Melting (John and Holger) - Agile mindset explained beautifully via fable. 

While certification is important but journey itself was quite enjoyable and i learned ( unlearned quite a few as well) lot of things. In some cases it forced me to rethink the way we are running scrum and how it can be improved

Last but not the least this forum and lot of other posts/ threads on PSM II helped me in preparing.

Feel free to reach out to me in case of any queries or info.