Back to Forum

My PSK I Experience

Last post 11:27 am April 24, 2022 by DEEPAK SUBRAMANIYAM
9 replies
Sunil Gulia
05:38 pm August 13, 2019

Hello All,

I shared these tips in one of the PSK I forum post comments earlier but sharing again, these might help the PSK I aspirants 

I passed PSK in my first attempt. I didn’t take any course or read any specific book mentioned in reading section. I believe my experience and in-depth understanding of scrum was my main strength in exam. I really admire exam quality due to tough sense.

 To share my experience, exam is based on practical/ real-life scenarios. Maximum questions are based on day to day practice scenarios for Scrum and Kanban practices. So most comprehensive tool to pass exam is your experience and how well you understand Scrum 😊

In my view this exam is real test for your practical knowledge of Scrum and how good understanding and practical knowledge you have about below area:

  1. Scrum Theory of empiricism.
  2. How you understand and apply scrum values 
  3. How clear on the fact Kanban is to complement the Scrum and doesn’t change Scrum 
  4. How well you understand workflow in Scrum context
  5. How well you can apply Kanban practice, Flow Matrices and Flow based event
  6. Understanding below matrices and elements will help in exam:
    • Cycle time
    • WIP
    • Throughput
    • WIP limit
    • Work Item Age
    • Little’s Law
    • Objective of Service level Expectation (SLE) and how to apply SLE
    • CFDs and Cycle Time Scatterplots  
  7. Below resources are good help to prepare for exam
    • The Scrum Guide and the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams
    • BLOGS written by Daniel S. Vacanti and Yuval Yeret
    • Actionable Agile-Metrics-for-Predictability by Daniel S. Vacanti
    • Little's law and predictability - Daniel Vacanti
  • Note: Keep track of time during exam, as you may run out of time, options mentioned for questions are close and you need to go with the best option selection 😊

Remember, Exam is tough but is passable if you have PSK experience or gone through the mentioned PSK subject area topics and Blogs at Scrum.org  https://www.scrum.org/resources/suggested-reading-professional-scrum-kanban site , I hope these tips may help for PSK aspirants.

Best of Luck

Sunil Gulia

Scott Anthony Keatinge
08:17 am January 22, 2021

I passed the PSK1 assessment this morning. 

Overall, I found it more difficult than the PSM1 assessment, due to how some of the questions relating to metrics were worded. 

I started studying for PSK1 right after passing PSM1 earlier this month. 

I did not attend any type of PSK training, and nor did I read any of the books that were suggested. 

What I did do was read all PSK related forum posts, blogs, listened to PSK podcats and viewed PSK videos that were part of the suggested reading list and also some that weren't, including other websites. 

Below is the list of material I accumulated: 

01-2021-Kanban-Guide-for-Scrum-Teams-English.pdf                                          

01_Scrum and Kanban stronger together .docx                                               

02_A Kanban primer for Scrum Teams.docx                                                   

03_A Scrum primer for Kanban teams.docx                                                   

04_What Scrum Gets Wrong about Kanban and What Kanban Gets Wrong About Scrum .docx        

05_Scrum with Kanban It's time to cross the bridge.docx                                   

2019-09-Kanban-Guide-for-Scrum-Teams-English.pdf                                          

20191107-Seeking-Nirvana-Agile-Testing-Days.pdf                                           

4 Key Flow Metrics and how to use them in Scrum's events.docx                             

Can Kanban and Scrum Work Together .docx                                                  

Concept of Batch Size in Scrum with Kanban.docx                                           

Essential Kanban Condensed.docx                                                           

Essential-Kanban-Condensed-English.pdf                                                    

FlowMetrics.PNG                                                                           

FourKeyFlowMetrics.PNG                                                                    

Getting to 85 – Agile Metrics with ActionableAgile.docx                                   

Kanban Service Level Expectations and how to use them in Scrum .docx                      

Kanban-Guide-2020-12.pdf                                                                  

Limiting Work in Progress (WIP) in Scrum with Kanban - What  When  Who  How.docx          

LittlesLaw.docx                                                                           

Little’s Law and CFDs.docx                                                                

Little’s Law for Professional Scrum with Kanban.pdf                                       

Probabilistic Forecasting.docx                                                            

Professional Scrum with Kanban (PSK) - Don't just limit WIP - optimize it! .docx          

PSK1.PNG                                                                                  

pskvisualfromjoshuapartogismall.jpg                                                       

PSK_prep_advice.docx (collated from various forum posts)                                                                    

Q&A with Dave West, CEO and Product Owner at Scrum.org - Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams.docx

Scrum and Kanban Make your teams better by busting common myths.pdf                       

Scrum and Kanban stronger together .docx                                                  

Scrum Sprint Commitment Rant.docx                                                         

Scrum with Kanban - building bridges not walls.docx                                       

Scrum with Kanban How to Improve Your Sprints.docx                                        

scrumban-taking-scrum-outside-its-comfort-zone-1721.pdf                                   

Scrumban.docx                                                                             

Scrum_with_Kanban.PNG                                                                     

SLE_scatter_plot.PNG                                                                      

So what IS Scrumban.docx                                                                  

The Journey of Merging Scrum with Kanban in My Context .docx                              

The Scrum Sprint Forecast as an Expectation.docx                                          

Throughput-Driven Sprint Planning.docx                                                    

Understanding the Kanban Guide for Scrum Teams.docx                                       

Visualisation.PNG                                                                         

What is Scrumban.docx

Jane King
03:25 pm January 25, 2021

Congratulation, guys. And thanks for such useful tips.

Michael Schuetz
10:48 am February 5, 2021

Hi Scott,

thanks for the list but where to find all those documents ?

Thanks,

Michael

Scott Anthony Keatinge
04:40 am February 7, 2021

The documents are created from various blog and forum posts that relate to this sites suggested reading as well as others.

Michael Schuetz
12:53 pm February 7, 2021

Hi Scott, thanks for again for listing them all, but I searched for three or four entries and ended up at exactly this blog entry, i.e. at your list, not where it come from or where I can find it. So that doesn't really help me although I can't expect you to put the actual sites behind each material - would cost you days.

Thanks anyway and Congratulations for making it!

Cheers,

Michael

Scott Anthony Keatinge
06:31 pm February 8, 2021

@Michael Schuetz,

Some articles on this site contain links to articles from other sites, which may explain why you can find them when searching this site. 

The material is ~50MB, so if you have somewhere I can upload it to you can have it? 

Marc Müller
12:17 pm May 31, 2021

Sorry, I didn't get it... Where can these file be found?

Scott Anthony Keatinge
06:37 am June 1, 2021

Some of the articles are related to this sites PSK suggested reading, including articles that are linked within them. 

Other are from articles found in this site by searching for PSK. 

Other articles were found via search engines. 

DEEPAK SUBRAMANIYAM
01:24 am April 24, 2022

I cleared the PSK certification this morning with 93% score. As many of you have mentioned, the exam purely revolves around the Kanban guide for scrum teams and all the blogs under the recommended reading section.

Some of the questions are extremely tricky and the key is to read the questions over and over again to choose the best answer. There is no need to read the Actionable metrics book from an exam perspective though it will certainly help from a learning perspective. 

By posting on our forums you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.

Please note that the first and last name from your Scrum.org member profile will be displayed next to any topic or comment you post on the forums. For privacy concerns, we cannot allow you to post email addresses. All user-submitted content on our Forums may be subject to deletion if it is found to be in violation of our Terms of Use. Scrum.org does not endorse user-submitted content or the content of links to any third-party websites.

Terms of Use

Scrum.org may, at its discretion, remove any post that it deems unsuitable for these forums. Unsuitable post content includes, but is not limited to, Scrum.org Professional-level assessment questions and answers, profanity, insults, racism or sexually explicit content. Using our forum as a platform for the marketing and solicitation of products or services is also prohibited. Forum members who post content deemed unsuitable by Scrum.org may have their access revoked at any time, without warning. Scrum.org may, but is not obliged to, monitor submissions.