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The Elusive PSPO III

Last post 12:57 am February 4, 2021 by John Summers
6 replies
05:17 pm December 4, 2020

Hello colleagues,

I am preparing for the PSPO III, my final scrum.org exam to acquire, and I can find precious little help with this task. Even on this forum, unless my search parameters are wrong, I can't see any "How I prepared for the PSPO 3" type posts. And example questions... forget about it! Nothing on the web. (I say *example*, NOT real).

Has anyone taken it, and can give some guidance. I saw some data somewhere - I forget - saying only 304 people world-wide had it, so this is very few.

Kind regards,

John

ps. my current level of prep is:

  • I have completed both scrum.org PSPO courses
  • Passed every other exam, most recent PSM3 with 90%
  • Read and studied: 'Strategize' (Pichler), Crossing the Chasm (Moore), The Lean Startup (Ries), The Professional PO (McGreal)
  • And tons of random blogs, workshops etc about agile, product, etc

I wonder if it's enough?

 


10:58 pm December 5, 2020

Hi John - Your prep list is a real good one. Since you've taken the courses you can always use the workshop exercises to practice writing the answers. I would add one book: Sense and Respond

  • https://www.amazon.com/Sense-Respond-Successful-Organizations-Continuously/dp/1633691888

Of course experience is also a factor on the level 2 and 3 exams. 

All the best with the PSPO III !


03:51 pm December 6, 2020

 

thanks sharing

i will next year try PSPOIII .hope this posts help me 


01:05 am December 7, 2020

Understanding EBM might be another resource to leverage: https://www.scrum.org/resources/evidence-based-management


12:23 pm December 7, 2020

Weirdly, I have just this second finished writing a blog post about this very topic (I took the PSPO III last Friday). I haven't published it yet, but feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and I'll share you early sight. It definitely doesn't contain any example questions (real or made up), but it may help share another perspective on how to prepare.


10:12 pm December 8, 2020

Hi guys. Thanks for your responses. Chris, that's a great recommendation - I read Jeff's Lean UX book and found it a good read so will dig into 'Sense and Respond'. Ryan, I've messaged you on LinkedIn.

Once I actually do this thing, or attempt it, I will add to this post so at least there is one thread on this forum which can be of use!


12:57 am February 4, 2021

Hello all,

I have now passed PSPO III with 92% on the first attempt, so will update on the suitability of my prep for any interested future readers of this thread. Bear in mind, I did the pre Jan 9th-2020 exam on the old scrum guide, so if the exam has significantly changed, this may now be out of date. Basically, these are the bits of my prep which I think *I* required to pass it:

  • Complete both scrum.org PSPO courses
  • Studied core Scrum to the point I passed PSM3 with 90%
  • Passed PSPOI and II. If I hadn't got a good score on PSPO II I would have failed PSPO III for sure.
  • Read and studied: 'Strategize' (Pichler), The Lean Startup (Ries), The Professional PO (McGreal), 'Sense & Respond' (Geoff Gothelt). All of these are essential.
  • Studied the EBM guide and passed pal-EBM exam. This is essential!

There's a mix of written and multiple choice questions, but I got a lot less written ones than I did in PSM3. If you do the multiple-choice ones quickly you should have a lot more time for the written ones than you'd have in PSM3. I would say it's a hard exam, probably second hardest in all the Scrum.org exams after PSMIII, but noticeably less difficult (I found PSMIII a killer).

Good luck.

John

 


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