Product Owner Certification: How to Pass PSPO I, PSPO II... (2023)

TL; DR: How to pass Scrum.org Product Owner Certification - PSPO I to III

Hefirst articleI discovered in this miniseries that you don't need a certificate to be good at what you do, like working as a Scrum Master or Product Owner. However, certification can be solid investment advice. If you want to leverage the signaling power that Scrum certificates seem to have, how do you get past Product Owner certification?

🇪🇸 For the German version of the article:Product Owner certifications pass: PSPO I, PSPO II, and PSPO III from Scrum.org.

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How to pass the Scrum.org PSPO I, PSPO II, and PSPO III certifications

Given my professional experience as a PST at Scrum.org, I spend a lot of time with my students preparing them to pass the Product Owner certificates issued by Scrum.org.

In general, there are three different Product Owner certificates available on Scrum.org, regardless of whether the candidate has completed a Professional Product Owner course or not: PSPO I, PSPO II, and PSPO III. While the PSPO I is an entry-level Scrum certificate heavily based on Scrum Guide theory, the PSPO II certificate addresses the practitioner's advanced knowledge of how to handle different scenarios. Both Product Owner Certificates are based solely on multiple-choice assessments. This applies only to a limited extent to the PSPO III certificate. The main part of the PSPO III questions requires a written response in English. Additionally, the PSPO III assessment is primarily scored by a human.

How to pass the Scrum.org PSPO I Product Owner certification

HeProduct Owner PSPO I-Zertifikatit requires a solid understanding of agile product development theory in general and the Scrum framework in particular. While I don't suggest it, you can pass this Product Owner certificate with little working knowledge of Scrum if you're willing to take the time to learn the basics. To pass the PSPO Product Owner Assessment I, I recommend the following preparation:

• Read the Scrum Guide several times beforehand. The answers to many questions will be contained in it.
• practice a lotScrum.org Open Assessments; You need to understand the mental model behind creating the assessment question and what kind of responses you want candidates to give. Note: When Scrum.org grants Product Owner certificates, it is pure application of Scrum as it should be. (None of the flawed Scrum derivatives you could find anywhere.)
• When I mention Scrum.org Open Assessments, I am not just referring to Product Owner Open. You should also be familiar with Scrum Open and Nexus Open. I would even suggest looking into Agile Leadership Open and Evidence Based Management Open.
• To pass Product Owner Certification, it is imperative that you routinely pass open assessments with 100% in much less time than advertised. For example, aim for 5 minutes for Product Owner Open and Scrum Open. Also note that actual PSPO I through PSPO III assessments will likely include more difficult questions.
• Also, read the explanation that open-ended assessments provide if you get a question wrong. But here, too, the main thing is to understand the mental model behind the questions. (Some students intentionally get every question wrong in order to learn the correct answers.)
• You have to answer 80 questions in 60 minutes. Although the PSPO I assessment is an open book assessment, there is little to no time to start Googling it.
• Don't spend a lot of time answering just one question. First, try to answer all 80 questions in about 45 minutes while ticking off the ones you want to revisit when you book.
• Try the open exam marker feature. Its software is identical to that used in the PSPO I, PSPO II and PSPO III certification tests. (You don't want to have any stress during the "real" PSPO certification.)
• Read the questions carefully. There are no trick questions; However, replacing "Product Order List" with "Sprint Order List" is a game changer. (Don't fall victim to pattern matching instead of reading.)
• get familiar with itStandard of conduct for reviews.
• Do you feel well prepared to pass a Product Owner certification? Great! Now pick a quiet time when you won't be disturbed. Perhaps have a piece of paper and pencil ready and check your cell phone to provide an alternative to your regular ISP if needed. (I encountered a wireless router crashing once during a PSM II evaluation, and switching to a mobile hotspot worked well. I like backup solutions.)

📈 diePSPO I Certification Resultsof my professional product owner courses in 2021 are the following:

• 95% of course participants completed the included PSPO I certification.
• 77% of exam participants passed the PSPO I certification with an average score of 91%. (Required: 85%).

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How to pass the Scrum.org PSPO II Product Owner certification

This is compared to the PSPO I Product Owner CertificatePSPO II Reviewgives you 60 minutes to answer 40 questions. The challenge is that all questions are related to real scenarios and many proposed options are familiar to you. But, unfortunately, they don't necessarily become acceptable from a Scrum perspective if they look familiar:

• To prepare to pass this Product Owner certification, go back to the PSPO I assessment tips; also apply here.
• Then continue your preparation by studying theReorganized Scrum 2020 Guide. I developed the Reordered Scrum Guide 2020 from approximately 95% of the Scrum Guide 2020 text and expanded its original structure by adding additional categories such as self-management, commitments or responsibility. It allows you to quickly gain an initial understanding of Scrum-related issues. For example, it's good to relate certain topics, say "stakeholders", to basic Scrum principles, like Scrum values ​​or empiricism. This type of Scrum pattern recognition helps to eliminate scenarios that do not match the basic ideas of Scrum.
• Another recommended read is the Anti-Pattern Scrum Guide. It's a collection of articles that I've been writing and refining for years. They detail the steps needed to identify and overcome anti-Scrum patterns, from Scrum events to Scrum artifacts and Scrum roles.
• Also, plan sufficient preparation to familiarize yourself with topics that the Product Owner must master that are not adequately documented in the Scrum Guide. Examples of these topics include:
  • How do product owners move from product vision to product strategy to product goal?
  • How do Product Owners create a system to recognize what is worth building from the customer's point of view? And how do Product Owners involve stakeholders and Scrum Team members in this process?
  • How do product owners create alignment among team members in managing and refining the product portfolio?
  • How do Product Owners handle backorders? What frameworks help Product Owners ensure the Scrum Team is working on the most valuable work items?
  • How do product owners handle estimating, forecasting, and release planning?
  • How do product owners handle stakeholder expectations?
• Lastly, you might want to think about this.Scrum.org Learning Path para Product Owners. While not required to pass the PSPO II certification, the Product Owner Learning Path provides a structured learning approach for Product Owners.

📈 diePSPO II Certification Resultsof my Advanced Professional Product Owner courses in 2022 are as follows:

• 100% of course participants passed the included PSPO II certification.
• 71% of test takers passed the PSPO II certification with an average score of 90%. (Required: 85%).

How to pass the Scrum.org PSPO III Product Owner certification

past thePSPO III Product Owner Certificationit's complicated and likely requires months of preparation. (I spent more than two months preparing.) Many candidates face two main challenges: first, you need to type quickly, and second, you need to write in English. And at the same time, you need to provide accurate and concise answers. While you might consider using a translation plugin for PSPO I and PSPO II, it doesn't help much with PSPO III. Also, typing responses in your native language and then translating them doesn't work as you cannot paste text into response fields. Instead, you must manually enter:

• To prepare to pass this Product Owner certification, go back to the PSPO I and PSPO II assessment proposals; also apply here.
• Practice fast typing. During my PSPO III assessment, I asked less than ten questions that required a written response and about 25 multiple-choice questions. I had to answer all these questions in 120 minutes. So I set a three-minute countdown per question and forced myself to move on to the next question at the end of that period. (You lose more points if you don't answer a question by the end of the exam because you're running out of time than if you change a 90% answer to a 95% answer by adding two minutes to the original delay.)
• Create your own questions, eg. B. based on the Scrum Guide and try to answer them with the time graph. (The Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide and the Reordered Scrum Guide support this effort; I created the first Reordered Scrum Guide as a resource to help me in my attempt to pass the PSM III assessment.)
• Visite aStandard of conduct for reviews, particularly the section "Additional Draft-Based Expectations: PSM III and PSPO III".
• Start reading lots of books on Scrum, the Product Owner domain and Product Management in general. (Think Marty Cagan's "Inspired," Melissa Perri's "Escapeing the Build Trap," and Teresa Torres' "Continuous Product Discovery.")
• Track your preparation progress by participating in the Product Owner Learning Path (see above).
• Join the Scrum.org forum or the Hands-on Agile Slack community (see registration form below) and discuss issues that are unclear to you with other product owners. (I know quite a few people in the Hands-on Agile Slack community who are thinking about making or preparing for PSPO III.)

There's a reason there are currently only 408 certificate holders worldwide: the PSPO III assessment is a difficult and expensive product owner certification. You have to prepare accordingly. Simply showing up and hoping for the best is a futile approach. (By the way, taking an Advanced Product Owner course reduces the $500 price of PSPO III by $200.)

Conclusion: How to Pass Product Owner Certification Scrum.org

If passing a Product Owner certificate is a good career choice and sends a good signal to potential employers, clients or colleagues, which PSPO certificate should you consider?

Personally, I would consider a PSPO I as a minimum and a PSPO II as standard in most cases. On the other hand, someone with a PSPO III certainly has my full attention as they have accomplished quite a feat.

Of course, there are exceptions to the rule that prove it. For example, some excellent Agile professionals don't believe in any form of Scrum certification and it works well for them. But they also do a lot of work for the agile community and have the visibility to do so. Just ask yourself: do you belong in this group?

📖 Scrum certification resources

Scrum Certification: Is it a good investment for your career?

Product Owner Anti-Patterns: 33 Ways to Improve as a PO

Attitude: 82 Interview Questions for Scrum Product Owners to Avoid Agile Imposters

How to pass the Scrum Master certification - PSM I, PSM II and PSM III

Hire: 60 Scrum Master Interview Questions to Avoid Agile Imposters

Download the Free Scrum Anti-Pattern Guide

The Scrum Guide Reorganized: Quickly Understand the Scrum Guide's Patterns and Concepts

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