I Passed My SAFE 5.0 Scrum Master Certification Exam!

 

                Hey everybody! I passed my SAFE 5.0 Scrum Master certification exam retake on Memorial Day! I was so happy that this was over because it was a much harder retake exam than I expected.

I scored a measly 13% on my experiencing program increment (PI) section the first time so I spent a lot of time reading that. I also researched the swim lane, product owner, product management, DevOps CALMR and wrote down the Agile Manifesto every single day to retain that information. And STILL it was hard!

                As an economics major, Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and Project Management Professional (PMP), I will tell you that SAFe is NOT an entry-level scrum certification. I would recommend that you take the CSM first and work in a SAFe environment. If you cannot do those things, I would recommend taking an introductory SAFe course first to learn the concepts independent of the pressure to pass the exam!

                I am very happy to end the month of May on a very high note. I went from having a very weird interview with a lady who had a major attitude, was all over the place but peaked my interest combining lean with project management to my learning that this combination was scaled agile framework (SAFE) to finding a 50% off exam prep course on Eventbrite to failing my first time to earning this SAFe Scrum Master certification!

SAFE 5.0 - Day 4

 

                I took the official Scrum Master certification exam Thursday morning right after midnight and failed scoring 31/45. It stung because I had scored 82% on the official practice test. I also scored a measly 13% on the Experiencing the PI Planning section which I felt did me in. I knew that I was in trouble off the bat when the first question was talking about program board and a swimlane (which I associated with business analysis but later learned that Kanban also used swimlanes.).

                Failing was the best thing that ever happened to me because I got to take all of my feedback and experiences to the instructor. He answered all of my questions, learned about the new score reporting structure and went through the official practice exam again pointing out the trick words. Had I taken the certification exam either during or after the fourth day of class, I would not had been able to have access to the instructor. It would had been anti-climatic. However, by learning from my mistakes it helped matters. I see myself passing the SAFe Scrum Master retake this weekend.

                On a much happier note, my attending this week’s scaled agile training helped me during my scholarship interview. Thursday I had a scholarship interview to win money to sit for the Certified Scrum Product Owner training. Before this scaled agile training, I thought that the Product Owner role only existed in traditional scrum. However, now I learned that the Product Owner existed in scaled agile too. I felt that from the interviewer’s body language that I won the scholarship.