SSM Exam Dumps - SSM (6.0) - SAFe Scrum Master Practice 6.0

Among the five Scrum values — Commitment, Focus, Openness, Respect, and Courage — the value that most directly supports transparency is Openness.

In both Scrum and SAFe®, transparency is a foundational principle of empirical process control. Teams must be open about progress, impediments, challenges, and feedback to allow effective inspection and adaptation. When teams practice openness, trust grows, collaboration deepens, and issues are surfaced early rather than hidden.

The Scrum Guide (2020) states:

“The Scrum Team and its stakeholders are open about the work and the challenges. Openness encourages transparency, inspection, and adaptation.”

Similarly, SAFe encourages openness as part of the Lean-Agile mindset and team culture, ensuring alignment, honesty, and clarity across teams and ARTs.

Thus, the correct answer is B. Openness, as it directly enables transparency and honest collaboration.

In SAFe®, the Team Sync (Daily Stand-up) is a short, timeboxed event (typically 15 minutes) designed to synchronize activities, discuss progress toward iteration goals, and identify impediments. To maintain effectiveness and respect the timebox, teams must avoid deep dives during the sync.

When an issue requires more discussion than the timebox allows, the Scrum Master (or Team Coach) should encourage participants to move the detailed conversation to a “meet-after.” This ensures that the Team Sync remains focused on quick status alignment while allowing deeper problem-solving immediately afterward without disrupting the cadence.

From SAFe guidance:

“Team members discuss progress and impediments briefly during the Team Sync. If a topic requires further discussion, they schedule a meet-after to maintain the timebox.”

This practice preserves flow, promotes discipline, and ensures everyone’s time is used effectively. Therefore, the correct answer is A. When conversation about any one issue gets too detailed, move the issue to a meet-after that is held right after the Team Sync.

One of the high-performing team characteristics that Team A is demonstrating is using regular feedback loops built into the learning cycle. A high-performing Agile Team is a cross-functional group of people that have everything, and everyone, necessary to produce a working, tested increment of product1 They are empowered, collaborative, aligned, and committed to delivering value to the customers and the organization1 One of the factors that enable a high-performing Agile Team is using regular feedback loops to learn and improve. Feedback loops are mechanisms that provide the team with information about the outcomes and impacts of their actions, as well as the needs and expectations of their customers and stakeholders23 Feedback loops help the team to validate their assumptions, measure their progress, and adjust their plans accordingly23 Feedback loops also help the team to foster a culture of experimentation, innovation, and continuous improvement, as well as to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty23 Team A is using regular feedback loops by releasing the functionality with a method for collecting direct customer feedback. This allows them to learn from the actual users of their product, and to incorporate their feedback into the next iteration of development. This way, they can deliver value faster and more effectively, as well as to enhance the quality and usability of their product4 

During PI Planning, teams are expected to create draft PI Objectives that summarize the business value they intend to deliver. However, a common anti-pattern occurs when teams spend too much time analyzing each Story instead of focusing on higher-level outcomes.

The goal of draft objectives is to express intent, alignment, and expected value—not to finalize every technical detail or task. Over-analyzing individual stories during PI Planning slows progress, distracts from collaboration with other teams, and limits the time available for identifying dependencies and risks.

From SAFe guidance:

“Teams should avoid excessive analysis of stories during PI Planning. The focus should be on creating draft objectives that align with business value and ART goals.”

Thus, the correct answer is A. Too much time is spent analyzing each Story, as it prevents the team from maintaining the right level of planning abstraction.

A safe environment for taking risks without fear of embarrassment or criticism is one of the characteristics of a high-performing Agile Team. A high-performing Agile Team is a cross-functional group of people that have everything, and everyone, necessary to produce a working, tested increment of product1 They are empowered, collaborative, aligned, and committed to delivering value to the customers and the organization2 One of the factors that enable a high-performing Agile Team is a safe environment where team members can experiment, learn, and grow without fear of failure, blame, or judgment3 A safe environment fosters a culture of innovation, creativity, and continuous improvement, as well as a sense of psychological safety, trust, and belonging among team members4 Team C is demonstrating this characteristic by creating a new workflow to speed up the testing process, even though it did not work out as expected. The rest of the team was excited to hear what was learned from the failed experiment, rather than being disappointed or critical. This shows that the team values learning over perfection, and supports each other in taking risks and trying new things.

According to SAFe, empathy is one of the key traits of effective Scrum Masters/Team Coaches. Empathy means displaying an authentic understanding and concern for a team member’s beliefs or feelings. By being empathetic, Scrum Masters/Team Coaches can build trust and rapport with the team, which are essential for people to accept and welcome coaching. Empathy also helps Scrum Masters/Team Coaches to tailor their coaching style and approach to the needs and preferences of each team member.

An essential coaching technique for Scrum Masters/Team Coaches in SAFe® is asking powerful questions. Instead of providing direct solutions, effective Scrum Masters guide the team toward self-discovery and collaborative problem-solving.

Powerful questions are open-ended, thought-provoking inquiries that stimulate deeper reflection and creative thinking. This approach aligns with the servant-leader mindset, enabling team members to take ownership of their challenges and develop collective accountability.

Examples include:

“What options have we not yet considered?”

“What’s the smallest next step we could take?”

“What’s blocking our progress, and how might we remove it together?”

From SAFe guidance:

“Scrum Masters and Team Coaches enable teams to find their own solutions by asking powerful questions rather than providing answers. This encourages collaboration and fosters a culture of continuous learning.”

Therefore, the correct answer is A. Asking powerful questions, as it directly supports self-management and team empowerment.

One of the responsibilities of a Scrum Master/Team Coach is to help the team achieve flow, which is a state of continuous and sustainable delivery of value. They do this by teaching and coaching the team on SAFe Scrum and SAFe Team Kanban practices, such as limiting work in progress, visualizing work, managing queues, and reducing batch sizes. They also help identify and eliminate impediments and bottlenecks that hinder the team’s progress and performance.