Scaled Agile SSM (6.0) - SAFe Scrum Master Practice 6.0 SSM Exam Dumps: Updated Questions & Answers (December 2025)

A key responsibility of the Scrum Master/Team Coach (SM/TC) in SAFe® is to support Iteration Execution. This involves ensuring that the team adheres to Agile principles, manages dependencies, removes impediments, and maintains focus on achieving iteration goals.

The Scrum Master facilitates team events, promotes collaboration, and helps the team continuously improve. They also assist in managing scope and ensuring transparency by tracking progress through iteration burndowns, Kanban boards, or burn-up charts.

From SAFe guidance:

“Scrum Masters support iteration execution, help the team meet iteration goals, and ensure all Scrum events are productive and within their timeboxes.”

Therefore, the correct answer is B. Supporting Iteration Execution, as it encapsulates a central part of the Scrum Master/Team Coach role.

The Innovation and Planning (IP) Iteration is designed to give teams space for innovation, exploration, learning, and improvement, not for continuing regular feature work. When a team misuses the IP Iteration to “catch up” on delivery, it misses the opportunity to experiment, innovate, and explore new ways to deliver solutions more effectively.

This reduces the long-term adaptability and creativity of the team, limiting their ability to introduce process or technical improvements that could increase efficiency in future PIs. The IP Iteration is also a time for the Inspect and Adapt event and PI Planning, both of which are critical to continuous improvement.

From SAFe guidance:

“The IP Iteration provides dedicated time for innovation and planning. Using it for normal work diminishes opportunities to innovate, learn, and explore new approaches.”

Therefore, the correct answer is D. They could lose an opportunity to consider new approaches to Solution delivery.

In SAFe®, the team backlog is the source of work for the Agile Team and includes all the user stories, enablers, and defects that represent potential upcoming work. It is owned and managed by the team, often guided by the Product Owner, who ensures the backlog remains prioritized and ready for iteration planning.

A crucial ongoing activity related to the backlog is refinement (or backlog refinement)—the process of reviewing, clarifying, and breaking down backlog items into smaller, well-understood Stories that are ready for implementation. During this activity, the team collaborates to ensure backlog items have sufficient detail, appropriate acceptance criteria, and relative sizing estimates.

From SAFe guidance:

“The team backlog is the source for stories, enablers, and defects planned in iterations. Teams continuously refine the backlog to ensure upcoming work is well understood and ready for planning.”

Therefore, the correct answer is C. The team backlog is where the team refines possible Stories.

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.

A servant leader empowers team members to grow by creating opportunities for learning and collaboration. One effective technique is to pair team members together to complete new or unique work. This practice promotes knowledge sharing, builds confidence, and helps develop T-shaped skills, which increase team flexibility and resilience.

Pairing fosters mentorship and shared ownership of outcomes, aligning with SAFe’s emphasis on continuous learning culture and relentless improvement. Instead of assigning rigid development paths or confining people to comfort zones, servant leaders enable self-directed learning and encourage experimentation.

From SAFe guidance:

“Servant leaders grow others by providing opportunities for learning, pairing, and collaboration. They help individuals reach their potential by empowering them to take on new challenges.”

Therefore, the correct answer is A. Pair team members together to complete new or unique work, as this directly supports team member growth and a culture of learning.

In SAFe® and Scrum, acceptance criteria define the conditions that must be met for a User Story to be considered complete and accepted by the Product Owner. These criteria clarify how the Story will be validated and serve as the basis for confirming that functionality meets expectations and quality standards.

Acceptance criteria support transparency, alignment, and shared understanding between the team and stakeholders. They guide development, testing, and validation efforts and are essential for achieving the Definition of Done (DoD).

From SAFe guidance:

“Acceptance criteria define the boundaries and validation conditions of a Story. They ensure the implemented functionality meets the customer’s intent and can be accepted.”

Therefore, the correct answer is A. To identify how the Story can be validated, as this captures the core purpose of acceptance criteria.

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.

One example of Scrum Masters/Team Coaches helping without diminishing the commitment of others is facilitating necessary meetings for the team. Facilitating means providing guidance and support to the team in conducting effective and productive meetings, such as Iteration Planning, Daily Stand-up, Iteration Review, and Iteration Retrospective1 Facilitating does not mean taking over the meeting or making decisions for the team. Rather, it means creating a safe and respectful environment, ensuring clear and shared objectives, encouraging participation and collaboration, managing time and agenda, resolving conflicts and issues, and summarizing outcomes and action items23 By facilitating necessary meetings for the team, Scrum Masters/Team Coaches help the team to achieve their goals, improve their processes, and deliver value to the customers and the organization14 At the same time, they respect and empower the team’s autonomy, self-organization, and self-management, and do not interfere with their commitment or accountability14 

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 

An effective Scrum Master/Team Coach (SM/TC) not only supports the team’s daily operations but also helps them grow and improve over time. Thinking beyond the day-to-day means guiding the team toward strategic improvement and long-term effectiveness, not just tactical task completion.

By helping the team prioritize improvement activities to ensure progress, Scrum Masters promote a mindset of continuous learning and adaptation. This aligns with SAFe’s Relentless Improvement pillar, encouraging the team to use metrics, feedback, and retrospectives to drive sustained enhancement in flow, quality, and collaboration.

From SAFe guidance:

“Scrum Masters help teams improve continuously by identifying, prioritizing, and pursuing improvement opportunities that enhance value delivery and team performance.”

Thus, the correct answer is D. Help the team prioritize improvement activities to ensure progress, as this demonstrates strategic thinking beyond daily coordination.