CSO study materials
CSO study resources

CSO (Other exams) case studies

CSO · Put your knowledge to work in context.

The Certified ScrumMaster credential is an entry-level certification for people who want to serve as a Scrum Master or who work alongside Scrum Teams as coaches, product people, or managers. It signals that you understand Scrum's empirical foundations, can explain the roles, events, and artifacts as described in the Scrum Guide, and can describe how a Scrum Master serves the team, the Product Owner, and the organization. The exam is multiple choice and tests applied judgment as much as recall: you will meet scenarios about facilitation, impediment removal, coaching a struggling team, and adapting Scrum inside a larger organization. Preparation usually combines a close reading of the current Scrum Guide, a live or recorded course, and repeated practice with scenario questions where you must choose the best answer rather than a merely plausible one. The CSO case studies are 5 cases and about 3,582 words.

1

The Sprint Review That Became a Demo

A Scrum Master joins a 7-person Scrum Team at a logistics software company. The team runs two-week Sprints.

595 words, about 3 min
2

The Product Owner Who Cannot Be Found

A Scrum Master supports a Scrum Team of six developers, one of whom also acts as Product Owner. The company is a 200-person insurance firm.

628 words, about 3 min
3

Velocity Used as a Performance Target

A Scrum Master is assigned to a team of five developers at a fintech company. Six months ago the head of engineering introduced a dashboard that publishes each team's velocity and a 'commitment reliability' score, calculated as completed points divided by points selected at Sprint Planning.

640 words, about 3 min
4

Scaling Without a Shared Definition of Done

A company is scaling Scrum across four teams, all working on one product with a single Product Owner and a shared Product Backlog. Each team previously ran Scrum independently and has its own Definition of Done.

883 words, about 4 min
5

The Retrospective That Never Changes Anything

A Scrum Master coaches a team of eight developers that has run Scrum for two years. Retrospectives are well attended and emotionally open; the team reliably identifies three to five improvement actions per Sprint.

836 words, about 4 min