Aspiring DM

After the course, I had 2 weeks in which to sit the exam and get a second chance if I failed first time. Take it after two weeks and you only get one go (then you have to pay to re-sit it).

John, our tutor, kindly organised some online meetings where we could all (the people on the course) get together and go over any questions we had and also take group practise exams. We all took turns to answer a question and understand the correct answer if we went wrong. These were really helpful as there were still some points that I needed to clarify and properly understand, also hearing explanations to others was very useful.

John also kindly shared some other practise exams, some of which he had created himself. I repeatedly took these and read my course notes, and of course, the Scrum Guide.

I wasn’t scared about taking the test, I wasn’t scared of failing the first attempt, but I was scared of failing with an abysmal score which meant I really hadn’t grasped any of it and the thought of that was absolutely horrifying, especially after all of the effort that I had put in.

I had read and learned so much over the past 2 months I really wanted to be sure that I ‘got it’. My score on the practice assessment was increasing and now, after many attempts I was getting 100% in 5 minutes. I was also practising several other practice assessments, the ones provided by John as well as other ones advised by him on the Scrum.org website, for Product Owner, Nexus and others.

I reached the point where I felt I had done and learned as much as I could. Did I feel ready? No, of course not. Was I ready? Well, that would depend on the result of the test! I had a second chance after all and, as John advised, use the first attempt as a trial.

So, there I was, facing the exam. I’d set aside a Friday afternoon where I would have no interruptions and got ready.

The test is done on your own, remotely. There are 80 multiple choice questions and 60 minutes in which to answer them. Some are true or false, some need one answer, some multiple answers and the passing score is 85%. I needed to get 68 out of 80 correct in order to pass.

By now I had run out of diversion tactics. There was only so many times I could wash my hands, make a coffee, go to the loo, play with the cat and load the dishwasher, this was it.

Id set my laptop up, loaded the test and entered the password. 60 minutes, 80 questions, here we go.

Some were easy, some you really had to think about. I was able to bookmark some questions that I wasn’t certain of in order to return to them later.

There were questions from all aspects of Scrum. About the Values, Pillars, Sprint, Product owners and Developers.

Gradually the time passed and I was working my way through quite well. Before I knew it I was at question 80, the last one. I still had 15 minutes on the clock so went back and reviewed the questions that I had bookmarked. Some were obvious the second time round, some still questionable. I worked through them with logic, and my fingers crossed.

Then, that was it, with a couple of minutes to go I clicked submit on the final question and waited for my results.

Passed, really? I should have more confidence in myself, but I had passed. 96.3%, I could live with that, far better than I thought I’d do, I really should have more confidence in myself.

Amazingly, I had done it.

A short while later, the certificate came through and that was it, the culmination of 2 months of reading, watching, listening and classes.

The first of many steps now complete.

Now I had to decide where to take the next one…