PSM I vs PSM II: From Running Scrum to Defending It
Two years into the Scrum Master role, your events run smoothly and the team trusts you. Then a director asks why the Sprint Goal cannot absorb one urgent request, and you answer with a rule instead of a reason. The argument is lost. That moment marks the line between the two credentials: PSM I proves you know Scrum as the Scrum Guide defines it, while PSM II proves you can apply it, and defend it, when real people push back.
Both certifications come from Scrum.org, both are passed online without a mandatory class, and both carry the same 85% pass mark. After that, almost everything changes: the number of questions, the time you get for each one, the focus areas, the way answers are scored and, above all, the kind of thinking the questions reward. This article sets the two side by side, explains what the advanced exam adds, and helps you decide when the step up is worth taking.
What really separates PSM I from PSM II?
Scrum.org describes PSM I as evidence of a fundamental level of Scrum mastery: you understand Scrum as written in the Scrum Guide and share a consistent vocabulary with other practitioners. PSM II is described as an advanced level, for Scrum Masters who can support Scrum Teams and solve complex problems in the real world, and Scrum.org says candidates should bring in-depth Scrum Master experience before attempting it.
Put more simply, PSM I asks what Scrum says. PSM II asks why it says it, and what you would do when a situation does not fit neatly into any rule. A candidate can pass the first exam by knowing the Scrum Guide thoroughly. The second exam is much harder to pass on reading alone, because most of its questions describe a team, an organisation and a tension, and then ask which response best serves empiricism, the Scrum Values and the people involved.
That is why the Scrum Master in the opening scenario is a typical PSM II candidate. Facilitation is already solid. What is missing is the ability to explain, in plain business language, how a rule protects transparency, inspection and adaptation, and to choose between several reasonable options when each one has a cost.
Who each credential is aimed at
- PSM I suits new Scrum Masters, developers or analysts moving into the role, managers who work alongside Scrum Teams, and anyone who needs a shared, precise understanding of the framework.
- PSM II suits practising Scrum Masters with a few years of real Sprints behind them, agile coaches, and people who are asked to influence how an organisation adopts Scrum rather than only how one team runs it.
How do the PSM I and PSM II exams compare on paper?
The facts below come from our exam records for both credentials and agree with what Scrum.org shows on its PSM I certification page and its PSM II certification page, checked in September 2026.
| Exam detail | PSM I | PSM II |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master I | Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master II |
| Exam code | PSM I | PSM II |
| Exam fee | $200 USD | $250 USD |
| Number of questions | 80 | 30 |
| Duration | 60 minutes | 90 minutes |
| Passing score | 85% | 85% |
| Question format | Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer, True/False | Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer, True/False, with partial credit on some questions |
Read the table as a change of pace rather than a change of size. PSM I gives you well under a minute per question, so it rewards instant recall: you either know what the Scrum Guide says about the Sprint Review or you do not. PSM II gives you roughly three minutes per question, and you need most of them, because each scenario runs to several sentences and the options are close to one another.
What the two exams share
Several practical rules are identical for both. The fee is charged per attempt, and a test password has no expiry date but is valid for a single attempt. Each certification is for life, with no annual renewal fee, and a Credly digital badge comes with it. Neither exam requires you to attend a course first, although Scrum.org strongly recommends one, and a Scrum.org class includes a free attempt at its associated test. After the test you do not see which questions you got wrong, but you do receive a breakdown of your performance by competency, which is useful if you need a second try.
Languages and translation
PSM I can be taken in English or Japanese at Scrum.org, and in Simplified Chinese through scrum.org.cn. PSM II is offered in English, with Simplified Chinese through scrum.org.cn. For other languages, Scrum.org allows the Google Translate plugin provided you follow its published instructions, while warning that it cannot guarantee the translation. On the advanced exam, where one word in a scenario can change the best answer, reading in English if you can is the safer choice.
Which focus areas does PSM II add on top of PSM I?
Scrum.org groups the content of both exams into Focus Areas drawn from its Professional Scrum Competencies. Comparing the two published lists shows exactly where the advanced exam goes deeper.
Understanding and Applying the Scrum Framework
Both exams list the same topics here: empiricism, the Scrum Values, the Scrum Team, the events, the artifacts and Done. The difference is depth. PSM I checks that you can state what each element is and who is accountable for it. PSM II checks whether you can see when an element is being hollowed out, for example a Definition of Done that quietly excludes testing, or a Sprint Retrospective that produces no change, and what a Scrum Master should do about it.
Developing People and Teams
PSM I covers self-managing teams, facilitation and coaching. PSM II keeps self-management and facilitation, then adds Leadership Styles and widens coaching into Coaching and Mentoring. That addition matters. It expects you to know when to teach, when to coach with questions, when to mentor from experience and when to step back, and to recognise that a Scrum Master who always facilitates, and never teaches, can leave a struggling team without direction.
Managing Products with Agility
PSM I lists forecasting and release planning, product value, Product Backlog management, and stakeholders and customers. The PSM II page keeps Product Backlog management and stakeholders and customers. The questions here are usually about the Scrum Master's service to the Product Owner and the wider organisation: helping stakeholders understand why the Product Backlog is ordered as it is, or helping a Product Owner who has too little authority to decide.
Developing and Delivering Products Professionally
This area appears only in PSM II, through Managing Technical Risk. A Scrum Master is not expected to write code, but is expected to notice when technical debt, a weak Definition of Done or a missing integration step makes each Increment less usable than it looks, and to make that risk visible to the Scrum Team and to stakeholders.
Evolving the Agile Organization
The second area unique to PSM II is Organizational Design and Culture. Questions move beyond a single team to the structures around it: reporting lines that pull developers in two directions, performance reviews that reward individual heroics, or a governance process that demands a fixed plan before any Sprint begins. This is the territory of the director's question in our opening, and it is where many experienced Scrum Masters discover how much they have been taking for granted.
What does a PSM II question ask that a PSM I question does not?
The easiest way to feel the gap is to compare the shape of two questions on the same topic. The examples below are our own illustrations of style, not questions from either exam.
A PSM I style question
Who is accountable for ordering the Product Backlog? One answer is correct, it is stated in the Scrum Guide, and a well-prepared candidate answers it in seconds.
A PSM II style question
A Product Owner shares the Product Backlog with three department heads, each of whom insists on their own priorities. Sprint Reviews have turned into negotiations and the team has stopped delivering a coherent Increment. Which two actions would best help? Several options are defensible. One might suggest the Scrum Master ranks the items personally; another might propose coaching the Product Owner on stakeholder management and helping the organisation clarify the Product Owner's authority. Choosing well requires you to know what the Scrum Guide says about the Product Owner's accountability, and also to judge which response builds lasting capability instead of creating dependence on the Scrum Master.
Partial credit changes the strategy
Scrum.org notes that partial credit is given on some PSM II questions. On a multiple-answer item, selecting some of the right options can earn part of the mark, which rewards careful reasoning over guessing. It also means that a single careless selection can cost you, so read each option as a claim you would be willing to defend to a sceptical manager. The free PSM II sample questions on our site are a good way to get used to the length and tone of these scenarios before you attempt full-length sets.
When should you move from PSM I to PSM II?
Scrum.org lists PSM I as the recommended certification before PSM II, but it is not a formal prerequisite; you can buy and attempt PSM II directly. Recommended does not mean optional in practice, though. The advanced exam assumes you already know every rule the first one tests, and it rarely spends a question checking them. If the Scrum Guide is not second nature, the scenarios will feel ambiguous for the wrong reason.
Signs you are ready for PSM II
- You have served as Scrum Master for real Sprints over a sustained period, not only in a classroom simulation.
- You can explain to a non-technical manager how a specific Scrum rule protects transparency, inspection or adaptation, without quoting the guide word for word.
- You have faced at least one situation where every available option had a cost, such as a Sprint Goal that became obsolete, and you can describe the trade-off you chose.
- You have coached a Product Owner or a group of developers through a change in how they work, rather than only running events for them.
- You notice organisational impediments, like a reporting structure or a funding model, and can describe how they limit the team.
Signs you should wait
If you mostly facilitate meetings on a schedule someone else designed, if you have never had to argue for a Scrum practice, or if you still check the Scrum Guide to remember who attends which event, spend a few more months in the role first. The exam will still be there, and your chances improve sharply once you have a store of real situations to draw on.
How should you prepare for PSM II after passing PSM I?
Preparing for PSM II is less about adding new facts and more about converting what you know into judgement. The plan below assumes you hold PSM I, or know its material well, and can give the exam a few focused hours each week.
Step 1: re-read the Scrum Guide for reasons, not rules
Read the Scrum Guide again, which in its current form is the November 2020 version written by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. This time, beside every rule write down the problem it prevents. Why is the Sprint Goal fixed while the Sprint Backlog may change? Why does the Daily Scrum belong to the Developers? When you can answer each of these in a sentence, you have the vocabulary the director in our opening was waiting for.
Step 2: build a casebook from your own work
Write short notes on ten or so situations you have faced: a stakeholder who bypassed the Product Owner, a team that skipped its Retrospective, a manager who asked for individual velocity. For each one, record what you did, what Scrum would suggest and what you would do differently. PSM II scenarios map onto this kind of record far better than onto flashcards.
Step 3: study the two unique focus areas deliberately
Managing technical risk and organisational design are the areas most practitioners have thought about least. Read about technical debt, the role of a strong Definition of Done, and how team structure and incentives shape behaviour. Scrum.org recommends its instructor-led Professional Scrum Master Advanced course or the self-paced Professional Scrum Master Advanced Fundamentals course for this level, and either can shorten this step.
Step 4: practise on scenarios and discuss them
Take Scrum.org's free Scrum Open practice assessment until you pass it comfortably and consistently; it resets your precision on the basics. Then move to long scenario questions, ideally discussed with a peer, because explaining why you rejected an option is exactly the skill being tested. When you want a timed rehearsal of the real format, our PSM II mock exam follows the same question count and time limit, so you can see how your pace holds up across a full sitting.
Step 5: rehearse the pace and book
Sit at least two full timed practice sessions. Aim to finish your first pass with time to spare for questions you flagged, and review every missed item by writing down which Scrum principle you misjudged. Book the real attempt when unfamiliar practice questions keep landing you well clear of 85%, not just the ones you have already met.
Which mistakes cost experienced Scrum Masters the PSM II?
Oddly, experience can be a trap. The candidates who struggle are often capable practitioners who answer from their own organisation's habits rather than from Scrum.
- Answering with your company's version of Scrum. If your organisation runs a separate refinement meeting chaired by a manager, that is local practice. The exam asks what best supports Scrum, not what is normal where you work.
- Choosing the heroic Scrum Master option. Answers in which the Scrum Master personally fixes the problem, assigns work or decides priorities are usually wrong. The better answer tends to build the team's or the Product Owner's own capability.
- Ignoring the word "best". Many options are acceptable. Only one or two serve empiricism and self-management most directly, and the question asks for those.
- Rushing because the question count is low. Thirty questions sounds light until you meet the scenarios. Candidates who race through the first half often run short at the end.
- Skipping the unique focus areas. Technical risk and organisational culture feel secondary to a team-level Scrum Master, but they are named focus areas and they appear in the questions.
- Selecting every plausible option on multiple-answer items. Partial credit rewards precision; an extra wrong choice can undo the value of a right one.
What does each certification do for your career?
PSM I is one of the most widely held Scrum credentials, which is both its strength and its limit. It tells an employer that you speak the language of Scrum accurately and have proved it in a demanding test rather than by attending a class. For a first Scrum Master role, or for a developer, analyst or manager who works inside Scrum Teams, that is often exactly the signal a hiring manager needs.
PSM II says something different. Because the exam is built on real-world scenarios and Scrum.org frames it for experienced Scrum Masters, it signals that you can handle difficult conversations, coach rather than only facilitate, and look beyond a single team to the organisation around it. It tends to matter most when you are moving toward senior Scrum Master, agile coach or transformation roles, where interviews focus on how you handled resistance rather than on definitions.
No renewal, but a next step
Both certifications are lifetime credentials with no annual fee, so the investment does not need topping up. For those who keep climbing, Scrum.org offers PSM III as a distinguished level, focused on coaching, mentoring and teaching Scrum while influencing the wider organisation. PSM II is the natural bridge: it proves that the Scrum Master who could run the events can now explain, adapt and defend them, which is precisely what the director in the opening scenario was asking for.
If you are still weighing the step, return to the readiness list above. When most of it describes you, the advanced exam is less a leap than a way of putting a name to what you have already learned on the job.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between PSM 1 and PSM 2?
PSM I tests fundamental knowledge of Scrum as described in the Scrum Guide, with 80 questions in 60 minutes. PSM II tests advanced application in real-world scenarios, with 30 questions in 90 minutes, extra focus areas such as leadership styles and organisational design, and partial credit on some questions. Both require 85% to pass.
Can I take PSM II without passing PSM I?
Yes. Scrum.org lists PSM I as the recommended certification before PSM II, but it is not a formal prerequisite, and no course attendance is required either. In practice the advanced exam assumes you already know everything PSM I covers, so most candidates pass PSM I first.
How much do the PSM I and PSM II exams cost?
PSM I costs $200 USD and PSM II costs $250 USD, charged per attempt. Scrum.org notes that additional taxes may apply at checkout. A purchased test password has no expiry date but is valid for one attempt only, so a second try requires a new purchase.
Is the Professional Scrum Master II certification hard to pass?
It is considerably harder than PSM I. The 30 questions are long scenarios with several reasonable options, the pass mark is 85%, and Scrum.org expects in-depth Scrum Master experience. Candidates who rely on memorising the Scrum Guide without real practice usually find the questions ambiguous and struggle with time.
Do PSM I and PSM II certifications expire?
No. Scrum.org describes both as lifetime certifications with no annual renewal fee. Each one also includes a free Credly digital credential that you can share on professional profiles. If you want to progress further after PSM II, Scrum.org offers PSM III as its distinguished level.
