A course-based credential for Product Owners. It is awarded for attending a 16-hour course taught by a Certified Scrum Trainer, and Scrum Alliance states that no test is required to earn it.
Set by the training company Scrum Alliance publishes no single price. Registration, payment and accommodations are handled by the independent training company, so the fee varies by trainer, country and delivery format. Scrum Alliance states that the registration payment includes the 16-hour course, access to your Scrum Alliance account and certification, a complimentary two-year Scrum Alliance membership, and the training materials the trainer provides.
Format
A 16-hour course taught by a Certified Scrum Trainer, delivered live online or in person. There is no test, no assessment and nothing to sit afterwards. Attending the course results in certification. You then accept the licence agreement in your Scrum Alliance account and download the certificate and digital badge.
Pass mark
There is no pass mark because there is no test. Scrum Alliance states that at this time no test is required to earn the CSPO, and that attending the 16-hour course taught by a Certified Scrum Trainer results in certification.
Prerequisites
None. Scrum Alliance states there are no prerequisite requirements for joining a CSPO course, and suggests becoming familiar with the Scrum Guide for anyone new to scrum.
Renewal
Two-year term. Renew either by taking any new Scrum Alliance certification course, which renews every certification you hold, or by logging 20 Scrum Education Units and paying the $100 foundational renewal fee. Each hour of qualifying continuing education counts as one SEU. An SEU must carry an activity date within the two and a half years before the certification expires, and cannot be reused for a later renewal.
Based on
The Scrum Alliance CSPO Learning Objectives and the Scrum Foundations Learning Objectives, which draw on the 2020 Scrum Guide, the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and the Scrum values
What it covers
What the course covers. The CSPO is earned by attending a course, not by passing anything. Scrum Alliance states plainly that no test is required and that successfully attending the 16-hour course taught by a Certified Scrum Trainer results in certification. Nobody can study their way to this credential on their own. The questions here are knowledge checks on the material a course must cover, so you arrive knowing the vocabulary and can spend the 16 hours on the parts that need a room full of people.
Every CSPO course must cover two published sets of learning objectives. The Scrum Foundations objectives cover scrum theory, the scrum team, the events with their timeboxes, and the three artifacts with their commitments. The five CSPO objectives cover product owner core competencies, goal setting and planning, understanding customers and users, validating product assumptions, and working with the product backlog. Trainers may add ancillary topics of their own and must clearly indicate them as ancillary. The weights below describe how much of the published objectives each area accounts for, not exam scoring, because there is no exam.
Delivery sits with independent trainers, so the depth you get is the depth your trainer brings. The published objectives set the floor and the room sets the ceiling. Reading the Scrum Guide beforehand and bringing a real product to work on is what turns the two days into something usable, and the same material carries the renewal cycle every two years.
The syllabus5 domains · free
Scrum Alliance’s own domains. Each opens its own page listing the concepts beneath it, and each concept has a page of its own.
Three Sprints into a new product, usage data shows that the feature the team has been building for six weeks is opened by four per cent of users. The Product Owner suggests carrying on because the work is nearly finished and stopping now would waste the effort so far. Which response is most consistent with empiricism?
AFinish the feature, because abandoning nearly complete work wastes the investment already made.
BAdapt the Product Backlog now on the basis of what has been observed, and treat the six weeks as already spent regardless of the decision.
CContinue for one more Sprint and decide at the Sprint Review after that.
DEscalate to the sponsor who requested the feature and follow their decision.
Not affiliated with or endorsed by Scrum Alliance. Practice questions are written from the published competencies and the Scrum Alliance CSPO Learning Objectives and the Scrum Foundations Learning Objectives, which draw on the 2020 Scrum Guide, the Manifesto for Agile Software Development and the Scrum values.