About Us
We focus on giving you the best possible return on investment, with many services and resources to help you become Agile.
Collaboration that reaps rewards takes more than having a group of people in the same office. Learning doesn't gain anything unless you can apply it and get results. We show you how to implement best practices in the context of your own organization with your unique goals and constraints in mind.
Approach
While Agile is the primary focus of our services, we have many years of experience running all sizes of software projects from the very small to the very large. We understand what it takes for teams to collaborate to create to best possible solution. We also have very deep understanding of the full software development lifecycle and of how to implement best practices.
While we are passionate about the work we do, we are also pragmatic about ensuring that the services that we deliver fit with your organization and your goals. The relationship that we build with you is of utmost importance.
Mark Levison
Mark Levison is the Certified Scrum Trainer and Agile Coach behind Agile Pain Relief Consulting. With over 30 years of experience in the IT industry, he has been learning and teaching Agile since 2001. Introducing Scrum, Lean, and Agile methodology to a large variety of organizations —government departments, banks, insurance, healthcare, education, software, logistics and non-profits, to name only a few— Mark has brought Scrum to thousands of professionals and helped launch the practice throughout Canada.
Participants benefit from Mark’s voracious study and writing on the neuroscience of learning. A respected international speaker at Agile Alliance conferences and Scrum Gatherings, Mark is also a published author on the subject, including The Guide to Effective Agile Retrospectives, Five Steps Towards Creating High-Performance Teams, blog “Notes from a Tool User”, “Beyond Scrum”, various guides and handbooks, and multiple articles for InfoQ and the Scrum Alliance.
Heather Uhl
Heather Uhl joined Agile Pain Relief Consulting in 2003 as Operations Manager, and supports Mark with his writing, teaching, and general business, as well as provides resource information for public Scrum enquiries and Agile Pain Relief’s thousands of alumni.
Decades of experience working with artists and non-traditional businesses underpins Heather’s interest in Agile methodology and her passion for empowering others to succeed. In addition to her work with Mark, she is the owner of More Time in a Day and longtime Operations Manager of Canadian Music Hall of Fame band Trooper.
We've helped 8000+ people find success using Scrum
Proud to be the trusted training provider for many of the largest financial, insurance, software, and education organizations, as well as all levels of Canadian government.
Amazing instructor, was able to clearly explain complex concepts, made the course relevant and engaging! This will alow us to build strong agile teams.
Dylan HPrivate Client
Great job Mark! Training was excellent. I now know what REAL scrum is and feel equipped to continue learning and practicing true scrum principles.
Cornelus MVirtual
Mark is a very smart, passionate, knowledgable trainer, with a charismatic personality and great pedagogical skills. I see his potential to change companies culture. The course really taught me many things and made me want to read and know more!
Iulia AToronto
The course does an excellent job in this covid world. Lots was learned even though I have been working in an agile environment for years. Would certainly return to Agile Pain Relief if I decide to pursue future training.
Robert AVirtual
This course helped me understand the principles of Agile and how to implement it to achieve better performance with any team while having a good time. Really like the balance between the exercises and the theory.
Pierre LMontreal
Mark is extremely knowlegeable, humorous, and an effective teacher. I feel far more knowedgeable about Scrum now than I did 2 days ago.
Jeremy GToronto
Was an extremely focused and well organized two days, I have taken other courses in similar timelines but found this significantly easier to consume and digest the information. Mark was funny, and left me with an impression of “this guy is legit, and extremely intelligent, I need to soak up his knowledge”.
Jack BVirtual
Mark is the real s**t. He's lived through the pain points and knows where the bodies are buried.
Christian FMontreal
Great two days! Added new tools to my PO toolbox and Mark has inspired me again to improve as a PO and to improve my team's scrumming.
Binh HMontreal
I cannot say anything but good things about the course, and have been telling many people in my org about it.
Hatem NVirtual
Mark was a great instructor! Very enthusiastic about the course and assisting its participants in becoming successful product owners. Incredibly knowledgeable and entertaining.
Elizabeth CToronto
Mark did a great job of purposefully making us all feel included and engaged with his class. He added great clarity to the budding scrum process that has taken over in my workplace. I have seen many versions and perspectives on scrum values that deviate and distort how scrum would work, but I am now confident I can facilitate with my projects and team, using a much clearer scrum.
Charlene FVirtual
Mark Levison's CSM workshop was one of the best on-line courses I have taken. Using a variety of on-line tools, we explored Scrum both on a broad surface level, then with deep dives into particular areas as voted for by the class. Mark made sure that everyone was satisfied with their own personal understanding before closing a particular topic. I had several areas that I wanted to focus on, and in each case they were answered to my satisfaction. Thank you Mark! I am very excited to take Scrum to my organization and create a high performance team!
Ross HVirtual
Long days but really challenged me to rethink how I can enhance my BA skills and how to contribute in different ways to my team.
Pearline EVancouver
Excellent. Learn a lot about Scrum. Very knowledgeable and experienced in the area. Able to relate different examples on questions asked during class.
Robert CToronto
Mark made the class enjoyable. I was initially dreading a 3 day course. After the first day I knew that I could live through the course.
Dickie BPrivate Client
Calm, knowledgeable, and open to questions. Great.
Brandon GVirtual
The course and exercise were well designed to add value compared to reading about Scrum. Mark is an effective presenter, keeping things interesting and (often) entertaining.
Gordon EPrivate Client
Excellent course, excellent communication. Loved the fact that the instructon was showing us how SCRUM should respond to different situtions.
Pascal GPrivate Client
The course was very helpful by reinforcing my commitment to scrum team responsibilty and ownership. Mark was an excellent instructor, knowledgeable, professional, and in control.
Adrian GPrivate Client
Excellent instructor!!! Expert in Agile/Scrum.
Marc BOttawa
I like the way the course was taught through examples and games. I found personal anecdotes helpful in understanding concepts.
Randy EOttawa
The course was informative and engaging. It was delivered in a way that help me achieve better understanding of the material, Mark rocks!!
Akhmad SPrivate Client
Great course and great instructor! Will definitely recommend to friends!
Hisham EOttawa
Great course, a lot of valuable information. Experienced instructor, great ability to adapt to group and real work situtations.
Karen LPrivate Client
Excellent course, gained a lot of context on SCRUM best practices beyond the context of how [Private Client] currently operates.
Hamza EPrivate Client
Mark is a very engaging instructor.
Chris PEdmonton
The course and instructor were dynamic and engaging and open to a variety of participants.
Daniel RMontreal
Very knowledgeable, enjoy the practical examples that were shared.
Tina MEdmonton
The course was structured in a way that allowed us to cover a lot of information in a manner that kept things interesting and allowed space to explore topics where the group was more interested.
Gino FOttawa
Mark is an awesome instructor! The course was very valuable and useful.
Chandni LToronto
Very informative course on the use of Scrum for software development. It covers all the areas of scrum, including all the key players and demonstrates how the roles, responsibilities and process work together to create effective, self organizing teams.
Amera PEdmonton
Made me THINK!!! Provided Framework
Mike CPrivate Client
Mark was great! He kept the room energized and very engaged. His passion and pexereince were very evident. Class materials were very helpful! Great focus on how to drive results.
Aaron MPrivate Client
Very engaging way of learning how to be a Product Owner, just like Scrum should be.
Teeba APrivate Client
Mark was intensely knowledgeable, humorous, and a bit off-beat. Initially I was skeptical of his abilites to engage the totality of the group but as the course progressed he appeared to fully succeed.
David OEdmonton
Mark is an excellent instructor and has great techniques to help us understand and learn the material of the course.
Miguel NMontreal
Mark's knowledge and real world examples have cleared up my knowledge of scrum, the roles and responsibilities of the scrum team, and what I need to implement in my organization.
Greg MEdmonton
Great workshop by Mark. Level of engagement to collaboration were awesome!
Jason QEdmonton
Mark is excellent. He instructs and communicates in simple and visual ways that are memorable. He is adaptable, and does a great job balancing needs of individuals and the group.
Ryan MToronto
Great instruction and high levels of interaction made for an enjoyable course. I gained a greater appreciation for the ScrumMaster role and the game of Scrum!
Kevin BToronto
Mark is a great presenter. I appreciate that he is to the point and succinct in his points, but can expand when prompted. I appreciate that there was room for "derailment" and that the training was made more custom tailored to the individual experiences of the scrum masters at our org. The subject matter was good. I think it contained a lot of the info that new scrum masters don't think about, and covered a lot of traps that they fall into.
Adel AVirtual
Mark is very knowledgeable and he was very patient in explaining the topics to us.
Mary Angeli MKitchener-Waterloo
The course and instructor was excellent. The concepts were clearly communicated.
Edmund CEdmonton
The instructor was very engaging. The material was easy to understand and his approach was reasonable and made great sense!
Ashely RPrivate Client
I enjoyed having Mark as an instructor, he is knowledgeable on the topic, provided easy to follow examples, and has a good sense of humour. I liked how he took notes on questions
people had, provided a brief answer and then provided links after the workshop so that we could follow up on the topics that interest us. The 10 min sanity breaks that he gave every
hour were great as it allowed my brain to relax and then come back and focus. I really enjoyed the course, I learned lots over the 2 day workshop. I feel like 2 days might be a bit short for the course as I would have enjoyed another day of the course to learn more and refine my skills. I would recommend this course to anyone new to the scrum master role or interested in learning about scrum as it gives you a great base that you can expand.
Christopher MVirtual
(Instructor was) very pragmatic and opened your mind and steer conversation, so you can figure it out, instead of reading through material.
Priya PPrivate Client
Well organized, skillfully motivates the team and demonstrates excellent practical examples
Hanna MVirtual
Excellent communicator and interacts well with the class. Great knowledge of course material and a genuine advocate of Scrum.
Tony CToronto
Mark was great. He definitely understands and believes in what he is teaching. He made sure to go slowly and would always check to see if we understood.
Adrien GVirtual
Long days but really challenged me to rethink how I can enhance my BA skills and how to contribute in different ways to my team.
Pearline EVancouver
Amazing instructor, was able to clearly explain complex concepts, made the course relevant and engaging! This will alow us to build strong agile teams.
Dylan HPrivate Client
Excellent. Learn a lot about Scrum. Very knowledgeable and experienced in the area. Able to relate different examples on questions asked during class.
Robert CToronto
Great job Mark! Training was excellent. I now know what REAL scrum is and feel equipped to continue learning and practicing true scrum principles.
Cornelus MVirtual
Mark made the class enjoyable. I was initially dreading a 3 day course. After the first day I knew that I could live through the course.
Dickie BPrivate Client
Mark is a very smart, passionate, knowledgable trainer, with a charismatic personality and great pedagogical skills. I see his potential to change companies culture. The course really taught me many things and made me want to read and know more!
Iulia AToronto
Calm, knowledgeable, and open to questions. Great.
Brandon GVirtual
The course and exercise were well designed to add value compared to reading about Scrum. Mark is an effective presenter, keeping things interesting and (often) entertaining.
Gordon EPrivate Client
Excellent course, excellent communication. Loved the fact that the instructon was showing us how SCRUM should respond to different situtions.
Pascal GPrivate Client
The course was very helpful by reinforcing my commitment to scrum team responsibilty and ownership. Mark was an excellent instructor, knowledgeable, professional, and in control.
Adrian GPrivate Client
Excellent instructor!!! Expert in Agile/Scrum.
Marc BOttawa
I like the way the course was taught through examples and games. I found personal anecdotes helpful in understanding concepts.
Randy EOttawa
The course does an excellent job in this covid world. Lots was learned even though I have been working in an agile environment for years. Would certainly return to Agile Pain Relief if I decide to pursue future training.
Robert AVirtual
The course was informative and engaging. It was delivered in a way that help me achieve better understanding of the material, Mark rocks!!
Akhmad SPrivate Client
Great course and great instructor! Will definitely recommend to friends!
Hisham EOttawa
This course helped me understand the principles of Agile and how to implement it to achieve better performance with any team while having a good time. Really like the balance between the exercises and the theory.
Pierre LMontreal
Great course, a lot of valuable information. Experienced instructor, great ability to adapt to group and real work situtations.
Karen LPrivate Client
Excellent course, gained a lot of context on SCRUM best practices beyond the context of how [Private Client] currently operates.
Hamza EPrivate Client
Mark is a very engaging instructor.
Chris PEdmonton
Mark is extremely knowlegeable, humorous, and an effective teacher. I feel far more knowedgeable about Scrum now than I did 2 days ago.
Jeremy GToronto
Was an extremely focused and well organized two days, I have taken other courses in similar timelines but found this significantly easier to consume and digest the information. Mark was funny, and left me with an impression of “this guy is legit, and extremely intelligent, I need to soak up his knowledge”.
Jack BVirtual
Mark is the real s**t. He's lived through the pain points and knows where the bodies are buried.
Christian FMontreal
The course and instructor were dynamic and engaging and open to a variety of participants.
Daniel RMontreal
Very knowledgeable, enjoy the practical examples that were shared.
Tina MEdmonton
The course was structured in a way that allowed us to cover a lot of information in a manner that kept things interesting and allowed space to explore topics where the group was more interested.
Gino FOttawa
Mark is an awesome instructor! The course was very valuable and useful.
Chandni LToronto
Great two days! Added new tools to my PO toolbox and Mark has inspired me again to improve as a PO and to improve my team's scrumming.
Binh HMontreal
Very informative course on the use of Scrum for software development. It covers all the areas of scrum, including all the key players and demonstrates how the roles, responsibilities and process work together to create effective, self organizing teams.
Amera PEdmonton
Made me THINK!!! Provided Framework
Mike CPrivate Client
Mark was great! He kept the room energized and very engaged. His passion and pexereince were very evident. Class materials were very helpful! Great focus on how to drive results.
Aaron MPrivate Client
Very engaging way of learning how to be a Product Owner, just like Scrum should be.
Teeba APrivate Client
I cannot say anything but good things about the course, and have been telling many people in my org about it.
Hatem NVirtual
Mark was intensely knowledgeable, humorous, and a bit off-beat. Initially I was skeptical of his abilites to engage the totality of the group but as the course progressed he appeared to fully succeed.
David OEdmonton
Mark is an excellent instructor and has great techniques to help us understand and learn the material of the course.
Miguel NMontreal
Mark was a great instructor! Very enthusiastic about the course and assisting its participants in becoming successful product owners. Incredibly knowledgeable and entertaining.
Elizabeth CToronto
Mark's knowledge and real world examples have cleared up my knowledge of scrum, the roles and responsibilities of the scrum team, and what I need to implement in my organization.
Greg MEdmonton
Great workshop by Mark. Level of engagement to collaboration were awesome!
Jason QEdmonton
Mark is excellent. He instructs and communicates in simple and visual ways that are memorable. He is adaptable, and does a great job balancing needs of individuals and the group.
Ryan MToronto
Great instruction and high levels of interaction made for an enjoyable course. I gained a greater appreciation for the ScrumMaster role and the game of Scrum!
Kevin BToronto
Mark is a great presenter. I appreciate that he is to the point and succinct in his points, but can expand when prompted. I appreciate that there was room for "derailment" and that the training was made more custom tailored to the individual experiences of the scrum masters at our org. The subject matter was good. I think it contained a lot of the info that new scrum masters don't think about, and covered a lot of traps that they fall into.
Adel AVirtual
Mark is very knowledgeable and he was very patient in explaining the topics to us.
Mary Angeli MKitchener-Waterloo
Mark did a great job of purposefully making us all feel included and engaged with his class. He added great clarity to the budding scrum process that has taken over in my workplace. I have seen many versions and perspectives on scrum values that deviate and distort how scrum would work, but I am now confident I can facilitate with my projects and team, using a much clearer scrum.
Charlene FVirtual
The course and instructor was excellent. The concepts were clearly communicated.
Edmund CEdmonton
The instructor was very engaging. The material was easy to understand and his approach was reasonable and made great sense!
Ashely RPrivate Client
I enjoyed having Mark as an instructor, he is knowledgeable on the topic, provided easy to follow examples, and has a good sense of humour. I liked how he took notes on questions
people had, provided a brief answer and then provided links after the workshop so that we could follow up on the topics that interest us. The 10 min sanity breaks that he gave every
hour were great as it allowed my brain to relax and then come back and focus. I really enjoyed the course, I learned lots over the 2 day workshop. I feel like 2 days might be a bit short for the course as I would have enjoyed another day of the course to learn more and refine my skills. I would recommend this course to anyone new to the scrum master role or interested in learning about scrum as it gives you a great base that you can expand.
Christopher MVirtual
(Instructor was) very pragmatic and opened your mind and steer conversation, so you can figure it out, instead of reading through material.
Priya PPrivate Client
Well organized, skillfully motivates the team and demonstrates excellent practical examples
Hanna MVirtual
Excellent communicator and interacts well with the class. Great knowledge of course material and a genuine advocate of Scrum.
Tony CToronto
Mark Levison's CSM workshop was one of the best on-line courses I have taken. Using a variety of on-line tools, we explored Scrum both on a broad surface level, then with deep dives into particular areas as voted for by the class. Mark made sure that everyone was satisfied with their own personal understanding before closing a particular topic. I had several areas that I wanted to focus on, and in each case they were answered to my satisfaction. Thank you Mark! I am very excited to take Scrum to my organization and create a high performance team!
Ross HVirtual
Mark was great. He definitely understands and believes in what he is teaching. He made sure to go slowly and would always check to see if we understood.
Adrien GVirtual
Get Certified
Explore what Scrum is and how to make it work for you in our Scrum Certification training. Hands-on learning will guide you to improve teamwork, deliver quick feedback, and achieve better products and results.
Registration is now open for workshops:
About this course
Focuses on the role of the team and the ScrumMaster. Get the skills and practical experience necessary to improve teamwork, take the exam, and advance your career with a certification that is in high demand today. Often the best fit for anyone new to Scrum.
Learning and Benefits
Relatable Scenarios
Learn on-the-job applications of key Scrum concepts, skills, principles, along with practical solutions that you can apply the next day for difficult, real-life situations.
Respected Certification
Everything you need to earn your Scrum Alliance® ScrumMaster certification, including exam fee and membership, and so much more.
Practical Exercises
With focus on the challenges that real teams face, and tools to dig deeper. You don’t need more boring Scrum theory. You need something you can sink your teeth into to see immediate results.
Jargon-Free Learning
This workshop is not just for software development or people with a computer science degree. We’ve helped many non-software teams with Scrum.
Career Advancement
Use Scrum knowledge to standout at work, get paid more, and impress your customer, all without burning out.
GenAI for Systems Thinking
Learn the basics of using Generative AI as a tool to support Systems Thinking in your ScrumMaster role. Explore how to leverage GenAI to help uncover patterns, and think more deeply about the systems your team operates in.
Ongoing Support
Your learning doesn’t stop when the workshop ends. You get lifetime access to all course materials, plus a followup email series designed to reinforce your learning objectives and help you apply what you’ve learned on the job.