Free Resources
We're happy to offer several resources for self-study learning. These also qualify for Scrum Alliance® Scrum Education Units (SEUs).
Scrum and Agile articles
Notes from a Tool User, Mark Levison’s long-running blog, explores current Agile topics and mixes in insightful advice with practical application tips to help Scrum teams and individuals.
Agile Glossary and Reference Library
Jokingly called the “World’s Largest Opinionated Agile Reference Library”. The content is created and the links are curated through the lens of Agile Pain Relief Consulting’s view of what is effective in the practice of Scrum and Agile.
New to Scrum?
A whole page of free resources specifically for those who are trying to make sense of Scrum basics and terminology.
Scrum and Agile Games
Learning doesn’t have to be boring or tedious. Our brains retain more information when it’s fun!
- Online Agile Teams Game
- High-Performance Team Game
- Building High-Performance Organizations Game
Free with newsletter subscription
The following Scrum and Agile resources are available free to our newsletter subscribers.
Newsletters are sent out roughly every two weeks. You can opt out of anything at any time by simply unsubscribing, or letting us know and we’ll customize your subscription to only what you need.
eBooks
- The Guide to Effective Agile Retrospectives
- A Jargon-Free Introduction to Scrum
- Agile Engineering Practices and Their Effects PDF Cheat Sheet
Community Coaching
Free Virtual Scrum Meetup. Kind of office hours/virtual coffee chat, where you can join in a Zoom conference and talk about whatever confuses and confounds you in Scrum. (Bonus: if you haven’t done a workshop with me yet, this is your chance to try before you buy.)
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.
Awesome course. I will be able to apply a number of concepts immediately to help our effectiveness at work.
Daryl PEdmonton
I enjoyed Mark's teaching style. I like the personal stories and puns. I always like to bring humor in to my meeting or when I am teaching or mentoring, it evokes a positive emotion and people will retain the information better. A+++ Would like to attend other courses done by Mark.
Shanna FVirtual
This course helped me get a significant understanding of what Scrum is, how it can be applied in my real life work environment and what benefits could I have from it. The instructor was passionate about the subject, which helped me stay focus and interested.
Vincent MVirtual
Mark was very approachable, friendly, and knowledgable. He has done a great job in helping someone like me who doesn't belong to a corporate world learn so much about scrum in 2 days!
Mashiat FToronto
Mark is a great instructor, very educated and helpful about Scrum and Agile. The course is very thorough and way better than typical Scrum training I have attended in the past.
Rishi PToronto
Instructor is knowledgeable and also a good instructor (you don't always get both!) Course was well done with enough 'meat' to enable students to implement core concepts without overwhelming.
Cassandra HEdmonton
The CSM course rocks! If you want to immediately jump into the action and improve as you go, this is it. You'll start off as a group of strangers, and find out how quickly you can build a high-performance team. And, if you separately want to read every comprehensive detail there is to know about scrum, Mark will share that with you too.
Nicole BVirtual
Two thumb up! = Great, very worthy for the money I paid.
Juan Manuel GOttawa
Mark did a great job of bringing the group into the basic tenets of Agile-Scrum whenever someone brought up a challenge/issue in the participant's particular situation.
Eric AMontreal
Mark is an awesome instructor! The course was very valuable and useful.
Chandni LToronto
Pragmatic, no nonsense & applied = very good!
Francois-Pierre MMontreal
Mark did a great job and was impressed how well it worked virtually and not in person!
Jennifer PVirtual
Awesome. I got more than enough info to get me started and max team productivity.
Joel RVancouver
Energetic, clear, helpful, inspiring, a great teacher.
Nadil POttawa
Very knowledgeable instructor that kept the course interesting. Course material was awesome! I will recommend to others.
Dave PToronto
Fantastic course. I was really happy with the structure, the breaks, and the group interaction. I've taken other online courses like this before and really felt like there was a good balance between listening, discussions, applying the knowledge, and pauses.
Amanda PVirtual
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
Great facilitation techniques often used as a regular classroom teacher (i.e. rephrasing, simplificaion, observing, hinting, investigative learning).
Mike PMontreal
Very knowledgeable and pleasant to work with.
Kristian BEdmonton
Mark was very personable and knowledgeable about the subject. Nothing threw him.
Sharon GPrivate Client
Mark, you are awesome! I enjoyed your style of teaching/coaching. You focused on our needs and priorities ensuring a "happy customer." You are also respectful towards everyone's opinion which makes it engaging conversation.
Zeeshan BOttawa
Thumbs up! Easy to follow. Engaging and thought provoking.
Neil OPrivate Client
Mark was able to translate his obvious expertise and experience in lay terms, putting the team at ease through humour, anecdotes and a good level of engagement.
Brendan GVirtual
Mark is an awesome instructor and he is very knowledgeable.
Samina CVirtual
Great course. Information overload but not in a bad way. I liked that we discussed specific corporate problems people were having. Helped build context in how others are using Agile/Scrum. Maybe misusing, too.
Tyler BVancouver
Mark is obviously very invested in the material. I never doubted that he was an expert with a lot of industry experience.
Devin ROttawa
Very helpful and clear. Mark is good at pushing the boundary with good illustration.
Terry NToronto
Good instruction. Kept it interesting.
Mark OToronto
Mark is very good. Has a lot of working experiences and real life stories.
Wilson MEdmonton
Mark is an excellent instructor and has great techniques to help us understand and learn the material of the course.
Miguel NMontreal
Mark was very knowledgeable and walked us through Scrum using the actual technique. Very good technique.
Kevin COttawa
Good course. In the end it is going to be us to make [Private Client] an even better company and a even better product.
Steve MPrivate Client
Awesome instructor with a sense of humor. Well read and fun!
Wendy AVancouver
Very knowledgeable, enjoy the practical examples that were shared.
Tina MEdmonton
Very informative. Well presented. Good tempo.
Robert MOttawa
Mark was an excellent instructor, with a sense of humour that helped keep my focus (which is particularly challenging with the course being online over 3 days). Being able to run through simulated sprints to help reinforce the material was very helpful.
Micheal CVirtual
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 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
10/10 Loved the atmosphere he created, kept us engaged, able to send important messages, did not overwhelm us.
Biljana CPrivate Client
Mark was an excellent instructor. He was patient with us and mindful of the different types of humans in the class. Even though we got behind and had to skip the last exercise I didn't feel like I was missing anything. I think the discussions were of more value than the final sprint (so good choice). I really appreciate that he is giving us all kinds of materials and pointing us to books and articles to help us. I feel very supported. Mark did a great job of getting everyone involved and keeping people engaged. Group activities were well placed. I will be sure to recommend this course.
Karen PVirtual
Mark was great at reorganizing our organizational challenges. He was dynamic and kept me interested the entire time.
Jessica PPrivate Client
Course was informative and entertaining. There was good participant involvement and useful examples.
George COttawa
Mark is great and explained dry terms with examples.
Xueyan BPrivate Client
Instructor is very knowledgeable and delivers the course extremely well. Makes it interesting!
Brian APrivate Client
Mark is very enthusiastic and responsive, good at eliciting participation, diverse exercises to keep us from getting bored, informative answers. Good focus on cross-functional teams and sharing non-dev where we fit in.
Carly HPrivate Client
(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
Mark was an excellent instructor and I learned a lot in this workshop considering it was only 2 days. I would recommend it to my friends and colleagues.
Mohamed EVirtual
I really liked that although we did a paper website exercise we used it as a tool for conversation and there wasn't pressure to complete and present it to the group.
Angela GToronto
The instructor did an excellent job in my opinion. He did a really good job of focusing on sections where there was more confusion and really helped make everyone feel comfortable to share and ask questions.
Sylvain FVirtual
He knows his stuff!
Stephen DVancouver
Mark did a great job of bringing the group into the basic tenets of Agile-Scrum whenever someone brought up a challenge/issue in the participant's particular situation.
Eric AMontreal
Mark is an awesome instructor! The course was very valuable and useful.
Chandni LToronto
Pragmatic, no nonsense & applied = very good!
Francois-Pierre MMontreal
Mark did a great job and was impressed how well it worked virtually and not in person!
Jennifer PVirtual
Awesome. I got more than enough info to get me started and max team productivity.
Joel RVancouver
Energetic, clear, helpful, inspiring, a great teacher.
Nadil POttawa
Very knowledgeable instructor that kept the course interesting. Course material was awesome! I will recommend to others.
Dave PToronto
Fantastic course. I was really happy with the structure, the breaks, and the group interaction. I've taken other online courses like this before and really felt like there was a good balance between listening, discussions, applying the knowledge, and pauses.
Amanda PVirtual
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
Awesome course. I will be able to apply a number of concepts immediately to help our effectiveness at work.
Daryl PEdmonton
Great facilitation techniques often used as a regular classroom teacher (i.e. rephrasing, simplificaion, observing, hinting, investigative learning).
Mike PMontreal
Very knowledgeable and pleasant to work with.
Kristian BEdmonton
Mark was very personable and knowledgeable about the subject. Nothing threw him.
Sharon GPrivate Client
Mark, you are awesome! I enjoyed your style of teaching/coaching. You focused on our needs and priorities ensuring a "happy customer." You are also respectful towards everyone's opinion which makes it engaging conversation.
Zeeshan BOttawa
Thumbs up! Easy to follow. Engaging and thought provoking.
Neil OPrivate Client
Mark was able to translate his obvious expertise and experience in lay terms, putting the team at ease through humour, anecdotes and a good level of engagement.
Brendan GVirtual
Mark is an awesome instructor and he is very knowledgeable.
Samina CVirtual
Great course. Information overload but not in a bad way. I liked that we discussed specific corporate problems people were having. Helped build context in how others are using Agile/Scrum. Maybe misusing, too.
Tyler BVancouver
Mark is obviously very invested in the material. I never doubted that he was an expert with a lot of industry experience.
Devin ROttawa
Very helpful and clear. Mark is good at pushing the boundary with good illustration.
Terry NToronto
I enjoyed Mark's teaching style. I like the personal stories and puns. I always like to bring humor in to my meeting or when I am teaching or mentoring, it evokes a positive emotion and people will retain the information better. A+++ Would like to attend other courses done by Mark.
Shanna FVirtual
This course helped me get a significant understanding of what Scrum is, how it can be applied in my real life work environment and what benefits could I have from it. The instructor was passionate about the subject, which helped me stay focus and interested.
Vincent MVirtual
Good instruction. Kept it interesting.
Mark OToronto
Mark is very good. Has a lot of working experiences and real life stories.
Wilson MEdmonton
Mark is an excellent instructor and has great techniques to help us understand and learn the material of the course.
Miguel NMontreal
Mark was very knowledgeable and walked us through Scrum using the actual technique. Very good technique.
Kevin COttawa
Good course. In the end it is going to be us to make [Private Client] an even better company and a even better product.
Steve MPrivate Client
Mark was very approachable, friendly, and knowledgable. He has done a great job in helping someone like me who doesn't belong to a corporate world learn so much about scrum in 2 days!
Mashiat FToronto
Mark is a great instructor, very educated and helpful about Scrum and Agile. The course is very thorough and way better than typical Scrum training I have attended in the past.
Rishi PToronto
Awesome instructor with a sense of humor. Well read and fun!
Wendy AVancouver
Very knowledgeable, enjoy the practical examples that were shared.
Tina MEdmonton
Very informative. Well presented. Good tempo.
Robert MOttawa
Instructor is knowledgeable and also a good instructor (you don't always get both!) Course was well done with enough 'meat' to enable students to implement core concepts without overwhelming.
Cassandra HEdmonton
Mark was an excellent instructor, with a sense of humour that helped keep my focus (which is particularly challenging with the course being online over 3 days). Being able to run through simulated sprints to help reinforce the material was very helpful.
Micheal CVirtual
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 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
10/10 Loved the atmosphere he created, kept us engaged, able to send important messages, did not overwhelm us.
Biljana CPrivate Client
Mark was an excellent instructor. He was patient with us and mindful of the different types of humans in the class. Even though we got behind and had to skip the last exercise I didn't feel like I was missing anything. I think the discussions were of more value than the final sprint (so good choice). I really appreciate that he is giving us all kinds of materials and pointing us to books and articles to help us. I feel very supported. Mark did a great job of getting everyone involved and keeping people engaged. Group activities were well placed. I will be sure to recommend this course.
Karen PVirtual
Mark was great at reorganizing our organizational challenges. He was dynamic and kept me interested the entire time.
Jessica PPrivate Client
Course was informative and entertaining. There was good participant involvement and useful examples.
George COttawa
Mark is great and explained dry terms with examples.
Xueyan BPrivate Client
Instructor is very knowledgeable and delivers the course extremely well. Makes it interesting!
Brian APrivate Client
Mark is very enthusiastic and responsive, good at eliciting participation, diverse exercises to keep us from getting bored, informative answers. Good focus on cross-functional teams and sharing non-dev where we fit in.
Carly HPrivate Client
(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
Mark was an excellent instructor and I learned a lot in this workshop considering it was only 2 days. I would recommend it to my friends and colleagues.
Mohamed EVirtual
I really liked that although we did a paper website exercise we used it as a tool for conversation and there wasn't pressure to complete and present it to the group.
Angela GToronto
The CSM course rocks! If you want to immediately jump into the action and improve as you go, this is it. You'll start off as a group of strangers, and find out how quickly you can build a high-performance team. And, if you separately want to read every comprehensive detail there is to know about scrum, Mark will share that with you too.
Nicole BVirtual
Two thumb up! = Great, very worthy for the money I paid.
Juan Manuel GOttawa
The instructor did an excellent job in my opinion. He did a really good job of focusing on sections where there was more confusion and really helped make everyone feel comfortable to share and ask questions.
Sylvain FVirtual
He knows his stuff!
Stephen DVancouver
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.