Free Scrum eBooks for your Agile learning

The following Scrum/Agile resources are available free to our newsletter subscribers.

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The Guide to Effective Agile Retrospectives

If you’re tired of having retrospective meetings greeted with groans and heavy, reluctant sighs or feeling like you’re rehashing the same old problems with no signs of improvement, the advice Mark Levison shares in this book will help make your retrospectives more effective.

There’s no need to have retrospectives that people hate and aren’t even useful – with a few tweaks, you can have meetings your team will look forward to, and start seeing real improvements and results. (More details)

Includes follow-up support emails to reinforce what you learned and help you make real changes right away.

Five Steps for Creating High-Performance Teams

Scrum is a tool for building high-performance teams. Some Scrum Teams achieve this goal almost by magic, while others struggle to get there. So is it magic? Or luck? Or is it far more attainable than that? There is a science to it that makes it possible.

Mark Levison offers insight into the neuroscience of teams with five proven Agile methods to create teams that sizzle, not fizzle.

A Jargon-Free Introduction to Scrum

This Scrum for beginners e-book is an easy to understand introduction to basic Scrum methodology and how it helps teams and organizations. Using a simple case study, you visualize Scrum at work in a marketing company and how its structure leads to many benefits. Scrum terms are explained simply, so you can get in on the conversation from the beginning. This is Scrum made simple. (More details)

Includes a follow-up email learning series to give you even more confidence and skills.

Beyond Scrum: Why Scrum Alone is Not Enough

To be successful with Scrum in the long term you need more than the basic framework. This is intentional. Scrum provides the structure as a starting point, but it’s designed to work well when applied with other effective patterns.

Mark Levison’s first book discusses topics including why organizations become Agile, the limits of Scrum, common mistakes made and how to avoid resulting failure, and the benefit of exploring other Agile practices.

Agile Engineering Practices and Their Effects

(Technically not a book, but a downloadable PDF Cheat Sheet.)

In Mark’s workshops, he’s often asked, “How can I help my team go faster?”, or “How can we deliver this Product sooner?” His answer is always the same. “You must slow down to go fast.”

In software development, the single best way to improve quality, and eventually speed, is writing less code. Most of the time spent writing code should be to understand the problem and then find the simplest solution to it. The practices used to facilitate this in Agile software development are popularly known as Agile Engineering Practices.

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Very well done course. Very experienced, knowledgeable instructor, well structured course, clear explanation, keeps nice spirit during the course, encourages collaboration.
Dina DMontreal
Great session overall. Appreciate your openness and honesty.
Lisa FToronto
Terrific! Well thought out responses to questions. Great base of experience. Practical approach to teaching. 10/10
Edward LOttawa
Mark was excellent in explaining the concepts and examples from his experience. Found it very engaging and interactive.
Shilpi SPrivate Client
Very patient. Really liked the group activity where we had to work in Sprints on user stories.
Anita AVirtual
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
Mark is a great instructor, we can see the vast experience that he has from his training style. We have learnt as much as it is possible from a two day workshop. Keep up the good work Mark.
Sreepad KVirtual
Mark was a very thoughtful and direct instructor.
Luke GVirtual
This was the first professional class I've taken that gave me a more in depth perspective of the scrum process. Really concise in explanations. Stays on topic as best as possible. Extremely helpful.
Michelle KToronto
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
Very good. Great at illustrating his point.
Manny BOttawa
Mark was an informative, fun instructor who utilized the time given to him to teach us scrum.
Brendan GEdmonton
This was a good course. Plenty of offline reading and later reference. For a full two day course, I am informed but not exhausted.
Chris GKitchener-Waterloo
Instructor was very entertaining and knowledgeable. I believe the course was well aligned to the scrum methodology. Very clever.
Ravi SEdmonton
Mark is a wonderful, energetic instructer who helps you to evaluate how you are working in your own environment. Then he helps you to figure out how to improve it.
Shelley COttawa
Very thorough and engaging. Flexibility and self-organization of the course was great.
Brendan SPrivate Client
Came into the course with basic practice and limited knowledge of theory. Mark has deep knowledge and experience of the material that is easily shared, conveyed, and put into practical settings /analogies. I appreciated the effort of setting a team working agreement during the course, how we communicated /voted throughout the course, and the respected timeframe granted to teach us the material. Many thanks Mark for sharing your time, knowledge, and humour with us. It was very interesting, albeit an intense 2 days of information. Not an easy feat in a virtual setting. Also, many thanks for the many links provided to learn further on our own time. The course material is large and wide. This was perfect to learn basic theory in practice. Further knowledge, training and experience is required to fully capture and understand the depth of SCRUM and Agile.
Chantal MVirtual
I really enjoyed my experience with Agile Pain Relief and the 2 day CSM course. It was highly informative, interactive, and engaging, even with the hurdle of being fully virtual. Mark was thoughtful, patient, and ready to answer any question that came his way. I found the workshop to be not only educational, but also a great exercise in building confidence.
Katie HVirtual
After 24+ years of traditional thinking, this was refreshing and new. Can't wait to begin implementing at work. Thanks, Mark!
Kristine NEdmonton
Mark did an awesome job. He is very knowledgable, helpful, and patient. I will recommend this course for sure.
Jamal EToronto
The content of the course covered most of things I was looking for. Mark is a knowledgeable instructor and was able to answer all of the queries the class had.
Ramandeep MEdmonton
Clear and open to questions, provides good examples that help illustrate the process.
Radu SPrivate Client
Insightful material, engaging classroom practice.
Eliza BVirtual
Mark Levison lives and embodies the SCRUM in his courses. Never before have I felt so empowered to self-organize in a classroom setting.
Zoltan MOttawa
Mark really knows this material well and was able to address all questions well to the satisfaction of everyone. Managed the room and our assigned tasks/activities well.
Ursula JToronto
Mark was very engaging, and his training session helped to increase my knowledge of Agile and Scrum.
Tiffany MToronto
Great background experience, a lot of passion in his speech, was able to answer even challenging questions.
Alex NPrivate Client
Awesome instructor, great course.
Kristie KPrivate Client
A excellent and well-delivered course. Very informative!
Warren ROttawa
Mark was a great facilitator. No changes suggested! Helpful, honest, experienced, engaging.
Candice SEdmonton
Great course that makes you think.
Seok Woo JToronto
I got a lot of tricky questions answered. Real life issues we face at work.
Aleksandar YPrivate Client
Mark knows his stuff and delivers a highly interactive and animated training.
Ted MPrivate Client
I enjoyed the course and the instruction. Good examples were provided. Excercises helped me understand concepts.
Claire LPrivate Client
It was awesome! Training "done" right!
Naeem SToronto
The course was really interactive, Mark did a great job at running the course online during the pandemic. He was always willing to answer questions and provide relevant resources. I like that the focus during class-time was more on effective implementation in the real world rather than learning text-book material.
Agata BVirtual
Instructor was amazing, easy to listen to and follow. Did not read from book and provided concrete examples.
Tricia AOttawa
The course itself is a great introduction to the Scrum Master role. It starts with the fundamentals and advances through a successful balance of instruction and interactive exercises. Our instructor - Mark Levison - is obviously an expert in his field and passionate about the subject. He displayed great skill in getting his message across to his students and also in keeping us interested and involved throughout the three day course.
Sean SVirtual
Instructor was very knowledgable! Incredible library in his head.
Kafia BOttawa
Very knowledgeable and interesting. I appreciated that he respected the outline and timeframes.
Caroline DVirtual
It was a very good experience for me, I appreciate how much knowledge the instructor transferred to us in just 2 days.
Elena KOttawa
This is an excellent course to take after the CSM. The instructor was excellent, the course was wonderful, the students awesome.
Marc HMontreal
Very informative. Well presented. Good tempo.
Robert MOttawa
Amazing instructor, very clear and breaks our pre-conceived understandings.
Jean-Francois BMontreal
This course was great at examining how our team currently uses elements of scrum and refreshing that knowledge in order to improve our scrum practices.
Aaron SVirtual
Great course - certainly lived up to its reputation.
Ryann MKitchener-Waterloo
The failure-based models used for learning were effective.
Vince RVirtual
He's very knowledgable and good communication. He was able to answer any question given with complete satification
Po HPrivate Client
Very effective and experienced instructor. Well organized.
Sam MOttawa
Very unique training style, really appreciate that I don’t have to look at power point screen. Appreciate the Q&As and the end of class recap round.
Vicky CPrivate Client

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.

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.

Ongoing Support

Our active Scrum community forum is a safe place to ask questions. Long after you earn the Certified Scrum Master certification, you will have access to the forum, course materials, and additional valuable resources.