Free Scrum eBooks for your Agile learning

The following Scrum/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.

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.

We've helped 8000+ people find success using Scrum

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Mark was a fantastic instructor who gave very thorough answers. He explained concepts in ways that technical and non technical people could understand. He lead the course in a way that impowered the students.
Tyler WVirtual
Great facilitation techniques often used as a regular classroom teacher (i.e. rephrasing, simplificaion, observing, hinting, investigative learning).
Mike PMontreal
Mark is very knowledgeable. He is a great instructor.
Nitin PToronto
Great course. Mark clearly knows his stuff!
Marc LOttawa
Good instructor. On point. Assertive and describes the problems and approaches well.
Andrei POttawa
All topics were covered and mastered incredibly well. Could confirm his wide knowledge and experience using and explaining scrum.
Lenin QMontreal
Very informative, with humour. Easy to understand for non-technical folks.
Tetyana OOttawa
Mark is super knowledgable on the topic and presents it in a fun and educational atmosphere. Really enjoyed the team work and Mark's perspective on a lot of the information.
Shelly MToronto
The instructor was very engaging. The material was easy to understand and his approach was reasonable and made great sense!
Ashely RPrivate Client
The course provided an excellent deep dive into scrum and the role of the scrum master. The instructor was very knowledgeable and well versed on the research of scrum.
Robyne LOttawa
Mark presented very well. Class well organized. Liked the zoo activity and actually applying the scrum guidleines to a sprint.
Laurel PEdmonton
Knows his material very well. Is pleasant. Proper course material was provided.
Jean PMontreal
Well prepared, knows how to put practice into play and have passion for ideas/critical thinking.
Jamie HOttawa
The combination of hands-on practice and excellent facilitation style made this course enjoyable, useful and very applicable to my day to day life as a Project Manager. The content was carefully curated and meaningful discussions were had during the session. It was engaging, interactive and insightful! I would highly recommend Mark and the Agile Pain Relief company for anyone looking to do their CSM training and pass the exam!
Valerie GVirtual
Mark is very engaging and keeps things interesting during the course.
Adam MToronto
Really liked the approach by Mark to apply Scrum methodology to this training. Also Mark was available to answer questions and patient.
Damien JOttawa
Great course, a lot of valuable information. Experienced instructor, great ability to adapt to group and real work situtations.
Karen LPrivate Client
Exceptional presentation delivery that is clear, concise, and though-provoking, involving tremendous audience participation.
Norman EOttawa
Mark is totally wonderfully weird and knowledgeable.
Sarah MOttawa
The course was quite detailed and Mark gave a lot of supporting information for all the topics we touched.
Toyosi OVirtual
Course was fantastic and informative. The instructor did his best to include as much of the expensive material as he could. It was engaging and fun to listen to. I would highly recomment this training to anyone interested in the Scrum methology.
Derrick BOttawa
The CSM course was extremely valuable in understanding the theorotical and practical concepts and techniques necessary to start my journey as Scrum Master. Mark was a knowledgeable and flexible facilitor.
Erik GToronto
Mark was fantastic. Possibly the best, most prepared instructor I've seen. He was awesome.
Colin MToronto
Mark inspired the participants to be engaged in the moment using Plato's dialogue techniques - Mark delights!
Laura DOttawa
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
No nonsense, practical approach, dynamic, very instructive.
Yanick BMontreal
Energetic, clear, helpful, inspiring, a great teacher.
Nadil POttawa
The course included everything I hoped to cover and Mark very well demonstrated its content.
Jerome CToronto
Course: great content! Instructor: excellent and very knowledgeable on the subject.
Nadeem FEdmonton
Mark inspires you to make yourself better in the roles which makes your workplace better. I wish he could come to my place of employ to get us setup to succeed. Might have to look into that.
Jackie MEdmonton
Great job, easy to understand and fun.
Matt CKitchener-Waterloo
Course material provided was excellent for references and follow up. Instructor was energetic, dynamic, and full engaging.
Dinah MPrivate Client
Mark is very entertaining and knowledgable, the combination of which made for a great two days of training, well done!
Daniel JKitchener-Waterloo
Wanted to say thanks again for the great insights at the CSM course last month. I've had a fair amount of success thus far introducing and implementing the concepts at the agency I work for. We completed our first full Scrum project yesterday. Scrum really is a magnifying glass for issues. We identified quite a few with our systems within the first couple of days and are now radically overhauling how we assign budgets to projects.
Paul AOttawa
A very rewarding learning experience. Timeboxed for two days, that really provides business value for future scrum masters /Agile practioners.
Delia DMontreal
Mark is an ethusiastic engaged instructor. Very knowledgeable on the topic.
Sarah PToronto
Mark was great at reorganizing our organizational challenges. He was dynamic and kept me interested the entire time.
Jessica PPrivate Client
Very Experienced, Shared Experiences, Class Participation was done very well.
Gary FPrivate Client
Excellent teaching and course delivery. Practical scrum practices was very informational.
Odion OToronto
I recommend all newbees and Agile to take Mark's class. End of the day, you will walk out with confidence.
Hema PKitchener-Waterloo
I like the way the course was taught through examples and games. I found personal anecdotes helpful in understanding concepts.
Randy EOttawa
Great session overall. Appreciate your openness and honesty.
Lisa FToronto
Instructor very excellent and the course is very good to introduce perople to the Agile Methodology.
Sonia JPrivate Client
Insanely terrific. I have been bored silly at some Agile training classes. This was 100% interesting… okay, 98%. Very clear, Exceptional memory! I get it now - the value of a *real* pro scrum master.
Simon CVancouver
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
Interesting personality and presentation style. Instructor's views align well with my own -> don't continue doing 'insane' things
Brad LEdmonton
Mark is obviously very invested in the material. I never doubted that he was an expert with a lot of industry experience.
Devin ROttawa
Great energy. Interesting course material.
Julie CToronto
Amazing instructor, very clear and breaks our pre-conceived understandings.
Jean-Francois BMontreal
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

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.

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.