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

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.

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
Mark is quick-witted, experienced, blunt, and plays role of a neutral facilitaor very well. He made three content heavy days digestible, relevant to my work life, and enjoyable.
Craig BPrivate Client
Mark was wonderful, prepared, entertaining, and accommodating. He effectively kept my attention and created good situations for the team to practice scrum. It felt like escape rooms. The course allowed me to use scrum, to put on different hats, and to envision how scrum would play out in my organization and previous teams. My questions were answered and then some.
Bryan LVirtual
A wealth of useful and interesting knowledge.
Sarah HEdmonton
Mark was extremely knowledgeable, effective teacher, responded well to students and has an excellent sense of humour.
Kely BVancouver
This was a great introduction to the Agile world and methodology. This could be a great tool in the office if used properly.
Guytwin FMontreal
Passionate and enthusiastic instructor, excellent course and materials.
Don CVancouver
Great in depth knowledge of subject matter.
Joseph COttawa
Instructor was very knowledgeable and expressed his thoughts honestly and concisely. Course was very informative.
Lorne APrivate Client
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
I appreciate the opportunity to attend the workshop. I enjoyed the time spent with my fellow co-workers to learn together. Mark is passionate about Scrum and willing to dig into our problem and seek for the remedies to resolve.
Heather JVancouver
I really enjoyed Mark, despite not being my sector I was able to make connections and take away information.
Catherine BOttawa
Overall very well structured course. It helped me see the benefits of Scrum and learned how to apply it.
Nazir EOttawa
Instructor was great, very knowledgeable and open to questions. The course opened my eyes to scrum mechanics. I now understand what scrummaster in the team was attempting to do.
Sharon JEdmonton
Great instructor, light atmosphere, very knowledgeable and engaging. Thank You!
Edwine JVirtual
Mark was a very good lively instructor who cared for all the questions. I am normally a quiet person, but I felt safe enough to speak up and answer questions.
Brenna GEdmonton
Using Scrum to teach Scrum. Perfect.
Andrew COttawa
Mark knows this content, kept us engaged and provided hands-on workshop tasks to understand the conent. Fantastic approach to this course with backlog and Sprints. Stories and answering questions of the group was appreciated.
Matt FPrivate Client
Great instructor, very satisfied, will recomment! I brought my whole team with me, happy I did.
Joshua COttawa
Disciplined, focused, knowledgeable.
James CKitchener-Waterloo
Very good introduction to my new role. Mark leads lively and thought-provoking discussions.
Bob COttawa
I greatly enjoyed Mark's class. He is obviously a subject matter expert and has great insights.
Mandana BVirtual
Course was informative and entertaining. There was good participant involvement and useful examples.
George COttawa
Mark was great. Excellent sense of humor, great ability to adapt, wealth of business and sugject matter knowledge.
Jesse BPrivate Client
I participated in the Certified Scrum Master course instructed by Mark Levison. Mark is a very well educated in the Agile Scrum methodology and presented the course material in a very entertaining way during the 2-day course. I learned a lot of things I had not previously known even though I had been practicing scrum for the past 5 years. I would highly recommend that every organization send their scrum focal’s to this training – it will help them advance their organization in implementing, and delivering scrum based projects, thus help their business be more successful.
Graham FVirtual
Running the course as a Scrum project and including a real Scrum exchange really reinforced the material.
David COttawa
Hands on experience in the subject helps to communicate most of the inportant message throughout the course.
Wael FToronto
I had the best two days of practical training on Agile. Instructor has logical answers to my questions.
Angie EEdmonton
Instructor was knowledgeable, great facilitator, fast in finding an edge to applying the principles to our particular circumstances in the organization. A great magician to fit in three days the key aspects of agile foundation and scrum approach so participants can start applying it. The course is a must to all who work in projects.
Luisa VVirtual
Mark shared valuable information and advice about Scrum theory. I am now clear on many Agile views on different aspects, especially, Roadmap.
Syed AToronto
Excellent job of teaching about using scrum. Very good job engaging the class and providing a fun place to learn. Full moneys worth.
Eric CToronto
Awesome, really. Energizing course, I learned a lot and feel empowered - Thank you!
Benoit FOttawa
Good instruction. Kept it interesting.
Mark OToronto
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
Interesting facilitation of a topic that could have been not so interesting.
Jeff MEdmonton
Great instructor, knowledgeable, kept team engaged for two full days.
Nermin JToronto
Well structured training. Excellent communication skills.
Khaled MToronto
Mark was very engaging, and his training session helped to increase my knowledge of Agile and Scrum.
Tiffany MToronto
Excellent!! Thoughtful, well presented and very enthusiastic. Lots of great information packed into a concise program.
Rolland CKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is a wealth of knowledge and makes agile super easy! The course is interesting, interactive, and extremely informative. I got a lot of takeaways from the course and excited to take this back to my team. I'm looking forward to taking the Advance Scrum and Advanced PO courses next Fall.
Jenny CVirtual
He's very knowledgable and good communication. He was able to answer any question given with complete satification
Po HPrivate Client
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
Very knowledgeable and experienced, thanks!
Kendall OVancouver
Another excellent course! Great balance of theory, exercises, and anecdotes.
Adam BOttawa
Mark is very insightful, knowledgable, and humourous. The topic was well covered and a delight to engage with. Great balance of peer interactions and instructor led discussions.
Peter HOttawa
Excellent course. Recommend for people that have done some Scrum and read all the readings. Mark is a great instructor. Among best I've had.
David MEdmonton
The instructor is well-versed in the material covered and was able to relate it to our issues without telling us how to do it. For a short course we covered a lot of ground, but I did not feel overwhelmed.
Wayne PPrivate Client
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 is a great instructor that gave us a lot of examples. Generated collaboration.
Francois NMontreal
Mark is very patient and gives very good explanations. Setup the environment to be very friendly.
Zac LVirtual

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.