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.

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.

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.

Dynamic, get the class to answer instead of giving the answer, got me engaged with the content.
Marie-Josee RMontreal
Mark is super knowledgeable and engaging. 10/10. Would recommend.
Steve 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
Very knowledgeable and interesting. I appreciated that he respected the outline and timeframes.
Caroline DVirtual
Mark was amazing and held my attention throughout both days. Very relatable scenarios in real world.
Jerry HKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was able to provide valuable lessons in a short period of time. Using a variety of methods he illustrated and reinforced the key elements of scrum.
Sean BOttawa
Created a very nice and open environment which helped the learning process.
Ricardo CKitchener-Waterloo
Provided excellent understanding of scrum, more difficult concepts with a very hands on approach.
Carmen CToronto
Mark delivered an excellent course, it was a value-packed 2 days.
Brent COttawa
Mark is very knowledgeable and open/fair when answering questions or comments from the class. The course did a great job of covering scrum.
Darryl COttawa
Mark was a great instructor. His quirky ways and sense of humour make for a great course. I was entertained and interested each step of the way.
Philippe BPrivate Client
Mark delivered the course exceptionally well.
Amjad GEdmonton
Great course and great instructor! Will definitely recommend to friends!
Hisham EOttawa
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
The course and instructor was excellent. The concepts were clearly communicated.
Edmund CEdmonton
Mark did a fantastic job of concisely and thoroughly describing the POs.
Dean GToronto
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
Mark is a gifted teacher who really takes the time to ensure those who take his ScrumMaster course understand the topics and know how to apply scrum to their particular company and role. His use of group activities help turn concepts that can intially seem very unspecific into concrete examples and true understanding, which is especially helpful to those of us who are not software engineers or in a technical field. I would highly recommend Mark and Agile Pain Relief to those looking for a ScrumMaster course.
Rhiannon BVirtual
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
Great Class! Learning in a dynamic and fun way with interesting and useful context and examples.
Suzelle FMontreal
Rocks! I would really recomment this instructor to others.
Raghda FToronto
Calm, knowledgeable, and open to questions. Great.
Brandon GVirtual
Brilliant instructor for a heavy and varied course. Answers questions almost flawlessly and really understands what people need in order to learn effectively.
Analee CPrivate Client
I learned a lot and the content was far more enganging than I expected it to be. I come away with many improvements I can make to my organization. Thanks and well done.
Dan CKitchener-Waterloo
Solid grounding in Scrum and examples to apply it at work.
John CVancouver
Mark is a great instructor, very clear and informative. Great course. High recommendable.
Simon BVancouver
I found Mark to be engaging, informative and entertaining. His answers to class questions were well thought out, practical and helpful. He did a very good job handling the various personalities and keeping things on track.
Brad GVirtual
Excellent communicator, good at focusing on the important topics.
Mick BPrivate Client
Knowledgable and engaged the trainees to think and share their ideas.
Carol BPrivate Client
This was a very illuminating overview of Scrum roles and best practices, taught by a very engaging instructor.
Douglas GPrivate Client
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
The course included everything I hoped to cover and Mark very well demonstrated its content.
Jerome CToronto
Great. Very detailed. Class very interesting, very good relating questions with good examples.
Yong FToronto
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
Very thorough. The copious use of examples were very helpful!
Kevin HMontreal
Running the course as a Scrum project and including a real Scrum exchange really reinforced the material.
David COttawa
Wonderful. Very interactive. Humourous.
Fred HToronto
Very knowledgeable instructor, great info on theory and practice. Lots more info to cover if we had more time.
Jamie GOttawa
Great energy. Interesting course material.
Julie CToronto
Mark clearly presents the scrum process and principles. He provides background information and stories to reinforce these techniques.
Richard COttawa
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
Engaging instructor, keeps it interesting.
Yves GMontreal
Mark was an excellent instructor and facilitator for the certified product owner course. The content was engaging, not just a typical PowerPoint presentation. Active learning was encouraged through the use of breakout sessions where the course material was practiced; this allowed for better understanding and encouraged practical questions. I would recommend the course to anybody that wants to improve their product ownership skills and has the means to attend.
Mark FVirtual
A great course for those who wish to change their conventional PM perspective to a more open and agile one.
Catherine HMontreal
Mark Levison is an outstanding instructor who knows how to effectively deliver course content tailored to the learning needs of this students. Everyone on the course benefited greatly from his ability to present new information in a clear and easily understood manner. The Agile Foundations course provided an excellent overview of the Agile Methodology and SCRUM.
Michael GVirtual
Great course material and energetic instructor.
Chris HPrivate Client
The course was fun, engaging, and highly responsive to participants. The complete lack of Powerpoint and bulleted lists was amazingly refreshing. Using a Sprint board to run the course was ingenious.
Robin GToronto
Instructor very knowledgeable, supportive, and a great coach.
Jay BVancouver
Mark provides clarity into the mystical world of Agile and Scrum with practical examples and Jedi wisdom. Add some psychosocial games into the batch and your in for an adventure. Training will test not just your ability to obtain facts, but leave you pondering the cavernous opportunities for the scum master to be an agent of organizational change.
Petrus BVirtual
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

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.

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.