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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I appreciate the breadth and comprehensive nature of reference material. I'm excited to read more.
Stephanie AToronto
Did a great job getting the information across. Provided real-world examples and concrete solutions that were helpful. Q&A throughout added a lot.
Jacob DPrivate Client
Excellent. Very good at clarification of my problems.
Lei XKitchener-Waterloo
Excellent instructor provided engaging activites to help roleplay learning and provoke meaningful discussions.
Alice PEdmonton
I enjoyed having Mark as an instructor, he is knowledgeable on the topic, provided easy to follow examples, and has a good sense of humour. I liked how he took notes on questions people had, provided a brief answer and then provided links after the workshop so that we could follow up on the topics that interest us. The 10 min sanity breaks that he gave every hour were great as it allowed my brain to relax and then come back and focus. I really enjoyed the course, I learned lots over the 2 day workshop. I feel like 2 days might be a bit short for the course as I would have enjoyed another day of the course to learn more and refine my skills. I would recommend this course to anyone new to the scrum master role or interested in learning about scrum as it gives you a great base that you can expand.
Christopher MVirtual
Enjoyed the course. (Mark) made it interesting/fun. Content presented in digestible format.
Brett MPrivate Client
I liked the structure of the course, presented in an agile manner to simulate real team dynamics. Enjoyed it a lot!
Michelle MMontreal
Awesome. Enlightment for pain points like overtime, too many WIP, motivation, etc.
Susie LVancouver
Mark is an awesome instructor. A very patient instructor that welcomes all questions. He is definitely the Yoda of the Scrum universe.
Ting-Yu LToronto
I will highly recommend Mark. I enjoyed the course.
Shamyl NVancouver
Very knowledgeable, informative, flexible in fitting situations into ideas.
Katie MOttawa
Well structured training. Excellent communication skills.
Khaled MToronto
Mark uses his extensive experience in scrum training and software dev to add relevent examples which help understand SCRUM better.
Affan MPrivate Client
Mark was fantastic! Great examples!
Scott MKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was a great instructor, really made the content easily understandable and great at answering questions.
Melanie MVirtual
Nothing but positive things to say. Mark was very clear in the material he presented and was able to easily pivot to a new topic or give additional context as required. I enjoyed the exercises and open discussions.
Angela MOttawa
Greatly impressed by the teaching style and format of the course. Much appreciate the sprint style format and the engagment level of the instructor.
Hatem NOttawa
To the point and with passion!
Colin MToronto
Objective when needed and directs us to the conclusions. Interesting course.
Andre MMontreal
Very knowledgeable in the topic, and always open for healthy discussion and willing to clarify our questions.
Higo MVancouver
Very good two days with excellent discussions. Mark was very adept at provoking these discussions.
Richard MOttawa
Energetic, clear, helpful, inspiring, a great teacher.
Nadil POttawa
Time master- thank you for pushing us through topics. Honestly - stated that you can provide examples, up to us to decide.
Tracey OToronto
Course material provided was excellent for references and follow up. Instructor was energetic, dynamic, and full engaging.
Dinah MPrivate Client
The course and instructor were dynamic and engaging and open to a variety of participants.
Daniel RMontreal
Mark is very good. Has a lot of working experiences and real life stories.
Wilson MEdmonton
Great facilitation techniques often used as a regular classroom teacher (i.e. rephrasing, simplificaion, observing, hinting, investigative learning).
Mike PMontreal
Concepts I learned in this course are more sticky because they were demonstrated through exercise and not just explained.
Joseph MOttawa
Lively, hands on, enlightening. Would recommend.
Allen NEdmonton
Excellent! Engaged all of the time. My head is exploding with new knowledge.
Harlie DMontreal
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
Very good and useful information. I like the format (no boring Powerpoint) and doing the meeting as a sprint was great.
Fred BPrivate Client
I thought the material and instructor was excellent. It was a full two days!
Shawn DEdmonton
Excellent reinforcements of concepts and techniques on Agile-related challenges. Mark delivered the course at an excellent pace. I thoroughly enjoyed the session as he kept the team engaged wih useful examples and in-depth topic knowledge. Great reinforcement of Agile concepts.
Seeha GPrivate Client
Very enthusiastic and diplomatic. Very knowledgeable. Course was enjoyable.
Chris MKitchener-Waterloo
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
Much more than expected. Great experience! I appreciate it very much!
Alfredo FOttawa
Fantastic. Very engaging and helpful blend of both Scrum and general business advice.
Dace DOttawa
Great background experience, a lot of passion in his speech, was able to answer even challenging questions.
Alex NPrivate Client
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
It's a pleasure knowing my instructor and I'm motivated to learn and read more.
Difei DToronto
Mark has figured out how to take a complex and vast subject and make it engaging via Zoom. That's amazing.
Natasha DVirtual
Wonderful. Very interactive. Humourous.
Fred HToronto
Very patient. Really liked the group activity where we had to work in Sprints on user stories.
Anita AVirtual
Mark and the course were able to give me a lot of different perspectives on how scrum can be applied. Mark is very knowledgable and has tech background [which] helped myself as we knew the sector better.
Nicholas LOttawa
Mark has a great style of delivery even over zoom. He kept my attention and that of the class by using humor and explaining things very matter of factly. Therefore no confusion and the information actually stuck. He understands what it takes to deliver an engaging session by having a number of break out activities that were fun and comfortable. Thank you Mark!
Deborah RVirtual
Mark is incredibly well prepared and professional. Best instructor I've ever had, period.
Kevin DKitchener-Waterloo
Mark did a fantastic job. [Private Client] was a unique challenge of a long history with hardened habits, as well as a very peculiar definition of Agile and SCRUM.
Imran APrivate Client
Good course and Mark is an awesome facilitator. Loved the way Mark conducted the training.
Gajan PKitchener-Waterloo
Mark did a great job. I appreciated that a) he was coming from a strong development background and b) had an obvious passion about Scrum and the benefits it could bring to development.
Adam MVirtual

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.