Quite often after a Scrum workshop, the newly appointed ScrumMaster will approach me and confess that this role is much harder than they had anticipated. I really sympathize with that problem. The role is deceivingly simple at first glance, but really challenging to do in real life. So I’ve gathered a list of resources that should be helpful to all ScrumMasters as they start their journey. I’m sure that even experienced ones might find a helpful link or two in the list below. I’ve grouped them by topic, so that you could focus on the area you’d like to improve right now.
The ScrumMaster role
- Scrum Mastery (book)
Teaches the mindset of the ScrumMaster and also gives concrete tips. - The ScrumMaster Checklist
A list of various activities a ScrumMaster should perform. - Six Attributes of the Good ScrumMaster
How you can tell if you’re good at your role. - ScrumMaster
The role described in the Agile Atlas. - Scrum Master Typologies
Different ways of performing the role. - Team Leaders and Scrum Masters
What to do if you’re also the Team Leader?
Facilitating meetings
- Collaboration Explained (book)
How to nurture a collaborative environment, how to organise meetings. - Agile retrospectives (book)
Plan and run retrospectives. - The Retrospective Handbook (book)
Another good book about retrospectives. - Ask better questions in your daily meeting
Alternate questions to ask when you Daily Stand-up gets boring. - Retr-O-Mat
Online tool that randomly suggests retrospectives structure. - Effectively improve your meetings using the Perfection Game
Use a structured format for giving feedback to improve meetings over time.
Working with the Product Owner
- User Stories Applied (book)
The book about user stories. - Agile Product Management with Scrum (book)
Learn more about the Product Owner role. - Splitting user stories: the hamburger method
A technique for creating small user stories form a big one. - Can Product Owner and Scrum Master be Combined?
Is it possible to combine the two roles? - It’s all in how you slice
Use the story mapping technique to create product increments.
Improve teamwork
- The five dysfunctions of a team (book)
Five steps your team needs to climb in order to achieve high performance. - Drive (book)
What really motivates us? - Coaching Agile Teams (book)
Balance the teacher, mentor and coach roles. - Designing Collaborative Spaces for Productivity
How does an agile team’s workspace look like? - Giving Feedback
Adjust behaviors by giving feedback. - The Clean Coder: Saying Yes
Grow a discipline of commitment in the team.
Adopting technical practices
- Agile testing (book)
How to include testing as an activity from the start of the sprint. - Specification by Example (book)
Derive specifications using collaborative workshops, then automate them. - Developing and releasing every hour
Story about a team that used one hour long sprints. - Agile Challenge: Adopting Technical Practices
Some technical practices your team should follow.
Scaling Scrum
- Agile Software Requirements (book)
Don’t be fooled by the title, it’s a book on scaling agile. - Scaling Lean & Agile Development (book)
A broader view of scaling. - Distributed Scrum primer
Detailed recommendations for distributed teams.
Other resources
- AgileLib.Net
A community built around sharing Scrum resources. - Agile Atlas
An encyclopedia for agile and related methods. Mostly Scrum material at the moment. - Scrum Guide
The guide by Scrum’s creators: Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland - Succeeding with Agile (book)
One of the reference books about Scrum. - List of books
I’ve created a list with books from Scrum Masters on Amazon.
Our services
We’ve got a few workshops where you could learn more about the ScrumMaster role:
- Acceptance Test Driven Development Workshop (2 days)
- Certified Scrum Master (CSM) training (2 days)
- User Stories for Agile Requirements Workshop (1 day)
- Agile Software Development using Scrum (2 days)
We could also offer you in-house assessment, coaching and consultancy on your needs. Contact us for more details.
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Do you have other preferred books or blog posts? Let me know about them in the comments below. Thanks!
