Learning resources for ScrumMasters

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!