Starting in February, I will experience a big change in my career. I will become a Scrum Master and therefore be much more involved in agile practices.
To supercharge this new start and be effective quicker, I (re)visited some resources about agile in general and the role of Scrum Master in particular. Here is a short summary of this journey, hoping it can help new or future Scrum Masters to get started.
Basics
First, it is always a good idea to go back to the basics. Revisiting the goals, principles and values of agile software development:
- Manifesto for Agile Software Development: The root ideas of the agile movement (with the 12 associated principles)
- Scrum Guide: All the basics of the Scrum framework
Books
Some books that I found interesting on the subject:
- The Phoenix Project: A novel, pleasant to read, that goes through the transformation of a fictive company to agile and DevOps
- How to kill the Scrum monster: A good introduction and field guide to Scrum and the role of the Scrum Master
- Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition: A very practical guide, full of real life experiences
- Changing your team from the inside: Excellent short read with lots of practical tools and practices
Podcasts
Some good resources for the ears:
- Scrum Master Toolbox: Each week 5 interviews with a different Scrum Master
- LeadingAgile: Conversations about agile in general, Scrum, scaling frameworks...
- Agile for humans: Great hosts, humor and interesting conversations
- Meta-cast: Hilarious podcast with great content
Physical meetups
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of meeting other agilists and sharing your experiences. One good way is to look on a site like Meetup if there is any agile group in your city (for instance Agile Bordeaux for me).