Top 30 Agile Books for Scrum Masters

top-30

For several weeks I was collecting a list of the best agile books for scrum masters. I started to ask some communities on social networks where I got a lot of feedback! The contribution was so high that I received more than 100+ unique books. I decided to divide them into 5 different categories – Books for: Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Agile Developers, Leadership & Agile Coaching. In this blog post I will start with the Top 30 Agile Books for Scrum Masters.

The list is ordered based on reviews and ratings on Amazon and GoodReads. If you think that there is an important book that should be added to that list, leave a comment after the list.

Top 30 books for scrum masters recommended by the community

# Title Author
1 The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
Patrick M. Lencioni
2 Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
Kent Beck
3 Agile Estimating and Planning
Mike Cohn
4 Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Patrick M. Lencioni
5 Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great
Esther Derby
6 Succeeding with Agile
Mike Cohn
7 The Agile Samurai: How Agile Masters Deliver Great Software
Jonathan Rasmusson
8 Scrum and XP from the Trenches
Henrik Kniberg
9 Agile Software Development with Scrum
Ken Schwaber
10 Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit
Mary Poppendieck
11 Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process
Kenneth S. Rubin
12 Coaching Agile Teams
Lyssa Adkins
13 Agile Coaching
Rachel Davies
14 The Scrum Field Guide: Practical Advice for Your First Year (Agile Software Development Series)
Mitch Lacey
15 Scrum Guide
Ken Schwaber & Jeff Sutherland
16 Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game
Alistair Cockburn
17 Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
Jeff Sutherland
18 #Workout: Games, Tools & Practices to Engage People, Improve Work, and Delight Clients
Jurgen Appelo
19 Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products
Jim Highsmith
20 The People’s Scrum: Agile Ideas for Revolutionary Transformation
Tobias Mayer
21 Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances
J. Richard Hackman
22 The Secret of Teams: What Great Teams Know and Do (BK Business)
Mark Miller
23 The Lean Mindset: Ask the Right Questions
Mary Poppendieck
24 The Human Side of Agile – How to Help Your Team Deliver
Gil Broza
25 Collaboration Explained: Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders
Jean Tabaka
26 Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives
Luis Gonçalves & Ben Linders
27 Scrum Mastery: From Good To Great Servant-Leadership
Geoff Watts
28 The Professional ScrumMaster’s Handbook
Stacia Viscardi
29 30 Days to better Agile: Effective strategies for getting results Fast using Scrum
Angela Druckman
30 Becoming a Catalyst: Scrum Master Edition: Using Everyday Interactions to Accelerate Culture Change
Len Lagestee

My personal Top 5 books for Scrum Masters that I recommend:

# Title Author
1 Agile Software Development with Scrum
Ken Schwaber
2 #Workout: Games, Tools & Practices to Engage People, Improve Work, and Delight Clients
Jurgen Appelo
3 Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators
Patrick M. Lencioni
4 Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
Jeff Sutherland
5 Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for Great Performances
J. Richard Hackman

If you think that there is an important book that should be added to that list, leave a comment! I would love to hear from you!

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10 comments

  1. great list
    a couple of additional books I usually recommend for a more rounded view:

    maybe a bit late to the party, but anyway:

    My recommendations are not necessarily Agile books per se, but, imo, important background reads:

    Very famous on delivering software in general: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13629.The_Mythical_Man_Month?from_search=true

    On Lean and Agile in general:
    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10127019-the-lean-startup?from_search=truehttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13078769-running-lean?from_search=true

    DSMD: http://www.dsdm.org/dig-deeper/book/dsdm-atern-handbook

    On agile and testing (behaviour driven dev): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12409185-the-cucumber-book?from_search=true

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  3. As a Scrum Master I would like to add some visual facilitation books.
    The following two are great but in german, i haven’t found any english versions
    *BIKABLO ISBN: 978-3-940315-21-2
    *UZMO ISBN: 978-3-86881-517-7
    more to read than to use is this one in english:
    *Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes and Idea Mapping Can Transform Group Productivity ISBN: 978-0470601785

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  6. Two seminal books that changed my outlook of organizational life and software development:

    – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – What a great way of communicating the good old principles in a refreshingly new way
    – Scrum Narrative and PSM Exam Guide – For a exam prep book, there is so much amount of knowledge to gain about Scrum that I could not get from other mainstream Scrum books.

  7. The list is long. Though I liked your short top five, I would argue if books like ‘Five Dysfunctions’ (that is otherwise a seminal book on its own subject) are ‘top books’ for scrum. Scrum is based on empiricism theory and collaborative product building. As such, these books don’t qualify.

    My top recommendation would be only these two books:
    1. Elements of Scrum By Chris – A lucid but high quality description of scrum
    2. A Lightning Introduction to Scrum (free book) by Mohammed Musthafa or its paid variant Scrum Narrative and PSM Exam guide – Authentic version of scrum in simple language

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  9. Hey,

    Thanks for putting together this post onTop 30 Agile Books for Scrum Masters.It is a great read. I particularly find your thoughts about The Professional ScrumMaster’s Handbook interestig.
    Keep up these insightful posts.

    Cheers!

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