Reddit reviews Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process (Addison-Wesley Signature): A Practical Guide To The Most Popular Agile Process (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Cohn))

My resource has been the book "Essential SCRUM". Here's the book on Amazon.ca, feel free to find it in your region.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0137043295/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_yqqkDb1RWTQP8

The beauty of it, in a sense, is that although it's pretty expensive, the first 2-3 chapters should give you everything you need to know. The rest of the book will push you further if you want to be a Scrum Master.

My favorite book on Scrum is great.
https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Scrum-Practical-Addison-Wesley-Signature/dp/0137043295

Who comes up with the deadlines? Does your development team communicate estimates on the work prior to the deadlines being determined? Is your team fixing scope for the release as well?

The development team should be communicating estimates on work prior to deadlines being determined. The development team should also communicate risk and uncertainty in the estimates so the product owner is aware of how much of a buffer is needed for the release date.

If your team is fixing both scope and date for the releases, then that leaves minimal room to adjust when things go wrong. The recommendation from Essential Scrum, Planning Extreme Programming, and Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit is to have a fixed date release with negotiable scope. This way, when you get behind schedule, you can just reduce scope. If you started with the highest priority items, you should still be able to release by the deadline when you get behind schedule. You just wouldn't release quite as much stuff as you originally thought you might.

The largest an agile team should be is usually around 9 people. Daily standup should be time boxed to 15 minutes and if an extra discussion is needed about a particular feature, blocker etc, those who are involved should stay for a discussion afterwards or schedule a separate meeting for it. Everyone answers 3 questions : What did you do yesterday? What are you working on today? Do you have any impediments or blockers?
Stick to answering these three questions and avoid having the daily standup become an unfocused and dragged out meeting.

My workplace had our whole engineering and product team read this book and it was helpful to grasp agile methodologies for both engineers and product managers.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0137043295/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I apologize in advance for the long post: Thanks so much for all the help and feedback everyone! I will definitely try to utilize everyone's advice as best I can. Here is my game plan for the next few months. I would love more feedback if everyone is willing to help refine my process.


1- After talking to my aunt/mentor in the field, she recommends that I should not go for the CSM *until* I have a working understanding of the field I will be getting into. She recommends that I apply/learn as much as I can about Project Management Essentials like the one she took in UChicago. Unfortunately, the next class that is offered is Jan 16th, and I personally want to leave the hell that is my job as soon as possible.

To get over this, I have decided to learn as much as I can on my own from books like A, B, C, D, E (please take a look at recommend if there are others I should look into or if I should drop any). She recommends that I do not focus on just Agile but also Waterfall (a basic understanding). I will also be utilizing the podcasts and links graciously provided by u/recycledcoder:

"So... podcasts. There are many, but these are my faves:

• Agile for humans
  
• Scrum Master Toolbox
  
• Agile uprising
  
  And finally, my own preferred twist on it all: Modern Agile"
  
  
  2- Once I have done as much research on the fundamentals as I can before October 13 (not a lot of time, I know), I will be attempting the CSM boot-camp course. I want to do this because I have no prior experience in field, and while I know a certification may not mean much, I hope it reflects my desire to start applying for roles for project coordinator positions. I will have to tweak my resume to show my desire, and I think the certification is the first step to do this. I'm favoring the CSM over the PSM and PSPO per u/nizzerp and my aunt's advice as these courses need more experience to apply for.
  
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3. I know several technical recruiters and I think the best step for now would be for me to reach out to them (thanks u/zappafield) and see what temporary/contract positions I can build up in the meantime. I think that with enough short term positions in different environments I will be able to best get a full scope of the field I am getting into.
   
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4. While I am still stuck in the hell of trying to get a company to let me on a/any project, I will be going on meetup.com (thanks u/Curtis_75706 and u/zappafield for the idea) to better immerse myself in what I am hoping to get into. Also will be trying to bolster my credentials with MOOCs (per u/kmolch) with any recommendations you wonderful people may have. I am definitely interested in the Business Analysis route they had mentioned.
   
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   I know there are a lot of links and stuff, but I would really appreciate it if I could get as much feedback as I can to start committing to this plan, especially feedback on books and resources in my step 1.

Let me recommend Essential Scrum as IMO one of the best books on the topic.

Also just research Lean, Agile and Scrum yourself.

There are tons of free stuff you can read! My handbook is also out there for free.