The Guide to Effective Agile Retrospectives

If you’re tired of having retrospective meetings greeted with groans and heavy, reluctant sighs or feeling like you’re rehashing the same old problems with no signs of improvement, the advice Mark shares with you will help make your retrospectives more effective.

There’s no need to have retrospectives that people hate and aren’t even useful – with a few tweaks, you can have meetings your team will look forward to, and start seeing real improvements and results!

Includes follow-up support emails to reinforce what you learned and help you make real changes right away.

Why This Book?

Our world is changing at a faster rate than ever, and the speed will only increase. Covid-19 gave us a taste of how vital it is to be able to quickly adjust. Scrum helps break change into manageable chunks and then gives us focus, with retrospectives as a critical tool in that arsenal for rapid adaptation. It’s worth learning how to use them properly.

In The Guide to Effective Agile Retrospectives, Mark shares his secrets to creating retrospectives that don’t suck!

You’ll learn about:

● Common misunderstandings about retrospectives – let’s clear those up

● Recommended techniques and activities to keep the meeting fun and engaging

● How to run retrospectives with distributed teams

● Why you need data for your retrospectives – what to gather, not gather, and what it can tell you

● Turning vague ideas like “We need to do better Unit Testing” into concrete experiments

● …and how to help these improvements actually happen

● Remedies for anti-patterns like: “All Talk, No Action”, “Perennial Problems”, and “ScrumMaster Hero”

Why this book? Because Mark was failing at Sprint Retrospectives before it was popular. After years of study and experimentation, his findings are now collected in this Guide so you don’t have to have to suffer the same pain.

Hint: This free eBook, and the accompanying email series, qualify for Scrum Alliance Education Units (SEUs).

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The course was very relevant. The instructor has good insight and was able to address questions.
Jeyasandhya RToronto
This was a fantastic, informative course! I'm ready to try a few of the retro "games" with the team next week.
Erin GOttawa
The instructor is clearly knowledgeable about scrum and other approaches. The course demonstrates the basics of scrum very well.
Matthew BToronto
It was an excellent seminar. It gave us hands-on exercises. I can see lots of challenges ahead as I try to implement changes to our scrum team. Should be fun and interesting journey!
Ann Margaret GMontreal
Enthusiasm. Knows his material.
Isabelle LOttawa
I participated in the Certified Scrum Master course instructed by Mark Levison. Mark is a very well educated in the Agile Scrum methodology and presented the course material in a very entertaining way during the 2-day course. I learned a lot of things I had not previously known even though I had been practicing scrum for the past 5 years. I would highly recommend that every organization send their scrum focal’s to this training – it will help them advance their organization in implementing, and delivering scrum based projects, thus help their business be more successful.
Graham FVirtual
Mark was incredibly knowledge and experienced and it's very apparent. I learned more than I could have expected. I greatly appreciate all the additional reading materials. I would have never been able to collect such a library on my own and I have a fascination for good leadership and developing high performing teams.
Anly HOttawa
Great in depth knowledge of subject matter.
Joseph COttawa
The course was structured in a way that allowed us to cover a lot of information in a manner that kept things interesting and allowed space to explore topics where the group was more interested.
Gino FOttawa
Very good presentation skills. Excellent materials for study (in class and via email). Good tips and pragmatic approach. Good experience and info from the trenches.
Luiza DToronto
Thank you Mark for the amazing training and for the useful tips you shared!
Manal DVirtual
Provided excellent understanding of scrum, more difficult concepts with a very hands on approach.
Carmen CToronto
Fantastic instructor. Great real story examples.
Allan CEdmonton
Really appreciated how he addressed our questions and gave feedback. Mark was very knowledgable on the subject matter.
Kyle AOttawa
Great facilitator. Challenged my thinking. Very absorbing discussion. Very engaging considering it can be a very dry topic, as evidenced by the webinars I've listened to.
Aimee LToronto
Mark is a great instructor. Wih hands on exercises and his deep knowledge of scrum I was able to grab the most of it in 2 days.
Shazad KMontreal
Much more than expected. Great experience! I appreciate it very much!
Alfredo FOttawa
He knows his stuff!
Stephen DVancouver
Instructor was amazing, easy to listen to and follow. Did not read from book and provided concrete examples.
Tricia AOttawa
Mark was very personable and knowledgeable about the subject. Nothing threw him.
Sharon GPrivate Client
Best training I've taken in a long time.
Susan DPrivate Client
This course was fun and informative. The instructor was a great motivator/animator of the material. I really appreciated the efforts in engaging the audience.
Bill LMontreal
The course was awesome with great instructor. It was great to have the groups for exercices and then discuss with trainer.
Françoise DVirtual
This training is beneficial, now it is clear to me what sprint goals, sprint reviews and all the other terms mean and how they can be used to inform, interact and engage team members, and how to help teams become more effective and high performing. I appreciate your speech and examples you provided in class, it helps me better understand the topics. Overall, this is a great and positive training. Thanks Mark!
Alice CVirtual
The instructor was very adaptive and knowledgeable. I respect how the instructor worked and would take another course with him in the future.
Johnny KEdmonton
Mark was a great instructor. His quirky ways and sense of humour make for a great course. I was entertained and interested each step of the way.
Philippe BPrivate Client
Mark maintained an ongoing environment of engagement. One of the best classroom based courses I have participated in.
Grant BPrivate Client
Awesome material delivery.
Geetha KToronto
Excellent instruction with deep knowledge of scrum. All questions or clarfications were answered. Provided information I can take back to my team.
Emilia KOttawa
The positive focus on people and the team was excellent. Incorporating the scrum process in the actual training session is brilliant.
Michael JMontreal
5 Stars
Yui HEdmonton
Mark did a great job. I learned way more than I thought. Scrum is way more than sprints and stand ups. It's a system for effective teams.
Joshua BVirtual
Mark is very insightful, knowledgable, and humourous. The topic was well covered and a delight to engage with. Great balance of peer interactions and instructor led discussions.
Peter HOttawa
Mark Levison’s Agile Pain Relief was a wonderful, immersive introduction into the world of Scrum. He is an engaging, thoughtful and well prepared instructor. The course activities were interactive, informative and really served to engrain and apply Scrum knowledge. I would highly recommend this course to anyone looking to become a CSM.
Wes KVirtual
Provocative, amusing, thanks!
Stefan BPrivate Client
Mark did an excellent job keeping the course dynamic and informative. I would have loved a few more days to really dig into some subjects.
Tim KPrivate Client
Amazing and inspiring. I am ready to go change my working life.
Thomas WMontreal
Really appreciate the efforts and ernest delivery.
Shauna REdmonton
Mark Levison is great - Excellent knowledge of the subject and a great virtual training plan. Thanks a lot.
Rajesh DVirtual
I really enjoyed Mark, despite not being my sector I was able to make connections and take away information.
Catherine BOttawa
This is my second course with Mark and it was fantastic! Mark is incredibly knowledgeable and engaging. Taking the course virtually was very smooth. I was still able to connect with some great new people while learning a ton and having fun.
Robin DVirtual
Mark did an excellent job instructing, keeping the team focused and engaged. I really enjoyed the two days.
Mike SKitchener-Waterloo
Well done. Good use of different activities and teaching styles to keep things interesting.
Orrie SToronto
The teach went further to clarify question and add valuable information from other Agile methodology.
Marco SMontreal
The instructor is very knowledgeable in the subject and kept us motivated and alert during the course. The course itself covers lots of material which is necessary for someone who wants to become a successful scrum master.
Elena RVirtual
Instructor was very engaging and helped me learn a lot and I have a lot of actions to take back to hep the team. I think we learned enough to help the team and guide them effectively as a scrum master.
Ian ROttawa
Very good instructor, very knowledgeable, good facilitator.
Liz SToronto
Instructor Mark is great and very knowledgeable, with experience that can answer questions from many industries/environments. The use of examples, games, activities are great!
Anthony KToronto
Mark was very good. I appreciated that he was able to provide good examples and explain concepts clearly.
Valerie EVancouver
This was a fantastic course and I would recommend it to anyone. Mark is an excellent teacher and provides great examples and easy-to-understand explanations. There was a good balance of listening, working in a group, and discussion. We ran sprint simulations which helped hammer down the concepts.
Julia HVirtual

Your Guide to Everything Scrum

Mark Levison spent 12 years as a ScrumMaster and Coach, helping teams by chance before he started to systemize it. Armed with an insatiable love for research, he has been studying and teaching Agile since 2001, introducing Scrum, Lean, and Agile methodology to a broad range of individuals and organizations. Mark has helped launch Scrum practice throughout Canada including Government of Canada departments, major financial and insurance institutions, healthcare agencies, and leading payroll, HR services, and software companies.

Students and communities benefit from Mark’s more than thirty years of experience in the IT industry and over two decades of Scrum and Agile expertise, as he brings his uniquely fun and effective teaching style to thousands of individuals and teams so they can be more effective.

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