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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Good course. Good instructor. No boring moments.
Ashishkumar PMontreal
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
As a test manager I was looking for a bridge between my Scrum learning and current skills, and becoming confident that I could act as a scrum master. This course provided it.
Rachel JToronto
Came in with a cynical view and attitude and left with nuggets of insight. That is quite an accomplishment for any instructor!
Mojtaba HOttawa
The course was fun, engaging, and highly responsive to participants. The complete lack of Powerpoint and bulleted lists was amazingly refreshing. Using a Sprint board to run the course was ingenious.
Robin GToronto
This course is valuable to anyone who would like to be introduced to Scrum. It was a well spended 2 day course and was very helpful. Mark is very knowledgeable and a very good coach.
Ronald HOttawa
The variation of types of exercises kept things interesting, much better than answer questions.
Michael GOttawa
Mark was recommended to me from a colleague and I honestly was delighted of how much I learned from the course. I have been as a project manager for a number of years, and I really felt that I was able to understand how to apply this to my current work and also even how to work within my working style.
Joyce KVirtual
Excellent course, excellent communication. Loved the fact that the instructon was showing us how SCRUM should respond to different situtions.
Pascal GPrivate Client
Wonderful. Very interactive. Humourous.
Fred HToronto
Thank you. It has been one of the most interesting courses I have attended.
Hemant KToronto
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
I think Mark is extremely flexible and accommodating to the needs of the group. Thank you Mark, your 4 days with us were amazing and helpful.
Andrea KPrivate Client
It was a very good experience for me, I appreciate how much knowledge the instructor transferred to us in just 2 days.
Elena KOttawa
Mark has a way to engage the group that is positive and unique. His ability to be flexible in the two days with regards to training makes the course fun.
David HOttawa
Mark is a great instructor, we can see the vast experience that he has from his training style. We have learnt as much as it is possible from a two day workshop. Keep up the good work Mark.
Sreepad KVirtual
Good balance between questions at large and required materials. Very willing to work towards people's requests/expectations.
Brian HOttawa
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
Mark was very energetic and enthusiastic instructor. You could definitely feel his passion for Agile and Engineering as a whole.
William IPrivate Client
Training was excellent with good interaction. Knowledge sharing is good. Course was practically and informative. Mark Levison is enthusiastic with English subtle sense of humour and really aware of what he is explaining. The course helped to build confidence, valuable experiences and learning.
Yana KVirtual
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
There is so much about Scrum that I didn't know I didn't know! Thanks Mark for an informative and engaging 2 days.
Dan LKitchener-Waterloo
Excellent! Packed in a lot in the limited time without making it overwhelmning.
Ayan KMontreal
The instructor did a great job in getting people to participate and make sure everyone followed along.
George HPrivate Client
Great class. Great instructor! I will recommend!
Kim KMontreal
The instructor demonstrates solid knowledge on Agile and scrum fundamentals. The course is interesting and easy to follow.
Don LEdmonton
Mark was amazing and held my attention throughout both days. Very relatable scenarios in real world.
Jerry HKitchener-Waterloo
Very good experience, learned a lot, will be able to apply what I have learned, good job.
David KEdmonton
Awesome material delivery.
Geetha KToronto
Great content, stories, anecdotes. Enjoyed instructor's enthusiasm and knowledge on the subject.
Paul JMontreal
Amazing instructor! Makes you feel like he knows from ages! Very interactive class.
Kaushik KVirtual
Mark was exceptional and very fun, engaging, and informative training session
Kris KKitchener-Waterloo
Another excellent course! Great balance of theory, exercises, and anecdotes.
Adam BOttawa
Mark is adept at relating Agile to both techanical and everyday tasks. This is useful in groups include non-techanical members. While he has tendency to get sidetracked, the divergences are useful and relevant, adding depth to the topic under discussion.
Erin LPrivate Client
Overall awesome. I am really inspired & revigorated to do this with my team.
Mikaela GVancouver
The instructor was well prepared, and extremely knowledgeable. The course was structured in a way that it was easy to follow, well structured, and easy to be engaged. All the team activities were extremely useful to put in practice the theory. I enjoyed every single one! Virtual learning is a really difficult environment, and the instructor made it look like a piece of cake, kept us engaged throughout the days. Kuddos!
Jenny CVirtual
I enjoyed the course and the instruction. Good examples were provided. Excercises helped me understand concepts.
Claire LPrivate Client
Mark had a way of getting info across in both fun yet informative ways. He loves to challenge and be challenged which made it a pleasure.
Ross CPrivate Client
Mark made a challenging and complex process (Scrum) very clear and highlighted the benefits and opportunities in an engaging and entertaining way.
Jeremy GVancouver
Instructor was engaged, interesting, and fun. He included all members in discussion and Q/A. The course provided me with what I need to start effectively using scrum at work.
Erik CEdmonton
Instructor is knowledgeable and also a good instructor (you don't always get both!) Course was well done with enough 'meat' to enable students to implement core concepts without overwhelming.
Cassandra HEdmonton
Mark was really personable, engaging and put a lot of emphasis on our teams and their dynamic., I would recommend him again.
Riyad IPrivate Client
Great energy. Interesting course material.
Julie CToronto
Mark has extensive experience on which he can call on to illustrate the reason for what works and what does not.
Mark CPrivate Client
The course included everything I hoped to cover and Mark very well demonstrated its content.
Jerome CToronto
Great two days! Added new tools to my PO toolbox and Mark has inspired me again to improve as a PO and to improve my team's scrumming.
Binh HMontreal
Very thorough. The copious use of examples were very helpful!
Kevin HMontreal
Mark rocks! His extensive real world experience combined with his depth of knowledge of Scrum processes and tools made for a superior learning opportunity with lots of fun along the way. Highly recommend!
Steven CPrivate Client
Enthusiasm. Knows his material.
Isabelle LOttawa
Mark is very knowledgeable and his experience with Agile and Scrum was awesome as he was able to provide lots of tips and examples.
Sophie CVirtual

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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