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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Mark was very knowledgeable. He knows how to engage the class. I enjoyed his sharing of resources and experience.
Amanda YEdmonton
Great use of time. Very clear examples of work life situations.
Duane BToronto
I really enjoyed Mark, despite not being my sector I was able to make connections and take away information.
Catherine BOttawa
Very knowledgeable instructor about scrum and software development in general.
Elizabeth GOttawa
As a junior developer you helped me learn more about software development and the right way to do things.
Joe HPrivate Client
Great course! I will recommend this to others.
Darryl EVancouver
Extremely knowledgeable. Engaged the entire team. Clear communication.
Ahalya AToronto
Great instructor, light atmosphere, very knowledgeable and engaging. Thank You!
Edwine JVirtual
Very good course, well balanced and very interactive.
Alexandre GMontreal
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
Mark did a fantastic job. [Private Client] was a unique challenge of a long history with hardened habits, as well as a very peculiar definition of Agile and SCRUM.
Imran APrivate Client
Awesome instructor with a sense of humor. Well read and fun!
Wendy AVancouver
Excellent material, entertaining instructor. Instructor distilled the information well. Both instructor and course provided a great intro to Scrum. The course was challenging yet rewarding.
Duff KOttawa
Course was great and enjoyable. Lots of make you think kind of questions.
Andrew FOttawa
Great conversations. Thanks, Mark! My confidence in understanding the role increased!
Orville HEdmonton
He knows his subject well! He respect the different levels of understanding of each participant. He really respect the schedule.
Julie JVirtual
Awesome material delivery.
Geetha KToronto
Instructor was very knowledgeable and expressed his thoughts honestly and concisely. Course was very informative.
Lorne APrivate Client
This was a great introduction to the Agile world and methodology. This could be a great tool in the office if used properly.
Guytwin FMontreal
Mark's enthusiam was contagious. His energy and humor brought Scrum alive! I enjoyed the examples and many aspects we covered.
Michelle HKitchener-Waterloo
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 is an excellent trainer with examples and practices. Very organized and the best thing is his response to our questions with example, in addition, the amount of references that might help up improve as a scrum master.
Dona AMontreal
Very good. Great at illustrating his point.
Manny BOttawa
Mark is very well prepared and understands his material in depth. He has a very logical way of looking at questions which can shift people’s understanding in a useful way. If you need to understand “pure” Scrum, this is a good course.
Paul AVirtual
Mark was an excellent instructor and facilitator for the certified product owner course. The content was engaging, not just a typical PowerPoint presentation. Active learning was encouraged through the use of breakout sessions where the course material was practiced; this allowed for better understanding and encouraged practical questions. I would recommend the course to anybody that wants to improve their product ownership skills and has the means to attend.
Mark FVirtual
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Mark. I learned a lot and appreciate his teaching style.
Kendall APrivate Client
Instructor was amazing, easy to listen to and follow. Did not read from book and provided concrete examples.
Tricia AOttawa
Mark is an amazing instructor who really knows how to make his audience listen and follow his instructions. He takes time to understand the audience's question and makes sure that the answer is fully satisfactory . The three days course was very well designed and almost all major aspects were covered. The scheduled breaks also gave the opportunities to get some fresh air and come back with a focused mind. I look forward to joining some more workshops with Mark in future.
Sanjida HVirtual
I thought Mark did a great job. Never missed a beat and gave us a great experience
Sahan DOttawa
Interesting facilitation of a topic that could have been not so interesting.
Jeff MEdmonton
Very knowledgeable, informative, flexible in fitting situations into ideas.
Katie MOttawa
Was very fun and good flow, not by the book provided but with sharing real-life examples and his previous experience. Very appreciated!
Kevin LToronto
Mark leads the class on an explanation of the topics and provides traps to ensure students can learn from practice.
Peter CPrivate Client
Very knowledgable and lots of references. Puts things into context and gives lots of examples to relate to many businesses.
Brent MEdmonton
Fantastic 2 days. Loved the incorporation of practical exercies. Lots of feedback and helps you understand how people think.
Tony KVancouver
Well presented material, excellent real world examples of applying scrum framework.
Brian BOttawa
It is very well organized and timed. The teacher has a really deep, hands-on knowledge about the subject.
Alberto MPrivate Client
Masters the subject more than anyone else I've met.
Carlo DMontreal
Very knowledgeable instructor and dynamic . Provided good examples to better understand concept.
Yves GPrivate Client
Mark delivered what I think is one of the best adult learning, in a corporate training environment, I’ve experienced. And it was remote! It was engaging, entertaining and very useful. I was also very fortunate to have a great team which significantly enriched my experience.
Noah CVirtual
The course was very helpful by reinforcing my commitment to scrum team responsibilty and ownership. Mark was an excellent instructor, knowledgeable, professional, and in control.
Adrian GPrivate Client
Mark is very knowledgable and an excellent communicator. So far my favourite Agile coach.
Fabricio MOttawa
Mark is a great teacher. Funny, communicates his ideas well, very knowledgeable, - a great teacher! This was a good course!
Anthony DVirtual
Mark knows the subject very well. He was never boring. He has offered good references for us to continue studying on our own.
Melanie LPrivate Client
Loved this course! Mark is very thorough and attentive as a teacher. He leveraged Mural in such interactive ways, which allowed him to understand the students well and shape the class accordingly. He is like the Jedi master of scrum and insanely advanced methods of leaderless collaboration and accomplishment. He's also the king of super nerdy jokes, which made the class fun and brought out the super nerd in everyone.
Lia GVirtual
Well organized, skillfully motivates the team and demonstrates excellent practical examples
Hanna MVirtual
Mark was engaging and patient. He got everyone involved and kept spirits and energy levels high.
David BPrivate Client
Mark was a pleasure to learn from. His knowledge and enthusiasm were refreshing.
Harold MKitchener-Waterloo
Excellent. Taught and gave a great understanding of Scrum.
Cameron MEdmonton
Mark did an awesome job. He is very knowledgable, helpful, and patient. I will recommend this course for sure.
Jamal EToronto

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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