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 knowledgable and provided us with a good base to start with.
Maria Noah MPrivate Client
This was a great course with an engaging instructor - well worth the time of anyone who wants to learn more about product ownership.
Mark BVirtual
Mark did a great job sparking conversation, without reading slide after slide. Very happy with this course.
Lee GPrivate Client
The course and exercise were well designed to add value compared to reading about Scrum. Mark is an effective presenter, keeping things interesting and (often) entertaining.
Gordon EPrivate Client
Very informative and interesting introduction to the concepts and principles of Agile development and Scrum.
Michael HVancouver
Excellent reinforcements of concepts and techniques on Agile-related challenges. Mark delivered the course at an excellent pace. I thoroughly enjoyed the session as he kept the team engaged wih useful examples and in-depth topic knowledge. Great reinforcement of Agile concepts.
Seeha GPrivate Client
Excellent course content delivered in a direct, practical and memorable fashion.
Kimberley KOttawa
Amazing and inspiring. I am ready to go change my working life.
Thomas WMontreal
Mark was great at explaining processes to entry level product owners, and is definitely one of the most knowledgeable people in the field. I'd be definitely interested in more of his courses.
Blake KVirtual
This course was an essential intro for me, a noob in Scrum. I was guided through material I need to know, while at the same time allowed to explore concepts on my own.
Vanessa MToronto
It has been a long time where 5 days of work didn't feel like 5 days. The course was so fun, I really enjoyed coming into work.
Cong LVancouver
Great course and material, I loved the theoretical information with was applied on day 2. Mark did a great job of relating everything to real work examples.
Michael FToronto
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
Excellent communicator and educator who encourages students to think through questions. Thorough course material to get student "Ready to Rock"
Sue LToronto
I felt that Mark is an incredible teacher. He's extemely knowledgeable on the subject and shares his experience with the entire class. Very structured.
Anthony PToronto
Mark is very knowledgable. I really enjoy his style of teaching. Very good course.
Lionel GPrivate Client
Mark is an awesome instructor! The course was very valuable and useful.
Chandni LToronto
Fun and focused. Mark knows Scrum inside and out.
Ryan JEdmonton
I really enjoyed the course. Mark really understands the topic and is willing to go into great depth about items the students wished. Very enjoyable.
Mark MKitchener-Waterloo
The instructor had an excellent breadth and depth of knowledge. Liberally sprinkled with relevent ancedotes to provide substance and humor.
Myles GPrivate Client
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 great! I found this style easy to follow and I feel prepared.
Melanie KToronto
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, great depth of knowledge from the instructor, well paced and well run.
Kurt OEdmonton
Good instruction. Kept it interesting.
Mark OToronto
Brilliantly said. I am happy to be part of this Scrum Product owner course.
Esva PMontreal
Great course! My future teams will be thankful to be a high performance team.
Filipe PVancouver
Great course. I was unfamiliar with the role of scrum master apart from what I had read. This course gave me a great introduction and appreciation of what a good scrummaster can accomplish. The challenge now would be to implement it in my organization. Many tips were provided for this too so I am very optimistic.
Shabira JEdmonton
Mark's briiliant, I would like an assessment on our company and some hints.
Stefano GToronto
Mark was the best instructor that I have learned from. His style of delivery is very crisp and enjoyable. Loved every minute of it.
Rajiv MToronto
Mark was great! Although the online learning environment can be tricky, I found Mark has the ability to keep a class engaged. Whether you're introverted or extroverted, this course is for you.
Curtis HVirtual
Mark is a very entertaining instructor. I feel I learned a great deal more than I could through reading/self study.
Michael HToronto
Instructor was very clear.
May Lynn LEdmonton
Awesome speaker. Fantastic course.
Helen KMontreal
Very interactive. Even though I was jet-lagged and sick, I enjoyed the class and did not fall asleep.
Negar HToronto
Fantastic 2 days. Loved the incorporation of practical exercies. Lots of feedback and helps you understand how people think.
Tony KVancouver
Going into this training course my expectation was between boring and somewhat engaging as per my previous experience with training. I was pleasantly surprised. I found Mark entertaining and the course material laid out in a way as to keep the class engaged and interactive at all times. Well done. Will not hesitate to recommend your class(es) to anyone.
Jean-Michel HOttawa
Really liked the approach by Mark to apply Scrum methodology to this training. Also Mark was available to answer questions and patient.
Damien JOttawa
Mark was a good speaker and resourceful instructor. Exercises were practical and useful.
Ronald MPrivate Client
AMAZING! Funny, interesting, engaging course!
Bassem HMontreal
Overall very well structured course. It helped me see the benefits of Scrum and learned how to apply it.
Nazir EOttawa
Very effective and experienced instructor. Well organized.
Sam MOttawa
He's very knowledgable and good communication. He was able to answer any question given with complete satification
Po HPrivate Client
Mark knows this content, kept us engaged and provided hands-on workshop tasks to understand the conent. Fantastic approach to this course with backlog and Sprints. Stories and answering questions of the group was appreciated.
Matt FPrivate Client
I thought the courses were excellent, fun, and very thought provoking. I see this course as an impetus for change for our organization. Highly recommended.
Jack HVancouver
Mark did a great job of purposefully making us all feel included and engaged with his class. He added great clarity to the budding scrum process that has taken over in my workplace. I have seen many versions and perspectives on scrum values that deviate and distort how scrum would work, but I am now confident I can facilitate with my projects and team, using a much clearer scrum.
Charlene FVirtual
Excellent course, excellent communication. Loved the fact that the instructon was showing us how SCRUM should respond to different situtions.
Pascal GPrivate Client
I had the best two days of practical training on Agile. Instructor has logical answers to my questions.
Angie EEdmonton
He is funny. And smart. And a good storyteller. All together = great combo.
Melanie HEdmonton
I recommend all newbees and Agile to take Mark's class. End of the day, you will walk out with confidence.
Hema PKitchener-Waterloo

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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Focuses on the role of the team and the ScrumMaster. Get the skills and practical experience necessary to improve teamwork, take the exam, and advance your career with a certification that is in high demand today. Often the best fit for anyone new to Scrum.

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With focus on the challenges that real teams face, and tools to dig deeper. You don’t need more boring Scrum theory. You need something you can sink your teeth into to see immediate results.

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