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 a great instructor! Very enthusiastic about the course and assisting its participants in becoming successful product owners. Incredibly knowledgeable and entertaining.
Elizabeth CToronto
Where to start ........ Mark you have a mind filled with knowledge not sure how you can keep it all straight!!! I took scrum training last year at [Private Client] and I really enjoyed taking it again with you. Scrum is scrum but the flavor you brought to it kept me engaged and it made the workshop fun. I was always looking forward in coming back and hearing more. I enjoyed the experiences and all the references you provided. I have to admit after the first day I went to bed at night and was thinking about Scrum. How am I going to do this at work, what experiments can I run, how can I change up my retro’s so they aren’t boring and everyone wants to join. The course is well structured and the material we covered was just the right amount. We went into enough detail where needed and at a higher level for others. The course allowed us to ask for more content and we always had an opportunity to ask questions before moving on. Thank you for this fantastic workshop.
Josee CVirtual
Using Scrum to teach Scrum. Perfect.
Andrew COttawa
I found Mark very knowledgeable for the course material and good at getting his point across.
Shawn PMontreal
Brilliant instructor for a heavy and varied course. Answers questions almost flawlessly and really understands what people need in order to learn effectively.
Analee CPrivate Client
My success criteria for the course were met by Mark's thoughtful responses to my in-class questions. I enjoyed interacting with the other course participants on the Mural platform.
Lydia CVirtual
Mark is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about the subject matter and topics adjacent to it. His attitude encourages engagement in the material.
Jamie CVirtual
Very good introduction to my new role. Mark leads lively and thought-provoking discussions.
Bob COttawa
Mark clearly presents the scrum process and principles. He provides background information and stories to reinforce these techniques.
Richard COttawa
Great energy. Interesting course material.
Julie CToronto
Amazing! Friendly, funny, smart, open-minded individual. Great job, Mark!
S M Tadmir CToronto
Mark is a wealth of knowledge and makes agile super easy! The course is interesting, interactive, and extremely informative. I got a lot of takeaways from the course and excited to take this back to my team. I'm looking forward to taking the Advance Scrum and Advanced PO courses next Fall.
Jenny CVirtual
Excellent!! Thoughtful, well presented and very enthusiastic. Lots of great information packed into a concise program.
Rolland CKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was very knowledgeable and walked us through Scrum using the actual technique. Very good technique.
Kevin COttawa
This is my third course with Mark. I enjoy his courses and his humor. He really knows how to connect with the group. He is a wealth of knowledge related to agile and scrum and he provies a lot of great advice on how to solve our problems at work.
Shelley COttawa
Mark Levison is a good coach, very knowledgeable and not boring.
Pradeep CPrivate Client
Excellent job of teaching about using scrum. Very good job engaging the class and providing a fun place to learn. Full moneys worth.
Eric CToronto
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
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
Good course and instructor was great. I didn't fall asleep once.
Samsong CEdmonton
Solid grounding in Scrum and examples to apply it at work.
John CVancouver
I learned a lot and the content was far more enganging than I expected it to be. I come away with many improvements I can make to my organization. Thanks and well done.
Dan CKitchener-Waterloo
Highly recommend it. This was awesome. Thank you. Mark is a very good instructor.
Philippe CMontreal
Mark is engaging, very knowledgeable and morphs to the class knowledge. His sense of humor is also appreciated.
Malisha CToronto
Great energy. Made the day pass with a mix of humour and data.
Matthew COttawa
Mark delivered an excellent course, it was a value-packed 2 days.
Brent COttawa
Mark is a very knowledgeable and respectful instructor. He kept the information interesting and engaging, and was great at adapting the focus of the content to align with the needs of the participants. The course overall accomplished its goal of providing me with a good feel for the role of a Scrum Master.
Lisa CVirtual
Mark is very knowledgeable. He is a great instructor.
Nitin PToronto
Mark was an excellent instructor, with a sense of humour that helped keep my focus (which is particularly challenging with the course being online over 3 days). Being able to run through simulated sprints to help reinforce the material was very helpful.
Micheal CVirtual
This course was a real eye opener and hope it will not be like preaching in the desert. You are a great orator and would love to listen to your thoughts for hours.
Marc-Andre LMontreal
Great background experience, a lot of passion in his speech, was able to answer even challenging questions.
Alex NPrivate Client
I enjoyed Mark's personality and vast knowledge he provided.
Adrian CToronto
Great! Very enthuiastic instructor and made learning a breeze.
Dalbir SKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is a great instructor, using real life examples makes easy to understand better what the scrum methodology is and how to apply it to our roles.
Robin MVirtual
Mark Levison was an excellent instructor: knowledgeable, personable, and very approachable. The course material was clear and I felt like the coverage was appropriate.
Ken MMontreal
Mark leads the class on an explanation of the topics and provides traps to ensure students can learn from practice.
Peter CPrivate Client
The course was well organizated and presented but the real value comes in the form of the facilitator Mark. His knowledge, enthusiasm and ability to help you find our own answers was refreshing, Thank you Mark!
James BOttawa
Course material provided was excellent for references and follow up. Instructor was energetic, dynamic, and full engaging.
Dinah MPrivate Client
Best. Training. Ever.
Martin DMontreal
Mark did an excellent job. I appreciated the hands-on nature of the training wherein we actually tried to do Scrum. He was patient handling all our questions and issues, and managed to keep us engaged despite being on Zoom.
Dan MVirtual
Mark did a great job teaching, providing examples, and exersises. This is my third session and I would recommend him.
Cheryl ROttawa
Instructor was very knowledgable! Incredible library in his head.
Kafia BOttawa
This was a great course that I will recomment to others! A lot to cover in a short period of time, and I managed to understand most if not all material. I'm excited to take my learnings with me and apply to my role at my company!
Lesleanne BToronto
Mark is an extremely knowledgeable Scrum practitioner and a great coach! He gave each of the participants clear and useful answers to the questions we had during the training, whether the questions were about the material or from work experiences, and helped us figure out how to handle situations on our own. This is the first time I take an agile training that gives me clarity about ways of improving how I work with my team
Martha BVirtual
Great course to get started. Mark is greatly knowledgeable and shares well the information.
Christine AMontreal
Extremely enlightening. Put a lot of elements into proper context. Great foundation.
Yvan NMontreal
I cannot say anything but good things about the course, and have been telling many people in my org about it.
Hatem NVirtual
Pragmatic, no nonsense & applied = very good!
Francois-Pierre MMontreal
Lively, knowledgeable instructor who delivered the material creatively (no powerpoint! ) and made everyone comfortable.
Karen BOttawa
I thought Mark did a great job. Never missed a beat and gave us a great experience
Sahan DOttawa

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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Learn on-the-job applications of key Scrum concepts, skills, principles, along with practical solutions that you can apply the next day for difficult, real-life situations.

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Everything you need to earn your Scrum Alliance® ScrumMaster certification, including exam fee and membership, and so much more.

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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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Use Scrum knowledge to standout at work, get paid more, and impress your customer, all without burning out.

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