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).

We've helped 8000+ people find success using Scrum

Proud to be the trusted training provider for many of the largest financial, insurance, software, and education organizations, as well as all levels of Canadian government.

Get Certified See More Testimonials
Great in-depth knowledge, and clearly prepared.
Michael MOttawa
Great course, awesome instructor!
Paul-Andre PPrivate Client
Excellent course, great depth of knowledge from the instructor, well paced and well run.
Kurt OEdmonton
Mark was fantastic! Great examples!
Scott MKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is knowledgable and engaging. What I liked the most was that he stood his ground if anyone challenged what he taught (respectfully) and offered an explanation why.
Andrea MOttawa
Mark is a great teacher and is very good at engaging people. Really gets the spark going!
Julien LMontreal
Very informative. Well presented. Good tempo.
Robert MOttawa
Great training with an engaging trainer and hands on practice. The content made you think about the best solutions and how to prioritize workflow. The instructor provided tangible guidance on best practices.
Sneha NVirtual
Mark was very engaging, and his training session helped to increase my knowledge of Agile and Scrum.
Tiffany MToronto
I cannot say anything but good things about the course, and have been telling many people in my org about it.
Hatem NVirtual
Mark is a lively and engaging instructor. Information was presented effectively and at a reasonable pace.
Joel DOttawa
The instructor is clearly knowledgeable about scrum and other approaches. The course demonstrates the basics of scrum very well.
Matthew BToronto
Thumbs up! Easy to follow. Engaging and thought provoking.
Neil OPrivate Client
Very much appreciated the training material as it has direct implication in our project methodologies.
Mizan CMontreal
Provided excellent understanding of scrum, more difficult concepts with a very hands on approach.
Carmen CToronto
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
Using Scrum to teach Scrum. Perfect.
Andrew COttawa
This was agreat intro to formal scrum fundamentals. Mark was always engaging.
John LKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was great. He definitely understands and believes in what he is teaching. He made sure to go slowly and would always check to see if we understood.
Adrien GVirtual
I love this course. It was incredibly helpful and throught provoking. I enjoyed the teach style and directness of the instructor.
Victoria MEdmonton
Awesome, really. Energizing course, I learned a lot and feel empowered - Thank you!
Benoit FOttawa
Great course. I learned enough to get me started doing Scrum. The instructor really knows the content and made pleasant and dynamic the delivery.
Carlos MPrivate Client
Exceptional presentation delivery that is clear, concise, and though-provoking, involving tremendous audience participation.
Norman EOttawa
Instructor was very clear.
May Lynn LEdmonton
Mark made the class enjoyable. I was initially dreading a 3 day course. After the first day I knew that I could live through the course.
Dickie BPrivate Client
Great job Mark! Training was excellent. I now know what REAL scrum is and feel equipped to continue learning and practicing true scrum principles.
Cornelus MVirtual
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
I enjoyed the hands-on nature of the course and Mark's presentation style. My mind was blown several times in the two days which was unexpected and completely awesome.
Heather OEdmonton
Mark you are a rockstar and I truly enjoyed and hopefully benefit.
Kerry OPrivate 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
Long days but really challenged me to rethink how I can enhance my BA skills and how to contribute in different ways to my team.
Pearline EVancouver
Very pleased to have taken this course. Learned lots of valuable information about Scrum and I want to start using in a short term. Mark is a great instructor. He was making us think so we really understand the Agile principles. Would recommend.
Line CVirtual
Awesome. Enlightment for pain points like overtime, too many WIP, motivation, etc.
Susie LVancouver
Thank you Mark, I have lots of ideas to bring back to the team. I appreciated your energy and sense of humor.
David COttawa
Greatly impressed by the teaching style and format of the course. Much appreciate the sprint style format and the engagment level of the instructor.
Hatem NOttawa
Created a very nice and open environment which helped the learning process.
Ricardo CKitchener-Waterloo
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
Mark did an awesome job. He is very knowledgable, helpful, and patient. I will recommend this course for sure.
Jamal EToronto
This course helped me understand the principles of Agile and how to implement it to achieve better performance with any team while having a good time. Really like the balance between the exercises and the theory.
Pierre LMontreal
Amazing instructor, was able to clearly explain complex concepts, made the course relevant and engaging! This will alow us to build strong agile teams.
Dylan HPrivate Client
Strong instructor, great knowledge of the material. A very good pace.
Ken AKitchener-Waterloo
Instructor was excellent. Provided an environment of communication.
Nathalile LOttawa
Excellent instructor providing clear explanations. The course structure is flawless.
Benoit NMontreal
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 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 Levinson is very knowledgeable in Scrum and has the ability to start you on the right track given your specific workplace problems. He is also able to generalize issues and show how they can be solved with the tools provided in the course.
Hatem NVirtual
Very engaging instructor and scenarios.
Christine APrivate Client
Good course and instructor was great. I didn't fall asleep once.
Samsong CEdmonton
Second course with Mark went great. I have to figure out how to afford more?
David HMontreal
Mark is a great instructor! He is knowledgeable and has experience, so he knows what he is talking about! Highly suggest his course!
Anthony MVirtual

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.

Enroll Now

Get Certified

Explore what Scrum is and how to make it work for you in our Scrum Certification training. Hands-on learning will guide you to improve teamwork, deliver quick feedback, and achieve better products and results.

Registration is now open for workshops:

March 5-6, 2026

Live Online

April 13-14, 2026

Live Online

About this course

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.

Learning and Benefits

Relatable Scenarios

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.

Respected Certification

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

Practical Exercises

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.

Jargon-Free Learning

This workshop is not just for software development or people with a computer science degree. We’ve helped many non-software teams with Scrum.

Career Advancement

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

GenAI for Systems Thinking

Learn the basics of using Generative AI as a tool to support Systems Thinking in your ScrumMaster role. Explore how to leverage GenAI to help uncover patterns, and think more deeply about the systems your team operates in.

Ongoing Support

Your learning doesn’t stop when the workshop ends. You get lifetime access to all course materials, plus a followup email series designed to reinforce your learning objectives and help you apply what you’ve learned on the job.