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 with real-world knowledge and experience. He made the course fun and interesting. He was very patient and answered all questions; offered follow up reading material and books.
Tania DVirtual
Mark is great facilitator. Overall the course materials and information provided me a better understanding of the scrum master role.
Nhan TKitchener-Waterloo
Thoroughly knowledgeable about subject.
Enwei CVancouver
Strong instructor, great knowledge of the material. A very good pace.
Ken AKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is very easy to listen to. He is knowledgeable and keeps the class engaged. He has a lot of experience.
Lori CToronto
Excellent! Engaged all of the time. My head is exploding with new knowledge.
Harlie DMontreal
Mark is engaging and energetic. He made what could have been a dry topic quite enjoyable.
Paul BToronto
A very rewarding learning experience. Timeboxed for two days, that really provides business value for future scrum masters /Agile practioners.
Delia DMontreal
Great course. Lots of fun and learning. Thanks!
Edgar DVancouver
Fantastic instructor. Great real story examples.
Allan CEdmonton
Very informative, with humour. Easy to understand for non-technical folks.
Tetyana OOttawa
Great workshop by Mark. Level of engagement to collaboration were awesome!
Jason QEdmonton
Mark did an excellent job facilitating the course and the content was very helpful. We covered a lot of ground in three sessions and the pre-learning was helpful too! Mark was patient and respectful and very supportive throughout the sessions. It was a pleasure to spend the time with Mark and to learn from someone who obviously knows his subject.
Debbie BVirtual
Mark thanks for sharing your knowledge. I truly enjoyed your course. You have a great teaching ability.
Anaya MOttawa
Very good presentation skills. Excellent materials for study (in class and via email). Good tips and pragmatic approach. Good experience and info from the trenches.
Luiza DToronto
Mark is very good. Has a lot of working experiences and real life stories.
Wilson MEdmonton
Mark is very knowledgeable on the subject and always had good arguments to overcome the "we couldn't do this in our organization".
Sebastien DPrivate Client
Very good. Great at illustrating his point.
Manny BOttawa
Excellent communicator, good at focusing on the important topics.
Mick BPrivate Client
The course was awesome with great instructor. It was great to have the groups for exercices and then discuss with trainer.
Françoise DVirtual
Mark's knowledge and real world examples have cleared up my knowledge of scrum, the roles and responsibilities of the scrum team, and what I need to implement in my organization.
Greg MEdmonton
I find the instructor very knowledgeable and experienced in Scrum. He was very well organized and prepared for the course. He encouraged in class participation and elevated course content with real life examples. Well played! The course, its content and material covered Scrum very well.
Alena CVancouver
The content of the course covered most of things I was looking for. Mark is a knowledgeable instructor and was able to answer all of the queries the class had.
Ramandeep MEdmonton
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
Mark was excellent and lots of knowledge and passion about Scrum. His anecdotal stories were entertaining and informational.
Kevin MPrivate Client
Excellent, expert, engaging, humourous, I would strongly recommend any course offered by Mark!
Tod MVancouver
Mark is incredibly well prepared and professional. Best instructor I've ever had, period.
Kevin DKitchener-Waterloo
Fantastic course. I was really happy with the structure, the breaks, and the group interaction. I've taken other online courses like this before and really felt like there was a good balance between listening, discussions, applying the knowledge, and pauses.
Amanda PVirtual
Mark was a very knowledgeable instructor and very passionate about the material. For a brand new subject area, I was very content and feeling comfortable in training (which usually is not the normal case). Whatever little pre-knowledge I had, this was a very great course. I took my own notes by hand and will strive the use the material as much as possible where I can. I did all of the pre-work and it definitely helped. Thank you for the training !
Brian BVirtual
Instructor was excellent. Provided an environment of communication.
Nathalile LOttawa
I really appreciated the experience as a whole. Great valuable content. Super trainer. Experienced and flexible.
Marie MOttawa
Great energy. Interesting course material.
Julie CToronto
The instructor has an uncanny ability to articulate concepts and make learning fun and enjoyable.
Bilal RToronto
Mark was entertaining and kept the course moving. When we delved into detail the information was usually useful. We covered the basics and more, and it makes going back to work with reinforced skills and ideas on how to change our practices appealing instead of scary.
Samantha CMontreal
Very smart and knowledgeable about not only Scrum but also Agile practices. Didn't mince words and instilled confidence in us that we could make his advice work for us.
Simon LOttawa
Interesting approach to session - dialogue with class versus speaking to slides.
Michelina DToronto
I liked him. I did Scrum Master certification with him a long time ago and, when my colleague and I thought about doing PO training, I suggested we searched to see if he was still active. We feel his experience when he talks.
Christian DVirtual
Mark harnessed the power of our diverse perspectives/skills/experience to create agile team enacting scrum as we applied our learning. This applied learning led us to knowledge sharing, trust, and mastery.
Danica MOttawa
No nonsense, practical approach, dynamic, very instructive.
Yanick BMontreal
Course was great. Mark was terrific! Kept us involved and thinking.
Anne DPrivate Client
Mark is terrific at carrying a dialog on agile and his humor and humility make the class fun.
David MVirtual
Great job, easy to understand and fun.
Matt CKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is amazing. He is a knowledgeable instructor about scrum and I would like to attend another course with him. He taught me the basic and theories of scrum. Now i will need to integrate it with the work place. I enjoyed this course as it provided me with the concept of scrum to bring forward to my team at work.
Justin CVirtual
Well spoken and obviously passionate.
Brian REdmonton
Great instructor - very clear and easy to follow. Makes you think.
Linda LOttawa
Fantastic course. I am excited about implementing more of what I learned.
Andrew BToronto
Remarkable! Knowledgeable! Relatable! Mark's style was a style that I can relate to. I was engaged. Enjoyed the variety of explanations, sharing screens, working with my team mates. The overall structure and delivery of the training material exceeded my expectations.
Brenda DVirtual
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
Fantastic. Very engaging and helpful blend of both Scrum and general business advice.
Dace DOttawa
Well versed in knowledge and provided great "philosophical" thinking towards solutions to problems at work. Fun and approachable. Encourages solution formulation yourself.
Kang CKitchener-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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