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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There is so much about Scrum that I didn't know I didn't know! Thanks Mark for an informative and engaging 2 days.
Dan LKitchener-Waterloo
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
Mark is very knowledgeable and really challenges the class to engage, speak, think about the core concepts, even when it’s messy/unclear in “real world” situations. I talked to a couple of my colleagues afterward and even the ones who were having difficulty with the usefulness of Scrum in their professional lives really enjoyed the course and the instructor, myself included.
Louis BVirtual
Great use of time. Very clear examples of work life situations.
Duane BToronto
Excellent communicator, good at focusing on the important topics.
Mick BPrivate Client
Mark was great. Excellent sense of humor, great ability to adapt, wealth of business and sugject matter knowledge.
Jesse BPrivate Client
Very good. Great at illustrating his point.
Manny BOttawa
Provocative, amusing, thanks!
Stefan BPrivate Client
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! Very engaging and knowlegeable instructor.
Kolin BOttawa
Great course. Information overload but not in a bad way. I liked that we discussed specific corporate problems people were having. Helped build context in how others are using Agile/Scrum. Maybe misusing, too.
Tyler BVancouver
Mark is very well read, with lots of breadth. Mark helped to challenge participants' ways of thinking that could impede scrum implementation.
Louise BOttawa
Mark is awesome! I really enjoyed both courses I took with him. I much prefer in-person interaction to virtual, but his approach worked well.
Nicole BVirtual
Mark was really engaging and very knowledgeable.
Samantha BPrivate Client
Thanks for being so responsive and Agile in your approach to leading the class.
Deb BKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is engaging and energetic. He made what could have been a dry topic quite enjoyable.
Paul BToronto
Mark is excellent. He uses examples that are very clear to everyone. He is patient and ensures everyone understands the material.
Emmanuel BMontreal
Mark delivered an excellent course, it was a value-packed 2 days.
Brent COttawa
Mark shared valuable information and advice about Scrum theory. I am now clear on many Agile views on different aspects, especially, Roadmap.
Syed AToronto
Excellent communicator and interacts well with the class. Great knowledge of course material and a genuine advocate of Scrum.
Tony 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
Great in depth knowledge of subject matter.
Joseph COttawa
Very good introduction to my new role. Mark leads lively and thought-provoking discussions.
Bob COttawa
Mark is great - knows the material and can address all questions, prompting us to try and answer them first! Great trainer, I would recommend him to others.
Frances AOttawa
Instructor was great and dialed into the topic. He was also effective at managing differing opinions.
Scott BVirtual
Interesting approach to session - dialogue with class versus speaking to slides.
Michelina DToronto
He explained extremely well and gave great concrete examples. Helped to see how to apply to work place.
Genevieve CMontreal
Good energy. Good examples. Kept the class on track.
Wilson CEdmonton
The course does an excellent job in this covid world. Lots was learned even though I have been working in an agile environment for years. Would certainly return to Agile Pain Relief if I decide to pursue future training.
Robert AVirtual
Very knowledgeable and pleasant to work with.
Kristian BEdmonton
Mark's use and incorporation of the Agile process as part of the training course was an outstanding working demostration in practice real-time. His energy, knowledge, examples, were excellent.
Paul RPrivate Client
Mark is very knowledgeable and his experience with Agile and Scrum was awesome as he was able to provide lots of tips and examples.
Sophie CVirtual
Great course, absurdly knowledgeable instructor. Does pushups.
Igor TToronto
Mark's methods are very engaging. It allows to learn by collaboration and "Telling Back".
Prateek SVancouver
Great instructor, very satisfied, will recomment! I brought my whole team with me, happy I did.
Joshua COttawa
Mark is one of the most interesting humans I’ve had the pleasure to meet. As a student, I can tell he genuinely has our interest and development in mind when creating and delivering his workshops. I can’t say enough good things about the practical knowledge I’ve gained taking this training.
Michael RVirtual
10/10 Loved the atmosphere he created, kept us engaged, able to send important messages, did not overwhelm us.
Biljana CPrivate Client
Great! Humour is a plus too!
Daryl BVancouver
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
The instructor is very knowledgeable in the subject and kept us motivated and alert during the course. The course itself covers lots of material which is necessary for someone who wants to become a successful scrum master.
Elena RVirtual
Mark is great trainer, and explained all the terms in a way for us to easy understand.
Cynthia SVirtual
Mark did a great job. He is well versed and brilliant. I very much enjoyed him as an instructor. The course was very helpful and I learned a great deal - I will go back ready to make changes to how we are currently operating to add value.
Shana ROttawa
Mark is an engaging instructor using conversation and interaction as the engagement catalyst!
Shawn RToronto
Using Scrum to teach Scrum. Perfect.
Andrew COttawa
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
A excellent and well-delivered course. Very informative!
Warren ROttawa
Excellent instructor and very knowledgeable. I feel much more prepared for a process that I am already a part of.
Shamir REdmonton
Running the course as a Scrum project and including a real Scrum exchange really reinforced the material.
David COttawa
Mark is great. He speaks loud enough to be understood and knows how to handle a room full of people.
André SPrivate Client
Solid grounding in Scrum and examples to apply it at work.
John CVancouver

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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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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