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 incredibly knowledge and experienced and it's very apparent. I learned more than I could have expected. I greatly appreciate all the additional reading materials. I would have never been able to collect such a library on my own and I have a fascination for good leadership and developing high performing teams.
Anly HOttawa
Lively, hands on, enlightening. Would recommend.
Allen NEdmonton
Very knowledgeable instructor about scrum and software development in general.
Elizabeth GOttawa
Loved this course! Mark is very thorough and attentive as a teacher. He leveraged Mural in such interactive ways, which allowed him to understand the students well and shape the class accordingly. He is like the Jedi master of scrum and insanely advanced methods of leaderless collaboration and accomplishment. He's also the king of super nerdy jokes, which made the class fun and brought out the super nerd in everyone.
Lia GVirtual
A lot to learn and a lot to cover for Scrum. Mark was living the art of scrum and set a role model of time box.
Dang DVancouver
The CSM course was extremely valuable in understanding the theorotical and practical concepts and techniques necessary to start my journey as Scrum Master. Mark was a knowledgeable and flexible facilitor.
Erik GToronto
Fantastic 2 days. Loved the incorporation of practical exercies. Lots of feedback and helps you understand how people think.
Tony KVancouver
Mark is very knowledgable. I really enjoy his style of teaching. Very good course.
Lionel GPrivate Client
Mark was very energetic and enthusiastic instructor. You could definitely feel his passion for Agile and Engineering as a whole.
William IPrivate Client
Very good and useful information. I like the format (no boring Powerpoint) and doing the meeting as a sprint was great.
Fred BPrivate Client
Very knowledgeable instructor and dynamic . Provided good examples to better understand concept.
Yves GPrivate Client
The instructor had an excellent breadth and depth of knowledge. Liberally sprinkled with relevent ancedotes to provide substance and humor.
Myles GPrivate Client
Very engaging way of learning how to be a Product Owner, just like Scrum should be.
Teeba APrivate Client
Instructor kept the course interested, kept us engaged through fun exercises. I love the course content, the book. Well prepared reference.
Hulya AOttawa
Excellent course, gained a lot of context on SCRUM best practices beyond the context of how [Private Client] currently operates.
Hamza EPrivate Client
Awesome, good humour and very knowledgeable about side elements and how they come into play.
Daniel LOttawa
Overall awesome. I am really inspired & revigorated to do this with my team.
Mikaela GVancouver
Mark shared valuable information and advice about Scrum theory. I am now clear on many Agile views on different aspects, especially, Roadmap.
Syed AToronto
Mark was a very thoughtful and direct instructor.
Luke GVirtual
The course was really interactive, Mark did a great job at running the course online during the pandemic. He was always willing to answer questions and provide relevant resources. I like that the focus during class-time was more on effective implementation in the real world rather than learning text-book material.
Agata BVirtual
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
Thoroughly knowledgeable about subject.
Enwei CVancouver
Mark was fantastic. He really knows how to keep everyone engaged and I found the course really fun. Still subscribe to the belief that learning is done best when you're having fun so thank you :)
Sabrina AVirtual
Excellent. Learn a lot about Scrum. Very knowledgeable and experienced in the area. Able to relate different examples on questions asked during class.
Robert CToronto
Mark was a great instructor with the curse of knowledge (in a good way). Detailed examples, solid application advice, and adaptable during the course. Thanks!
Nick GToronto
Very good, very detailed.
John LMontreal
Excellent presentation. Challenging contributing questions.
Zeki AMontreal
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
Very informative and fun learning session.
Kim KPrivate Client
Mark's ability to adapt to the background of students and relate to their org's characteristics adds exceptional value. This course isn't just for software development!
Paul AOttawa
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
Very good introduction to my new role. Mark leads lively and thought-provoking discussions.
Bob COttawa
Extremely knowledgeable. Engaged the entire team. Clear communication.
Ahalya AToronto
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 quick-witted, experienced, blunt, and plays role of a neutral facilitaor very well. He made three content heavy days digestible, relevant to my work life, and enjoyable.
Craig BPrivate Client
Great to get this training from the subject matter expert.
Nisha AToronto
Exceptional presentation delivery that is clear, concise, and though-provoking, involving tremendous audience participation.
Norman EOttawa
This was the first professional class I've taken that gave me a more in depth perspective of the scrum process. Really concise in explanations. Stays on topic as best as possible. Extremely helpful.
Michelle KToronto
Came in with a cynical view and attitude and left with nuggets of insight. That is quite an accomplishment for any instructor!
Mojtaba HOttawa
Course was great and enjoyable. Lots of make you think kind of questions.
Andrew FOttawa
A great course for those who wish to change their conventional PM perspective to a more open and agile one.
Catherine HMontreal
Mark was very personable, easy going an know what he was teaching. This makes the class environment more interactive and fun.
Asif BVirtual
I was impressed. The most valuable thing was not the principles (already knew most intellectually) but the instructor's zen master answers to challnges/questions. This aided in more intutive knowledge.
David AEdmonton
Instructor was fantastic! Course content had some humour!
Joelle LPrivate Client
Instructor is very informative. Voice calming and clear with good balance of up/down/tone.
Hanh LToronto
This course gave me a new insight into delivering better software for the customer more effectively.
Len CVancouver
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
Clever, concise SM training that delivered all the essential elements needed to start using Scrum at work right away.
Sabrina KOttawa
Very informative and interesting introduction to the concepts and principles of Agile development and Scrum.
Michael HVancouver
Mark was fantastic. Enjoyed his coaching very well. Course was very interesting.
Robert AOttawa

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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