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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I liked Mark. I think he answered all the questions really well and engaged the group in very good discussion. The prep work was very helpful and I do not feel like I missed out on anything because it was virtual. It was well organized!
Raji RVirtual
Great course. Lots of fun and learning. Thanks!
Edgar DVancouver
Training style great. Open to discussions and various viewpoints. Helpful. Wants to make sure we all understand. Takes time to discuss further if required. Manages the agenda/time with group consensus/agreement.
Meredith SToronto
Mark is a great instructor for a difficult topic. The course was great to establish Agile/Scrum basics.
Hansil SPrivate Client
I enjoyed Mark's teaching style. I like the personal stories and puns. I always like to bring humor in to my meeting or when I am teaching or mentoring, it evokes a positive emotion and people will retain the information better. A+++ Would like to attend other courses done by Mark.
Shanna FVirtual
Fantastic instructor. Great real story examples.
Allan CEdmonton
Mark was very knowledgeable; I really appreciated the examples that he shared with the group. Thank you!
Suzanne AVirtual
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
Knowledgable and engaged the trainees to think and share their ideas.
Carol BPrivate Client
Effective, making him do things with powerpoint would be fun to watch.
Gary SEdmonton
These days passed quickly, the instructor is very friendly and relaxed. Thanks again to Mark for his support!
Vlad AVirtual
Mark knows his stuff. Great leader. Looking forward to reading his blog.
Brian RToronto
It was a great experience coming to Agile Scrum just a few months ago allowed this to solidify a lot of things I've been practicing. I will likely immediately reap the rewards.
Curtis BOttawa
Great instructor with clever communication techniques to help the attendees grasp ideas.
Asad BKitchener-Waterloo
Instructor kept the course interested, kept us engaged through fun exercises. I love the course content, the book. Well prepared reference.
Hulya AOttawa
Great course! Mark is entertaining and knowledgable. Bring your questions and touch problems. Exploring participants' real-world problems triggered the best, most useful discussions in the course.
Jessica SOttawa
Classes with Mark was so worthwhile! Mark has an amazing way of breaking things down so that they are understandable, and always keeping it light and fun. Overall, the course is well designed, and the topics were engaging and useful.
Mohamad AVirtual
Being engaged in activities with a group gave valuable insight into the problems we might face in our organizations. This course was great! I was never bored and enjoyed working with others. The course instructor was approachable, clear, and great at proving points.
David BMontreal
Instructor is very knowledgeable and delivers the course extremely well. Makes it interesting!
Brian APrivate Client
Mark was engaging and patient. He got everyone involved and kept spirits and energy levels high.
David BPrivate Client
Instructor is very knowledgeable, approachable and fun which aids learning.
Kevin MOttawa
Instructor was amazing, easy to listen to and follow. Did not read from book and provided concrete examples.
Tricia AOttawa
Mark is great and explained dry terms with examples.
Xueyan BPrivate Client
Mark is very well prepared and understands his material in depth. He has a very logical way of looking at questions which can shift people’s understanding in a useful way. If you need to understand “pure” Scrum, this is a good course.
Paul AVirtual
Mark was a great instructor. He made things really fun and engaging. It wasn't just a boring lecture to sit through for two days. It kept us engaged and we learned a lot. Thanks Mark!
Geeta BVirtual
Mark was a great instructor. His quirky ways and sense of humour make for a great course. I was entertained and interested each step of the way.
Philippe BPrivate Client
Great course! Very down to earth and humourous instructor. Would recommend to others!
Steve BKitchener-Waterloo
The failure-based models used for learning were effective.
Vince RVirtual
Great course to get started. Mark is greatly knowledgeable and shares well the information.
Christine AMontreal
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
Great job!
Rana ROttawa
Excellent. Loved the real world experience brought to the course.
Jason MOttawa
Instructor was very well connected with the teams. Immense knowledge on Agile and Scrum.
Deepa MOttawa
Excellent! A refreshing approach! I loved the style of delivering the material and the many discussions and short exercises.
Mark APrivate Client
The CSM course rocks! If you want to immediately jump into the action and improve as you go, this is it. You'll start off as a group of strangers, and find out how quickly you can build a high-performance team. And, if you separately want to read every comprehensive detail there is to know about scrum, Mark will share that with you too.
Nicole BVirtual
Great instruction and high levels of interaction made for an enjoyable course. I gained a greater appreciation for the ScrumMaster role and the game of Scrum!
Kevin BToronto
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
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
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'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
Amazing course! Love every second of it. Mark kept us all engaged. I knew nothing about agile/scrum and now feel well equipped to make changes at work. I'd love for the rest of my team to attend.
Shravan COttawa
Very knowledgeable in the topic, and always open for healthy discussion and willing to clarify our questions.
Higo MVancouver
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
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
Excellent course! Not a wasted minute!
John MOttawa
Mark is the best! I came back with a colleague and I will come back again and recommend Mark's workshops to others.
Hanan SOttawa
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Mark. I learned a lot and appreciate his teaching style.
Kendall APrivate Client
Excellent communicator and interacts well with the class. Great knowledge of course material and a genuine advocate of Scrum.
Tony CToronto
Mark was very entertaining, which made what I expected to be a boring two days very enjoyable, while still learning.
Zach BKitchener-Waterloo
Another excellent course! Great balance of theory, exercises, and anecdotes.
Adam BOttawa

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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