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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Exceptional presentation delivery that is clear, concise, and though-provoking, involving tremendous audience participation.
Norman EOttawa
Great job, easy to understand and fun.
Matt CKitchener-Waterloo
I have a hard time with classroom training however you managed to keep me interested. The way you deliver the material is great.
Patrick VOttawa
Came in with a cynical view and attitude and left with nuggets of insight. That is quite an accomplishment for any instructor!
Mojtaba HOttawa
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
I learned a lot and the content was far more enganging than I expected it to be. I come away with many improvements I can make to my organization. Thanks and well done.
Dan CKitchener-Waterloo
Very knowledgeable instructor about scrum and software development in general.
Elizabeth GOttawa
Great, eloquent, knowledgeable.
Mladen JToronto
Mark was an informative, fun instructor who utilized the time given to him to teach us scrum.
Brendan GEdmonton
Very unique training style, really appreciate that I don’t have to look at power point screen. Appreciate the Q&As and the end of class recap round.
Vicky CPrivate Client
Mark rocks! His extensive real world experience combined with his depth of knowledge of Scrum processes and tools made for a superior learning opportunity with lots of fun along the way. Highly recommend!
Steven CPrivate Client
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
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 energy. Interesting course material.
Julie CToronto
Mark was great. Excellent sense of humor, great ability to adapt, wealth of business and sugject matter knowledge.
Jesse BPrivate Client
I found Mark very engaging and thought he helped make the material very interesting.
Jason DToronto
Kept audience engaged, and kept course relevant to entire group. Brought Scrum into how the course was taught! (Neat!)
Steve BOttawa
I had the best two days of practical training on Agile. Instructor has logical answers to my questions.
Angie EEdmonton
Instructor was very passionate about subject and links theory to concrete examples.
Jean-Philippe BMontreal
He explained extremely well and gave great concrete examples. Helped to see how to apply to work place.
Genevieve CMontreal
Mark did an excellent job of teaching the material and went beyond just presenting it.
Noah AEdmonton
Extremely knowledgeable. Engaged the entire team. Clear communication.
Ahalya AToronto
Engaged every minute of the course.
Eugene LMontreal
I appreciate the opportunity to attend the workshop. I enjoyed the time spent with my fellow co-workers to learn together. Mark is passionate about Scrum and willing to dig into our problem and seek for the remedies to resolve.
Heather JVancouver
Course: great content! Instructor: excellent and very knowledgeable on the subject.
Nadeem FEdmonton
Very patient. Really liked the group activity where we had to work in Sprints on user stories.
Anita AVirtual
Highly recommend it. This was awesome. Thank you. Mark is a very good instructor.
Philippe CMontreal
Very good and useful information. I like the format (no boring Powerpoint) and doing the meeting as a sprint was great.
Fred BPrivate Client
Knows course material well. Quick to answer all questions.
Michael BEdmonton
Rocks! I would really recomment this instructor to others.
Raghda FToronto
Instructor very excellent and the course is very good to introduce perople to the Agile Methodology.
Sonia JPrivate Client
Mark is an articulate speaker that is easy to listen to and he brings real-life situations to the course which makes it interesting. Answers questions well and takes the time to make sure he gets his point across.
Wayne BVirtual
Good. Has lots of experience.
Jimmy AEdmonton
Overall excellent instruction to Agile, practical exercises worked well, foundation to applications of principles and desire to learn more established.
Stuart BVancouver
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
Great instructor, knowledgeable, kept team engaged for two full days.
Nermin JToronto
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
Clever, concise SM training that delivered all the essential elements needed to start using Scrum at work right away.
Sabrina KOttawa
Mark delivered what I think is one of the best adult learning, in a corporate training environment, I’ve experienced. And it was remote! It was engaging, entertaining and very useful. I was also very fortunate to have a great team which significantly enriched my experience.
Noah CVirtual
Great seminar, very helpful and Mark showed us in real time examples the application of Scrum.
Pierre EMontreal
Using Scrum to teach Scrum. Perfect.
Andrew COttawa
Great training. Good energy throughout the workshop. Well facilitated. I liked the regular breaks. Good combination of both breakout room exercises and whole group learnings. Good use of technology for a virtual workshop.
Carole GVirtual
Excellent course, excellent communication. Loved the fact that the instructon was showing us how SCRUM should respond to different situtions.
Pascal GPrivate Client
Mark is a patient and very organized coach. I appreciate the ability to get through so much information in only 2 days. Mark really focuses on what one needs to have a better understand of scrum and it's benefits.
Brian AVirtual
Much more than expected. Great experience! I appreciate it very much!
Alfredo FOttawa
Excellent instructor provided engaging activites to help roleplay learning and provoke meaningful discussions.
Alice PEdmonton
Knowledgeable, prepared, interactive.
Anca MMontreal
Mark was knowledgable and provided us with a good base to start with.
Maria Noah MPrivate Client
True value demonstrated outside of the software development world.
Theresa BToronto
Instructor is very knowledgeable and delivers the course extremely well. Makes it interesting!
Brian APrivate Client

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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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.

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

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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.