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 is an engaging instructor using conversation and interaction as the engagement catalyst!
Shawn RToronto
I found the instructor extremely engaging and very knowledgeable about the subject. The time flew by!
Granville GOttawa
Great instructor, knowledgeable, kept team engaged for two full days.
Nermin JToronto
Clever, concise SM training that delivered all the essential elements needed to start using Scrum at work right away.
Sabrina KOttawa
Mark is very entertaining and knowledgable, the combination of which made for a great two days of training, well done!
Daniel JKitchener-Waterloo
Excellent communicator and interacts well with the class. Great knowledge of course material and a genuine advocate of Scrum.
Tony CToronto
Mark was intellegent, able to improvise, and brought humor to the class. He supports diversity, no one should feel uncomfortable.
Jeffrey LMontreal
Very good, very detailed.
John LMontreal
Mark was very energetic and enthusiastic instructor. You could definitely feel his passion for Agile and Engineering as a whole.
William IPrivate Client
Knowledgable and engaged the trainees to think and share their ideas.
Carol BPrivate Client
Mark was very personable and knowledgeable about the subject. Nothing threw him.
Sharon GPrivate Client
Mark is an excellent trainer with examples and practices. Very organized and the best thing is his response to our questions with example, in addition, the amount of references that might help up improve as a scrum master.
Dona AMontreal
Mark Levison is an outstanding instructor who knows how to effectively deliver course content tailored to the learning needs of this students. Everyone on the course benefited greatly from his ability to present new information in a clear and easily understood manner. The Agile Foundations course provided an excellent overview of the Agile Methodology and SCRUM.
Michael GVirtual
Mark clearly presents the scrum process and principles. He provides background information and stories to reinforce these techniques.
Richard COttawa
As a test manager I was looking for a bridge between my Scrum learning and current skills, and becoming confident that I could act as a scrum master. This course provided it.
Rachel JToronto
Instructor was engaged, interesting, and fun. He included all members in discussion and Q/A. The course provided me with what I need to start effectively using scrum at work.
Erik CEdmonton
As a junior developer you helped me learn more about software development and the right way to do things.
Joe HPrivate Client
Provided excellent understanding of scrum, more difficult concepts with a very hands on approach.
Carmen CToronto
Instructor was extremely well prepared, know the material inside and out. Always had a good response for every question. And had a great sense of humor
Christian BPrivate Client
Awesome!! Very captivating, approachable and well spoken. Provoked conversation and posed questions in a manner that made you think
Katherine HKitchener-Waterloo
Overall very well structured course. It helped me see the benefits of Scrum and learned how to apply it.
Nazir EOttawa
This has been the most useful training course I have taken. Even though we have been practicing "Scrum" for years there was no useless content.
Simon HOttawa
Excellent job of teaching about using scrum. Very good job engaging the class and providing a fun place to learn. Full moneys worth.
Eric CToronto
Engaging instructor, keeps it interesting.
Yves GMontreal
He knows his stuff!
Stephen DVancouver
Great to get this training from the subject matter expert.
Nisha AToronto
I found Mark to be engaging, informative and entertaining. His answers to class questions were well thought out, practical and helpful. He did a very good job handling the various personalities and keeping things on track.
Brad GVirtual
I thought it was extremely effective. It re-enforced some good practices already in place but showed what is missing in my environment.
Robert JEdmonton
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
Very informative and fun learning session.
Kim KPrivate Client
Mark was awesome. Engaging and interactive. Course material is detailed but not overwhelming.
Adam DToronto
Mark had great skills at sharing knowledge, breaking down concepts and explaining the "whys" of things.
Cedric LMontreal
Very knowledgeable, led the session very well.
Bob BPrivate Client
Instructor is very knowledgeable and delivers the course extremely well. Makes it interesting!
Brian APrivate Client
Mark brings a wealth of knowledge and practical experience and stories. We have applied many of the ideas and totally revitalized the way we run our Agile process.
MacMillan JKitchener-Waterloo
Excellent instruction with deep knowledge of scrum. All questions or clarfications were answered. Provided information I can take back to my team.
Emilia KOttawa
This instructor was absolutely brilliant. He was very clear and knowlegable in all the areas. He was also very honest in his opinions.
Jonathan EOttawa
Very engaging, interactive and lively CSPO virtual workshop. Mark is an excellent instructor and provided a lot of real world examples to help with understanding. Thank you for coaching. I will definitely recommend this course.
Cindy LVirtual
Mark is fun and engaging and has a great way of importing information in a memorable way.
Brittany LOttawa
I thought the material and instructor was excellent. It was a full two days!
Shawn DEdmonton
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
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
Excellent instructor!!! Expert in Agile/Scrum.
Marc BOttawa
Instructor was great and dialed into the topic. He was also effective at managing differing opinions.
Scott BVirtual
Great job! You did a great job or engaging us and encouraging participation. I feel inspired to better my team and organization using the knowledge I gained.
Michael DToronto
Great, eloquent, knowledgeable.
Mladen JToronto
A fantastic approach to teaching Scrum and agile practices.
Jordan LToronto
Mark is the real s**t. He's lived through the pain points and knows where the bodies are buried.
Christian FMontreal
Mark was exceptional and very fun, engaging, and informative training session
Kris KKitchener-Waterloo
I enjoyed the course and the instruction. Good examples were provided. Excercises helped me understand concepts.
Claire LPrivate 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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