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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Very well put together and organized. Great teacher who uses lots of examples.
Kunal SToronto
Very good introduction to my new role. Mark leads lively and thought-provoking discussions.
Bob COttawa
Mark is a great presenter. I appreciate that he is to the point and succinct in his points, but can expand when prompted. I appreciate that there was room for "derailment" and that the training was made more custom tailored to the individual experiences of the scrum masters at our org. The subject matter was good. I think it contained a lot of the info that new scrum masters don't think about, and covered a lot of traps that they fall into.
Adel AVirtual
This was a great course that I will recomment to others! A lot to cover in a short period of time, and I managed to understand most if not all material. I'm excited to take my learnings with me and apply to my role at my company!
Lesleanne BToronto
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
Mark was great. He definitely understands and believes in what he is teaching. He made sure to go slowly and would always check to see if we understood.
Adrien GVirtual
Really liked the approach by Mark to apply Scrum methodology to this training. Also Mark was available to answer questions and patient.
Damien JOttawa
It was a very helpful course and it met my expectations.
Vinicious GVancouver
This was a great introduction to the Agile world and methodology. This could be a great tool in the office if used properly.
Guytwin FMontreal
Came back to take my CSPO specifically with Mark for a reason. Amazing Instructor.
Daniel LMontreal
I enjoyed the course and the instruction. Good examples were provided. Excercises helped me understand concepts.
Claire LPrivate Client
Mark is extremely knowlegeable, humorous, and an effective teacher. I feel far more knowedgeable about Scrum now than I did 2 days ago.
Jeremy GToronto
Mark was an excellent instructor and I learned a lot in this workshop considering it was only 2 days. I would recommend it to my friends and colleagues.
Mohamed EVirtual
Mark taught the course in-depth; I gained a lot of knowledge on facilitating a scrum team in achieving its goals. Thanks a lot for such an amazing presentation format.
Be-Done IVirtual
I absolutely love your practical pragmatic approach to delivering information. Very conductive to learning.
Mandy JOttawa
I feel like the structure of the course is good in how it is treated as a backlog with all the participants prioritizing topics.
Aaron GOttawa
Instructor Mark is great and very knowledgeable, with experience that can answer questions from many industries/environments. The use of examples, games, activities are great!
Anthony KToronto
I participated in the Certified Scrum Master course instructed by Mark Levison. Mark is a very well educated in the Agile Scrum methodology and presented the course material in a very entertaining way during the 2-day course. I learned a lot of things I had not previously known even though I had been practicing scrum for the past 5 years. I would highly recommend that every organization send their scrum focal’s to this training – it will help them advance their organization in implementing, and delivering scrum based projects, thus help their business be more successful.
Graham FVirtual
This is the first course that I have taken virtually, and I enjoyed it very much. Thanks to Mark!
Jennifer HVirtual
Very well presented to the needs of the students. Adapts to the questions and situations very well. Like real life examples encouraged discussion.
Hoyt LPrivate Client
I felt that Mark is an incredible teacher. He's extemely knowledgeable on the subject and shares his experience with the entire class. Very structured.
Anthony PToronto
Very good course, well balanced and very interactive.
Alexandre GMontreal
Mark is great and the course is very valuable. I really appricate your time and patience. We covered a lot of mtaterial which is great.
William DOttawa
Knowledgeable instructor. Engaging and well planned course.
Dan RVirtual
Mark has been very important in teaching us the scrummaster role and scrum processes.
Maxime GMontreal
Knows his material very well. Is pleasant. Proper course material was provided.
Jean PMontreal
I thought the instructor and course was excelelnt and very enlightening.
Aengus MEdmonton
Great facilitator. Kept interest with activities and exercises.
Lynn MOttawa
Course gave me clarity on the basic principles of Scrum. Drove home the power of 'team'.
Lia PToronto
Mark was an engaging and passionate instructor. I appreciated his concise explanations, and the time he took after his first day to discuss specifics about my organization with me.
Adam FOttawa
A good introduction about scrum, roles of PO, SM and team. Opened up my thoughts on how it could be applied/practiced effectively and efficiently to build a good team.
Rajesh MOttawa
Second course with Mark went great. I have to figure out how to afford more?
David HMontreal
Excellent reinforcements of concepts and techniques on Agile-related challenges. Mark delivered the course at an excellent pace. I thoroughly enjoyed the session as he kept the team engaged wih useful examples and in-depth topic knowledge. Great reinforcement of Agile concepts.
Seeha GPrivate Client
Great content, stories, anecdotes. Enjoyed instructor's enthusiasm and knowledge on the subject.
Paul JMontreal
Awesome. Enlightment for pain points like overtime, too many WIP, motivation, etc.
Susie LVancouver
Engaged every minute of the course.
Eugene LMontreal
Excellent instructor provided engaging activites to help roleplay learning and provoke meaningful discussions.
Alice PEdmonton
Interesting and original and knowledgeable.
Liliana MOttawa
Very knowledgeable instructor, great info on theory and practice. Lots more info to cover if we had more time.
Jamie GOttawa
I had the best two days of practical training on Agile. Instructor has logical answers to my questions.
Angie EEdmonton
Awesome course. I will be able to apply a number of concepts immediately to help our effectiveness at work.
Daryl PEdmonton
Mark was an excellent instructor. He was patient with us and mindful of the different types of humans in the class. Even though we got behind and had to skip the last exercise I didn't feel like I was missing anything. I think the discussions were of more value than the final sprint (so good choice). I really appreciate that he is giving us all kinds of materials and pointing us to books and articles to help us. I feel very supported. Mark did a great job of getting everyone involved and keeping people engaged. Group activities were well placed. I will be sure to recommend this course.
Karen PVirtual
Mark is adept at relating Agile to both techanical and everyday tasks. This is useful in groups include non-techanical members. While he has tendency to get sidetracked, the divergences are useful and relevant, adding depth to the topic under discussion.
Erin LPrivate Client
Mark thanks for sharing your knowledge. I truly enjoyed your course. You have a great teaching ability.
Anaya MOttawa
(Instructor was) very pragmatic and opened your mind and steer conversation, so you can figure it out, instead of reading through material.
Priya PPrivate Client
Mark was the best instructor that I have learned from. His style of delivery is very crisp and enjoyable. Loved every minute of it.
Rajiv MToronto
Good balance between questions at large and required materials. Very willing to work towards people's requests/expectations.
Brian HOttawa
Well presented - effective - open to discussion - provides information that shows us better methods and resources for self learning.
Bedros NMontreal
Excellent course! Was able to relate to everything covered. Scrum should be used every day.
Mark MEdmonton
Mark is an excellent instructor and has great techniques to help us understand and learn the material of the course.
Miguel NMontreal

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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