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 a lively and engaging instructor. Information was presented effectively and at a reasonable pace.
Joel DOttawa
Mark was very well prepared with the material and handled questions well. You gave us enough information to address our own issues without giving us the solution.
Ramiz IPrivate Client
Instructor was great, very knowledgeable and open to questions. The course opened my eyes to scrum mechanics. I now understand what scrummaster in the team was attempting to do.
Sharon JEdmonton
Very effective and experienced instructor. Well organized.
Sam MOttawa
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
Great conversations. Thanks, Mark! My confidence in understanding the role increased!
Orville HEdmonton
Instructor very excellent and the course is very good to introduce perople to the Agile Methodology.
Sonia JPrivate Client
A great course for those who wish to change their conventional PM perspective to a more open and agile one.
Catherine HMontreal
Very thorough. The copious use of examples were very helpful!
Kevin HMontreal
The course does an excellent job in this covid world. Lots was learned even though I have been working in an agile environment for years. Would certainly return to Agile Pain Relief if I decide to pursue future training.
Robert AVirtual
Thank you Mark! Up until last week I knew nothing about Scrum and now I know quite a lot. Took my test this morning -- just as you said, it was not that complicated and panicking was not warranted. Excited to apply the new skills in practice!
Anastasia KVirtual
Mark explained things well. He's nice. There are valuable discussions during the course, that I saw others problems and experiences.
Hoo LKitchener-Waterloo
Mark did an excellent job of teaching the material and went beyond just presenting it.
Noah AEdmonton
Really appreciated how he addressed our questions and gave feedback. Mark was very knowledgable on the subject matter.
Kyle AOttawa
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
Great instructor, light atmosphere, very knowledgeable and engaging. Thank You!
Edwine JVirtual
Really enjoyed the course. Mark has a unique way of explaining concepts that have a very positive effect on the learning process.
Daniel LMontreal
You have a deep understanding of the Scrum methodology. You are good listener and you are able to adapt to your audience. I am really satisfied and will recommend you.
Eric LMontreal
Very knowledgeable instructor about scrum and software development in general.
Elizabeth GOttawa
This was a good course. Plenty of offline reading and later reference. For a full two day course, I am informed but not exhausted.
Chris GKitchener-Waterloo
Very patient. Really liked the group activity where we had to work in Sprints on user stories.
Anita AVirtual
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
Instructor is very knowledgeable and delivers the course extremely well. Makes it interesting!
Brian APrivate Client
Good balance between questions at large and required materials. Very willing to work towards people's requests/expectations.
Brian HOttawa
Thank you very much. I learned a great deal and have already been seeing opportunities to apply the infrastructure learned.
Hugh HOttawa
Came back to take my CSPO specifically with Mark for a reason. Amazing Instructor.
Daniel LMontreal
Truly an expert. Knows his stuff.
Denise AOttawa
Knowledgable and engaged the trainees to think and share their ideas.
Carol BPrivate Client
Mark was a patient and enthusiastic teacher, with knowledge spanning multiple industries. The course itself was a great mix of learning with lots of opportunities to do hands-on activities to really cement understanding. At the end of the course I felt confident in my understanding and my ability to pass the certification test. Thank you, Mark
Carrie BVirtual
Excellent course content delivered in a direct, practical and memorable fashion.
Kimberley KOttawa
Awesome instructor with a sense of humor. Well read and fun!
Wendy AVancouver
This was a fantastic, informative course! I'm ready to try a few of the retro "games" with the team next week.
Erin GOttawa
Overall very well structured course. It helped me see the benefits of Scrum and learned how to apply it.
Nazir EOttawa
Extremely knowledgeable. Engaged the entire team. Clear communication.
Ahalya AToronto
Interaction was great, content is very useful and can be applied to improve our way right way. Nice control of the group by the instructor.
Ana BMontreal
Great instructor, knowledgeable, kept team engaged for two full days.
Nermin JToronto
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
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Mark. I learned a lot and appreciate his teaching style.
Kendall APrivate Client
This is the first course that I have taken virtually, and I enjoyed it very much. Thanks to Mark!
Jennifer HVirtual
Mark was very knowledgeable; I really appreciated the examples that he shared with the group. Thank you!
Suzanne AVirtual
Very good format and flow to course. Good idea to structure course in Agile format so we can experience Agile first hand.
Julia APrivate Client
The course was structured in a way that allowed us to cover a lot of information in a manner that kept things interesting and allowed space to explore topics where the group was more interested.
Gino FOttawa
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
Mark was awesome. Kept the session engaged.
Jyoti KVirtual
Mark did a great job of bringing the group into the basic tenets of Agile-Scrum whenever someone brought up a challenge/issue in the participant's particular situation.
Eric AMontreal
This course has validated what I want to do for the rest of my career.
Diane KVancouver
He knows his stuff!
Stephen DVancouver
Mark was great !! Very thorough - his passion for what he does came through. I appreciated his organization and engagement with the team. He was awesome.
Rene EVirtual
Mark is a great instructor, we can see the vast experience that he has from his training style. We have learnt as much as it is possible from a two day workshop. Keep up the good work Mark.
Sreepad KVirtual
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

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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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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Learn on-the-job applications of key Scrum concepts, skills, principles, along with practical solutions that you can apply the next day for difficult, real-life situations.

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Everything you need to earn your Scrum Alliance® ScrumMaster certification, including exam fee and membership, and so much more.

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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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