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
Masters the subject more than anyone else I've met.
Carlo DMontreal
Best training I've taken in a long time.
Susan DPrivate Client
I though the class was great. I liked how the class was structured in a Scrum Agile way and how we got to choose what to focus the class time on.
Ryan DVancouver
Remarkable! Knowledgeable! Relatable! Mark's style was a style that I can relate to. I was engaged. Enjoyed the variety of explanations, sharing screens, working with my team mates. The overall structure and delivery of the training material exceeded my expectations.
Brenda DVirtual
The course was awesome with great instructor. It was great to have the groups for exercices and then discuss with trainer.
Françoise DVirtual
Amazing! Friendly, funny, smart, open-minded individual. Great job, Mark!
S M Tadmir CToronto
Mark was great! He was honest and open at points during the training - always resetting the expectations of Scrum, driving home the framework, what it will do and will not do. He is helpful and willing to answer questions.
Dawn DKitchener-Waterloo
The instructor was very adaptive and knowledgeable. I respect how the instructor worked and would take another course with him in the future.
Johnny KEdmonton
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
Mark did a great job sparking conversation, without reading slide after slide. Very happy with this course.
Lee GPrivate Client
Exceptional presentation delivery that is clear, concise, and though-provoking, involving tremendous audience participation.
Norman EOttawa
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
A great course for those who wish to change their conventional PM perspective to a more open and agile one.
Catherine HMontreal
Overall very well structured course. It helped me see the benefits of Scrum and learned how to apply it.
Nazir EOttawa
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
I thought Mark did a great job. Never missed a beat and gave us a great experience
Sahan DOttawa
Refreshing, enlightening, funny, engaging, instructive.
Richard DPrivate Client
Very Experienced, Shared Experiences, Class Participation was done very well.
Gary FPrivate Client
Awesome instructor and course! Will recommend!
Mikael GOttawa
Great course. Lots of fun and learning. Thanks!
Edgar DVancouver
Mark was great at teaching the class. He really knows the course and it is obvious Scrum is second nature to him. Real life experience (in class exercises) are key to learning Scrum.
Cara CToronto
Mark is amazing at asking thought-povoking questions to think on issues at a 2nd degree level. (i.e. reasons behind the challenge)
Connie LToronto
Mark is very knowledgeable and his experience with Agile and Scrum was awesome as he was able to provide lots of tips and examples.
Sophie CVirtual
Provided excellent understanding of scrum, more difficult concepts with a very hands on approach.
Carmen CToronto
Mark was very personable and knowledgeable about the subject. Nothing threw him.
Sharon GPrivate Client
This course is valuable to anyone who would like to be introduced to Scrum. It was a well spended 2 day course and was very helpful. Mark is very knowledgeable and a very good coach.
Ronald HOttawa
Mark is the real s**t. He's lived through the pain points and knows where the bodies are buried.
Christian FMontreal
Mark is an awesome instructor and he is very knowledgeable.
Samina CVirtual
Great course! I will recommend this to others.
Darryl EVancouver
Very instructive course and thought provoking. I will use it in a unique way and it gave me approach that will allow it to work for me.
Mike GVancouver
Great energy. Interesting course material.
Julie CToronto
Mark is very easy to listen to. He is knowledgeable and keeps the class engaged. He has a lot of experience.
Lori CToronto
Great in depth knowledge of subject matter.
Joseph COttawa
Knows his stuff. Has a lot of industries "real life" examples that help us understand those Agile methodologies.
Isabelle LMontreal
Mark was a great instructor who did a great job keeping us focused and teaching us about scrum and its benefits.
Frank DToronto
This is my second course with Mark and it was fantastic! Mark is incredibly knowledgeable and engaging. Taking the course virtually was very smooth. I was still able to connect with some great new people while learning a ton and having fun.
Robin DVirtual
Mark delivered an excellent course, it was a value-packed 2 days.
Brent COttawa
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
Thank you. It has been one of the most interesting courses I have attended.
Hemant KToronto
The instructor was well prepared, and extremely knowledgeable. The course was structured in a way that it was easy to follow, well structured, and easy to be engaged. All the team activities were extremely useful to put in practice the theory. I enjoyed every single one! Virtual learning is a really difficult environment, and the instructor made it look like a piece of cake, kept us engaged throughout the days. Kuddos!
Jenny CVirtual
Mark has extensive experience on which he can call on to illustrate the reason for what works and what does not.
Mark CPrivate Client
The course was well organizated and presented but the real value comes in the form of the facilitator Mark. His knowledge, enthusiasm and ability to help you find our own answers was refreshing, Thank you Mark!
James BOttawa
Going into this training course my expectation was between boring and somewhat engaging as per my previous experience with training. I was pleasantly surprised. I found Mark entertaining and the course material laid out in a way as to keep the class engaged and interactive at all times. Well done. Will not hesitate to recommend your class(es) to anyone.
Jean-Michel HOttawa
Fantastic course. I am excited about implementing more of what I learned.
Andrew BToronto
Great course and instructor. Great references to unrelated related content.
Dmytro LToronto
I had the best two days of practical training on Agile. Instructor has logical answers to my questions.
Angie EEdmonton
Great seminar, very helpful and Mark showed us in real time examples the application of Scrum.
Pierre EMontreal
Very well structured course with a good variety of topics for further research. Great interaction with class.
Yuri AVirtual
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

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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