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 helpful for our specific problems. Excellent responding to questions with good examples. Sense of humour. Fun but thorough course.
Tina SPrivate 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
Despite these unprecedented times, this course was great! Using tools like mural made this course engaging, fun and inspiring while being from home. Mark was up for answering all questions and challenging us, or at the very least pointing us in the right direction!
Jessica LVirtual
Mark did an excellent job facilitating the course and the content was very helpful. We covered a lot of ground in three sessions and the pre-learning was helpful too! Mark was patient and respectful and very supportive throughout the sessions. It was a pleasure to spend the time with Mark and to learn from someone who obviously knows his subject.
Debbie BVirtual
Mark really knows this material well and was able to address all questions well to the satisfaction of everyone. Managed the room and our assigned tasks/activities well.
Ursula JToronto
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 to get this training from the subject matter expert.
Nisha AToronto
Mark was exceptional in introducing us to the Scrum world. Contents in the Mural was well formulated, informative and crisp. Mark was open to discussion and provided alternative options for real time issues faced by participant. He was able to create traps so that we can get the real insight of scrum's events. Overall, I am amazed the way Mark covered the whole session. I am looking forward to go through his new upcoming book.
Birendra KVirtual
I had made one course already (Scrum Master) a couple of years back, and again Mark did not disappoint, good empathy, great presence and vibrant (even through virtual activities) always appreciate the good vibes. Content is serious but Mark knows how to go beyond simply handing out his knowledge, he makes it an experience.
Romain HVirtual
This is an excellent course to take after the CSM. The instructor was excellent, the course was wonderful, the students awesome.
Marc HMontreal
Mark is great, crams a boat load into two days effectively.
Gordon IVirtual
Mark was great! I found this style easy to follow and I feel prepared.
Melanie KToronto
Mark was an excellent instructor for this course. His ability to communicate and engage the class to understand and implement the scrum methodology is wonderful and I had a wonderful time during the course.
Pratham DVirtual
Mark was awesome. Engaging and interactive. Course material is detailed but not overwhelming.
Adam DToronto
Fantastic 2 days. Loved the incorporation of practical exercies. Lots of feedback and helps you understand how people think.
Tony KVancouver
The instructor and course were generally excellent – the curriculum was thorough, and the instructor was engaging. I definitely feel like I came out a lot more knowledgeable about Scrum and both the PO and Scrum Master roles (despite the fact that this was not Scrum Master training), and I have lots of ideas percolating on how to implement Agile strategies in my work and with my team.
Natasha HVirtual
Great class. Great instructor! I will recommend!
Kim KMontreal
Mark is very well prepared and understands his material in depth. He has a very logical way of looking at questions which can shift people’s understanding in a useful way. If you need to understand “pure” Scrum, this is a good course.
Paul AVirtual
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
Brilliant! Engaging and enlightening while not promising the world.
Oksana KOttawa
I liked him. I did Scrum Master certification with him a long time ago and, when my colleague and I thought about doing PO training, I suggested we searched to see if he was still active. We feel his experience when he talks.
Christian DVirtual
Great course. Lots of fun and learning. Thanks!
Edgar DVancouver
He is funny. And smart. And a good storyteller. All together = great combo.
Melanie HEdmonton
Mark is a very engaging and thoughtful instructor and presented material that was relevent to the goup and our interests. This was an excellent course and worth the time commitment.
Victor COttawa
Mark had great skills at sharing knowledge, breaking down concepts and explaining the "whys" of things.
Cedric LMontreal
Extremely knowledgeable. Engaged the entire team. Clear communication.
Ahalya AToronto
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
Interesting, engaging, practical exercises.
Olga HMontreal
This was the first professional class I've taken that gave me a more in depth perspective of the scrum process. Really concise in explanations. Stays on topic as best as possible. Extremely helpful.
Michelle KToronto
Great course instructor is very knowledgeable in agile and scrum mastery. Great work relating real life examples to course material and helping to start thinking.
Autem DEdmonton
Instructor kept the course interested, kept us engaged through fun exercises. I love the course content, the book. Well prepared reference.
Hulya AOttawa
Great facilitator. Challenged my thinking. Very absorbing discussion. Very engaging considering it can be a very dry topic, as evidenced by the webinars I've listened to.
Aimee LToronto
Mark was engaging, knowledgeable, well-read and provided great examples.
Warren CVancouver
Awesome, good humour and very knowledgeable about side elements and how they come into play.
Daniel LOttawa
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 was very personable, easy going and knows what he was teaching. This makes the class environment more interactive and fun
Dan DVirtual
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
Mark made the class enjoyable. I was initially dreading a 3 day course. After the first day I knew that I could live through the course.
Dickie BPrivate Client
Fantastic. Very engaging and helpful blend of both Scrum and general business advice.
Dace DOttawa
Mark was really personable, engaging and put a lot of emphasis on our teams and their dynamic., I would recommend him again.
Riyad IPrivate Client
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
Mark did an excellent job keeping the course dynamic and informative. I would have loved a few more days to really dig into some subjects.
Tim KPrivate Client
I found Mark very knowledgeable and it was interactive and information. As a non techy I found it easy to follow and not out of my depth. Found it adaptible form to follow in all walks of life and careers.
Suzanne HPrivate Client
Mark was a great instructor. His quirky ways and sense of humour make for a great course. I was entertained and interested each step of the way.
Philippe BPrivate 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 an awesome instructor and he is very knowledgeable.
Samina CVirtual
Thanks for being so responsive and Agile in your approach to leading the class.
Deb BKitchener-Waterloo
Very knowledgeable and pleasant to work with.
Kristian BEdmonton
I enjoyed having Mark as an instructor, he is knowledgeable on the topic, provided easy to follow examples, and has a good sense of humour. I liked how he took notes on questions people had, provided a brief answer and then provided links after the workshop so that we could follow up on the topics that interest us. The 10 min sanity breaks that he gave every hour were great as it allowed my brain to relax and then come back and focus. I really enjoyed the course, I learned lots over the 2 day workshop. I feel like 2 days might be a bit short for the course as I would have enjoyed another day of the course to learn more and refine my skills. I would recommend this course to anyone new to the scrum master role or interested in learning about scrum as it gives you a great base that you can expand.
Christopher MVirtual
Course was informative and entertaining. There was good participant involvement and useful examples.
George COttawa

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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Explore what Scrum is and how to make it work for you in our Scrum Certification training. Hands-on learning will guide you to improve teamwork, deliver quick feedback, and achieve better products and results.

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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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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.

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