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 did a great job of keeping the class engaged and deployed many useful techniques to get the course material across.
Tharaneesan NPrivate Client
Fantastic overview of Scrum and the need to create High Performing Teams.
Greg LEdmonton
I really enjoyed my experience with Agile Pain Relief and the 2 day CSM course. It was highly informative, interactive, and engaging, even with the hurdle of being fully virtual. Mark was thoughtful, patient, and ready to answer any question that came his way. I found the workshop to be not only educational, but also a great exercise in building confidence.
Katie HVirtual
Great two days! Added new tools to my PO toolbox and Mark has inspired me again to improve as a PO and to improve my team's scrumming.
Binh HMontreal
Great course material and energetic instructor.
Chris HPrivate Client
Very knowledgeable instructor about scrum and software development in general.
Elizabeth GOttawa
The combination of hands-on practice and excellent facilitation style made this course enjoyable, useful and very applicable to my day to day life as a Project Manager. The content was carefully curated and meaningful discussions were had during the session. It was engaging, interactive and insightful! I would highly recommend Mark and the Agile Pain Relief company for anyone looking to do their CSM training and pass the exam!
Valerie GVirtual
Excellent course, gained a lot of context on SCRUM best practices beyond the context of how [Private Client] currently operates.
Hamza EPrivate Client
Awesome!! Very captivating, approachable and well spoken. Provoked conversation and posed questions in a manner that made you think
Katherine HKitchener-Waterloo
The instructor did a great job in getting people to participate and make sure everyone followed along.
George HPrivate Client
The CSM course was extremely valuable in understanding the theorotical and practical concepts and techniques necessary to start my journey as Scrum Master. Mark was a knowledgeable and flexible facilitor.
Erik GToronto
The course was well laid out, a good mix of discussions, examples, and practice.
Chris FToronto
Mark is very knowledgable. I really enjoy his style of teaching. Very good course.
Lionel GPrivate Client
This is the first course that I have taken virtually, and I enjoyed it very much. Thanks to Mark!
Jennifer HVirtual
Mark was incredibly knowledge and experienced and it's very apparent. I learned more than I could have expected. I greatly appreciate all the additional reading materials. I would have never been able to collect such a library on my own and I have a fascination for good leadership and developing high performing teams.
Anly HOttawa
Brilliant! Engaging and enlightening while not promising the world.
Oksana KOttawa
Very thorough. The copious use of examples were very helpful!
Kevin HMontreal
Passionate, Articulate, Well organized, and knowledgeable. Highly recommended
Nick KVancouver
Mark is a great instructor. Wih hands on exercises and his deep knowledge of scrum I was able to grab the most of it in 2 days.
Shazad KMontreal
The variation of types of exercises kept things interesting, much better than answer questions.
Michael GOttawa
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
Instructor was amazing, easy to listen to and follow. Did not read from book and provided concrete examples.
Tricia AOttawa
Provocative, amusing, thanks!
Stefan BPrivate Client
Thank you. It has been one of the most interesting courses I have attended.
Hemant KToronto
The instructor is clearly knowledgeable about scrum and other approaches. The course demonstrates the basics of scrum very well.
Matthew BToronto
Two thumb up! = Great, very worthy for the money I paid.
Juan Manuel GOttawa
Awesome material delivery.
Geetha KToronto
Instructor is well-prepared for the course and is very knowledgeable about Scrum and Agile.
Sumy ZOttawa
Excellent knowledge, teaching techniques, material, and interactive approach.
Prati Vaidya VToronto
Thank you Mark for his thorough preparation of the course and well-thought set up to keep the group engaged and get to know each other with personal touch.
Danielle WVirtual
Knowledgeable about scrum and has good points to make me understand why things are done and avoid pitfalls.
Harry WToronto
Engaging. Very well explained concept. Very knowledgeable and good teaching technique in going over materials with ideas/concepts and letting us reinforce and discover in exercises.
Angela WOttawa
He rocks! I like a lot of the tips given by him.
Fagner SMontreal
Mark was able to provide valuable lessons in a short period of time. Using a variety of methods he illustrated and reinforced the key elements of scrum.
Sean BOttawa
Excellent course content delivered in a direct, practical and memorable fashion.
Kimberley KOttawa
Mark was well organized with a good depth of knowledge. The course was a good mix of hands-on material and theory, with plenty of further resources provided so that we can do our own research.
Matthew WToronto
I have a hard time with classroom training however you managed to keep me interested. The way you deliver the material is great.
Patrick VOttawa
I thoroughly enjoyed Mark's presentation style and communication.
Joshua RVirtual
Mark was able to translate his obvious expertise and experience in lay terms, putting the team at ease through humour, anecdotes and a good level of engagement.
Brendan GVirtual
Instructor is knowledgeable and also a good instructor (you don't always get both!) Course was well done with enough 'meat' to enable students to implement core concepts without overwhelming.
Cassandra HEdmonton
Good coverage of material. Use of Product Backlog to cover course material was effective.
Sheri WEdmonton
The course was informative and engaging. It was delivered in a way that help me achieve better understanding of the material, Mark rocks!!
Akhmad SPrivate Client
Training was excellent with good interaction. Knowledge sharing is good. Course was practically and informative. Mark Levison is enthusiastic with English subtle sense of humour and really aware of what he is explaining. The course helped to build confidence, valuable experiences and learning.
Yana KVirtual
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 knowledgable and provided us with a good base to start with.
Maria Noah MPrivate Client
Very well organized; clear instructions; experienced instructor; useful prep work; dynamic and encouraged individuals participation; perfect breaks; excellent material.
Ana PVirtual
Mark was great! Although the online learning environment can be tricky, I found Mark has the ability to keep a class engaged. Whether you're introverted or extroverted, this course is for you.
Curtis HVirtual
Clever, concise SM training that delivered all the essential elements needed to start using Scrum at work right away.
Sabrina KOttawa
Mark kept us engaged by staying animated and keeping an open feedback loop. I loved his facilitation for this CSPO training.
Varun VPrivate Client
Very engaging instructor and scenarios.
Christine APrivate 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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