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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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 well done. Good introduction of the concepts, good use of technology, good practical incorporation of the methods being taught into the course itself, 10/10
Adam GVirtual
Mark is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about the subject matter and topics adjacent to it. His attitude encourages engagement in the material.
Jamie CVirtual
Very unique training style, really appreciate that I don’t have to look at power point screen. Appreciate the Q&As and the end of class recap round.
Vicky CPrivate Client
I felt a great sense of relief that I could do something to improve how my team delivers software.
Stephen GPrivate Client
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
Mark delivered an excellent course, it was a value-packed 2 days.
Brent COttawa
Mark Levison is great - Excellent knowledge of the subject and a great virtual training plan. Thanks a lot.
Rajesh DVirtual
I thought the material and instructor was excellent. It was a full two days!
Shawn DEdmonton
Mark was wonderful, prepared, entertaining, and accommodating. He effectively kept my attention and created good situations for the team to practice scrum. It felt like escape rooms. The course allowed me to use scrum, to put on different hats, and to envision how scrum would play out in my organization and previous teams. My questions were answered and then some.
Bryan LVirtual
Great instructor, knowledgeable, kept team engaged for two full days.
Nermin JToronto
Mark was an excellent instructor, with a sense of humour that helped keep my focus (which is particularly challenging with the course being online over 3 days). Being able to run through simulated sprints to help reinforce the material was very helpful.
Micheal CVirtual
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
Course was great and enjoyable. Lots of make you think kind of questions.
Andrew FOttawa
Fun and focused. Mark knows Scrum inside and out.
Ryan JEdmonton
This instructor was absolutely brilliant. He was very clear and knowlegable in all the areas. He was also very honest in his opinions.
Jonathan EOttawa
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
Excellent communicator and interacts well with the class. Great knowledge of course material and a genuine advocate of Scrum.
Tony CToronto
Mark is an awesome instructor and has great patience dealing with attendees virtually. His knowledge is spot on and he tries to answer all the questions given the time constraint.
Harjot DVirtual
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 has good mastering on the topic, keeps the audience engaged, and effectively delivers the material to get the job done.
David KEdmonton
Extremely knowledgable on all material covered. Tons of experience and real world examples to pull from. Knowledgable on all material covered as well as periphery topics. Funny, engaging, and helped class feel they added value.
Steve DKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is a wealth of knowledge and makes agile super easy! The course is interesting, interactive, and extremely informative. I got a lot of takeaways from the course and excited to take this back to my team. I'm looking forward to taking the Advance Scrum and Advanced PO courses next Fall.
Jenny CVirtual
Mark is great, crams a boat load into two days effectively.
Gordon IVirtual
Much more than expected. Great experience! I appreciate it very much!
Alfredo FOttawa
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 cannot say anything but good things about the course, and have been telling many people in my org about it.
Hatem NVirtual
Energetic. Applied scrum in practice by helping lead us to answers in many modules.
Laura LVancouver
Very knowledgeable in the topic, and always open for healthy discussion and willing to clarify our questions.
Higo MVancouver
Mark is an excellent instructor who is passionate about the subject and the people involved.
Lou MOttawa
Very good presentation skills. Excellent materials for study (in class and via email). Good tips and pragmatic approach. Good experience and info from the trenches.
Luiza DToronto
Great. Very detailed. Class very interesting, very good relating questions with good examples.
Yong FToronto
Great course! I will recommend this to others.
Darryl EVancouver
As a test manager I was looking for a bridge between my Scrum learning and current skills, and becoming confident that I could act as a scrum master. This course provided it.
Rachel JToronto
I liked the Powerpoint-less approach. It kept me more engaged and was less barrier in learning.
Geoff DKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was fantastic and the course was a great!
Henry MVirtual
Mark is a lively and engaging instructor. Information was presented effectively and at a reasonable pace.
Joel DOttawa
Course material provided was excellent for references and follow up. Instructor was energetic, dynamic, and full engaging.
Dinah MPrivate Client
He is funny. And smart. And a good storyteller. All together = great combo.
Melanie HEdmonton
Greatly impressed by the teaching style and format of the course. Much appreciate the sprint style format and the engagment level of the instructor.
Hatem NOttawa
Thank you. Enjoyed your examples and how these methods can be used in the real world.
Jenna MToronto
I enjoyed the hands-on nature of the course and Mark's presentation style. My mind was blown several times in the two days which was unexpected and completely awesome.
Heather OEdmonton
Mark Levison was very effective in delivering the material for the class. He kept it interesting and interactive even though this was an online course.
Marie LVirtual
Mark was great at explaining processes to entry level product owners, and is definitely one of the most knowledgeable people in the field. I'd be definitely interested in more of his courses.
Blake KVirtual
Instructor was very invested in the material. Very knowledgeable and relatable.
Alan MEdmonton
This has been the most useful training course I have taken. Even though we have been practicing "Scrum" for years there was no useless content.
Simon HOttawa
Calm, knowledgeable, and open to questions. Great.
Brandon GVirtual
Provocative, amusing, thanks!
Stefan BPrivate Client
Mark is a great teacher and is very good at engaging people. Really gets the spark going!
Julien LMontreal
Mark is a great instructor, using real life examples makes easy to understand better what the scrum methodology is and how to apply it to our roles.
Robin MVirtual

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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