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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Course gave me clarity on the basic principles of Scrum. Drove home the power of 'team'.
Lia PToronto
It was an excellent seminar. It gave us hands-on exercises. I can see lots of challenges ahead as I try to implement changes to our scrum team. Should be fun and interesting journey!
Ann Margaret GMontreal
I liked the Powerpoint-less approach. It kept me more engaged and was less barrier in learning.
Geoff DKitchener-Waterloo
Very knowledgeable in what he is teaching. Passion for scrum.
Mandi AEdmonton
Wanted to say thanks again for the great insights at the CSM course last month. I've had a fair amount of success thus far introducing and implementing the concepts at the agency I work for. We completed our first full Scrum project yesterday. Scrum really is a magnifying glass for issues. We identified quite a few with our systems within the first couple of days and are now radically overhauling how we assign budgets to projects.
Paul AOttawa
Very patient. Really liked the group activity where we had to work in Sprints on user stories.
Anita 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
Mark is great - knows the material and can address all questions, prompting us to try and answer them first! Great trainer, I would recommend him to others.
Frances 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
Mark did a fantastic job. [Private Client] was a unique challenge of a long history with hardened habits, as well as a very peculiar definition of Agile and SCRUM.
Imran APrivate Client
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'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
The course was great and really opened my eyes on all the ways that I could help my team succeed. I like how the instructor kept us engaged, even though a virtual class, and kept as all accountable during the 3-day course.
Marie-Alice SVirtual
Good. Has lots of experience.
Jimmy AEdmonton
Lots of information and data for a great walk through about the agile methodology.
Pierre-Michel AMontreal
Mark was good - foundatian of knowledge and his experiences made for good practical examples.
Mike AMontreal
Created an atomosphere that encouraged participation and active learning in a variety of ways that were effective, comfortable, and fun.
Stuart SOttawa
The instructor is very knowledgeable in the subject and kept us motivated and alert during the course. The course itself covers lots of material which is necessary for someone who wants to become a successful scrum master.
Elena RVirtual
Mark is an engaging instructor using conversation and interaction as the engagement catalyst!
Shawn RToronto
I thoroughly enjoyed Mark's presentation style and communication.
Joshua RVirtual
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
What a great course! I feel that I got exactly what I needed. Mark did an amazing job showing me what I could easily do and what I should accept will take time. Amazing class!
Angela SToronto
Instructor kept the course interested, kept us engaged through fun exercises. I love the course content, the book. Well prepared reference.
Hulya AOttawa
Mark is great. He speaks loud enough to be understood and knows how to handle a room full of people.
André SPrivate Client
Mark is very knowledgeable and did a great job. I like the frequency of the breaks. With the frequency of breakout rooms, jumping around documents, it was clear he was prepared.
Matthew RVirtual
Mark did an excellent job of teaching the material and went beyond just presenting it.
Noah AEdmonton
Very interactive and entertaining. I wasn't bored for a second!
Anahita SToronto
Mark was extremely knowledgeable, effective teacher, responded well to students and has an excellent sense of humour.
Kely BVancouver
Experienced person. I like the overview and compassion.
Michal RKitchener-Waterloo
Strong instructor, great knowledge of the material. A very good pace.
Ken AKitchener-Waterloo
Knows course material well. Quick to answer all questions.
Michael BEdmonton
Mark is an excellent trainer with examples and practices. Very organized and the best thing is his response to our questions with example, in addition, the amount of references that might help up improve as a scrum master.
Dona AMontreal
Mark is quite knowledgable about the subject. A good collaborative style was used so I can learn everyone's views and share what I could gather.
Sriprasadh ROttawa
Excellent course and facilitator instruction.
John BVancouver
Very thorough and engaging. Flexibility and self-organization of the course was great.
Brendan SPrivate Client
Overall excellent instruction to Agile, practical exercises worked well, foundation to applications of principles and desire to learn more established.
Stuart BVancouver
Solid course, instructor was knowledgeable and friendly. I liked how it felt like a conversation and not a presentation, so I had pretty high engagement.This subject feels like an applied art, not a list of facts for memorization.
Michael RVirtual
The instructor was very good and demonstrated a clear knowledge of scrum and its principles. Hope to bring this knowledge with me into my company.
Kevin AToronto
I find the instructor very knowledgeable and experienced in Scrum. He was very well organized and prepared for the course. He encouraged in class participation and elevated course content with real life examples. Well played! The course, its content and material covered Scrum very well.
Alena CVancouver
The instructor and the course both were awesome.
Rajeev RToronto
The course was well structured. I like how Mark used the dashboard and used it like a scrum process. Mark knows the material, respect the students and teaches it well. Always open to questions. He did a great job of keeping the students engaged by asking for feedback. Even when there was a small technical glitch Mark did not lose a beat, he ploughed through. The course was enjoyable.
Peter RVirtual
Always entertaining and I feel like I learned a ton!
Michael ROttawa
Instructor is very knowledgeable and delivers the course extremely well. Makes it interesting!
Brian APrivate Client
Great to get this training from the subject matter expert.
Nisha AToronto
Mark is exceptionally knowledgeable and offered many useful tibits I can better my organization with.
James ROttawa
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
Mark was excellent! He is a very efficient communicator. Concise in the material he presents. The pace was great. I love the fact that scrum fundamentals were demonstrable.
Omesh MToronto
No nonsense, practical approach, dynamic, very instructive.
Yanick BMontreal
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
Really enjoyed Mark's presonal anecdotes and humour. Very clear that Mark is knowledgeable and I look forward to diving into the numerous references for "extra reading".
Naomi MOttawa

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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