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 a great teacher and is very good at engaging people. Really gets the spark going!
Julien LMontreal
Mark is super knowledgeable and engaging. 10/10. Would recommend.
Steve BPrivate Client
This was an excellent training. I really valued how engaging Mark was as a facilitator, everyone had the space to contribute and ask questions, and I loved how interactive and applicable it was, especially for myself outside of the software industry. It was incredibly fun and I learned a lot - I feel ready to step into a Scrum Master role and am excited at how it can improve the value we offer to clients at my organization.
Sarah HVirtual
The course and instructor was excellent. The concepts were clearly communicated.
Edmund CEdmonton
Instructor was very knowledgeable and expressed his thoughts honestly and concisely. Course was very informative.
Lorne APrivate Client
Awesome instructor.
Faik FKitchener-Waterloo
This was a great course with an engaging instructor - well worth the time of anyone who wants to learn more about product ownership.
Mark BVirtual
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
Great training. Good energy throughout the workshop. Well facilitated. I liked the regular breaks. Good combination of both breakout room exercises and whole group learnings. Good use of technology for a virtual workshop.
Carole GVirtual
Mark was great. He definitely understands and believes in what he is teaching. He made sure to go slowly and would always check to see if we understood.
Adrien GVirtual
Really appreciated how he addressed our questions and gave feedback. Mark was very knowledgable on the subject matter.
Kyle AOttawa
Very knowledgeable instructor about scrum and software development in general.
Elizabeth GOttawa
Mark made a challenging and complex process (Scrum) very clear and highlighted the benefits and opportunities in an engaging and entertaining way.
Jeremy GVancouver
Great instructor, very satisfied, will recomment! I brought my whole team with me, happy I did.
Joshua COttawa
Amazing instructor, was able to clearly explain complex concepts, made the course relevant and engaging! This will alow us to build strong agile teams.
Dylan HPrivate Client
Rocks! I would really recomment this instructor to others.
Raghda FToronto
Great experience and great delivery. Really enjoyable course!
Darren HOttawa
Course was fantastic and informative. The instructor did his best to include as much of the expensive material as he could. It was engaging and fun to listen to. I would highly recomment this training to anyone interested in the Scrum methology.
Derrick BOttawa
I thought the courses were excellent, fun, and very thought provoking. I see this course as an impetus for change for our organization. Highly recommended.
Jack HVancouver
Love it. I'm a repeat offender and have recommended you multiple times.
Alex GMontreal
Great in depth knowledge of subject matter.
Joseph COttawa
Mark delivered the course exceptionally well.
Amjad GEdmonton
Mark did a fantastic job incorporating SCRUM through the training while not giving answers, but forcing us to think on our own.
Kellen BKitchener-Waterloo
Mark did a great job of purposefully making us all feel included and engaged with his class. He added great clarity to the budding scrum process that has taken over in my workplace. I have seen many versions and perspectives on scrum values that deviate and distort how scrum would work, but I am now confident I can facilitate with my projects and team, using a much clearer scrum.
Charlene FVirtual
Very good introduction to my new role. Mark leads lively and thought-provoking discussions.
Bob COttawa
Great course! Very engaging and knowlegeable instructor.
Kolin BOttawa
The ScrumMaster training as facilitated by Mark Levison was an invaluable experience in my both by personal and professional growth. Mark's instruction kept me engaged and entertained with materials for the duration of the 2 day seminar. I will highly recommend this course to anyone interested in exploring Agile within their places of work.
Mike EVirtual
Excellent course, excellent communication. Loved the fact that the instructon was showing us how SCRUM should respond to different situtions.
Pascal GPrivate Client
Overall very well structured course. It helped me see the benefits of Scrum and learned how to apply it.
Nazir EOttawa
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 agenda, engaging instructor, relevant examples and exercises. 10/10 rating
Ed AVancouver
Great instructor with clever communication techniques to help the attendees grasp ideas.
Asad BKitchener-Waterloo
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Mark. I learned a lot and appreciate his teaching style.
Kendall APrivate Client
Well prepared. Knowledgeable on and passionate about the subject matter. The virtual course functioned equally well as the in-class course.
Lin-Mari LVirtual
Mark's session was a great combination of theory, practical exercises and real life stories that kept this learner engaged and involved. Time spent was definitely worthwhile. Thanks!
Justin LVirtual
Mark was a very good lively instructor who cared for all the questions. I am normally a quiet person, but I felt safe enough to speak up and answer questions.
Brenna GEdmonton
The instructor is well-versed in the material covered and was able to relate it to our issues without telling us how to do it. For a short course we covered a lot of ground, but I did not feel overwhelmed.
Wayne PPrivate Client
Mark knows this content, kept us engaged and provided hands-on workshop tasks to understand the conent. Fantastic approach to this course with backlog and Sprints. Stories and answering questions of the group was appreciated.
Matt FPrivate Client
Great instructor, great technique using Scrum to learn.
Jen MToronto
Mark is very good in delivering the Scrum Training. Thank you for not repeating the mechanics!! Thanks for assidting with the dimensions around [Private Client] environment
Jack SPrivate Client
Mark was great! He's very knowledgeable and his understand of SCRUM is deep and polished. I enjoyed the product owner course.
Joe OEdmonton
Instructor very knowledgeable, supportive, and a great coach.
Jay BVancouver
Awesome instructor with a sense of humor. Well read and fun!
Wendy AVancouver
Anyone looking to do this course...do it with Mark! His passion for all things “Scrum and Agile” shines through and excites his students. He’s a “scrum” realist with a fantastic sense of humour! The material is relevant today and Mark gives us a glimpse of what we can expect 5 years from now. The post class support is fantastic and shows how passionate and knowledgeable Mark is about “learning!” A true educator!
Roberta PVirtual
Mark is very knowledgeable. He is a great instructor.
Nitin PToronto
Another excellent course! Great balance of theory, exercises, and anecdotes.
Adam BOttawa
Running the course as a Scrum project and including a real Scrum exchange really reinforced the material.
David COttawa
Excellent course, gained a lot of context on SCRUM best practices beyond the context of how [Private Client] currently operates.
Hamza EPrivate Client
Good balance between questions at large and required materials. Very willing to work towards people's requests/expectations.
Brian HOttawa
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

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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Everything you need to earn your Scrum Alliance® ScrumMaster certification, including exam fee and membership, and so much more.

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