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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Great course Mark! I really enjoyed learning more about the framwork and listening to others point of view.
Sarah MToronto
This is one of the best courses I took. I liked the 'hands on' scrum technique. I liked the open discussions and how the instructor motivated people and kept them engaged.
Magda SOttawa
Mark is very patient and gives very good explanations. Setup the environment to be very friendly.
Zac LVirtual
Well presented - effective - open to discussion - provides information that shows us better methods and resources for self learning.
Bedros NMontreal
Mark was fantastic! Great examples!
Scott MKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is an awesome instructor. A very patient instructor that welcomes all questions. He is definitely the Yoda of the Scrum universe.
Ting-Yu LToronto
Mark is a great teacher and is very good at engaging people. Really gets the spark going!
Julien LMontreal
Objective when needed and directs us to the conclusions. Interesting course.
Andre MMontreal
Mark was great and full of recommendations. He was also very knowledgeable and able to answer all our questions.
Chris MPrivate Client
Great course. I learned enough to get me started doing Scrum. The instructor really knows the content and made pleasant and dynamic the delivery.
Carlos MPrivate Client
Great training with an engaging trainer and hands on practice. The content made you think about the best solutions and how to prioritize workflow. The instructor provided tangible guidance on best practices.
Sneha NVirtual
Mark and the course were able to give me a lot of different perspectives on how scrum can be applied. Mark is very knowledgable and has tech background [which] helped myself as we knew the sector better.
Nicholas LOttawa
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
Instructor was very clear.
May Lynn LEdmonton
Mark Levinson is very knowledgeable in Scrum and has the ability to start you on the right track given your specific workplace problems. He is also able to generalize issues and show how they can be solved with the tools provided in the course.
Hatem NVirtual
He is very motivated. Mark kept us engaged as the day went fast. He was respectful and was active listener, paid attention to cues when we did not understand.
Lyne LOttawa
The course was quite detailed and Mark gave a lot of supporting information for all the topics we touched.
Toyosi OVirtual
Very concise, clear material. Lots of experience went into the material and live explanation.
Justin LKitchener-Waterloo
Very knowledgeable and experienced, thanks!
Kendall OVancouver
Very helpful and clear. Mark is good at pushing the boundary with good illustration.
Terry NToronto
This course helped me get a significant understanding of what Scrum is, how it can be applied in my real life work environment and what benefits could I have from it. The instructor was passionate about the subject, which helped me stay focus and interested.
Vincent MVirtual
The whole course was both helpful and valuable. I found Mark to be knowledgeable and engaging.
Tim MPrivate Client
The instructor did an excellent job in my opinion. He did a really good job of focusing on sections where there was more confusion and really helped make everyone feel comfortable to share and ask questions.
Sylvain FVirtual
Instructor was engaging, kept the interest of the class. Nice material, I really like how we got into Scrum framework right away by using the backlog analogy for the course topics.
Cecilia OOttawa
Mark was such a great and fun instructor! He is very knowledgeable and good at explaining Scrum in a way that can be understood by all. I would definitely recommend this course with Mark to my colleagues and team!
Audrey MVirtual
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
Instructor is engaging; good change of state during delivery. I like the more concrete demonstration of SCRUM by teaching the course in the SCRUM style.
Damon HEdmonton
Amazing instructor, very clear and breaks our pre-conceived understandings.
Jean-Francois BMontreal
Very knowledgeable and well-versed in the art and science of Scrum and Agile. Clearly has a breadth of experience to share.
Sara MVirtual
Tons of material to get through, Mark did well with the contextual questions from our organization.
Brendan BPrivate Client
This course was an essential intro for me, a noob in Scrum. I was guided through material I need to know, while at the same time allowed to explore concepts on my own.
Vanessa MToronto
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 recommended to me from a colleague and I honestly was delighted of how much I learned from the course. I have been as a project manager for a number of years, and I really felt that I was able to understand how to apply this to my current work and also even how to work within my working style.
Joyce KVirtual
Mark is very engaging and keeps things interesting during the course.
Adam MToronto
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, you are awesome! I enjoyed your style of teaching/coaching. You focused on our needs and priorities ensuring a "happy customer." You are also respectful towards everyone's opinion which makes it engaging conversation.
Zeeshan BOttawa
Mark was fantastic. Possibly the best, most prepared instructor I've seen. He was awesome.
Colin MToronto
Great course. Information overload but not in a bad way. I liked that we discussed specific corporate problems people were having. Helped build context in how others are using Agile/Scrum. Maybe misusing, too.
Tyler BVancouver
Mark has been very important in teaching us the scrummaster role and scrum processes.
Maxime GMontreal
Mark has helped me learn Agile in a fun way. The hands on experience have added value for a non-agile user like me.
Keerthiga NEdmonton
Great course! I will recommend this to others.
Darryl EVancouver
Very informative and interesting introduction to the concepts and principles of Agile development and Scrum.
Michael HVancouver
Came in with a cynical view and attitude and left with nuggets of insight. That is quite an accomplishment for any instructor!
Mojtaba HOttawa
Mark's enthusiam was contagious. His energy and humor brought Scrum alive! I enjoyed the examples and many aspects we covered.
Michelle HKitchener-Waterloo
Awesome instructor.
Faik FKitchener-Waterloo
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
I found Mark to be engaging, informative and entertaining. His answers to class questions were well thought out, practical and helpful. He did a very good job handling the various personalities and keeping things on track.
Brad GVirtual
Mark Levison is an outstanding instructor who knows how to effectively deliver course content tailored to the learning needs of this students. Everyone on the course benefited greatly from his ability to present new information in a clear and easily understood manner. The Agile Foundations course provided an excellent overview of the Agile Methodology and SCRUM.
Michael GVirtual
Having come with a very limited knowledge of Scrum, Mark did a great job of leading the class through the knowledge required. The material was engaging and there were great opportunities to work with other learners as a team to practice different elements of the knowledge. Mark is friendly and humorous which made the otherwise very intense schedule a fun experience. He consistently offered great suggestions of further reading to consider in order to better understand the many elements of this practice.
Michael HVirtual
Mark is Great! I took a CSM course from him 11 years ago, hence I picked this course again 11 years later.
Justin LVirtual

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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