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 very clear and engaging instructor. He is able to use examples and exercises to ground our learning.
Ayesha KOttawa
Mark has been very important in teaching us the scrummaster role and scrum processes.
Maxime GMontreal
Using Scrum to teach Scrum. Perfect.
Andrew COttawa
Very knowledgeable and well-versed in the art and science of Scrum and Agile. Clearly has a breadth of experience to share.
Sara MVirtual
Mark is the best! I came back with a colleague and I will come back again and recommend Mark's workshops to others.
Hanan SOttawa
Mark is a very engaging instructor.
Chris PEdmonton
Very knowledgeable and experienced, thanks!
Kendall OVancouver
Awesome and objective! Careful not to influence how we work by answering other students.
Shawn MMontreal
After 24+ years of traditional thinking, this was refreshing and new. Can't wait to begin implementing at work. Thanks, Mark!
Kristine NEdmonton
Mark knows his stuff and delivers a highly interactive and animated training.
Ted MPrivate Client
Mark Levison's teaching style is interactive and informative and really captures the essence off Scrum. I would recommend it to any company who struggles with the same issue we do - chaos!
Philip QVancouver
I cannot say anything but good things about the course, and have been telling many people in my org about it.
Hatem NVirtual
Excellent teaching and course delivery. Practical scrum practices was very informational.
Odion OToronto
Mark is very good. Has a lot of working experiences and real life stories.
Wilson MEdmonton
This course was exactly what I was looking for! Mark was a very knowledgeable and engaging instructor. I appreciated the hands-on exercises that allowed me to put the methodology into practice with my course mates and learn from the experience. The course material is also top notch. I feel ready to take the exam and put what I've learnt into practice in my workplace.
Anu PVirtual
Very easy to get along with and makes points very clearly.
Jason PToronto
Mark is very knowledgeable. He is a great instructor.
Nitin PToronto
Mark was excellent - one of the best instructors I have had. Well prepared, knowledgable, and he obviously cares.
David OEdmonton
All topics were covered and mastered incredibly well. Could confirm his wide knowledge and experience using and explaining scrum.
Lenin QMontreal
Mark was great. I appreciated his directness.
James POttawa
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
Time master- thank you for pushing us through topics. Honestly - stated that you can provide examples, up to us to decide.
Tracey OToronto
Very knowledgeable instructor that kept the course interesting. Course material was awesome! I will recommend to others.
Dave PToronto
Mark you are a rockstar and I truly enjoyed and hopefully benefit.
Kerry OPrivate Client
Very Charming, approachable, easy to ask questions to.
Carly SToronto
Wonderful course and instructor. Fantastic mix of theory and pragmatism. Concepts applicable to non-software development. Very valuable. Well done!
Margaret UEdmonton
There was not a single bit of content that wasn't helpful.
Bruno PMontreal
Excellent source of knowledge and provided additional resources. Helped with real examples
Sean OPrivate Client
Awsome course, Learned an amazing amout. Mark is fun and an interesting man. He made learning fun.
Donna REdmonton
Mark is obviously very invested in the material. I never doubted that he was an expert with a lot of industry experience.
Devin ROttawa
Mark was intensely knowledgeable, humorous, and a bit off-beat. Initially I was skeptical of his abilites to engage the totality of the group but as the course progressed he appeared to fully succeed.
David OEdmonton
Great instructor, learned a lot and enjoyed.
David POttawa
Lively, hands on, enlightening. Would recommend.
Allen NEdmonton
A +
Derek SOttawa
Excellent instructor provided engaging activites to help roleplay learning and provoke meaningful discussions.
Alice PEdmonton
Mark is exceptionally knowledgeable and offered many useful tibits I can better my organization with.
James ROttawa
Knowledgable and engaged the trainees to think and share their ideas.
Carol BPrivate Client
Instructor very knowledgeable, supportive, and a great coach.
Jay BVancouver
Mark did an excellent job facilitating the course and the content was very helpful. We covered a lot of ground in three sessions and the pre-learning was helpful too! Mark was patient and respectful and very supportive throughout the sessions. It was a pleasure to spend the time with Mark and to learn from someone who obviously knows his subject.
Debbie BVirtual
It was a great experience coming to Agile Scrum just a few months ago allowed this to solidify a lot of things I've been practicing. I will likely immediately reap the rewards.
Curtis BOttawa
Mark Levison lives and embodies the SCRUM in his courses. Never before have I felt so empowered to self-organize in a classroom setting.
Zoltan MOttawa
Very patient. Really liked the group activity where we had to work in Sprints on user stories.
Anita AVirtual
This was a great course that I will recomment to others! A lot to cover in a short period of time, and I managed to understand most if not all material. I'm excited to take my learnings with me and apply to my role at my company!
Lesleanne BToronto
Thanks for being so responsive and Agile in your approach to leading the class.
Deb BKitchener-Waterloo
Thank you Mark for the amazing training and for the useful tips you shared!
Manal DVirtual
Mark kept the room alive and was more than informative.
Morgan SPrivate Client
Awesome. I got more than enough info to get me started and max team productivity.
Joel RVancouver
Mark was a great instructor who did a great job keeping us focused and teaching us about scrum and its benefits.
Frank DToronto
Mark was engaging and patient. He got everyone involved and kept spirits and energy levels high.
David BPrivate Client
I had made one course already (Scrum Master) a couple of years back, and again Mark did not disappoint, good empathy, great presence and vibrant (even through virtual activities) always appreciate the good vibes. Content is serious but Mark knows how to go beyond simply handing out his knowledge, he makes it an experience.
Romain HVirtual

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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