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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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
This is my second set of training with Mark. I must say he knows how to keep everyone engaged and participating in the hands-on workshops. He has an open-mind, is respectful of our opinions and knowledge space. He is extremely knowledgeable and knows how to instruct in a manner people understand and are able retain the learning. I have yet to see an Agile coach as enthusiastic and as good as Mark !
Tasneem SVirtual
Great course to get started. Mark is greatly knowledgeable and shares well the information.
Christine AMontreal
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
Instructor was very knowledgeable and expressed his thoughts honestly and concisely. Course was very informative.
Lorne APrivate Client
Using Scrum to teach Scrum. Perfect.
Andrew COttawa
Excellent presentation. Challenging contributing questions.
Zeki AMontreal
Mark was engaging and patient. He got everyone involved and kept spirits and energy levels high.
David BPrivate Client
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
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
Strong instructor, great knowledge of the material. A very good pace.
Ken AKitchener-Waterloo
Excellent course, gained a lot of context on SCRUM best practices beyond the context of how [Private Client] currently operates.
Hamza EPrivate Client
Lots of good information and exercises for a two day course. Instructor was clear and engaging in presenting concepts.
Marvin EPrivate Client
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
Instructor is very knowledgeable and delivers the course extremely well. Makes it interesting!
Brian APrivate Client
Mark is great, crams a boat load into two days effectively.
Gordon IVirtual
The course was very helpful by reinforcing my commitment to scrum team responsibilty and ownership. Mark was an excellent instructor, knowledgeable, professional, and in control.
Adrian GPrivate Client
Instructor was extremely well prepared, know the material inside and out. Always had a good response for every question. And had a great sense of humor
Christian BPrivate Client
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'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
Mark is one of the most engaging instructors I have had the opportunity to work with and learn from. Thanks again for the start in Scrum!
Matt MKitchener-Waterloo
Very knowledgeable teacher with tons of examples and real life stories.
Alex BMontreal
I was impressed. The most valuable thing was not the principles (already knew most intellectually) but the instructor's zen master answers to challnges/questions. This aided in more intutive knowledge.
David AEdmonton
Very well structured course with a good variety of topics for further research. Great interaction with class.
Yuri AVirtual
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
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
I absolutely love your practical pragmatic approach to delivering information. Very conductive to learning.
Mandy JOttawa
Great facilitator. Kept interest with activities and exercises.
Lynn MOttawa
Intense and totally worth it.
Marinho MEdmonton
Great session overall. Appreciate your openness and honesty.
Lisa FToronto
Mark Levison was an excellent instructor: knowledgeable, personable, and very approachable. The course material was clear and I felt like the coverage was appropriate.
Ken MMontreal
Mark is a great instructor and very knowledgeable in agile and scrum. The course was fun and we had lots of opportunities for learning through practice. I would recommend this course to anyone who is interested in Scrum or has aspirations in being a ScrumMaster.
Jason HVirtual
Concepts I learned in this course are more sticky because they were demonstrated through exercise and not just explained.
Joseph MOttawa
A good introduction about scrum, roles of PO, SM and team. Opened up my thoughts on how it could be applied/practiced effectively and efficiently to build a good team.
Rajesh MOttawa
Excellent! A refreshing approach! I loved the style of delivering the material and the many discussions and short exercises.
Mark APrivate Client
Mark is very knowledgeable and communicates the value of Scrum very clearly. He uses real-world examples which helps tremendously.
Matt MOttawa
I liked the structure of the course, presented in an agile manner to simulate real team dynamics. Enjoyed it a lot!
Michelle MMontreal
Mark was incredibly knowledge and experienced and it's very apparent. I learned more than I could have expected. I greatly appreciate all the additional reading materials. I would have never been able to collect such a library on my own and I have a fascination for good leadership and developing high performing teams.
Anly HOttawa
Mark is very knowledgeable and he was very patient in explaining the topics to us.
Mary Angeli MKitchener-Waterloo
Appreciated the flexibility of discussing things out of order as team comments took us there. Enjoyed interactive format, no slides. Helpful workbook.
Annette GPrivate 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
Mark was entertaining and kept the course moving. When we delved into detail the information was usually useful. We covered the basics and more, and it makes going back to work with reinforced skills and ideas on how to change our practices appealing instead of scary.
Samantha CMontreal
Loved this course! Mark is very thorough and attentive as a teacher. He leveraged Mural in such interactive ways, which allowed him to understand the students well and shape the class accordingly. He is like the Jedi master of scrum and insanely advanced methods of leaderless collaboration and accomplishment. He's also the king of super nerdy jokes, which made the class fun and brought out the super nerd in everyone.
Lia GVirtual
The course was well structured. The trainer was very knowledgeable and very engaging. I thoroughly enjoyed this course.
Bruno MOttawa
Mark is knowledgable and engaging. What I liked the most was that he stood his ground if anyone challenged what he taught (respectfully) and offered an explanation why.
Andrea MOttawa
Knowledgeable, prepared, interactive.
Anca MMontreal
Good. Has lots of experience.
Jimmy AEdmonton
Covered a little of everything. Was always interesting.
Regis LMontreal
Excellent instruction with deep knowledge of scrum. All questions or clarfications were answered. Provided information I can take back to my team.
Emilia KOttawa
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

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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