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 very knowledgeable and open/fair when answering questions or comments from the class. The course did a great job of covering scrum.
Darryl COttawa
Excellent. Very good examples and visions!
Philippe TMontreal
Mark, you master it! Many thanks for making this content easy to understand.
Bertrand LVirtual
Well prepared, knows how to put practice into play and have passion for ideas/critical thinking.
Jamie HOttawa
Great course! Very down to earth and humourous instructor. Would recommend to others!
Steve BKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was an excellent instructor and facilitator for the certified product owner course. The content was engaging, not just a typical PowerPoint presentation. Active learning was encouraged through the use of breakout sessions where the course material was practiced; this allowed for better understanding and encouraged practical questions. I would recommend the course to anybody that wants to improve their product ownership skills and has the means to attend.
Mark FVirtual
Lots of good information and exercises for a two day course. Instructor was clear and engaging in presenting concepts.
Marvin EPrivate Client
Great, eloquent, knowledgeable.
Mladen JToronto
Course was great and enjoyable. Lots of make you think kind of questions.
Andrew FOttawa
Mark is amazing. He is a knowledgeable instructor about scrum and I would like to attend another course with him. He taught me the basic and theories of scrum. Now i will need to integrate it with the work place. I enjoyed this course as it provided me with the concept of scrum to bring forward to my team at work.
Justin CVirtual
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
Great instructor, knowledgeable, kept team engaged for two full days.
Nermin JToronto
Mark is a knowledgeable and fun person. He was able to clearly explain the concepts and facilitiate discussions and progress.
Teodor HPrivate Client
I appreciate the opportunity to attend the workshop. I enjoyed the time spent with my fellow co-workers to learn together. Mark is passionate about Scrum and willing to dig into our problem and seek for the remedies to resolve.
Heather JVancouver
I participated in the Certified Scrum Master course instructed by Mark Levison. Mark is a very well educated in the Agile Scrum methodology and presented the course material in a very entertaining way during the 2-day course. I learned a lot of things I had not previously known even though I had been practicing scrum for the past 5 years. I would highly recommend that every organization send their scrum focal’s to this training – it will help them advance their organization in implementing, and delivering scrum based projects, thus help their business be more successful.
Graham FVirtual
Refreshing, enlightening, funny, engaging, instructive.
Richard DPrivate Client
Excellent! Engaged all of the time. My head is exploding with new knowledge.
Harlie DMontreal
Instructor is very knowledgeable and delivers the course extremely well. Makes it interesting!
Brian APrivate Client
The course does an excellent job in this covid world. Lots was learned even though I have been working in an agile environment for years. Would certainly return to Agile Pain Relief if I decide to pursue future training.
Robert AVirtual
Hands on experience in the subject helps to communicate most of the inportant message throughout the course.
Wael FToronto
Instructor was fantastic! Course content had some humour!
Joelle LPrivate Client
Mark is incredibly well prepared and professional. Best instructor I've ever had, period.
Kevin DKitchener-Waterloo
Insanely terrific. I have been bored silly at some Agile training classes. This was 100% interesting… okay, 98%. Very clear, Exceptional memory! I get it now - the value of a *real* pro scrum master.
Simon CVancouver
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
Mark shared valuable information and advice about Scrum theory. I am now clear on many Agile views on different aspects, especially, Roadmap.
Syed AToronto
This is an excellent course to take after the CSM. The instructor was excellent, the course was wonderful, the students awesome.
Marc HMontreal
Course was very informative. You spoke to the entire group on a level everyone can understand.
Monica HPrivate Client
Great class. Great instructor! I will recommend!
Kim KMontreal
I thought the overall course material was excellent and was well present by a very dynamic and thoughful instructor.
Austin DOttawa
This was the first professional class I've taken that gave me a more in depth perspective of the scrum process. Really concise in explanations. Stays on topic as best as possible. Extremely helpful.
Michelle KToronto
I like the way the course was taught through examples and games. I found personal anecdotes helpful in understanding concepts.
Randy EOttawa
Very engaging way of learning how to be a Product Owner, just like Scrum should be.
Teeba APrivate Client
Awesome speaker. Fantastic course.
Helen KMontreal
Mark inspired the participants to be engaged in the moment using Plato's dialogue techniques - Mark delights!
Laura DOttawa
Great agenda, engaging instructor, relevant examples and exercises. 10/10 rating
Ed AVancouver
Mark did an excellent job of teaching the material and went beyond just presenting it.
Noah AEdmonton
Mark was able to translate his obvious expertise and experience in lay terms, putting the team at ease through humour, anecdotes and a good level of engagement.
Brendan GVirtual
Mark was an informative, fun instructor who utilized the time given to him to teach us scrum.
Brendan GEdmonton
Mark was fantastic. Enjoyed his coaching very well. Course was very interesting.
Robert AOttawa
Mark is an awesome instructor and has great patience dealing with attendees virtually. His knowledge is spot on and he tries to answer all the questions given the time constraint.
Harjot DVirtual
The course included everything I hoped to cover and Mark very well demonstrated its content.
Jerome CToronto
Great seminar, very helpful and Mark showed us in real time examples the application of Scrum.
Pierre EMontreal
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
Exceptional presentation delivery that is clear, concise, and though-provoking, involving tremendous audience participation.
Norman EOttawa
Thank you. It has been one of the most interesting courses I have attended.
Hemant KToronto
I really liked that although we did a paper website exercise we used it as a tool for conversation and there wasn't pressure to complete and present it to the group.
Angela GToronto
Great session overall. Appreciate your openness and honesty.
Lisa FToronto
Mark was fantastic. He really knows how to keep everyone engaged and I found the course really fun. Still subscribe to the belief that learning is done best when you're having fun so thank you :)
Sabrina AVirtual
Mark is the real s**t. He's lived through the pain points and knows where the bodies are buried.
Christian FMontreal
He knows his stuff!
Stephen DVancouver

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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Explore what Scrum is and how to make it work for you in our Scrum Certification training. Hands-on learning will guide you to improve teamwork, deliver quick feedback, and achieve better products and results.

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About this course

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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Relatable Scenarios

Learn on-the-job applications of key Scrum concepts, skills, principles, along with practical solutions that you can apply the next day for difficult, real-life situations.

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

Practical Exercises

With focus on the challenges that real teams face, and tools to dig deeper. You don’t need more boring Scrum theory. You need something you can sink your teeth into to see immediate results.

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This workshop is not just for software development or people with a computer science degree. We’ve helped many non-software teams with Scrum.

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Use Scrum knowledge to standout at work, get paid more, and impress your customer, all without burning out.

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Learn the basics of using Generative AI as a tool to support Systems Thinking in your ScrumMaster role. Explore how to leverage GenAI to help uncover patterns, and think more deeply about the systems your team operates in.

Ongoing Support

Your learning doesn’t stop when the workshop ends. You get lifetime access to all course materials, plus a followup email series designed to reinforce your learning objectives and help you apply what you’ve learned on the job.