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).

We've helped 8000+ people find success using Scrum

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Excellent instruction and examples on how to combine Scrum with the realities of a corporate enviroment.
Kevin SOttawa
Mark is a great instructor, very clear and informative. Great course. High recommendable.
Simon BVancouver
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
Mark was very knowledgeable; I really appreciated the examples that he shared with the group. Thank you!
Suzanne AVirtual
Mark is an awesome instructor! The course was very valuable and useful.
Chandni LToronto
Mark was very approachable, friendly, and knowledgable. He has done a great job in helping someone like me who doesn't belong to a corporate world learn so much about scrum in 2 days!
Mashiat FToronto
Mark is the real s**t. He's lived through the pain points and knows where the bodies are buried.
Christian FMontreal
This is the first course that I have taken virtually, and I enjoyed it very much. Thanks to Mark!
Jennifer HVirtual
Awesome material delivery.
Geetha KToronto
Exceptional facilitator, course materials are helpful, concise, and clear.
Geoffrey HPrivate Client
Mark was a great instructor! Very enthusiastic about the course and assisting its participants in becoming successful product owners. Incredibly knowledgeable and entertaining.
Elizabeth CToronto
Mark was a great instructor who did a great job keeping us focused and teaching us about scrum and its benefits.
Frank DToronto
Great course to get started. Mark is greatly knowledgeable and shares well the information.
Christine AMontreal
I greatly enjoyed Mark's class. He is obviously a subject matter expert and has great insights.
Mandana BVirtual
Mark made a challenging and complex process (Scrum) very clear and highlighted the benefits and opportunities in an engaging and entertaining way.
Jeremy GVancouver
Excellent instruction with deep knowledge of scrum. All questions or clarfications were answered. Provided information I can take back to my team.
Emilia KOttawa
Second course with Mark went great. I have to figure out how to afford more?
David HMontreal
Great energy. Interesting course material.
Julie CToronto
Mark is great and the course is very valuable. I really appricate your time and patience. We covered a lot of mtaterial which is great.
William DOttawa
Created a very nice and open environment which helped the learning process.
Ricardo CKitchener-Waterloo
Great course that makes you think.
Seok Woo JToronto
I learned a lot and the content was far more enganging than I expected it to be. I come away with many improvements I can make to my organization. Thanks and well done.
Dan CKitchener-Waterloo
Very knowledgeable and interesting. I appreciated that he respected the outline and timeframes.
Caroline DVirtual
Mark was very good. I appreciated that he was able to provide good examples and explain concepts clearly.
Valerie EVancouver
Good energy. Good examples. Kept the class on track.
Wilson CEdmonton
A wealth of useful and interesting knowledge.
Sarah HEdmonton
I enjoyed Mark's teaching style. I like the personal stories and puns. I always like to bring humor in to my meeting or when I am teaching or mentoring, it evokes a positive emotion and people will retain the information better. A+++ Would like to attend other courses done by Mark.
Shanna FVirtual
Interaction was great, content is very useful and can be applied to improve our way right way. Nice control of the group by the instructor.
Ana BMontreal
I truly enjoyed the Scrum Master course. Mark shares industry knowledge so it is not just theory. The material/boards were easy to understand.
Yuri AVirtual
Overall, this was a well curated and delivered course. The instructor is SME on the subject of Scrum with lots of hands-on experiences. This helps to drive the points home to the trainees. Bravo Mark for the excellent job done.
Adefemi DVirtual
Mark is extremely knowlegeable, humorous, and an effective teacher. I feel far more knowedgeable about Scrum now than I did 2 days ago.
Jeremy GToronto
Very informative and interesting introduction to the concepts and principles of Agile development and Scrum.
Michael HVancouver
Mark clearly presents the scrum process and principles. He provides background information and stories to reinforce these techniques.
Richard COttawa
Mark is a great instructor. Wih hands on exercises and his deep knowledge of scrum I was able to grab the most of it in 2 days.
Shazad KMontreal
Great. Very detailed. Class very interesting, very good relating questions with good examples.
Yong FToronto
Mark is an amazing instructor who really knows how to make his audience listen and follow his instructions. He takes time to understand the audience's question and makes sure that the answer is fully satisfactory . The three days course was very well designed and almost all major aspects were covered. The scheduled breaks also gave the opportunities to get some fresh air and come back with a focused mind. I look forward to joining some more workshops with Mark in future.
Sanjida HVirtual
Masters the subject more than anyone else I've met.
Carlo DMontreal
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
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
Excellent instructor provided engaging activites to help roleplay learning and provoke meaningful discussions.
Alice PEdmonton
The course was well structured. The trainer was very knowledgeable and very engaging. I thoroughly enjoyed this course.
Bruno MOttawa
Mark is engaging, very knowledgeable and morphs to the class knowledge. His sense of humor is also appreciated.
Malisha CToronto
Well structured training. Excellent communication skills.
Khaled MToronto
Mark is very knowledgeable and is great at simplifying and illustrating abstract concepts.
Thierry LMontreal
Mark was great! He was honest and open at points during the training - always resetting the expectations of Scrum, driving home the framework, what it will do and will not do. He is helpful and willing to answer questions.
Dawn DKitchener-Waterloo
Instructor was excellent. Provided an environment of communication.
Nathalile LOttawa
Knowledgeable, prepared, interactive.
Anca MMontreal
Enjoyed the course. (Mark) made it interesting/fun. Content presented in digestible format.
Brett MPrivate Client
Thanks for being so responsive and Agile in your approach to leading the class.
Deb BKitchener-Waterloo
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.

Get Certified

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.

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.

Learning and Benefits

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.

Respected Certification

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.

Jargon-Free Learning

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

Career Advancement

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

GenAI for Systems Thinking

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.