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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Class was fun and instructive. Mark was a great help, understanding and pushed our creative thinking and problems solving abilities further. Thank you!
Caroline DMontreal
Mark did a great job. I appreciated that a) he was coming from a strong development background and b) had an obvious passion about Scrum and the benefits it could bring to development.
Adam MVirtual
Excellent!! Thoughtful, well presented and very enthusiastic. Lots of great information packed into a concise program.
Rolland CKitchener-Waterloo
Tons of material to get through, Mark did well with the contextual questions from our organization.
Brendan BPrivate Client
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
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
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
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
I greatly enjoyed Mark's class. He is obviously a subject matter expert and has great insights.
Mandana BVirtual
Excellent course, excellent communication. Loved the fact that the instructon was showing us how SCRUM should respond to different situtions.
Pascal GPrivate Client
Mark inspired the participants to be engaged in the moment using Plato's dialogue techniques - Mark delights!
Laura DOttawa
The course was well led, I found it very useful. Allowing the conversations to go on was nice as a lot of the issues were issues I was experiencing as well. I found Mark to be pleasant and extremely knowledgeable.
Jeff FVirtual
Lively, knowledgeable instructor who delivered the material creatively (no powerpoint! ) and made everyone comfortable.
Karen BOttawa
Great seminar, very helpful and Mark showed us in real time examples the application of Scrum.
Pierre EMontreal
Very engaging instructor and scenarios.
Christine APrivate Client
Mark made the class enjoyable. I was initially dreading a 3 day course. After the first day I knew that I could live through the course.
Dickie BPrivate Client
Great agenda, engaging instructor, relevant examples and exercises. 10/10 rating
Ed AVancouver
Good balance between questions at large and required materials. Very willing to work towards people's requests/expectations.
Brian HOttawa
The instructor was very enthusiastic and knowledgeable on Agile. His teaching methods were very clever and humble, I feel that all the course attendees found him experienced and clever.
Jamin IToronto
Instructor is very knowledgeable and delivers the course extremely well. Makes it interesting!
Brian APrivate Client
I really enjoyed the workshop and I think the examples were really helpful in understanding the basics of scrum.
Louis-Pierre DMontreal
Added some very interesting info as well as presented the material very well clearly.
Yvonne REdmonton
Instructor was fantastic! Course content had some humour!
Joelle LPrivate Client
The format was great, and I appreciated the 10 minute breaks on the hour, particularly for a virtual training where zoom can be a drag after a while. The pace was good where the content and group activities wasn't rushed but time-boxed sufficiently that we didn't feel we were 'waiting'. The training goes beyond the 'minimum' for certification and was also flexible to address various questions by attendees.
Matthew RVirtual
A facilitated journey teaching the A-Z of what a ScrumMaster is, how they work, and what they do. A course structured using the tools of scrum to actively reinforce the concepts while learning in a fun low stress way. Mark is quite the character.
David WOttawa
Mark L was the best instructor I've had.
David SOttawa
Mark is an awesome instructor and he is very knowledgeable.
Samina CVirtual
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
Instructor was great, would continue the engaging exercises and involving people in the room.
Hussein RToronto
Mark's use and incorporation of the Agile process as part of the training course was an outstanding working demostration in practice real-time. His energy, knowledge, examples, were excellent.
Paul RPrivate Client
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
The course was excellent, loved the "agile" format. The instructor carefully included agile in most aspects of the course.
Kara SOttawa
Mark is a knowledgeable and fun person. He was able to clearly explain the concepts and facilitiate discussions and progress.
Teodor HPrivate Client
Mark really knows his stuff, and not only about scrum mastering but also development process and product ownership. Highly recommended.
Jamie SOttawa
Fantastic instructor and glad that it was run as Scrum (clever!)
Kareem SKitchener-Waterloo
Kept audience engaged, and kept course relevant to entire group. Brought Scrum into how the course was taught! (Neat!)
Steve BOttawa
Mark is very insightful, knowledgable, and humourous. The topic was well covered and a delight to engage with. Great balance of peer interactions and instructor led discussions.
Peter HOttawa
The course was fun to follow and covers a lot of material. Mark keeps the class engaged and is respectful to participants.
Julie SVirtual
Provocative, amusing, thanks!
Stefan BPrivate Client
Mark is very knowledgeable and the course provides a very solid understanding of scrum and the scrum master role.
Mona SOttawa
Where to start ........ Mark you have a mind filled with knowledge not sure how you can keep it all straight!!! I took scrum training last year at [Private Client] and I really enjoyed taking it again with you. Scrum is scrum but the flavor you brought to it kept me engaged and it made the workshop fun. I was always looking forward in coming back and hearing more. I enjoyed the experiences and all the references you provided. I have to admit after the first day I went to bed at night and was thinking about Scrum. How am I going to do this at work, what experiments can I run, how can I change up my retro’s so they aren’t boring and everyone wants to join. The course is well structured and the material we covered was just the right amount. We went into enough detail where needed and at a higher level for others. The course allowed us to ask for more content and we always had an opportunity to ask questions before moving on. Thank you for this fantastic workshop.
Josee CVirtual
First Class! Obvously experienced, but not in an arrogant way! Very patient and he spoke with a softer voice than the guy next door!
Nicholas VKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is extremely knowledgeable and well-spoken. Course is well facilitated/structured overall.
Matthew TVancouver
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
Instructor has in-depth knowledge of subject. Always agreeable. Answers questions readily and with example.
Sylvie TMontreal
Very well structured course with a good variety of topics for further research. Great interaction with class.
Yuri AVirtual
Mark did a great job of keeping the class engaged and deployed many useful techniques to get the course material across.
Tharaneesan NPrivate Client
Well organized, skillfully motivates the team and demonstrates excellent practical examples
Hanna MVirtual
Excellent source of knowledge and provided additional resources. Helped with real examples
Sean OPrivate Client
Instructor was very engaging, but also shared valuable insight that will help me succeed.
Morgan TPrivate Client

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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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.

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.

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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.