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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Really liked it, will recommend to others.
Alexey SToronto
It was a very helpful course and it met my expectations.
Vinicious GVancouver
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
Mark was really personable, engaging and put a lot of emphasis on our teams and their dynamic., I would recommend him again.
Riyad IPrivate Client
Fun and focused. Mark knows Scrum inside and out.
Ryan JEdmonton
Instructor Mark is great and very knowledgeable, with experience that can answer questions from many industries/environments. The use of examples, games, activities are great!
Anthony KToronto
A wealth of useful and interesting knowledge.
Sarah HEdmonton
Mark was fantastic! He explained the concepts very clearly and kept the class very engaging for the 2 days. He has a wealth of experience and was able to convey that to the class (plus the fun soap box moments).
Anthony GVirtual
Excellent instruction with deep knowledge of scrum. All questions or clarfications were answered. Provided information I can take back to my team.
Emilia KOttawa
This is an excellent course to take after the CSM. The instructor was excellent, the course was wonderful, the students awesome.
Marc HMontreal
Mark was exceptional and very fun, engaging, and informative training session
Kris KKitchener-Waterloo
Great class. Great instructor! I will recommend!
Kim KMontreal
This is the first course that I have taken virtually, and I enjoyed it very much. Thanks to Mark!
Jennifer HVirtual
Excellent! Packed in a lot in the limited time without making it overwhelmning.
Ayan KMontreal
Great conversations. Thanks, Mark! My confidence in understanding the role increased!
Orville HEdmonton
Thank you. It has been one of the most interesting courses I have attended.
Hemant KToronto
Very knowledgeable instructor about scrum and software development in general.
Elizabeth GOttawa
Course was very informative. You spoke to the entire group on a level everyone can understand.
Monica HPrivate Client
Mark Levinson is very knowledgeable in Scrum and has the ability to start you on the right track given your specific workplace problems. He is also able to generalize issues and show how they can be solved with the tools provided in the course.
Hatem NVirtual
The instructor did a great job in getting people to participate and make sure everyone followed along.
George HPrivate Client
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
Mark did an awesome job. He is very knowledgable, helpful, and patient. I will recommend this course for sure.
Jamal EToronto
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
Long days but really challenged me to rethink how I can enhance my BA skills and how to contribute in different ways to my team.
Pearline EVancouver
Mark is an excellent instructor and has great techniques to help us understand and learn the material of the course.
Miguel NMontreal
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
Great content, stories, anecdotes. Enjoyed instructor's enthusiasm and knowledge on the subject.
Paul JMontreal
Mark is a very entertaining instructor. I feel I learned a great deal more than I could through reading/self study.
Michael HToronto
Mark thanks for sharing your knowledge. I truly enjoyed your course. You have a great teaching ability.
Anaya MOttawa
Excellent material, entertaining instructor. Instructor distilled the information well. Both instructor and course provided a great intro to Scrum. The course was challenging yet rewarding.
Duff KOttawa
I really enjoyed my experience with Agile Pain Relief and the 2 day CSM course. It was highly informative, interactive, and engaging, even with the hurdle of being fully virtual. Mark was thoughtful, patient, and ready to answer any question that came his way. I found the workshop to be not only educational, but also a great exercise in building confidence.
Katie HVirtual
Interesting personality and presentation style. Instructor's views align well with my own -> don't continue doing 'insane' things
Brad LEdmonton
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
Greatly impressed by the teaching style and format of the course. Much appreciate the sprint style format and the engagment level of the instructor.
Hatem NOttawa
Excellent course, great depth of knowledge from the instructor, well paced and well run.
Kurt OEdmonton
Mark had great skills at sharing knowledge, breaking down concepts and explaining the "whys" of things.
Cedric LMontreal
He is very motivated. Mark kept us engaged as the day went fast. He was respectful and was active listener, paid attention to cues when we did not understand.
Lyne LOttawa
Engaging instructor, keeps it interesting.
Yves GMontreal
Made me THINK!!! Provided Framework
Mike CPrivate Client
Thumbs up! Easy to follow. Engaging and thought provoking.
Neil OPrivate Client
Instructor is knowledgeable and also a good instructor (you don't always get both!) Course was well done with enough 'meat' to enable students to implement core concepts without overwhelming.
Cassandra HEdmonton
Kept audience engaged, and kept course relevant to entire group. Brought Scrum into how the course was taught! (Neat!)
Steve BOttawa
Very good. Great at illustrating his point.
Manny BOttawa
Brilliant instructor for a heavy and varied course. Answers questions almost flawlessly and really understands what people need in order to learn effectively.
Analee CPrivate Client
Great instructor - very clear and easy to follow. Makes you think.
Linda LOttawa
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
Mark is great and explained dry terms with examples.
Xueyan BPrivate Client
Whether you have 0 days or 10 years of product owner experience you're guaranted to learn a lot from this course.
Luke NOttawa
Instructor was engaging, kept the interest of the class. Nice material, I really like how we got into Scrum framework right away by using the backlog analogy for the course topics.
Cecilia OOttawa
Brilliant! Truly enjoyed the information and material. Instructor related well to class and provided for fantastic environment for learning. Would recommend this course and facilitator in a heart beat.
Raquel BPrivate 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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