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 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
Very smart and knowledgeable about not only Scrum but also Agile practices. Didn't mince words and instilled confidence in us that we could make his advice work for us.
Simon LOttawa
Great instructor, very satisfied, will recomment! I brought my whole team with me, happy I did.
Joshua COttawa
I though the class was great. I liked how the class was structured in a Scrum Agile way and how we got to choose what to focus the class time on.
Ryan DVancouver
Enthusiasm. Knows his material.
Isabelle LOttawa
Mark leads the class on an explanation of the topics and provides traps to ensure students can learn from practice.
Peter CPrivate Client
Overall awesome. I am really inspired & revigorated to do this with my team.
Mikaela GVancouver
Much more than expected. Great experience! I appreciate it very much!
Alfredo FOttawa
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
Really liked the approach by Mark to apply Scrum methodology to this training. Also Mark was available to answer questions and patient.
Damien JOttawa
Mark presents an honest, relatable view of Scrum and the role of the ScrumMaster using relevant and practical class exercises. The class materials are thoughtfully designed and well-adapted to a live remote learning environment. Mark answers class questions by drawing on his years of experience practicing Scrum at various organizations and background as both an educator and student of cognitive sciences. AgilePainRelief provides free resources that extend your learning beyond the classroom; look no further!
Stephane GVirtual
Amazing instructor, was able to clearly explain complex concepts, made the course relevant and engaging! This will alow us to build strong agile teams.
Dylan HPrivate Client
Great course! I will recommend this to others.
Darryl EVancouver
Mark is very enthusiastic and responsive, good at eliciting participation, diverse exercises to keep us from getting bored, informative answers. Good focus on cross-functional teams and sharing non-dev where we fit in.
Carly HPrivate Client
Provided excellent understanding of scrum, more difficult concepts with a very hands on approach.
Carmen CToronto
The CSM course was extremely valuable in understanding the theorotical and practical concepts and techniques necessary to start my journey as Scrum Master. Mark was a knowledgeable and flexible facilitor.
Erik GToronto
He is funny. And smart. And a good storyteller. All together = great combo.
Melanie HEdmonton
Great experience and great delivery. Really enjoyable course!
Darren HOttawa
Using Scrum to teach Scrum. Perfect.
Andrew COttawa
Course was informative and entertaining. There was good participant involvement and useful examples.
George COttawa
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
I find the instructor very knowledgeable and experienced in Scrum. He was very well organized and prepared for the course. He encouraged in class participation and elevated course content with real life examples. Well played! The course, its content and material covered Scrum very well.
Alena CVancouver
He is very engaging and clear. It was easy to grasp the concepts and apply it to exercises.
Jamielyn CToronto
This was a fantastic course and I would recommend it to anyone. Mark is an excellent teacher and provides great examples and easy-to-understand explanations. There was a good balance of listening, working in a group, and discussion. We ran sprint simulations which helped hammer down the concepts.
Julia HVirtual
Mark Levison's CSM workshop was one of the best on-line courses I have taken. Using a variety of on-line tools, we explored Scrum both on a broad surface level, then with deep dives into particular areas as voted for by the class. Mark made sure that everyone was satisfied with their own personal understanding before closing a particular topic. I had several areas that I wanted to focus on, and in each case they were answered to my satisfaction. Thank you Mark! I am very excited to take Scrum to my organization and create a high performance team!
Ross HVirtual
Mark is engaging and energetic. He made what could have been a dry topic quite enjoyable.
Paul BToronto
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
Great in depth knowledge of subject matter.
Joseph COttawa
Mark maintained an ongoing environment of engagement. One of the best classroom based courses I have participated in.
Grant BPrivate Client
Mark was very entertaining, which made what I expected to be a boring two days very enjoyable, while still learning.
Zach BKitchener-Waterloo
Excellent overview of Scrum/Kanban/Agile. The technical material/theoretical material was well balanced/augments with the personal expeirences of the instructor. Highly recommend.
Dino CPrivate Client
Very Experienced, Shared Experiences, Class Participation was done very well.
Gary FPrivate Client
Mark delivered an excellent course, it was a value-packed 2 days.
Brent COttawa
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
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
Great course! Very engaging and knowlegeable instructor.
Kolin BOttawa
Excellent, material and discussion was perfect.
Jacques CVirtual
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
Mark was very well prepared with the material and handled questions well. You gave us enough information to address our own issues without giving us the solution.
Ramiz IPrivate Client
Mark is a very clear and engaging instructor. He is able to use examples and exercises to ground our learning.
Ayesha KOttawa
Thoroughly knowledgeable about subject.
Enwei CVancouver
The course was fun, engaging, and highly responsive to participants. The complete lack of Powerpoint and bulleted lists was amazingly refreshing. Using a Sprint board to run the course was ingenious.
Robin GToronto
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
The CSM course rocks! If you want to immediately jump into the action and improve as you go, this is it. You'll start off as a group of strangers, and find out how quickly you can build a high-performance team. And, if you separately want to read every comprehensive detail there is to know about scrum, Mark will share that with you too.
Nicole BVirtual
Great course and great instructor! Will definitely recommend to friends!
Hisham EOttawa
Fantastic instructor. Great real story examples.
Allan CEdmonton
Mark taught the course in-depth; I gained a lot of knowledge on facilitating a scrum team in achieving its goals. Thanks a lot for such an amazing presentation format.
Be-Done IVirtual
Exceptional facilitator, course materials are helpful, concise, and clear.
Geoffrey HPrivate Client
Mark is a very knowledgeable and respectful instructor. He kept the information interesting and engaging, and was great at adapting the focus of the content to align with the needs of the participants. The course overall accomplished its goal of providing me with a good feel for the role of a Scrum Master.
Lisa 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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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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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

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