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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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
Created a very nice and open environment which helped the learning process.
Ricardo CKitchener-Waterloo
The course was well organizated and presented but the real value comes in the form of the facilitator Mark. His knowledge, enthusiasm and ability to help you find our own answers was refreshing, Thank you Mark!
James BOttawa
Lots of information and data for a great walk through about the agile methodology.
Pierre-Michel AMontreal
Very knowledgeable and pleasant to work with.
Kristian BEdmonton
Very pleased to have taken this course. Learned lots of valuable information about Scrum and I want to start using in a short term. Mark is a great instructor. He was making us think so we really understand the Agile principles. Would recommend.
Line CVirtual
Made me THINK!!! Provided Framework
Mike CPrivate Client
I have a hard time with classroom training however you managed to keep me interested. The way you deliver the material is great.
Patrick VOttawa
Very concise, clear material. Lots of experience went into the material and live explanation.
Justin LKitchener-Waterloo
Great instructor, great technique using Scrum to learn.
Jen MToronto
This course was one of the best I have experienced, because we did everything instead of listening to someone talk.
Doris PPrivate Client
Energetic, clear, helpful, inspiring, a great teacher.
Nadil POttawa
The instructor is well-versed in the material covered and was able to relate it to our issues without telling us how to do it. For a short course we covered a lot of ground, but I did not feel overwhelmed.
Wayne PPrivate Client
Time master- thank you for pushing us through topics. Honestly - stated that you can provide examples, up to us to decide.
Tracey OToronto
Mark is obviously very invested in the material. I never doubted that he was an expert with a lot of industry experience.
Devin ROttawa
I recommend all newbees and Agile to take Mark's class. End of the day, you will walk out with confidence.
Hema PKitchener-Waterloo
Well spoken and obviously passionate.
Brian REdmonton
I felt that Mark is an incredible teacher. He's extemely knowledgeable on the subject and shares his experience with the entire class. Very structured.
Anthony PToronto
Awesome course. I will be able to apply a number of concepts immediately to help our effectiveness at work.
Daryl PEdmonton
Knows his material very well. Is pleasant. Proper course material was provided.
Jean PMontreal
Mark was great. I appreciated his directness.
James POttawa
Good course. Good instructor. No boring moments.
Ashishkumar PMontreal
Mark did a great job teaching, providing examples, and exersises. This is my third session and I would recommend him.
Cheryl ROttawa
There was not a single bit of content that wasn't helpful.
Bruno PMontreal
Instructor was well organized and touched each topic in a sequential matter that was logical.
Joe PMontreal
Mark was great at reorganizing our organizational challenges. He was dynamic and kept me interested the entire time.
Jessica PPrivate Client
Intense and totally worth it.
Marinho MEdmonton
Mark was an excellent instructor. He was patient with us and mindful of the different types of humans in the class. Even though we got behind and had to skip the last exercise I didn't feel like I was missing anything. I think the discussions were of more value than the final sprint (so good choice). I really appreciate that he is giving us all kinds of materials and pointing us to books and articles to help us. I feel very supported. Mark did a great job of getting everyone involved and keeping people engaged. Group activities were well placed. I will be sure to recommend this course.
Karen PVirtual
The instructor was very engaging. The material was easy to understand and his approach was reasonable and made great sense!
Ashely RPrivate Client
Course was excellent, wealth of information. Mark is very knowledgable, pace was good, clear and concise, appreciated his sense of humour.
Kevin PEdmonton
Very knowledgeable and well-versed in the art and science of Scrum and Agile. Clearly has a breadth of experience to share.
Sara MVirtual
Very engaging instructor. Used many real-life examples.
Laura OPrivate Client
I love this course. It was incredibly helpful and throught provoking. I enjoyed the teach style and directness of the instructor.
Victoria MEdmonton
Good course and Mark is an awesome facilitator. Loved the way Mark conducted the training.
Gajan PKitchener-Waterloo
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
Whether you have 0 days or 10 years of product owner experience you're guaranted to learn a lot from this course.
Luke NOttawa
Excellent instructor!!! Expert in Agile/Scrum.
Marc BOttawa
Mark has helped me learn Agile in a fun way. The hands on experience have added value for a non-agile user like me.
Keerthiga NEdmonton
Very well done course. Very experienced, knowledgeable instructor, well structured course, clear explanation, keeps nice spirit during the course, encourages collaboration.
Dina DMontreal
Instructor was very knowledgable! Incredible library in his head.
Kafia BOttawa
Mark was an excellent teacher; explained all concepts very well.
Jackie COttawa
Mark was great at teaching the class. He really knows the course and it is obvious Scrum is second nature to him. Real life experience (in class exercises) are key to learning Scrum.
Cara CToronto
Knowledgeable instructor. Engaging and well planned course.
Dan RVirtual
Mark did an excellent job of teaching the material and went beyond just presenting it.
Noah AEdmonton
Mark is incredibly well prepared and professional. Best instructor I've ever had, period.
Kevin DKitchener-Waterloo
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
Very knowledgeable, led the session very well.
Bob BPrivate Client
He knows his stuff!
Stephen DVancouver
Awesome and objective! Careful not to influence how we work by answering other students.
Shawn MMontreal
Mark is a great presenter. I appreciate that he is to the point and succinct in his points, but can expand when prompted. I appreciate that there was room for "derailment" and that the training was made more custom tailored to the individual experiences of the scrum masters at our org. The subject matter was good. I think it contained a lot of the info that new scrum masters don't think about, and covered a lot of traps that they fall into.
Adel AVirtual

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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