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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Very knowledgeable instructor. His experience is obvious.
Mark LMontreal
Awesome, good humour and very knowledgeable about side elements and how they come into play.
Daniel LOttawa
Great course that makes you think.
Seok Woo JToronto
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
This is my second course with Mark and it was fantastic! Mark is incredibly knowledgeable and engaging. Taking the course virtually was very smooth. I was still able to connect with some great new people while learning a ton and having fun.
Robin DVirtual
Mark is an awesome instructor and has great patience dealing with attendees virtually. His knowledge is spot on and he tries to answer all the questions given the time constraint.
Harjot DVirtual
This instructor was absolutely brilliant. He was very clear and knowlegable in all the areas. He was also very honest in his opinions.
Jonathan EOttawa
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
Mark clearly presents the scrum process and principles. He provides background information and stories to reinforce these techniques.
Richard COttawa
Mark had a way of getting info across in both fun yet informative ways. He loves to challenge and be challenged which made it a pleasure.
Ross CPrivate Client
Instructor is engaging; good change of state during delivery. I like the more concrete demonstration of SCRUM by teaching the course in the SCRUM style.
Damon HEdmonton
Great two days! Added new tools to my PO toolbox and Mark has inspired me again to improve as a PO and to improve my team's scrumming.
Binh HMontreal
It was a very good experience for me, I appreciate how much knowledge the instructor transferred to us in just 2 days.
Elena KOttawa
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
The instructor did a great job in getting people to participate and make sure everyone followed along.
George HPrivate 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
The course and exercise were well designed to add value compared to reading about Scrum. Mark is an effective presenter, keeping things interesting and (often) entertaining.
Gordon EPrivate Client
Extremely knowledgable on all material covered. Tons of experience and real world examples to pull from. Knowledgable on all material covered as well as periphery topics. Funny, engaging, and helped class feel they added value.
Steve DKitchener-Waterloo
I participated in the Certified Scrum Master course instructed by Mark Levison. Mark is a very well educated in the Agile Scrum methodology and presented the course material in a very entertaining way during the 2-day course. I learned a lot of things I had not previously known even though I had been practicing scrum for the past 5 years. I would highly recommend that every organization send their scrum focal’s to this training – it will help them advance their organization in implementing, and delivering scrum based projects, thus help their business be more successful.
Graham FVirtual
Mark did a great job of purposefully making us all feel included and engaged with his class. He added great clarity to the budding scrum process that has taken over in my workplace. I have seen many versions and perspectives on scrum values that deviate and distort how scrum would work, but I am now confident I can facilitate with my projects and team, using a much clearer scrum.
Charlene FVirtual
I thought Mark did a great job. Never missed a beat and gave us a great experience
Sahan DOttawa
I think Mark is extremely flexible and accommodating to the needs of the group. Thank you Mark, your 4 days with us were amazing and helpful.
Andrea KPrivate Client
Mark has extensive experience on which he can call on to illustrate the reason for what works and what does not.
Mark CPrivate Client
Great energy. Interesting course material.
Julie CToronto
My success criteria for the course were met by Mark's thoughtful responses to my in-class questions. I enjoyed interacting with the other course participants on the Mural platform.
Lydia CVirtual
Did a great job getting the information across. Provided real-world examples and concrete solutions that were helpful. Q&A throughout added a lot.
Jacob DPrivate Client
This is my third course with Mark. I enjoy his courses and his humor. He really knows how to connect with the group. He is a wealth of knowledge related to agile and scrum and he provies a lot of great advice on how to solve our problems at work.
Shelley COttawa
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
It was a really good way to understand the concepts of the Scrum Agile practice making us exercise and see how a real Agile org works.
Newton DMontreal
Course was informative and entertaining. There was good participant involvement and useful examples.
George COttawa
Calm, able to provide examples demonstrating his points.
Martin DMontreal
I found Mark very engaging and thought he helped make the material very interesting.
Jason DToronto
Excellent!! Thoughtful, well presented and very enthusiastic. Lots of great information packed into a concise program.
Rolland CKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is incredibly well prepared and professional. Best instructor I've ever had, period.
Kevin DKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was exceptional in introducing us to the Scrum world. Contents in the Mural was well formulated, informative and crisp. Mark was open to discussion and provided alternative options for real time issues faced by participant. He was able to create traps so that we can get the real insight of scrum's events. Overall, I am amazed the way Mark covered the whole session. I am looking forward to go through his new upcoming book.
Birendra KVirtual
Created a very nice and open environment which helped the learning process.
Ricardo CKitchener-Waterloo
Fantastic instructor and couse. I learned so much, thank you!
Jeremy CKitchener-Waterloo
The instructor Mark was very knowledgeable and provided lots of knowledge and examples. I learned a lot but did not realize what a huge topic this is.
Andrei DToronto
Wonderful. Very interactive. Humourous.
Fred HToronto
It was great! Very well explained and engaging.
Donald HToronto
This course has challenged me to take little steps within my tasks to be an effective team player. I also feel that the little tips and techniques will help me produce better quality in my projects. Enjoyed the use of SCRUM to conduct the training seminar and the group exercises or techniques presented because I felt engaged and they foster group participation.
Sally CVancouver
Good balance between questions at large and required materials. Very willing to work towards people's requests/expectations.
Brian HOttawa
Best training I've taken in a long time.
Susan DPrivate Client
Mark Levison is a good coach, very knowledgeable and not boring.
Pradeep CPrivate Client
Mark brings a wealth of knowledge and practical experience and stories. We have applied many of the ideas and totally revitalized the way we run our Agile process.
MacMillan JKitchener-Waterloo
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
5 Stars
Yui HEdmonton
Mark is a great teacher. Funny, communicates his ideas well, very knowledgeable, - a great teacher! This was a good course!
Anthony DVirtual
AMAZING! Funny, interesting, engaging course!
Bassem HMontreal
Great instructor, knowledgeable, kept team engaged for two full days.
Nermin JToronto

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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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.

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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

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.