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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Using Scrum to teach Scrum. Perfect.
Andrew COttawa
Mark was a great instructor with the curse of knowledge (in a good way). Detailed examples, solid application advice, and adaptable during the course. Thanks!
Nick GToronto
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
Mark presented very well. Class well organized. Liked the zoo activity and actually applying the scrum guidleines to a sprint.
Laurel PEdmonton
Another excellent course! Great balance of theory, exercises, and anecdotes.
Adam BOttawa
Interaction was great, content is very useful and can be applied to improve our way right way. Nice control of the group by the instructor.
Ana BMontreal
Instructor kept the course interested, kept us engaged through fun exercises. I love the course content, the book. Well prepared reference.
Hulya AOttawa
Tons of material to get through, Mark did well with the contextual questions from our organization.
Brendan BPrivate Client
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
Very patient. Really liked the group activity where we had to work in Sprints on user stories.
Anita AVirtual
Very knowledgeable, led the session very well.
Bob BPrivate Client
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
Great course! Very engaging and knowlegeable instructor.
Kolin BOttawa
Mark was very knowledgeable; I really appreciated the examples that he shared with the group. Thank you!
Suzanne AVirtual
Being engaged in activities with a group gave valuable insight into the problems we might face in our organizations. This course was great! I was never bored and enjoyed working with others. The course instructor was approachable, clear, and great at proving points.
David BMontreal
Mark did an excellent job facilitating the course and the content was very helpful. We covered a lot of ground in three sessions and the pre-learning was helpful too! Mark was patient and respectful and very supportive throughout the sessions. It was a pleasure to spend the time with Mark and to learn from someone who obviously knows his subject.
Debbie BVirtual
Instructor was very passionate about subject and links theory to concrete examples.
Jean-Philippe BMontreal
Excellent! A refreshing approach! I loved the style of delivering the material and the many discussions and short exercises.
Mark APrivate Client
Mark was engaging and patient. He got everyone involved and kept spirits and energy levels high.
David BPrivate Client
Very knowledgeable in what he is teaching. Passion for scrum.
Mandi AEdmonton
Insightful material, engaging classroom practice.
Eliza BVirtual
Lots of information and data for a great walk through about the agile methodology.
Pierre-Michel AMontreal
Excellent course and facilitator instruction.
John BVancouver
Awesome, really. Energizing course, I learned a lot and feel empowered - Thank you!
Benoit FOttawa
I really enjoyed Mark, despite not being my sector I was able to make connections and take away information.
Catherine BOttawa
Mark was great. He definitely understands and believes in what he is teaching. He made sure to go slowly and would always check to see if we understood.
Adrien GVirtual
Very well done. Good introduction of the concepts, good use of technology, good practical incorporation of the methods being taught into the course itself, 10/10
Adam GVirtual
Great course that makes you think.
Seok Woo JToronto
Great course and material, I loved the theoretical information with was applied on day 2. Mark did a great job of relating everything to real work examples.
Michael FToronto
Mark is very well read, with lots of breadth. Mark helped to challenge participants' ways of thinking that could impede scrum implementation.
Louise BOttawa
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
Very engaging way of learning how to be a Product Owner, just like Scrum should be.
Teeba APrivate Client
Mark is an extremely knowledgeable Scrum practitioner and a great coach! He gave each of the participants clear and useful answers to the questions we had during the training, whether the questions were about the material or from work experiences, and helped us figure out how to handle situations on our own. This is the first time I take an agile training that gives me clarity about ways of improving how I work with my team
Martha BVirtual
Very good format and flow to course. Good idea to structure course in Agile format so we can experience Agile first hand.
Julia APrivate Client
I like the way the course was taught through examples and games. I found personal anecdotes helpful in understanding concepts.
Randy EOttawa
Mark's ability to adapt to the background of students and relate to their org's characteristics adds exceptional value. This course isn't just for software development!
Paul AOttawa
Very good course, well balanced and very interactive.
Alexandre GMontreal
Was an extremely focused and well organized two days, I have taken other courses in similar timelines but found this significantly easier to consume and digest the information. Mark was funny, and left me with an impression of “this guy is legit, and extremely intelligent, I need to soak up his knowledge”.
Jack BVirtual
Mark is great - knows the material and can address all questions, prompting us to try and answer them first! Great trainer, I would recommend him to others.
Frances AOttawa
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
Mark was an engaging and passionate instructor. I appreciated his concise explanations, and the time he took after his first day to discuss specifics about my organization with me.
Adam FOttawa
Great to get this training from the subject matter expert.
Nisha AToronto
Great instruction and high levels of interaction made for an enjoyable course. I gained a greater appreciation for the ScrumMaster role and the game of Scrum!
Kevin BToronto
This was an excellent training. I really valued how engaging Mark was as a facilitator, everyone had the space to contribute and ask questions, and I loved how interactive and applicable it was, especially for myself outside of the software industry. It was incredibly fun and I learned a lot - I feel ready to step into a Scrum Master role and am excited at how it can improve the value we offer to clients at my organization.
Sarah HVirtual
This was agreat intro to formal scrum fundamentals. Mark was always engaging.
John LKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is a wealth of knowledge and makes agile super easy! The course is interesting, interactive, and extremely informative. I got a lot of takeaways from the course and excited to take this back to my team. I'm looking forward to taking the Advance Scrum and Advanced PO courses next Fall.
Jenny CVirtual
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
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
Excellent, material and discussion was perfect.
Jacques CVirtual
There is so much about Scrum that I didn't know I didn't know! Thanks Mark for an informative and engaging 2 days.
Dan LKitchener-Waterloo

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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