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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Excellent. Very good examples and visions!
Philippe TMontreal
Great instructor - very clear and easy to follow. Makes you think.
Linda LOttawa
I liked the structure of the course, presented in an agile manner to simulate real team dynamics. Enjoyed it a lot!
Michelle MMontreal
Awesome. Enlightment for pain points like overtime, too many WIP, motivation, etc.
Susie LVancouver
Was very fun and good flow, not by the book provided but with sharing real-life examples and his previous experience. Very appreciated!
Kevin LToronto
Mark's session was a great combination of theory, practical exercises and real life stories that kept this learner engaged and involved. Time spent was definitely worthwhile. Thanks!
Justin LVirtual
Came into the course with basic practice and limited knowledge of theory. Mark has deep knowledge and experience of the material that is easily shared, conveyed, and put into practical settings /analogies. I appreciated the effort of setting a team working agreement during the course, how we communicated /voted throughout the course, and the respected timeframe granted to teach us the material. Many thanks Mark for sharing your time, knowledge, and humour with us. It was very interesting, albeit an intense 2 days of information. Not an easy feat in a virtual setting. Also, many thanks for the many links provided to learn further on our own time. The course material is large and wide. This was perfect to learn basic theory in practice. Further knowledge, training and experience is required to fully capture and understand the depth of SCRUM and Agile.
Chantal MVirtual
It is very well organized and timed. The teacher has a really deep, hands-on knowledge about the subject.
Alberto MPrivate Client
Mark is very knowledgeable and is great at simplifying and illustrating abstract concepts.
Thierry LMontreal
Energetic. Applied scrum in practice by helping lead us to answers in many modules.
Laura LVancouver
Good course, lots of excellent content, examples and materials. Would recommend. Mark is a good facilitator who is honest and understanding about the technical and organizational challenges.
Charles MVirtual
Mark is terrific at carrying a dialog on agile and his humor and humility make the class fun.
David MVirtual
Instructor was very invested in the material. Very knowledgeable and relatable.
Alan MEdmonton
Instructor is very knowledgeable, approachable and fun which aids learning.
Kevin MOttawa
Very knowledgeable instructor. His experience is obvious.
Mark LMontreal
Well prepared. Knowledgeable on and passionate about the subject matter. The virtual course functioned equally well as the in-class course.
Lin-Mari LVirtual
Mark is Great! I took a CSM course from him 11 years ago, hence I picked this course again 11 years later.
Justin LVirtual
It was a very helpful course and it met my expectations.
Vinicious GVancouver
Excellent course. Recommend for people that have done some Scrum and read all the readings. Mark is a great instructor. Among best I've had.
David MEdmonton
Mark is an amazing instructor-- knowledgeable, professional, but also humorous and fun. This is not one of those cookie-cutter courses, because Mark tailors the discussions to the needs of his students. It is suitable for someone new to Scrum, but also others with Scrum experience who would like to get more in-depth.
Sandy LVirtual
Mark knows the subject very well. He was never boring. He has offered good references for us to continue studying on our own.
Melanie LPrivate Client
Best training I've taken in a long time.
Susan DPrivate Client
Mark was a pleasure to learn from. His knowledge and enthusiasm were refreshing.
Harold MKitchener-Waterloo
Mark did a great job. I appreciated that a) he was coming from a strong development background and b) had an obvious passion about Scrum and the benefits it could bring to development.
Adam MVirtual
Excellent course! Not a wasted minute!
John MOttawa
Interesting facilitation of a topic that could have been not so interesting.
Jeff MEdmonton
Excellent course! Was able to relate to everything covered. Scrum should be used every day.
Mark MEdmonton
Much more than expected. Great experience! I appreciate it very much!
Alfredo FOttawa
Mark clearly presents the scrum process and principles. He provides background information and stories to reinforce these techniques.
Richard COttawa
As always, Mark is both extremely knowledgable and wildy entertaining for all things scrum.
Jennifer MOttawa
Mark delivered an excellent course, it was a value-packed 2 days.
Brent COttawa
Nothing but positive things to say. Mark was very clear in the material he presented and was able to easily pivot to a new topic or give additional context as required. I enjoyed the exercises and open discussions.
Angela MOttawa
I enjoyed this interactive class with Mark. So much more entertaining then watching slide after slide of a Powerpoint.
Shelley COttawa
Well versed in knowledge and provided great "philosophical" thinking towards solutions to problems at work. Fun and approachable. Encourages solution formulation yourself.
Kang CKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was very engaging and provides an excellent overview of the Scrum methodology.
Stephane LEdmonton
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 very knowledgeable and walked us through Scrum using the actual technique. Very good technique.
Kevin COttawa
Awesome, really. Energizing course, I learned a lot and feel empowered - Thank you!
Benoit FOttawa
Mark did an awesome job. He is very knowledgable, helpful, and patient. I will recommend this course for sure.
Jamal EToronto
Mark was very good. I appreciated that he was able to provide good examples and explain concepts clearly.
Valerie EVancouver
Great job Mark! Training was excellent. I now know what REAL scrum is and feel equipped to continue learning and practicing true scrum principles.
Cornelus MVirtual
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
Thank you. Enjoyed your examples and how these methods can be used in the real world.
Jenna MToronto
Overall very well structured course. It helped me see the benefits of Scrum and learned how to apply it.
Nazir EOttawa
Mark's teaching methods make the course fly and help the information stick. He gives a clear understanding of the theory of agile/scrum and real world application tips so students can apply scrum immediately and successfully.
Anne MOttawa
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
Mark was excellent! He is a very efficient communicator. Concise in the material he presents. The pace was great. I love the fact that scrum fundamentals were demonstrable.
Omesh MToronto
Mark was an excellent instructor and I learned a lot in this workshop considering it was only 2 days. I would recommend it to my friends and colleagues.
Mohamed EVirtual
Great in-depth knowledge, and clearly prepared.
Michael MOttawa
Instructor was excellent. Provided an environment of communication.
Nathalile LOttawa

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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