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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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
Instructor was amazing, easy to listen to and follow. Did not read from book and provided concrete examples.
Tricia AOttawa
Mark did a fantastic job. [Private Client] was a unique challenge of a long history with hardened habits, as well as a very peculiar definition of Agile and SCRUM.
Imran APrivate Client
Lots of information and data for a great walk through about the agile methodology.
Pierre-Michel AMontreal
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
These days passed quickly, the instructor is very friendly and relaxed. Thanks again to Mark for his support!
Vlad AVirtual
True value demonstrated outside of the software development world.
Theresa BToronto
Mark was very personable, easy going an know what he was teaching. This makes the class environment more interactive and fun.
Asif BVirtual
Good course and Mark is an awesome facilitator. Loved the way Mark conducted the training.
Gajan PKitchener-Waterloo
Instructor was very clear.
May Lynn LEdmonton
5 Stars
Yui HEdmonton
Instructor is very informative. Voice calming and clear with good balance of up/down/tone.
Hanh LToronto
Excellent instruction with deep knowledge of scrum. All questions or clarfications were answered. Provided information I can take back to my team.
Emilia KOttawa
Mark is a gifted teacher who really takes the time to ensure those who take his ScrumMaster course understand the topics and know how to apply scrum to their particular company and role. His use of group activities help turn concepts that can intially seem very unspecific into concrete examples and true understanding, which is especially helpful to those of us who are not software engineers or in a technical field. I would highly recommend Mark and Agile Pain Relief to those looking for a ScrumMaster course.
Rhiannon BVirtual
Amazing instructor! Makes you feel like he knows from ages! Very interactive class.
Kaushik KVirtual
Insightful material, engaging classroom practice.
Eliza BVirtual
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
The instructor and course were generally excellent – the curriculum was thorough, and the instructor was engaging. I definitely feel like I came out a lot more knowledgeable about Scrum and both the PO and Scrum Master roles (despite the fact that this was not Scrum Master training), and I have lots of ideas percolating on how to implement Agile strategies in my work and with my team.
Natasha HVirtual
This course helped me understand the principles of Agile and how to implement it to achieve better performance with any team while having a good time. Really like the balance between the exercises and the theory.
Pierre LMontreal
Thanks for being so responsive and Agile in your approach to leading the class.
Deb BKitchener-Waterloo
Great course, a lot of valuable information. Experienced instructor, great ability to adapt to group and real work situtations.
Karen LPrivate Client
Whether you have 0 days or 10 years of product owner experience you're guaranted to learn a lot from this course.
Luke NOttawa
Mark is a great instructor. Wih hands on exercises and his deep knowledge of scrum I was able to grab the most of it in 2 days.
Shazad KMontreal
Strong instructor, great knowledge of the material. A very good pace.
Ken AKitchener-Waterloo
Very good and useful information. I like the format (no boring Powerpoint) and doing the meeting as a sprint was great.
Fred BPrivate Client
Awesome, highly recommended!
Simran WVancouver
Excellent, great management of large group, Excellent information
Susan LPrivate Client
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Mark. I learned a lot and appreciate his teaching style.
Kendall APrivate Client
Great flow and preparation. Really knows his stuff and transfer of knowledge is good.
Sonia MMontreal
Great instructor with clever communication techniques to help the attendees grasp ideas.
Asad BKitchener-Waterloo
Awesome and objective! Careful not to influence how we work by answering other students.
Shawn MMontreal
Very concise, clear material. Lots of experience went into the material and live explanation.
Justin LKitchener-Waterloo
Energetic. Applied scrum in practice by helping lead us to answers in many modules.
Laura LVancouver
Good instructor. On point. Assertive and describes the problems and approaches well.
Andrei POttawa
A wealth of useful and interesting knowledge.
Sarah HEdmonton
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
Excellent. 5 on the scale of 1 to 5.
Suhas KToronto
Training was excellent with good interaction. Knowledge sharing is good. Course was practically and informative. Mark Levison is enthusiastic with English subtle sense of humour and really aware of what he is explaining. The course helped to build confidence, valuable experiences and learning.
Yana KVirtual
Mark was great! I found this style easy to follow and I feel prepared.
Melanie KToronto
Excellent source of knowledge and provided additional resources. Helped with real examples
Sean OPrivate Client
Covered a little of everything. Was always interesting.
Regis LMontreal
I appreciate the breadth and comprehensive nature of reference material. I'm excited to read more.
Stephanie AToronto
Mark was very energetic and enthusiastic instructor. You could definitely feel his passion for Agile and Engineering as a whole.
William IPrivate Client
Great instructor - very clear and easy to follow. Makes you think.
Linda LOttawa
This has been the most useful training course I have taken. Even though we have been practicing "Scrum" for years there was no useless content.
Simon HOttawa
Mark is very insightful, knowledgable, and humourous. The topic was well covered and a delight to engage with. Great balance of peer interactions and instructor led discussions.
Peter HOttawa
Very informative and interesting introduction to the concepts and principles of Agile development and Scrum.
Michael HVancouver
No nonsense, practical approach, dynamic, very instructive.
Yanick BMontreal
Very informative. Well presented. Good tempo.
Robert MOttawa
Great session overall. Appreciate your openness and honesty.
Lisa FToronto

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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