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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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
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
Excellent! A refreshing approach! I loved the style of delivering the material and the many discussions and short exercises.
Mark APrivate Client
Mark is engaging and energetic. He made what could have been a dry topic quite enjoyable.
Paul BToronto
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
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
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
Mark is a great instructor! He is knowledgeable and has experience, so he knows what he is talking about! Highly suggest his course!
Anthony MVirtual
Tons of material to get through, Mark did well with the contextual questions from our organization.
Brendan BPrivate Client
Mark was fantastic. Enjoyed his coaching very well. Course was very interesting.
Robert AOttawa
Thanks for being so responsive and Agile in your approach to leading the class.
Deb BKitchener-Waterloo
Extremely knowledgeable. Engaged the entire team. Clear communication.
Ahalya AToronto
Course was fantastic and informative. The instructor did his best to include as much of the expensive material as he could. It was engaging and fun to listen to. I would highly recomment this training to anyone interested in the Scrum methology.
Derrick BOttawa
Very knowledgeable, led the session very well.
Bob BPrivate Client
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
Great agenda, engaging instructor, relevant examples and exercises. 10/10 rating
Ed AVancouver
Lots of information and data for a great walk through about the agile methodology.
Pierre-Michel AMontreal
Knows course material well. Quick to answer all questions.
Michael BEdmonton
Mark did an excellent job of teaching the material and went beyond just presenting it.
Noah AEdmonton
Mark was an awesome instructor, engaging, and very informative and knowledgable.
Tanya BToronto
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
Mark shared valuable information and advice about Scrum theory. I am now clear on many Agile views on different aspects, especially, Roadmap.
Syed AToronto
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
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
Strong instructor, great knowledge of the material. A very good pace.
Ken AKitchener-Waterloo
Excellent overview of Scrum/Kanban/Agile. The technical material/theoretical material was well balanced/augments with the personal expeirences of the instructor. Highly recommend.
Dino CPrivate Client
Mark was great at explaining processes to entry level product owners, and is definitely one of the most knowledgeable people in the field. I'd be definitely interested in more of his courses.
Blake KVirtual
This was a fantastic, informative course! I'm ready to try a few of the retro "games" with the team next week.
Erin GOttawa
Mark is a great instructor, we can see the vast experience that he has from his training style. We have learnt as much as it is possible from a two day workshop. Keep up the good work Mark.
Sreepad KVirtual
Lively, knowledgeable instructor who delivered the material creatively (no powerpoint! ) and made everyone comfortable.
Karen BOttawa
Came in with a cynical view and attitude and left with nuggets of insight. That is quite an accomplishment for any instructor!
Mojtaba HOttawa
Mark was very entertaining, which made what I expected to be a boring two days very enjoyable, while still learning.
Zach BKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was a very good lively instructor who cared for all the questions. I am normally a quiet person, but I felt safe enough to speak up and answer questions.
Brenna GEdmonton
Great in depth knowledge of subject matter.
Joseph COttawa
Running the course as a Scrum project and including a real Scrum exchange really reinforced the material.
David COttawa
Solid grounding in Scrum and examples to apply it at work.
John CVancouver
Mark is a very smart, passionate, knowledgable trainer, with a charismatic personality and great pedagogical skills. I see his potential to change companies culture. The course really taught me many things and made me want to read and know more!
Iulia AToronto
Mark was fantastic! He explained the concepts very clearly and kept the class very engaging for the 2 days. He has a wealth of experience and was able to convey that to the class (plus the fun soap box moments).
Anthony GVirtual
Mark is insightful, a pleasure to listen to, and inspires me toward making the changes needed so that I can work out a high-performance team.
Mike SVancouver
Course content is engaging and interactive. Instructor makes agile exciting and shows deep knowledge.
Reggie TToronto
Really liked it, will recommend to others.
Alexey SToronto
Very knowledgeable and examples that are applicable to our reality.
Allen SOttawa
The class progress and keeping us engaged was great.
Bikash SToronto
The format was great, and I appreciated the 10 minute breaks on the hour, particularly for a virtual training where zoom can be a drag after a while. The pace was good where the content and group activities wasn't rushed but time-boxed sufficiently that we didn't feel we were 'waiting'. The training goes beyond the 'minimum' for certification and was also flexible to address various questions by attendees.
Matthew RVirtual
He knows his subject well! He respect the different levels of understanding of each participant. He really respect the schedule.
Julie JVirtual
Instructor was very engaging and helped me learn a lot and I have a lot of actions to take back to hep the team. I think we learned enough to help the team and guide them effectively as a scrum master.
Ian ROttawa
Excellent instructor and very knowledgeable. I feel much more prepared for a process that I am already a part of.
Shamir REdmonton
Great Class! Learning in a dynamic and fun way with interesting and useful context and examples.
Suzelle FMontreal
Thank you, Mark! Your course was intense, informative and engaging - never felt I was "drifting off". The examples were clear, activities were great learning exercises - going to apply as much as possible!
Kate RToronto
Great course! I will recommend this to others.
Darryl EVancouver

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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