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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Fantastic overview of everything PO, Agile, Scrum. Learning how to manage and maintain a collaborative product backlog will be so valuable.
Elizabeth MPrivate Client
It's mind changing.
Michael VToronto
Mark you are a rockstar and I truly enjoyed and hopefully benefit.
Kerry OPrivate Client
Mark made the class enjoyable. I was initially dreading a 3 day course. After the first day I knew that I could live through the course.
Dickie BPrivate Client
Great energy. Made the day pass with a mix of humour and data.
Matthew COttawa
Mark did an excellent job of teaching the material and went beyond just presenting it.
Noah AEdmonton
Objective when needed and directs us to the conclusions. Interesting course.
Andre MMontreal
Mark was excellent - one of the best instructors I have had. Well prepared, knowledgable, and he obviously cares.
David OEdmonton
Great course - certainly lived up to its reputation.
Ryann MKitchener-Waterloo
Awesome. Enlightment for pain points like overtime, too many WIP, motivation, etc.
Susie LVancouver
Rocks! I would really recomment this instructor to others.
Raghda FToronto
Very well structured course with a good variety of topics for further research. Great interaction with class.
Yuri AVirtual
Mark has been a great facilitator, instructor, and extremely knowledgeable on teaching Scrum. Great analogies and references cited.
Wilfred MPrivate Client
Great! Mark is a wonderful instructor and was able to apply agile principles to life outside software development.
Leanne HKitchener-Waterloo
Instructor was engaging, kept the interest of the class. Nice material, I really like how we got into Scrum framework right away by using the backlog analogy for the course topics.
Cecilia OOttawa
Mark is very knowledgeable and is great at simplifying and illustrating abstract concepts.
Thierry LMontreal
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
Second course with Mark went great. I have to figure out how to afford more?
David HMontreal
Very well organized; clear instructions; experienced instructor; useful prep work; dynamic and encouraged individuals participation; perfect breaks; excellent material.
Ana PVirtual
Good. Has lots of experience.
Jimmy AEdmonton
I thought the overall course material was excellent and was well present by a very dynamic and thoughful instructor.
Austin DOttawa
Very informative course on the use of Scrum for software development. It covers all the areas of scrum, including all the key players and demonstrates how the roles, responsibilities and process work together to create effective, self organizing teams.
Amera PEdmonton
Great course! I will recommend this to others.
Darryl EVancouver
Mark leads the class on an explanation of the topics and provides traps to ensure students can learn from practice.
Peter CPrivate Client
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
The course is great and Mark is amazing. I really impressed with his high level of knoweledge, his personal skills. I enjoyed the level how he conducted the training. The level structured and time-planned sessions. I enjoyed the way how and what Mark answered unpredictable questions. He is great facilitator. Thanks a lot for opportunity to expand my knoweledge.
Anna MVirtual
It is very well organized and timed. The teacher has a really deep, hands-on knowledge about the subject.
Alberto MPrivate Client
Great session overall. Appreciate your openness and honesty.
Lisa FToronto
The instructor is very knowledgeable in the subject and kept us motivated and alert during the course. The course itself covers lots of material which is necessary for someone who wants to become a successful scrum master.
Elena RVirtual
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
Mark is very good in delivering the Scrum Training. Thank you for not repeating the mechanics!! Thanks for assidting with the dimensions around [Private Client] environment
Jack SPrivate Client
Exceptional presentation delivery that is clear, concise, and though-provoking, involving tremendous audience participation.
Norman EOttawa
Awesome instructor.
Faik FKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was very engaging and provides an excellent overview of the Scrum methodology.
Stephane LEdmonton
Calm, able to provide examples demonstrating his points.
Martin DMontreal
Mark is an awesome instructor. A very patient instructor that welcomes all questions. He is definitely the Yoda of the Scrum universe.
Ting-Yu LToronto
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 Levison's CSM workshop was one of the best on-line courses I have taken. Using a variety of on-line tools, we explored Scrum both on a broad surface level, then with deep dives into particular areas as voted for by the class. Mark made sure that everyone was satisfied with their own personal understanding before closing a particular topic. I had several areas that I wanted to focus on, and in each case they were answered to my satisfaction. Thank you Mark! I am very excited to take Scrum to my organization and create a high performance team!
Ross HVirtual
I enjoyed the course and the instruction. Good examples were provided. Excercises helped me understand concepts.
Claire LPrivate Client
I thought the material and instructor was excellent. It was a full two days!
Shawn DEdmonton
Instructor was great, would continue the engaging exercises and involving people in the room.
Hussein RToronto
I had the best two days of practical training on Agile. Instructor has logical answers to my questions.
Angie EEdmonton
It was a great experience coming to Agile Scrum just a few months ago allowed this to solidify a lot of things I've been practicing. I will likely immediately reap the rewards.
Curtis BOttawa
Mark is fantastic at keeping the material interested. You can tell he is passionate on the topic and knows his stuff.
Jackie MEdmonton
The ScrumMaster training as facilitated by Mark Levison was an invaluable experience in my both by personal and professional growth. Mark's instruction kept me engaged and entertained with materials for the duration of the 2 day seminar. I will highly recommend this course to anyone interested in exploring Agile within their places of work.
Mike EVirtual
Came back to take my CSPO specifically with Mark for a reason. Amazing Instructor.
Daniel LMontreal
Great course. Lots of fun and learning. Thanks!
Edgar DVancouver
A very rewarding learning experience. Timeboxed for two days, that really provides business value for future scrum masters /Agile practioners.
Delia DMontreal
Mark was good - foundatian of knowledge and his experiences made for good practical examples.
Mike AMontreal
Made me THINK!!! Provided Framework
Mike CPrivate Client

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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