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 very knowledgeable. He knows how to engage the class. I enjoyed his sharing of resources and experience.
Amanda YEdmonton
It was such a pleasure to meet Mark and hve him be our instructor for 2 days. He has really good method to run this course and deliver the message. Also, his humour is 5*!
Neesa RVirtual
Added some very interesting info as well as presented the material very well clearly.
Yvonne REdmonton
Solid course, instructor was knowledgeable and friendly. I liked how it felt like a conversation and not a presentation, so I had pretty high engagement.This subject feels like an applied art, not a list of facts for memorization.
Michael RVirtual
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
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
I liked Mark. I think he answered all the questions really well and engaged the group in very good discussion. The prep work was very helpful and I do not feel like I missed out on anything because it was virtual. It was well organized!
Raji RVirtual
Really appreciate the efforts and ernest delivery.
Shauna REdmonton
Experienced person. I like the overview and compassion.
Michal RKitchener-Waterloo
Instructor was great, would continue the engaging exercises and involving people in the room.
Hussein RToronto
Excellent instructor and very knowledgeable. I feel much more prepared for a process that I am already a part of.
Shamir REdmonton
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
I applaud Mark's view on working in agile. I was able to clearly understand the fundamental core and roles of agile.
Adil SOttawa
Excellent course, although packed! Good pace.
Catherine SVancouver
Very knowledgeable, informative, flexible in fitting situations into ideas.
Katie MOttawa
Great job!
Rana ROttawa
Very easy to get along with and makes points very clearly.
Jason PToronto
Mark presented very well. Class well organized. Liked the zoo activity and actually applying the scrum guidleines to a sprint.
Laurel PEdmonton
The course was informative and engaging. It was delivered in a way that help me achieve better understanding of the material, Mark rocks!!
Akhmad SPrivate Client
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
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
Very knowledgeable, enjoy the practical examples that were shared.
Tina MEdmonton
The material/presentation were top notch. Demontrations/examples were very good. Instructor is enthusiastic, knowledgeable.
Norm RKitchener-Waterloo
Great background experience, a lot of passion in his speech, was able to answer even challenging questions.
Alex NPrivate Client
Mark thanks for sharing your knowledge. I truly enjoyed your course. You have a great teaching ability.
Anaya MOttawa
Mark Levison lives and embodies the SCRUM in his courses. Never before have I felt so empowered to self-organize in a classroom setting.
Zoltan MOttawa
This course was exactly what I was looking for! Mark was a very knowledgeable and engaging instructor. I appreciated the hands-on exercises that allowed me to put the methodology into practice with my course mates and learn from the experience. The course material is also top notch. I feel ready to take the exam and put what I've learnt into practice in my workplace.
Anu PVirtual
Very interactive and entertaining. I wasn't bored for a second!
Anahita SToronto
The failure-based models used for learning were effective.
Vince RVirtual
Fantastic instructor and couse. I learned so much, thank you!
Jeremy CKitchener-Waterloo
Mark is great. He speaks loud enough to be understood and knows how to handle a room full of people.
André SPrivate Client
Wonderful. Very interactive. Humourous.
Fred HToronto
Very good. Great at illustrating his point.
Manny BOttawa
Mark was able to provide valuable lessons in a short period of time. Using a variety of methods he illustrated and reinforced the key elements of scrum.
Sean BOttawa
This was a fantastic course and I would recommend it to anyone. Mark is an excellent teacher and provides great examples and easy-to-understand explanations. There was a good balance of listening, working in a group, and discussion. We ran sprint simulations which helped hammer down the concepts.
Julia HVirtual
You'll spend two great days with amazing people around and learn a lot while laughing. Take this course!
Stephane LMontreal
Great course. I learned enough to get me started doing Scrum. The instructor really knows the content and made pleasant and dynamic the delivery.
Carlos MPrivate Client
Brilliant! Truly enjoyed the information and material. Instructor related well to class and provided for fantastic environment for learning. Would recommend this course and facilitator in a heart beat.
Raquel BPrivate Client
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
Very thorough and engaging. Flexibility and self-organization of the course was great.
Brendan SPrivate Client
Mark appears to be knowledgeable and highly experienced in Scrum and did a great job in creating more clarity for the group on complex concepts.
Ryan RVirtual
Very knowledgeable of the subject matter. Kept the pace of the course quick, which is good.
Tarek ROttawa
Mark is extremely well informed on the subject matter and made it extremely easy to comprehend. I find his ability to articulate his thoughts and teachings very impressive, and it's easy to see how intelligent he is.
Alexandria SOttawa
Mark did an awesome job. He is very knowledgable, helpful, and patient. I will recommend this course for sure.
Jamal EToronto
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
As a junior developer you helped me learn more about software development and the right way to do things.
Joe HPrivate Client
Mark is engaging and energetic. He made what could have been a dry topic quite enjoyable.
Paul BToronto
Awesome. I got more than enough info to get me started and max team productivity.
Joel RVancouver
Appreciated the flexibility of discussing things out of order as team comments took us there. Enjoyed interactive format, no slides. Helpful workbook.
Annette GPrivate Client
I'd hire you.
Sinan SPrivate 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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