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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I thoroughly enjoyed Mark's presentation style and communication.
Joshua RVirtual
Mark's ability to adapt to the background of students and relate to their org's characteristics adds exceptional value. This course isn't just for software development!
Paul AOttawa
Great course! Very engaging and knowlegeable instructor.
Kolin BOttawa
Very knowledgeable in what he is teaching. Passion for scrum.
Mandi AEdmonton
Thanks for being so responsive and Agile in your approach to leading the class.
Deb BKitchener-Waterloo
Good course and instructor was great. I didn't fall asleep once.
Samsong CEdmonton
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
Excellent job of teaching about using scrum. Very good job engaging the class and providing a fun place to learn. Full moneys worth.
Eric CToronto
Instructor was amazing, easy to listen to and follow. Did not read from book and provided concrete examples.
Tricia AOttawa
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
Was an extremely focused and well organized two days, I have taken other courses in similar timelines but found this significantly easier to consume and digest the information. Mark was funny, and left me with an impression of “this guy is legit, and extremely intelligent, I need to soak up his knowledge”.
Jack BVirtual
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
Very passionate and knowledgeableinstructor, and very able to answer any question.
Zain JEdmonton
I appreciate the opportunity to attend the workshop. I enjoyed the time spent with my fellow co-workers to learn together. Mark is passionate about Scrum and willing to dig into our problem and seek for the remedies to resolve.
Heather JVancouver
Amazing instructor, very clear and breaks our pre-conceived understandings.
Jean-Francois BMontreal
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
Mark is quick-witted, experienced, blunt, and plays role of a neutral facilitaor very well. He made three content heavy days digestible, relevant to my work life, and enjoyable.
Craig BPrivate Client
Instructor was very passionate about subject and links theory to concrete examples.
Jean-Philippe BMontreal
Really enjoyed the course. Mark has a unique way of explaining concepts that have a very positive effect on the learning process.
Daniel LMontreal
Highly recommend it. This was awesome. Thank you. Mark is a very good instructor.
Philippe CMontreal
Passionate and knowledgeable!
Derek LVancouver
Very engaging instructor and scenarios.
Christine APrivate Client
Terrific! Well thought out responses to questions. Great base of experience. Practical approach to teaching. 10/10
Edward LOttawa
True value demonstrated outside of the software development world.
Theresa BToronto
Mark was great !! Very thorough - his passion for what he does came through. I appreciated his organization and engagement with the team. He was awesome.
Rene EVirtual
Classes with Mark was so worthwhile! Mark has an amazing way of breaking things down so that they are understandable, and always keeping it light and fun. Overall, the course is well designed, and the topics were engaging and useful.
Mohamad AVirtual
Great use of time. Very clear examples of work life situations.
Duane BToronto
You have a deep understanding of the Scrum methodology. You are good listener and you are able to adapt to your audience. I am really satisfied and will recommend you.
Eric LMontreal
Made me THINK!!! Provided Framework
Mike CPrivate Client
The instructor is clearly knowledgeable about scrum and other approaches. The course demonstrates the basics of scrum very well.
Matthew BToronto
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
No nonsense, practical approach, dynamic, very instructive.
Yanick BMontreal
Mark delivered what I think is one of the best adult learning, in a corporate training environment, I’ve experienced. And it was remote! It was engaging, entertaining and very useful. I was also very fortunate to have a great team which significantly enriched my experience.
Noah CVirtual
Thank you. It has been one of the most interesting courses I have attended.
Hemant KToronto
Knows his stuff. Has a lot of industries "real life" examples that help us understand those Agile methodologies.
Isabelle LMontreal
Engaged every minute of the course.
Eugene LMontreal
Excellent!! Thoughtful, well presented and very enthusiastic. Lots of great information packed into a concise program.
Rolland CKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was very personable, easy going an know what he was teaching. This makes the class environment more interactive and fun.
Asif BVirtual
I thought the courses were excellent, fun, and very thought provoking. I see this course as an impetus for change for our organization. Highly recommended.
Jack HVancouver
As a junior developer you helped me learn more about software development and the right way to do things.
Joe HPrivate Client
Very Experienced, Shared Experiences, Class Participation was done very well.
Gary FPrivate Client
Great two days! Added new tools to my PO toolbox and Mark has inspired me again to improve as a PO and to improve my team's scrumming.
Binh HMontreal
The CSM course was extremely valuable in understanding the theorotical and practical concepts and techniques necessary to start my journey as Scrum Master. Mark was a knowledgeable and flexible facilitor.
Erik GToronto
Awesome material delivery.
Geetha KToronto
Created a very nice and open environment which helped the learning process.
Ricardo CKitchener-Waterloo
Mark was great. He definitely understands and believes in what he is teaching. He made sure to go slowly and would always check to see if we understood.
Adrien GVirtual
Mark clearly presents the scrum process and principles. He provides background information and stories to reinforce these techniques.
Richard COttawa
Mark is amazing at asking thought-povoking questions to think on issues at a 2nd degree level. (i.e. reasons behind the challenge)
Connie LToronto
Mark did a great job of bringing the group into the basic tenets of Agile-Scrum whenever someone brought up a challenge/issue in the participant's particular situation.
Eric AMontreal
Mark is an awesome instructor who does an excellent job of describing Scrum. Brilliant course!
Tom BEdmonton

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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