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Deliver Sessions: Going off script
In July 2026 Deliver Sessions visited Autotrader’s new office in Circle Square. We were impressed with the welcoming entrance hall, featuring a huge curved screen with live Autotrader stats plus an overview of our meetup (with larger-than-life-size photos of our presenters, what a way to feel like a celebrity). Retros by design, not by habit…
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Deliver Sessions: The remote years
I’ve been a co-organiser of Deliver Sessions meetup (along with Chris Burns and Zoe Rigley) since 2018, and now I do a writeup after each event. Those posts started in 2022 with “an evening of lightning talks”, and I’ve kept up good habits since then — lots of posts in the Deliver Sessions archives. However,…
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Coaching: When you’re asked for your own expertise
One of the most useful early lessons I learned in coaching was: it’s not about me sharing or recommending what I’d do in a situation, it’s much more helpful to leave my advice out of it and help the client come to their own conclusions. Mentoring, teaching, and other “I have experience in this area”…
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Deliver Sessions: Why good teams get stuck
It’s been a relaxed start to the year: May’s Deliver Sessions meetup was the first one of 2026! This time we were at Forward Role‘s offices, just off Deansgate in Manchester city centre. Hannah Dell’Armi shared techniques for solving conflicts and frustrations in teams, pairing nicely with Rachelle Williams giving advice on how to teach new…
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Coaching: Questions?
Coaching can involve asking a lot of questions — I’ve mentioned several examples already in “A few things about coaching” (where I was surprised by how much people appreciated some wide-open questions when I thought I had nothing useful to say) and in “Coaching: Understanding the options” (including how useful it can be to discuss…
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Coaching: Understanding the options
I recently wrote a few things about coaching and said I might start a series of coaching notes. Here we go! In that post I mentioned my early habit of breaking into coaching conversations at every opportunity. While coaching’s often useful, it’s not the answer to every question — and and even if I think…
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A few things about coaching
I’ve been a fan of coaching for years, it can really help people or teams improve how they work. When I was first introduced to this skill there were a few things I didn’t find obvious and took a while to learn. First chance to do some training I’d read about coaching and thought I…
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Book look: The secrets of consulting, by Gerald Weinberg
I’d seen recommendations for this book in lots of places, for years, before I got round to reading it. I assumed it’d be long, serious, and probably not too relevant to me (my job isn’t consultancy). I was wrong! It’s short and funny, with handy advice for people in all kinds of jobs. I’ve made…
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Algorithms IRL: Let’s solve a Rubik’s cube!
A few months ago my son asked how you solve a Rubik’s cube. I had no idea so we looked it up. A helpful YouTube video from The Great Courses showed us how to solve one in 8 steps. It took a few watches and lots of back and forth, but we did it! And…