neil-vass.com

Category: Events

  • Agile in the Ether, IRL: Building connections

    I’ve been attending the online Agile in the Ether meetups, organised by Emily Webber, since 2019. It’s a brilliant community for talking through challenges and sharing ideas – so many knowledgeable people are happy to help each other out. The community’s found lots of ways to interact remotely, but recently we decided to try an…

  • Deliver Sessions: “Why did that take so long?”

    I’ve been co-organising Deliver Sessions meetup in Manchester for a while, and this year I’ve been writing some notes after each one so I can look back. In November 2023, we were hosted at Michael Page’s office in Spinningfields, where we played a fun interactive game from Mark Kirschstein that had lots of insights into…

  • Deliver Sessions: Probabilistic forecasting

    I’ve helped organise Deliver Sessions meetup for a few years, and now I try to write a few notes after each one so I remember all the good topics they cover (like facilitation, outcomes, and working together). In September 2023, we were hosted at Transform’s office in Ancoats, where we heard a true story from Sarah…

  • Notes from Lean Agile Scotland 2023

    I’m just back from 3 days at Lean Agile Scotland conference based at Edinburgh University. It was a brilliant location, walking distance to lots of beautiful buildings in the city and to the countryside too. While there I ran a workshop on estimation, which carefully incorporated some locally-relevant facts (did you know Edinburgh is home…

  • Deliver Sessions: Facilitation skills

    I’ve helped organise Deliver Sessions meetup for a few years, and now I try to write a few notes after each one so I remember all the good topics they cover (like lightning talks and thinking about outcomes). The latest one, in June 2023, was back at the BBC’s offices, where we talked about facilitation…

  • Notes from Agile Manchester 2023

    I spent 3 days at the Agile Manchester conference, and had a great time – lots of interesting talks and workshops, plus lots of time to speak to people from all kinds of roles and companies. There’s plenty of ideas I’d like to think back over and put into practice. This post’s a prompt for…

  • Deliver Sessions: Outcomes, outputs, other things

    I help organise the Deliver Sessions meetup in Manchester, and I might get into a good habit of blogging a few notes about each one – I enjoyed looking back at the evening of lightning talks we had in November 2022. Our next session was at Digital Guru’s offices in February 2023, where we had…

  • Deliver Sessions: An evening of lightning talks

    I’ve helped organise the Deliver Sessions meetup for the last few years, after the founders (Matt Thornhill and Shahina Patel) handed over to a new team of me, Chris Burns and Zoe Rigley. The meetup went “remote and occasional” for the last few years, which was still fun – but I’m really pleased it’s now…

  • What I learned at Lean Agile Exchange 2022

    I spent two days at the Lean Agile Exchange conference, and absolutely loved it. Every session I went to was gold, and I’m sure I missed some other excellent ones due to clashes (luckily, I can watch the videos on catch up over the next few weeks). Some particular highlights for me: Innovation is a…