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Overview
This is the personal website of Neil Vass. You can find me on various social media sites: But I do most of my posting here, on this blog. Recently I’ve been writing about: If this “highlights list” isn’t enough, you could take a look at all my posts. Technical note I’ve been very slowly building […].
News
Deliver Sessions: Going off script
Poster for the event. Thanks as always to the meetup's design department. 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 Autotrad
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Deliver Sessions: The remote years
"in the Ether" added to our meetup logo, using the creative commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence I've been a co-organiser of Deliver Sessions meetup (along with Chris Burns and Zoe Rigley) since 2018, and now I do a wr
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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, teachin
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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 frustra
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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 "Co
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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 a
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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. Coaching: calm and reflective, with a lot g
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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 fo
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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 despit
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A list of links after Agile in the Ether IRL 2026
In February 2026 I went to Liverpool for Agile in the Ether's 3rd one-day, in-real-life annual event. For lots of info on how the event worked and what sessions we had, see Emily Webber's write up: Agile in the Ether IRL 2026: No Slides, Just Vibes. I alw
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