Workshops

Are you looking to improve your engineering team's leadership and communication skills? With over a decade of experience as an engineering leader and conference speaker, I offer interactive workshops and personalised coaching to develop these key areas.

My workshops are designed to be highly interactive, featuring hands-on exercises, moments for introspection, and lively discussions. This allows participants to immediately apply what they've learned and put their new skills into practice. With my background in online learning, I specialise in creating impactful learning experiences that resonate with participants long after the sessions end.

"Engineer Your Talks" Workshops

You've decided you want to give a talk. But you know you need to work on your speaking skills.

Maybe you don't know how to identify an interesting topic others want to learn more about. Maybe you don't know how to write a talk proposal. Maybe you don't know how to deal with your nerves.

You don't know where to start.

That's what the Engineer Your Talks workshops are for!

In these interactive 2-hour workshops, you'll learn how to approach your talks by applying an engineering mindset. You'll familiarize yourself with a few models and frameworks to develop your talks in a structured way that you can replicate at any time.

I run these workshops online regularly throughout the year, and you can sign up (yourself or your team members) for any of the upcoming sessions.

Do you want to arrange these workshops internally for your team? Reach out at melinda@seckington.com to explore further and discuss in an intro call.

Speaker Workshop for Engineering Teams & Leaders

As engineers, we need to constantly communicate: to our team members, to our stakeholders, and to other parts of the company. Getting that communication right is key to making the right type of impact. We need to understand how to structure our presentations to have the best effect on the audiences we are trying to reach. 

Working in tech, we know how to approach building a new product: we research our user base, we figure out what and for whom we’re trying to create something for and we make sure we constantly iterate on what we’ve come up with. So why aren’t we taking the same approach for our presentations?

In my Speaker Training workshops, I focus on helping engineering & product teams improve their speaking skills, by applying familiar concepts from product design and agile software engineering to creating a presentation.

In these training sessions, participants will learn: 

1 Who & Why: Understanding your audience and your goals

  • Identify what impact you want on your audience.
  • Define what the main goal and outcomes of your presentation should be.

2 What: Structuring your story

  • Identify what your key messages need to be.
  • Structure your presentation to create the best impact.
  • Explore different storytelling techniques.
  • Create a presentation outline.

3 What: Designing your slides

  • Learn about design principles and how to apply those to your slides
  • Master the art of designing clear and impactful designs.

4 How: Delivering your talk

  • Learn how to deal with nerves and anxiety
  • Improve your stage presence and delivery
  • Understand how to experiment and iterate on your talks

This workshop is available in two formats: a 4-hour intensive session or a series of 1-hour workshops spread over several weeks (with take-home exercises in between).

Workshops can be made bespoke to fit your team. They can be adapted to teams that already have public speaking experience and need help levelling up or new teams looking to get into public speaking. The workshops can also be augmented with interactive feedback sessions and/or 1:1 coaching sessions. 

Curious to see how this could fit your team? Feel free to reach out today at melinda@seckington.com to explore further and discuss in an intro call.

Management Workshops for Engineering Leaders

Good management is essential for creating a positive and inclusive engineering culture and retaining great engineers. Whether you're a seasoned engineering leader or aspiring to take the lead, my workshops are designed to make you a more impactful and considerate manager.

These Engineering Management workshops offer a deep dive into engineering management fundamentals. Through discussions on real-life challenges, real-world case studies, and hands-on exercises, you'll gain actionable strategies for effectively mentoring and developing your team, fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth, and creating an environment where every individual feels valued and empowered.

With these workshops, your team members will learn how to: 

  • Conduct effective 1-on-1s and coaching/mentoring/sponsoring conversations
  • Provide constructive feedback and navigating difficult conversations
  • Understand individuals' core needs, emotions, and motivations
  • Explore and set goals with their team members, and support their personal development
  • Examine tools and methods for effective time management, prioritizing tasks, and balancing competing priorities
  • Make decisions and solve complex problems, including techniques for evaluating options, mitigating risks, and driving consensus within the team.
  • Apply techniques for navigating organizational change, fostering resilience and adaptability within the team, and effectively communicating and implementing changes to achieve desired outcomes.

Each of the above topics is a stand-alone 3-hour workshop. Workshops can be made bespoke to fit your team. They can be adapted to teams that already have management experience or new managers. The workshops can also be augmented with interactive feedback sessions and/or 1:1 coaching sessions. 

Why work with me?

I specialise in 1:1 training and coaching tailored specifically for engineers and engineering leaders. I have over a decade of experience as an engineering leader, a keynote speaker, an event organiser and a workshop facilitator, and over those years, I have helped many teams improve how they collaborate and communicate with each other. I understand tech audiences and offer workshops that bring an engineering perspective.

With a background in computer science, specialising in AI, I started my career as a software engineer before moving into engineering leadership. As an engineering manager at companies like the Wikimedia Foundation and FutureLearn, I focused on improving management practices, fostering a culture of learning, and helping teams work and communicate more effectively. I’ve also led internal outreach and training initiatives, equipping engineers with the skills to teach, mentor, and share knowledge within their teams and the wider tech community.

I’ve worked in startups and companies building online learning platforms, where I deepened my understanding of how people learn, communicate, and collaborate. That insight shapes my approach to training, making it engaging, hands-on, and immediately applicable.

I’m also an international conference speaker, having spoken at over 50 conferences on topics ranging from effective management to public speaking. Next to that, I’ve spent the past 18 years organising events to bring people together to learn from each other. I currently run the Tech Ladies Dinner Roundtables and co-organize the LeadDev London meetup, creating spaces where engineering leaders can connect and grow.

Combining my expertise in engineering, storytelling, event organising and online learning, I design impactful learning experiences that leave a lasting impression.

Need something more bespoke for your team? Reach out today at melinda@seckington.com to discuss collaboration opportunities and availability.

Email melinda@seckington.com