Why community matters

At Deeson, we encourage team members to look for opportunities to share, learn and improve the ways we work.

We allow time in people’s schedules to be able to take hold of those opportunities alongside their project commitments, be that presenting at an internal lunch and learn, contributing to open source modules, undertaking training, attending conferences or organising their own events.

This is because we believe in the power of community.

DO PM

In August 2014, I co-founded DO PM, a meetup in Oxford for people involved in the delivery of digital projects.

When I moved to London in 2016, I handed over the responsibility to two regular attendees who were willing to step up and take the reigns.

Fast forward three years and I’m back in Oxford. After a short hiatus, due to organisers being busy with babies and other big life happenings, I’m taking the baton back.

For a number of reasons, in addition to supporting my involvement, Deeson will also be sponsoring DO PM in 2020.

Here’s why:

1. We’re open by default

At Deeson, we're vocal advocates for open source. It gives developers the opportunity to be part of a thriving and engaged global community and is a powerful force for empowering ourselves to better understand, adapt and improve the tools we're working with.

This openness extends to everything we do, including our processes and how we work.

2. It’s at the heart of our values

One of our values is to be generous. Organising community events like these is an outliving of this value; it provides a platform for us to generously share our experience and knowledge.

3. Delivery is a culture, not a process

We believe delivery management is often an under-valued discipline but is essential to the delivery of successful projects.

We also think that delivery is about providing an environment where collaboration can flourish. DO PM is a meetup that is committed to providing delivery folk with the skills and capabilities that are required to build healthy, happy, delivery-focused teams.

4. The bigger picture

In December 2018, we became part of The Panoply. The Panoply has an aim for the group’s companies to donate 1% of our time to purpose-driven activities because even small actions can make a big difference to the communities in which we all live and work.

So far this year we’ve collectively donated 508 hours to different causes; we want to get to 1000 hours by spring, so keep up the good work! This involves organising events like this one.

5. It’s fun!

I’ve met so many different people through DO PM over the years, from all different companies and levels of experience.

I love that the outside of the physical meetups we use a delivery Slack channel to support each other when we face challenges or need advice.

Get involved

The DO PM Slack channel now has over 400 members from all across the UK who daily share challenges and in return receive suggestions and discuss potential solutions.

You can request access here. If you’d like to attend or speak at a future event, please contact me.

The first event is happening on Thursday 30th January at The Foundry in Oxford.