BGL Tech Refreshers Week Retrospective
Launching for the first time this year, Refreshers Week is a week dedicated to learning and development for all members of BGL Tech. So I thought I’d take some time to reflect on the sessions I attended and what I gained from the week.
Day 1: Kick-off!
I came into the office on Monday morning and was pleasantly surprised to see it had been decked out with balloons, bunting and fairy lights. There were even little gifts on our desks; a Refreshers Week water bottle (mine is a nice shiny blue), a laptop sticker and a pack of Refreshers (I see what they did there! Even the balloons matched the colours of the eponymous sweet).
After catching up on my emails, it was off to the Haycock in Wansford for the Refreshers Week launch event, which featured a keynote speech from the extremely inspirational Jem Hills, who told us about his fascinating career and how you should never let your dreams be suppressed by others.
I spent my afternoon taking a crash course in the basics of MuleSoft, which I found extremely interesting as I had absolutely no prior knowledge of what it even was! I’m even now considering beginning my journey to learn MuleSoft through a self-paced online learning course!
Day 2: Learn, learn, learn!
I booked myself in for a jam-packed agenda on day 2, starting with a talk called ‘The Maths Behind AI’, which demonstrated that AI is not as scary or complicated as it seems and is actually based on some relatively simple mathematics.
Following this it was straight on to ‘Security and Defensive Coding’ which left me both terrified by the ability of hackers and simultaneously impressed with some of the techniques that we can use (and are used!) to combat them. I love a good dose of fear and awe in the morning!
The afternoon was occupied by a talk on ‘Servant Leadership’. “Think not what your team can do for you, but what you can do for your team”. This session actually really helped me think about leadership within BGL and the kind of behaviours and mindset changes I can start to work on myself, should I ever decide that leadership is a route I wish to take my career in.
Straight after this, BGL Chief Technology Officer, Steve Woodford, treated us to ‘Tech Through The Looking Glass’, providing an insight into where our technology journey began, how far it’s come and where it’s going. The session was brought to life with a very effective demonstration involving a lot of string and clambering over chairs!
Day 3: Treasure!!
Day 3 began with a talk from a couple of the Quality Engineers on ‘Automation and Quality’. It was really fascinating to see the work that they put in to automating testing, putting in as much effort as possible to aid the regression cycle.
The afternoon was dedicated time for each of the teams in the department to focus on a key area, or to take part in an activity to promote collaboration and team bonding. On this lovely sunny day, my team decided to go for a treasure hunt in Stamford, splitting into small groups to work together to follow clues. My group won of course (and no, having a Stamford resident in the group does not count as cheating! 😉)
Day 4: Getting nerdy with it
Day 4 got down and technical starting with a talk about ‘Security and the IBMi’. It was extremely eye-opening to see the amount of work that goes into keeping our data secure, with a valuable takeaway of what I can do in my everyday role to help.
This was followed by a presentation from Milan Juza on ‘Probabilistic Forecasting’. I had totally forgotten how much I enjoy statistics and working on probability and distributions! I’ve not done mathematics in a long time, but this brief looked into how we can use data-driven probabilities for forecasting and the value it can bring to our workflow process. It really left me with a desire to go and crunch some numbers and draw up some graphs (and maybe even do some maths for fun!)
Day 5: Mental wellbeing
As the final day of Refreshers Week dawned, I had only one session left to attend, this one being among one of the most important: ‘Managing Anxiety’. Mental health is an issue close to my heart and I was glad to see a number of sessions that focused on it within our Refreshers Week. We were given really clear advice and techniques that can be used to manage anxiety, as well some background on what some causes of anxiety are.
Among all the things I’ve talked about already, I also attended screenings of many TED Talks throughout the week covering a broad range of topics, including: how to get children involved and excited about tech, building jet suits, photographing black holes, what happens when you reply to spam emails, the power of innovation and many, many more.
Done!
Phew! What a week! It’s been absolutely fantastic to have five days dedicated entirely on learning. The week has been a buzz, with everyone in the department feeling more alert and excited. I’ve been part of (and overheard) so many discussions about things other than the daily grind. People are getting excited about a new technology or a concept from a talk, an idea or a value. I think everybody has taken something away from this week. I know I have found a few things I want to now continue to pursue in my own time and build on what I learnt.
This week has definitely left me feeling refreshed!
