Fostering the tech space in Glasgow
Following the completion of Bird.i’s first investment round in May 2016, I decided to move the business to Glasgow in Scotland — a decision which surprised my family, friends and colleagues. Although the quality of the local universities, talent pool, the affordable cost of living, the BREXIT status and support from Scottish Enterprise were all key to that strategic decision, I also knew something big was happening over there and I wanted to be part of it.
I was lucky enough to have previously worked with Glasgow-based space start-ups Clyde Space and Spire, and also seen impressive tech incubators Code Base Base in Edinburgh, so I knew that the technology ecosystem in Scotland, whilst smaller than in London, was genuine and well-integrated. With that I mind, I decided to choose Glasgow as Bird.i’s new home.
Now two years down the line, when asked if I have any regrets about the decision, my response will always be the same:
NOT AT ALL!
From both personal and professional perspectives, I’m incredibly satisfied with the decision and now feel the time is right to start giving back to Scotland, and specifically Glasgow.
So, when I had the opportunity to meet Peter Sturrock, Senior Director of Engineering at Skyscanner, we started to discuss the strength of the tech ecosystem in Edinburgh and how we could replicate this environment in Glasgow, without the underlying network a place like Code Base helps to breed.
We both agreed that starting small with a thematic round table would be more effective for cultivating relationships and discussions than diving straight into a larger “Meet-up” type event (which would inevitably attract recruiters and consultants.) We knew to get the most out of the sessions, we’d have to limit participants to only a few companies with key people.
At first, I struggled to find enough engaged participants from my space network, since many of my contacts are focused around building spacecraft, not software. Thankfully, a new opportunity arose with Andrew Sloane, Co-founder & Investment Lead at Accelerate Digital Ventures.
Alongside the Silicon Valley Bank and Scottish Equity Partners, Accelerated Digital Ventures decided to gather a dozen CEOs from Glasgow around a networking dinner to help foster the exchange of knowledges and experiences, and I took my chance to test the appetite for a round table.
Our first Round Table on Continuous Deployment
On Wednesday 23 May 2018, we welcomed Peter Sturrock (Senior Director of Engineering) and Guy Templeton (Software Engineer) from Skyscanner, Jo Halliday (CEO, Founder) and Elisabeth Fairley (COO, Founder) from Talking Medicines and Colin Brown (Co-founder & CTO) and Chris Oliver (Engineering Manager) from Adimo for our first Round Table event to discuss Continuous Deployment.
We shared our tech stack, existing or planned process, behaviours and key decisions to be made. All opinions, experiences, questions or feedback were equally heard and listened to, wether they were from a pre-revenue start-up or a unicorn which is pushing hundreds of deployment to their website everyday.
Key Discussion points
Culture shift and getting the team in sync
Apart from just using new tools, practicing Continuous Integration / Continuous Deployment means increasing the speed and frequency of delivering high-quality software. For developers, this means taking full ownership not just for their code, but for the whole product, testing, automation and close collaboration with each other and the business. This requires training, commitment, and discipline.
Choosing the right tech/tools
Every integration and deployment pipeline is different. Products vary widely in architecture and functionality, so the needs of development teams will be just as varied. Choose software that supports your unique system and workflow.
Releasing value daily/weekly
Bringing software applications to market and iterating/pivoting quickly defines industry leaders. This requires leaving traditional approaches behind in favor of Agile, collaborative development and delivery.
Deployment strategies and configuration management
“A deployment strategy is a way to change or upgrade an application. The aim is to make the change without downtime in a way that the user barely notices the improvements.” Depending on the product architecture and what the system is using (micro-services or traditional components, databases, long-running connections) each team will opt for the strategy that best suits their needs (blue-green deployment, A/B, etc.)
Testing vs monitoring metrics
Comprehensive, high-quality and fully automated tests are required to avoid production failures. But code coverage is not a good representation of code quality anymore. In the cloud-native world, tests need to be mapped to the functionality and required business outcomes. Additionally, it is essential to monitor performance, response times and user experience. “Only through this continuous feedback can you ensure that no degradation occurs as you push out releases with increasing frequency.”
Following this first successful round table event, we have decided to host another one at Bird.i around the end of June 2018 to discuss the Agile Scrum framework and what it takes to execute it successfully depending on the stage and size of the business.
If you are interested to take part of this next Round Table event, please get in touch at info@hibirdi.com
