Episode 2 - Volunteer Stories

Izzie Kirkpatrick tells us how listening to her Dad got her to join the Scottish Tech Army and how mentoring has helped her confidence and let her see alternative career opportunities. Rhi Batstone and Ric Clark share their experience of the STA's first 'Homebrew Challenge', unexpectedly presenting to Scottish Government and the generosity of fellow volunteers.

Transcript

Kirsty McIntosh  0:00 
Hello and welcome to Episode Two of the Scottish tech army podcast. I'm Kirsty McIntosh. Thanks very much for all your positive feedback from last week. It's very much appreciated, and I'm glad that you're enjoying already what we're doing. Today's episode is a focus on some volunteer stories, which should give you a flavour of the supportive and encouraging environment we have here.

Within the Scottish Tech Army, we have a series of development initiatives that are available to all the volunteers. And today our guest is Izzie Kirkpatrick, who is joining us to talk about her experience of the Tech Mates programme.. tell us about her experience of it and hopefully encourage others to take part in the same  initiative. So welcome to the podcast, Izzie.

Izzie Kirkpatrick  0:50 
Thank you. Great to be here.

Kirsty McIntosh  0:51 
Tell us a little bit about why you joined tech army first and foremost.

Izzie Kirkpatrick  0:56 
Okay. Well, I left my previous job just before lockdown. And it wasn't in the tech industry but that's always been, well for the last few years that's always been where I've been wanting to aim for. And yeah, I heard about this through actually my dad because I am not really that great with social media all the time.

Kirsty McIntosh  1:17 
So what did you get involved the first time when you first came on? Did you - how did you go about getting your, to know your way around the army?

Izzie Kirkpatrick  1:25 
Um, well, I went on, and I pretty much straightaway joined the virtual watercooler channel. Because I figured that's the best way to sort of get to know people. There weren't too many people at that point. So it didn't seem like it was a small pool of people. So I thought, Oh, yeah, I could, I could potentially, you know, chat to people and get to know how things are going to be going. And I actually got both Pete and Alastair within the first couple of donut meetings. So I knew that was very helpful because they helped,  they gave me advice really just to jump in and sort of get involved wherever I felt I could be of use.

Kirsty McIntosh  2:10 
So how did you come across the Tech Mates programme then?

Izzie Kirkpatrick  2:13 
I was working closely with with Jean doing the Book of Knowledge and the sort of, the page appears. And that's what that was really my first introduction, I think to the to the Tech Mates.

Kirsty McIntosh  2:29 
And was it your idea to go to look for a mentor or did somebody suggest that you might benefit from it? What did it, how I did it..? 

Izzie Kirkpatrick  2:38 
I thought I'd like look for a mentor there. Um, but yeah, I somehow I ended up joining the PMO team - Project Management Office. And shortly after that had been getting set up and I really got along with Margaret, who's the head of the PMO group, and I sort of reached out to her sort of separately and, and just said, you know, would you be interested in mentoring me?

Kirsty McIntosh  3:10 
That's fantastic. And how is that actually? How does it work? How did you... what happens? Are you given something to do? And then you have to kind of report back? Or is it more a case of observing from a distance? You know, what's the... how does it work for you?

Izzie Kirkpatrick  3:26 
Um,  so it's mostly I'm observing the distance. And I do represent PMO at the project managers meetings. On Monday to Thursday, I'm there 11.00 to 11.15. Um, but it's really more of a sort of, for us anyway, every mentor mentee relationship is different. And for us she's...it's really just sort of helps me with my confidence because I do have a tendency to sort of put myself down and not recognise my value. And so yeah, it's for us it's sort of just, she's just sort of great and she's there and and I can talk to her and bounce ideas off.

Kirsty McIntosh  4:16 
I suppose if you're representing the PMO in various different places, you must be getting to know a lot more new people as well, which is, you know, a great networking experience for you for you too. So, how often do you keep in touch with Margaret as a mentor rather than just kind of on the day to day business of the PMO?

Izzie Kirkpatrick  4:34 
as a mentor we meet once a week. We meet on Tuesday evening, four o'clock

Kirsty McIntosh  4:42 
And it's nice to have that dedicated time is it really is it good to know that that's you've got that every every week that you've got that place to do you have an agenda that you followers, it doesn't actually a nice natural sort of conversation for the two of you?

Izzie Kirkpatrick  4:54 
It's just sort of a natural conversation, yeah, and we only started it quite recently, being a regular meeting, but yeah, yeah, we don't have any sort of agenda. It's just sort of self guided.

Kirsty McIntosh  5:09 
That's fantastic. And I suppose you you, you must know, then that you can go back to Margaret, outside of that if you're having a bit of a question mark or about something about how to do something or, she's still available to you sort of whenever, whenever is needed. So how much longer do you think you'll be mentored by Margaret? Is that something that you'd like to see continue for a wee bit longer? Or do you do you think you may switch to a different mentor for a different experience or a different requirement that you might have?

Izzie Kirkpatrick  5:38 
I'd like to keep going with Margaret. Absolutely. I may, I may end up looking for a mentor specifically for web development, which, which was my career goal going into this, however, it's it's sort of 50/50 now. I really like the PMO side, so it can be going either way after this.

Kirsty McIntosh  5:59 
I was actually going to ask you about about what, what the Tech Army experience had had done for you in terms of where you thought you might go next. So that's really interesting that you've come in with with one idea in mind, but actually, you know, are you saying that there are other avenues that you suddenly realise are open to you?

Izzie Kirkpatrick  6:18 
Absolutely, yeah.

Kirsty McIntosh  6:19 
Yeah. Fantastic. And it's nice to know, actually that you can, isn't it that, I mean, really, No, none of these roads are close to you. It's just sometimes you just need that bit of confidence that says, hey, I can do this, you know. Well, listen, it's been really nice meeting you. Thank you very much for joining us on the pod. And I hope we'll catch up with you again, at some point soon.

Izzie Kirkpatrick  6:41 
Absolutely. Yes.

Kirsty McIntosh  6:44 
If you're interested in the mentoring programme that's available to you through the Scottish Tech Army, make your way over to the Book of Knowledge and search for mentoring there.  Very delighted to welcome to the podcast, Ric Clark and Rhi Batstone who have both worked together as part of a team that's been delivering on the Homebrew Challenge. So welcome to the podcast guys.

Rhi Batstone  7:04 
Thanks for having us.

Kirsty McIntosh  7:07 
Rhi, could you maybe tell us how you when you joined the tech army and why you signed up originally?

Rhi Batstone  7:13 
Yeah. So I'm, I'm code clan graduate from the data analysis course. And pretty much as soon as that course finished, I was aware of the STA and decided to sign up in an attempt to get some experience and not lose any of the skills that I've learned, but just keep practising and getting involved in the tech industry. Yeah, and Ric actually was the one that kind of got me into it, because I've had a bit of issue signing up.

Kirsty McIntosh  7:44 
Why did you join up, Ric?

Ric Clark  7:45 
Well, I mean, I remember actually that I first saw an advert or advertisement word, but I saw kind of call to arms on LinkedIn. One of the people that come and done our industry talk, his name I've forgotten (laughs). I had put up a kind of call to arms to join the Tech Army. So I signed up, got on the Slack channel, but of course then was kind of bombarded with messages every day. Because I was in the middle of code clan, it was very difficult to kind of keep up with what was going on. And was a little bit naive, I suppose, as well, because I thought that someone would just kind of like tap me on the shoulder and say 'do you want to get involved in this?' But in actual fact, and I kind of quickly learned that and if you want to get get involved that you actually have to keep sticking your hand up. And so um, so up finishing at Codeclan, it seemed like a really good opportunity to try and get involved in something. And then began a series of trying to get picked for some like it was like being like, at school. Pick me! Pick me! Anyway, that's how it began.

Kirsty McIntosh  9:03 
That's really interesting. And it's a it's a valid point that you make about just having to kind of get stuck in. The community hosts that are now welcoming new members into the into the organisation are actually, they're making that very great point, they're sort of saying you're unlikely to be invited to anything because there's so much going on. It's not because you're not wanted, it's just that it's such an active environment that really if you if you, if you're interested in something, then you just need to kind of get stuck in you just get waded in there. And it might not necessarily be about your skills, it actually may be that you find that there's a project that's very close to your heart as well that, maybe it's a charity that's around the corner from where you live or, or something. So I think that's a very good point that you just have to keep putting your hand up and saying, me, me, me, me, me and then and then kind of get on so so good for you on that. So tell us about what the homebrew challenge is? Not all of the volunteers will have kind of discovered it. So what was the homebrew challenge originally?

Rhi Batstone  9:58 
Well, so as I remember it anyway, suddenly there was this announcement that they were going to do a challenge. And I think I had been on a donut call with Shereen previous to that, so I kind of... I'm not saying I had an inside view. But because she had made the announcement, I was kind of able to kind of make a connection, that it was something that any of us could get involved in. I think also what was pleasantly critical about it was that because both Rhi and I had done a course in data analysis, this was straightaway something that we might be able to do something of value because a lot of the projects that were recruiting for volunteers, often we're looking for people with either business hanalysis experience or development, software development, and so there wasn't anything or there weren't many things that we could even apply to do that where we could actually use our transferable skills. So there was a kind of big win there and I basically got in contact with Rhi and said, Do you fancy creating a little team, but it kind of grew arms and legs after that.

Ric Clark  11:13 
But that was the original premise. I think we just thought that we would, because what it was so I've not really explained what it was that it that it was some looking at the Scottish Government open data that was available and trying to come up with some insights and then present them in a kind of very informal kind of environment to in theory, another hundred Scottish Tech Army people.

Kirsty McIntosh  11:40 
Yes, to your peers.

Ric Clark  11:41 
Yeah. And, and, but it was, you know, definitely an informal situation and, and, and an opportunity to show what we could do.

Kirsty McIntosh  11:52 
And it's, it's a, it was a grim subject at the end of the day, I suppose, because we were looking at sort of Coronavirus data, but actually very much, very much an important thing to be to be analysing. I mean, we really we want to know what happened. We want to understand what's what's happening. And I think it's great that there's actually open data available for us to be able to do that as well, which is kind of brilliant. So there are you had a team they ended up with, I know, I should, the interviewer should do so much speaking. But I actually put together a team as well. And then two of my two of my team got pulled back to work back off furlough. And it was basically me and the other guy, and neither of us, neither of us had any of the technical skills required and it was going to be a post it note in a sticky board. So so we had to withdraw, withdraw the team from from that point of view, but I know that we ended up with I think it was four teams that went forward and then three that finally finally presented to, as you say, a wall, a Zoom wall of of STA volunteers. How did you get on I mean working, it wasn't just, because it wasn't just the two of you in your team was it was or did you add more members to your team? Rhi?

Rhi Batstone  13:03 
Yeah. So it started out just Rick and I and we came up with a silly name. The tidy verse troopers, and then more people started joining. As it turns out, those people had no idea what tidy verse was. But the name anyway, neither

Kirsty McIntosh  13:18 
Me neither, what's tidy verse?

Rhi Batstone 13:20 
So it's a really lovely package in R, the R programming language that kind of brings together lots of different libraries.

Kirsty McIntosh  13:28 
An in joke, right, okay.

Rhi Batstone  13:33 
But um, yeah, so we, you and Robertson and Allan Stevenson joined our team. Oh, actually, Alan Kennedy as well. But Alan Kennedy had to drop out of work commitments as well. But um, yeah, and then a bit later, Johnny joined us from, who is also a code clan, graduate with us and yeah, It just sort of snowballed from there I think

Kirsty McIntosh  14:05 
Oh, we just lost Rhi

Rhi Batstone  14:06 
it informal nature. Oh, did I say?

Yeah, Rick was talking about the informal nature of the challenge. And I think I maybe didn't realise. Like I took that to, I don't know what the word is. Like I took it very informally and then quickly realised I was like, we got bigger that other people were taking it quite a lot more seriously. And, okay, this is gonna be great.

Kirsty McIntosh  14:35 
So you decided it was going to be informal and actually, you know, it was a full ballgown. (Laughter) So was there any point is it when you felt that you? I don't want to say that you kind of felt that you were maybe a bit out of your depth, or you weren't quite sure what to do. You know, and how did you how did you go about addressing that? I mean, did you have a good strong team Where you could turn to people to ask for help? was that? Was that available to you?

Rhi Batstone  15:04 
Yeah, do you want to go first, Ric?

Ric Clark  15:07 
Well, I mean, yeah, I think I think, um, it's funny because in the in the lead up to it. I mean, I remember when we had our first meeting, as a as a four or five, it must be a five at that point, just, um, with Alan Kennedy in it. And you know, what actually happened in terms of the other team members joining the team was that Shereen had been messaging saying, could you take this person on? Can you take that person on? and in actual fact two of the people that we were originally going to be in our team either went to another team that then didn't happen, or they just didn't get involved at all I don't really know. And so, um, could I take on Euan, could I take on Allan Stevenson and Alan Kennedy. So I said, that's all sounds great. And I remember arranging the first meeting, hoping, having looked up a few of their, their LinkedIn profiles, hoping that Euan might take on some kind of project manager role, because by far he had the greatest experience. And, you know, from, you know, professionally, you know, he had lots of experience in the data world. He'd been in quite like a senior positions as well. So and you know, so in that respect, if that hadn't happened, then I think we may have been out of our depth a little bit. But Euan did quickly kind of take charge of whether it was reluctantly or not, I don't know. But I've never did ask him. But but but he did. And that was great. I think in terms of what we actually had to offer as a team, both in presentation, and also in the technical side of things. I think we I felt that we had something really strong to offer because of some of the things that we've learned to do. And so it was never my I never had any doubt in my mind that we could actually do something that could be quite cool. And the funny thing is, is that another team that also Did something really quite cool came from a completely different perspective. They were all developers. So it just shows you that you don't have to be one or the other. But it was it was nice to be able to hold our own.

Kirsty McIntosh  17:11 
That's fabulous. So there you are, you're beavering away quite a thing on your two week agile sort of thing. And you're, you're you've got a delivery date for this presentation. And then all of a sudden, Alistair tells you that not only are you presenting to, you know, a zoom wall full of your peers from the tech army, but you'll also be presenting to Scottish Government, including the Chief Digital Officer and the Head of Service Design. And did that change how you felt about the Homebrew Challenge? (laughs)

Rhi Batstone  17:42 
For me, definitely, I think initial feelings of probably terrified and generally, I'm like a pretty nervous public speaker anyway. And yeah, these people that we're presenting to that could be potential possible employer like future employers. And, yeah, so that was exciting and terrifying at the same time for me.

Kirsty McIntosh  18:07 
Interesting.

Ric Clark  18:08 
Yeah. I mean, it's funny because in the lead up to I didn't think a whole lot about it, there's probably only afterwards when I look back at the job titles, I realised how senior work, I think when we actually had the kind of specific kind of, on the day feedback or their initial kind of thoughts, I started to realise that we were in a slightly more serious situation. I know that obviously, the data theories and and the kind of fact of, you know, the history and, you know, as you mentioned earlier, the very many sad kind of stories behind the.. lots of the data. But in terms of what it was that we were doing in front of these people, you know, I hadn't really taken that into account. And I think that's partly because of the fact that right now we've spent so much time you know Zoom calls or on a WebEx or Microsoft Teams thing or whatever, that that that that it's it kind of stretches reality a little bit. You don't you don't have quite the same fear, you know

Kirsty McIntosh  19:13 
Yes, it's a kind of kind of leveller, isn't it because you don't have...the one thing about these video conferencing calls I think sometimes, the criticism at the beginning of the lockdown was people were feeling that, there's you lose a sense of personality, you lose a sense of occasion. And actually, I think it's not always necessarily a bad thing that you lose that and actually, that's a really great example of when, when it gave you a freedom to to deliver, you know, without worrying about who was actually in the room in the atmosphere that was that was there at the time. So so we'll take a couple of steps back because three teams submitted and not submitted but basically presented their findings effectively to the zoom calls and then and then it was decided that actually between the three teams there was a great potential MVP there. And you were asked to to work together to deliver that MVP, which was ultimately, you know, you were delivering to Scottish Government and they gave you a whole week's notice (laughs) to do that. So how did that work with with a much, much bigger team? Sort of in hand? how did how did that go?

Rhi Batstone  20:20 
it kind of Rocky To start with, because we're just kind of merging different work processes, I think. I don't know I don't want to speak for the rest of my team. But I had the other teams we were starting to work with, we're using a much more rigorous kind of agile project management style. And it was great to learn all of that, but it was a big, very quick, steep learning curve. But yeah, very with that help, it helps to kind of find its feet quite quickly in the short amount of time that we had. Yeah.

Kirsty McIntosh  21:01 
What about you Ric, how did you find it?

Ric Clark  21:00 
I think I think definitely, that the, the, the other bigger team, the big team had um, they had lots of experience or certainly, I would say, in terms of the kind of technological side of things. So it was hard to grasp exactly what needed to be done. And there was a lot of conversations taking place where I kind of felt like I had nothing to offer, because I wasn't entirely sure I understood what they were talking about. So that was hard. But, but find out, I mean, Euan certainly broke down quite a lot of the kind of tech speak for us, you know, because just, you know, depending on what, you know, language you're using, or system you're using, sometimes one term is just the same, but it's meant for something else, and you know, so So, you know, anyway, and so so things became a bit clearer. But I think also, because of the fact that exactly as Rhi was talking about they had a way of working, and perhaps ours was a bit more relaxed, or less defined I suppose we just knew what we needed to get done for the original presentation. It was um, yeah, it was harder to get on the programme if you see what I mean, but I can see why something like that works. So you know, it just took us a bit of time.

Kirsty McIntosh  22:27 
So it's been good to have a kind of two different experiences there actually. And I would imagine, I mean, from my own personal experience, I can tell you that both of those experiences are valid. It just it depends sometimes in the context in which you're actually having to deliver something, the more relaxed one, I think sometimes can be a lot more creative. Whereas the more formal one is actually on the delivery. And actually, when you combine the two together, if you can be relaxed at the beginning and then much more disciplined about how you deliver on that creativity. Well actually as they say, The difference between creativity and innovation is delivery. So, you know, so it's a kind of a good lesson in that which is absolutely fantastic. So now having done it, I know that the homebrew challenge continues because you're you're being asked to continue to work on on that data and on those visualisations but how do you feel about it now? I mean, does it? Yeah, Rick, Rick, you're just about to go into the workforce. Congratulations. And, you know, do you feel more confident as a code clown graduate with a little bit of experience behind, you now, do you feel more confident going into what you're doing next?

Ric Clark  23:32 
was the answer. Yeah, I mean, yeah. So um, yeah, I mean, I think it is funny, actually, because I probably did less data analysis on the actual on the on the project. The one thing that I wanted to do, I couldn't get to work. Whereas, whereas Rhi and Johnny, you know, did some of the more cool stuff that did work and ultimately got presented upon, although I presented upon some of what we did, we didn't have anything to show for it, so to speak. So, so that was in some respects it's frustrating, but I think that's probably also a real life lesson that may well play out in the real world, too. Yeah, I think I'm definitely ever since I kind of the last few days have Codeclan when things start to finally kind of crystallised in my head about what I was trying to do. You know, I feel like a kind of growing momentum. And I think one of the great things about the Scottish Tech Army is that it's given me an opportunity to, to kind of keep that momentum. Whereas, you know, if, if I had just been applying for jobs, then, you know, I'm doing little things on my own. It might have been a lot harder. I mean, right now, you know, the economy is, you know, having a bit of a difficulty and so, so there's a lot of people kind of fighting for the same roles and I don't know what the stats are at all, but But you get the impression that, that it's a bit of a dogfight So, and people are, some people are getting interviews and some aren't and, and, you know, it's very frustrating. So any opportunity to kind of keep your hand in the game is really important. So,

Kirsty McIntosh  25:15 
yeah, and also it's a great environment to, to try something and for it not to work. Because you know, you know what I mean is but it is it's great that you actually, you felt that you could do that. And and you've you've learned so much from it as well. I mean, it's not it's not anything has failed, it's just simply that you were actually fortunately in a position where you could you could test out a theory and nobody was going to start shouting at you if the theory, you know, was was that, you know, couldn't be proved. I think that's I think, and I think that's great, you know, to, as you say, to take those skills that you've learned and apply them in the real in a real kind of environment, and then that you can take that out with you when you go into the workforce. What about you, Rhi? I mean, you obviously.. I get the impression that you've kind of really enjoyed this whole process.

Rhi Batstone  25:59 
Yeah. Definitely. So Rick kind of touched on the whole. It was really nice to have something to do that wasn't job hunting. And, like, completely took my mind off of it for the full three weeks. It was nice. Yeah, it was really fun. And I think it's one of those things where at the time, sometimes you get into a bit of like a sort of coding hole, maybe and you're like, this is really stressful. But immediately afterwards, it was really satisfying. So like, yeah, after the whole process, it's like looking back on it. It was fun, maybe if I didn't realise it at times. But um, yeah, and I've learned so much just from the sort of getting stuck in thing and the expert techies in the Scottish Tech Army, are like really great and so willing to share their knowledge which is makes it really nice environment to learn as well.

Kirsty McIntosh  26:52 
Fantastic. And the next time you get nervous about presenting, you can just go I presented to the Chief Digital Officer, a Scottish Government. I have nothing To be afraid of I mean, I think that that's absolutely a great thing to take away with you as well.

Rhi Batstone  27:05 
I'm getting it printed on my wall.

Kirsty McIntosh  27:06 
Absolutely, absolutely. So listen, thank you very much both for joining us today. I think that's a fantastic message to take to the rest of the tech army. Right. Good luck with your internship. I hope we'll see you back soon. And Rhi, I have absolutely no doubt that we will be talking about you presenting to Scottish Government, again, at some point in the not too distant future. So thank you very much for joining us.

Rhi Batstone  27:29 
Thanks for having us.

Kirsty McIntosh  27:32 
So there are some perspectives of what you can be getting up to just by being part of the Scottish tech army. From next week, we're going to start focusing on some of the projects that we're working on, both from the organisation's perspectives who are being helped and from the volunteers who are delivering those solutions. Once again, thank you very much for listening. Bye for now.