This year’s WomenTech Conference theme was a simple one, ‘Chief in Tech Summit‘, with a goal to provide advancements and real-world experience as insights, helping to nurture and grow the next generation of tech leaders.

Participants learn’t how to drive change forward as leaders, as well as gain new opportunities to develop strategies for advancing women throughout their careers.

Both Senior Project Delivery Manager, Laura Potter, and Developer, Jessica Waving, attended this year’s event, in order to find out some top tips on tech development, workplace culture and expanding roles into the C-Suite.

Using the power of words to resolve delivery uncertainties and reframing the questions from “What Is The Delivery Plan” to “What Is The Delivery Purpose”, was a valuable takeaway for me.

The main takeaways from this week would be:

• Do not be afraid to continuously learn and unlearn. Accept the failures and move on to mitigate for the future.
• Always start with why: “Why are we doing this?” “Why would this work and this way not?”.
• Opening up the conversation to the “whys” help the resolution and the teams growth.
• Even if you are not the owner or the approver, you should have the passion to help the project succeed and speak up.
• Divide and conquer. Rome wasn’t built in a day! Take one goal and put 100% into that rather than 25% into four goals.
• Ensure the priorities match the end goal. Working together must be aligned with a common purpose.
• Ensure there is a clear sync between the plan and the process.

The quote that really resonated with me would be this:

“You don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to be 100% committed” – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

I personally listened in on the more ‘software engineering’ topics as well as the career growth sessions.

The main areas that stood out to me were:

• Always be resistant and believe in yourself. Take a moment to step back and realise what you can do, whenever you can.
• Any decision is better than no decision, after all, what’s the worst that can happen?
• Less than 20% of all leadership positions in technology are filled by women. This number is growing though, through more supported, unbiased beliefs, training and dedication.

Just like the theme of this event, we’re very much about equality, unbiased advancements and professional evolution within roles here at Firemind. With our team naturally progressing and carving their own career path, based on the merit and skill of their work.

Visit our Careers page for further details about the Firemind culture.