DevOps World London – Belonging and Intersectionality – Cheryl Razzell, AWS and Lauren Langdell, Women in DevOps

This is Textron tv. Well's, a great pleasure of being joined by Cheryl Razzell and Lauren Langdell, both of who are part of an important panel coming up on December 5th at DevOps World. We're gonna get into that topic, uh, of the panel in just a moment.

First, Lauren, would you introduce yourself? Yeah, of course. My name's Lauren.

It's lovely to meet you. Um, I'm the founder of Women in DevOps and organization. We have 17,000 engineers globally, and we're looking to, I'm fighting to close the gender gap in the tech space.

Fantastic. Wow, Cheryl, Hi. I am, uh, thanks ever so much for having me here.

I'm really looking forward to joining you at DevOps world. Um, so I know this is a sneak peek into what we're gonna be talking about, but, uh, I lead the UK and I compute, um, solutions architect team for AWS. Um, and I've been in the industry for over 20 years.

Um, probably as one of those engineers that you've had lower and working, um, in your, in your community. Um, so yeah, some experience around the background and kind of working in the industry. Fantastic.

So the panel topic is, or the title of the panel is Belonging in DevOps, the Importance of Intersectionality. So you, you, you have me at the title, but maybe DevOps, maybe intersectionality or both. Uh, let's start with what the panel or what the topic is about and, uh, what you're, what you're hoping to discuss as part of this panel.

Yeah, of course. I mean, first we're so lucky to have Cheryl in this panel, right? Not only like there's 20 years worth of insights actually such an inspiring leader within the space, like particularly, um, in like the London and UK wider team community scene.

So very, very lucky to have her. The, the concept of the talk is basically like looking beyond diversity. So like moving the conversation away.

And actually when we're talking about like women in tech, not all women in tech look the same. And having a real focus on intersectional diversity, which actually is really often overlooked by organizations. So we are going to be tapping into things like focusing on intersectionality as a whole, looking at embracing cultural identities and what that means for an organization.

Things like tokenism and, and how we overcome this, um, systematic change in the recruitment process, which is a very important part, um, of thinking about inspiring and keeping women in this tech space. Um, thinking about mindset changes and, and the most important part of like, how can you get started? You know, what can you do when you go back to the office tomorrow and how we can build and maintain those, um, diversity equitable, um, and inclusion and belonging goals.

So, yeah, a chunky topic. Lots to, lots to talk about. A very important one, Your perspective, Cheryl.

So Mitch, you kind of talked about it in the title of the, of the panel. It's about belonging. And I think that it's really important that we have inclusivity against, you know, gender, race, thought leadership.

Um, we want our, we want our employees and, and our organizations to represent our customers. How can you build a product when you don't represent what your customers look like? Um, and you need that diversity of thought.

You need that diversity of the, the way that, you know, different people work and different way of people the way they think. And I think it's just really important that we kind of ingrain this in our organizations. Um, and there are some great strides being taken in this, um, in this area, but I still think not enough because that's why we're here today.

That's why we're gonna be talking on the panel in DevOps. Um, 'cause I still think there's so much that can be done. Um, and working with large organizations, small startups, schools, you know, the curriculum.

Um, it was only the other day that I was talking to my son's school about the curriculum of technology, um, and it being inclusive enough that, you know, we're not excluding different genders and backgrounds from getting into technology at an early stage so we can build those pipelines of the future to build out our workforce of the future. So I think it's really important and, um, I'll keep getting on my soapbox about it and talking about it until I can see a real difference in the world, um, in in how we represent our teams. I think we have a lot of work to do.

And I know Lauren, you know, this is, you, you have a lot of background and, uh, kind of there are some research on on why, why this is such an important issue for us to work on. I'd love for you to share some more about that. Yeah, of course.

I mean, on top of, I guess highlighting what Cheryl's talking about then, right? What are the consequences of not having diverse teams? Because, you know, we're continuing to build biased product bias algorithms.

I don't wanna scare anyone, but some very, very scary outcomes and statistics and products that have have gone wrong because of this. Right? And we're looking up to 50% of women leave tech before they're 30.

That's a really scary statistic, right? And actually, if we don't move the dial now, and the dial isn't just attracting more diverse talent to a company, right? Because then we're just moving talent about like, how do we encourage underrepresented groups to end technology and also stay there, right?

For them to feel like actually this is a fulfilling career that they can have for a, a long time, right? It doesn't need to be for their forever, but for a sustainable period. So, um, it's incredibly important.

And one of the things I'm really looking forward to in particular with Cheryl's tapping into is also like, how's that landscape changed? Like, what hurdles have we overcome since the de and i kind of movement and conversation has taken more a focused topic, but actually how far do we have to go? Because actually, ha ha how does it actually with that much difference 20 years ago?

Um, I think that's really important because everyone can start somewhere. And I'm a big believer that every individual is responsible for inclusivity in the workplace. Whether it's, you know, speaking up for someone in a meeting, whether it's putting their hand up to um, you know, give feedback on an interview process, for example.

Um, 'cause like-minded folks hang out of like-minded folks, right? So, um, we wanna make sure that we're building truly inclusive workplaces, but everyone's responsible for that. It's not just, it should be top down of course, but it's not just the founder's responsibility, it's not just the hrs responsibility, it's everyone's right from intern to to ceo.

So that's something I'm really excited to speak to you about. Cheryl, I dunno if you wanted to kind of dive in a little bit deeper to your experience. 'cause you are certainly the expert, Certainly not the expert, but, uh, I've got more years of experience than I'd like to own up to because it shows my age.

But I, I've worked in technology for quite a long time and I think that I've worked in tech technology at a critical stage of techno technology evolution. So I've gone from kind of starting in my early days as working on desktop support into kind of leadership and DevOps. And I've had a different fla, a few flavors of working in technology in different roles.

And I've worked with a lot of people kind of in those, um, ethnic minorities or diversity minorities. And I've seen them, like you mentioned earlier, dropping out early because they don't feel supported. They don't feel like they belong.

Um, and you know, there, there, there, there tends to be trends within organizations where you are not included because you have children and everybody goes down the pub after work and you can't be included in those type of events. So you feel like you're excluded by default because you can't attend those. So I think it's just thinking outside of the box of kind of thinking about other people's feelings and how you incorporate them and doing things slightly differently.

Um, and I've seen that kind of evolution from I was always in the minority in a room, um, in all my careers. Um, and I see that getting better. Um, and I do a lot of work with kind of women in tech community.

Um, I do a lot of mentoring and we're still having these kind of unconscious biases, the way that people interact with each other, um, that they don't know they're doing. So, um, I worked at a, a, a large financial organization where they did unbiased tra um, unbiased, uh, unconscious bias training, which I thought was brilliant because it really enlightened people to things they don't think about, but their behaviors that they have in meetings or how they act with people and really making them think about the way that other people react to the way that they say things. And I think that sort of training should be incorporated by organizations.

Um, so yeah, I think I've seen a huge amount of change. Um, and I think where we are today, I think Covid had its downfalls, but I think also in terms of technology, technology advancements, you know, organizations that were never set up to work from home suddenly have had to change all their systems like overnight so everyone can work from home. Um, and that allows, allows a lot more flexibility for, you know, working parents or people that are looking, you know, for carers, people that are daunted to take a job back in, you know, the technology sector.

'cause they feel that they have to be in the office five days a week and having that flexibility, um, which is great for some organizations, but I know that a few organizations, they have huge real estate bills, they have to populate their offices. I'm kind of stepping back into that way of thinking. So I think we need to ride that trend and we need to kind of encourage organizations to keep that flexible way of working and that flexible mindset, um, to retain some of the talent that, you know, have got used to working and being able to work their, their work, their work around their, their children and their home life.

So I think like, I can go on all day, like I said about the different topics, but I think there's definitely things that we can do with organizations to change their mindsets to be more adaptable. Yeah, I think that's the point, this conversation, right? When thinking about diversity, I think it's really easy when we think about diversity just to think about women.

But obviously when we think about intersectionality, thinking about multiple identities, right? So ethnic, um, LGBTQI plus neurodiversity, socioeconomic diversity, accessibility, but also look at thinking about like how we redefine family. Like actually is family just having kids or is family also as you mentioned, like caring for an older relative, having to take your younger siblings to school, but because apparently perhaps your parents aren't able to, for whatever reason.

Um, emotional support animals, you know, that some people choose not to have children, but actually their pets are their absolute world and babies, right? We can take our kids to the doctors, but we can't take our pets to the vet, for example. So really sort of opening up the conversations actually, what do we mean by intersect diversity and how do we move forward in organizations?

Which I think is why such an important topic. And it, I think that the levels differ, right? In different organizations.

Some are more progressed than others. Um, but yeah, what, what a world, what's a better world? It would be if, if everyone could be themselves at work, right?

And put and be, bring their self to work and thrive in that, like, in that environment without barriers. And I'm hoping that's what people are gonna get out this conversation, right, is even if you, you don't have to move mountains, but you can do something and it's really easy to get started. So I hoping there'd be lots of takeaways from, from the talk in particular.

Yeah, absolutely. Something you just said. Then I did a recent event, uh, an event, um, uh, an event, uh, place and there were gender fluid toilets, you know, things that you just don't think about that actually just make people feel like they're not, you know, they're not different.

We don't want 'em to stand out. We want 'em just to fit in. So I think, you know, breaking down those barriers, um, and making the work the workplace a lot more inclusive for different people from different backgrounds.

I think, you know, we need to do a lot more around that. We've got so far with agenda conversations, but I think there's so much more around, you know, gender fluid and trans and LGBT, you know, there's, there's so many different requirements that needs bring into the workplace that we're not quite there yet. It seems like one of the things that, um, my, my bit of experience in this is just o openness for learning, right?

Because you, you have to unlearn some behaviors, learn a lot of new things, different ways, terms you may not know, right? Maybe you don't know what intersectionality is, or DEI, you know, that might be uncomfortable for someone who doesn't know that. So it seems like this would be a great, not only a great forum, but the fact that we're talking about it in a kind of, in a DevOps context.

We're already talking about cross-functional teams and collaboration and people working together. So we've already got some of the kind of basic things to now have this, you know, next level conversation about how do we really get the best of everything we can for everyone that's involved. Yeah, yeah.

We've gotta, sorry, again, I was just gonna say we have to make our workplaces, uh, like open enough that we can encourage everybody, um, to, to attend, because otherwise we're shutting off a huge amount of our workforce that potentially could change our products for the better for our customers. So I think it's really important that we do that. It's actually really similar, um, to what Cheryl was gonna say, like, what is the worst case scenario here?

The worst case scenario is that we build better products, more inclusive products for, for our customers. There is no negatives to wanting to do more. Um, and Cheryl touched on it earlier, but even just understanding your bias, that opening to learning, which I love, right?

It's so important. And just being aware of your biases. You may have some, um, we all come from different walks of life.

We've inherited certain things, but being aware of your biases and being able to mitigate that when having conversations, when hiring, when, um, including people in the room, et cetera, it's so important. And I, I think openness to openness to learning is a very, very, um, important thing to be, yeah, to be open-minded, to learn new things. It's tough, isn't it?

You know, some of these conversations are hard. You're right, they're difficult. They are.

We need to inspire the right people for the job, right? And, and building those is inclusive environment to allow us to do that. I think the, the thing you come out of it, at least for me is a level of understanding.

You didn't realize about some aspect of, you know, a hidden bias or something you've done that isn't, isn't inclusive or welcoming to, to people being part of the team and getting the best, uh, of everything for the team and for them. I know your panel, I imagine there's probably gonna be a, a wide diversity in terms of experience on this topic, right? People are like, I just wanna get something started on my team.

We're doing, we're kind of cooking, we're doing pretty well, how do we get to the next level? So you have pretty broad spectrum of experiences, I'm guessing, so that you want to be able to talk to folks that are somewhere on this journey. Yeah, we have a lot of diversity in the team, both from representation, but also where, um, folks are at within their career as well.

It's always really important to us or in DevOps because if we're speaking to the same level all the same time, we're having like the same, um, sort of like experiences. Um, yeah, huge amount of representation and yeah, people that at the start of their journey and folks like Cheryl right, have committed years of both their professional and personal time to making a change. Um, but my, I'm hoping that even if you can't make the talk, right, the takeaway, even from this short conversation, right, is that if you take responsibility for it, even kind of going to your recruitment team in the morning be like, Hey, I know we're hiring what we're doing to attract more underrepresented groups.

What could I do? What could I do to help influence this? Like, do you need any ideas?

Um, is one way to start and it's not time consuming, right? The responsibility for everyone, no matter how small or large, you know, all of this is gonna help me with the dial. Very good.

Anything to add, Cheryl? Um, I would just say if anybody, um, wants to make a change is, is have a look around. It's not always obvious, you know, with, with male and female, it's easy kind of, you know, to, to differentiate.

But, you know, intersectionality is all about kind of, you know, different backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds, and you, there are things that you can't always see. Um, so you've really gotta dig deep into have you got the rest of the best workforce to represent your customer base? Um, are you doing the right things to be inclusive within your organization?

I think these things can be easily assessed just by looking around, having conversations and talking to people, kind of, you know, within your organization and seeing how they feel about it. And I love kind of Lauren's ideas. I'll get some ideas, you know, bring some ideas internally about events that you can run, you know, mentoring programs or, you know, how do you get more involved in different communities?

It's about bringing those conversations back, right? It's the conversation that happens there and then that gets amplified with all those conversations that happen, each person that attends, whether it's a little or not. It's great.

It's fantastic. com and check out the agenda or where this panel, where this talk is about. I, you know, I really wish I could be there.

I would love to see it. Hopefully it's being recorded and I'll get a chance to check it out. But, um, we should the both best in, in the panel and thank you for, for putting this together.

I think it's gonna be impactful and beneficial to anybody who is comes and, uh, with a set of ears and ready to learn some things. Excellent. Thank you for having us.

Thanks Mitch. I appreciate it. Thank you for sharing.