{unscripted} 2021 - Day One Recap

Day one is a wrap at our second {unscripted} Conference. We could not be more excited for everyone who has turned out and all the wonderful speakers who helped make day one a success. Along with the live-tweeting, here is a recap of what has been moving and shaking on day one. 

All About Confidence

Core to software delivery is confidence and all of the confidence-building exercises we use to get our ideas into production safely. The keynote was kicked off by Dave Farley, one of the early godfathers of Continuous Delivery. 

Dave set the pace for the rest of the day with a core theme of confidence. Looking at pillars of software delivery, modernization in software delivery focuses on the inclusion of confidence. 

Modern Approach on Continuous Integration

Potentially seen as a solved problem, Continuous Integration continues to evolve as the paradigms around testing / confidence-building exercises also continue to evolve. 

The panelists did an amazing job chatting through the modern needs of engineering teams. The ability to rapidly iterate resonated with multiple panelists. Similar to Martin Fowler’s Strangler Pattern, test coverage for new features can mimic this pattern because of generic approaches around adding additional test suites with the notion of running all test suites per build. The longer the process runs, the less iteration is available which is key to confidence. 

Iteration is Key to Confidence

A key pillar to building confidence is the ability to iterate. In software engineering, the core to innovation work is trial and error. Supporting that trial and error is exactly how to build confidence. Engineering efficiency focuses on the ability to enable iteration in a safe and expeditious manner. 

With the velocity and ability to tweak that interaction brings, core to validating confidence is the ability to measure and compare findings to a baseline or hypothesis. This is where Observability steps in. 

Learning Through O11Y - Observability 

The old adage that “you can’t improve what you can’t measure” is true in the technology world. Though as systems become more distributed and complex, traditional monitoring and measuring requires significant horsepower and might not provide the context/conclusions needed. 

Even with top-notch observability stacks and practices, an incident can still occur. Incidents themselves can be a grave detriment in overall confidence. Though, you can go into an incident with confidence with proper incident management practices and frameworks. 

Site Reliability Engineering [SRE] principles provide art and science when dealing with incidents and on the rise.  

Day one was a success because of your attendance. There were several other sessions not mentioned in the recap that were fantastic and worth a listen once they are available on demand. We are looking forward to welcoming everyone back on day two. 

Onwards to Day Two

Day two will certainly be packed with great learnings and announcements from Harness on what is the latest and greatest. If you missed day one, you can still register for free and catch the announcements on day two. 

Cheers!

-Kari, Tiffany, and Ravi