Meeting Title: Analytics Engineering Daily Sync Date: 2025-03-13 Meeting participants: Luke Daque, Uttam Kumaran, Demilade Agboola, Luke, Awaish Kumar, Caio Velasco
WEBVTT
1 00:02:46.100 ⇒ 00:02:47.149 Uttam Kumaran: Hey? Guys, good morning.
2 00:02:51.760 ⇒ 00:02:52.340 Awaish Kumar: One moment.
3 00:02:52.823 ⇒ 00:02:53.789 Luke: Hi guys.
4 00:02:54.450 ⇒ 00:02:55.030 Uttam Kumaran: Hey!
5 00:02:55.030 ⇒ 00:02:56.510 Caio Velasco: Bye, guys, Hello!
6 00:03:04.210 ⇒ 00:03:06.109 Uttam Kumaran: How’s everything? How was yesterday?
7 00:03:11.340 ⇒ 00:03:13.380 Caio Velasco: It was good the good day.
8 00:03:15.500 ⇒ 00:03:17.609 Caio Velasco: Still learning quite a lot about
9 00:03:17.720 ⇒ 00:03:21.899 Caio Velasco: Javista. We’ve been, I believe, productive.
10 00:03:22.530 ⇒ 00:03:23.220 Uttam Kumaran: Nice
11 00:03:28.340 ⇒ 00:03:29.225 Uttam Kumaran: cool
12 00:03:31.240 ⇒ 00:03:37.660 Uttam Kumaran: So I think today, the biggest thing I’m really thinking about is
13 00:03:38.344 ⇒ 00:03:43.830 Uttam Kumaran: sort of trying to get a little bit more organized. So to give you a sense of last few days.
14 00:03:44.300 ⇒ 00:03:52.190 Uttam Kumaran: we got out about 3 new proposals. So those are going out. That’s really what I’ve been spending a lot of my
15 00:03:52.380 ⇒ 00:03:56.739 Uttam Kumaran: time on, and had like 2 2 sales meetings.
16 00:03:56.980 ⇒ 00:03:59.280 Uttam Kumaran: Yesterday.
17 00:04:00.007 ⇒ 00:04:05.859 Uttam Kumaran: and so today, I want to spend a little bit of time trying to get as organized as possible
18 00:04:06.030 ⇒ 00:04:08.329 Uttam Kumaran: with things in linear
19 00:04:10.470 ⇒ 00:04:18.059 Uttam Kumaran: did you guys have a chance to to log into linear yet. And or maybe we can all sort of go through it together.
20 00:04:19.440 ⇒ 00:04:23.910 Luke: I. Personally, I personally haven’t yet. But yeah, that’s what I’m planning.
21 00:04:24.050 ⇒ 00:04:25.450 Luke: Yeah, we can check.
22 00:04:27.040 ⇒ 00:04:27.690 Demilade Agboola: I, just.
23 00:04:27.690 ⇒ 00:04:32.430 Demilade Agboola: I just basically logged in and accepted the invite and kind of moved on with the rest of my day.
24 00:04:33.010 ⇒ 00:04:34.250 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
25 00:04:36.093 ⇒ 00:04:38.639 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe I’ll just take. I’ll just take
26 00:04:38.930 ⇒ 00:04:42.299 Uttam Kumaran: 2 seconds and share my screen. And we can walk through. Because
27 00:04:43.030 ⇒ 00:04:51.690 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, we’ve all used product, manage project management stuff, but like linear is supposed to be the best out right now. So and I, gotta
28 00:04:52.160 ⇒ 00:04:55.614 Uttam Kumaran: we got 6 months free. So I was like, Okay, let’s try it.
29 00:04:56.540 ⇒ 00:05:01.149 Uttam Kumaran: I think notion ran its course for us. It’s just kind of a little bit confusing.
30 00:05:01.430 ⇒ 00:05:12.639 Uttam Kumaran: But really, what? What? I’m excited, and I think I’ll probably I’ll probably let the Pm. Team give a better overview of this. I’m gonna give like the engineering overview.
31 00:05:13.850 ⇒ 00:05:21.040 Uttam Kumaran: But really, we have teams. And then within teams, you have issues, projects and various views.
32 00:05:22.300 ⇒ 00:05:24.216 Uttam Kumaran: one of the things that
33 00:05:25.290 ⇒ 00:05:31.620 Uttam Kumaran: is great here is like for Eden, for example, we have several different projects that we’re working on.
34 00:05:31.790 ⇒ 00:05:37.570 Uttam Kumaran: and all of these are either analysis or dashboarding projects.
35 00:05:38.340 ⇒ 00:05:41.139 Uttam Kumaran: There are data models that roll up to this
36 00:05:42.310 ⇒ 00:05:46.489 Uttam Kumaran: and so a given project is almost like a an epic.
37 00:05:47.280 ⇒ 00:05:50.394 Uttam Kumaran: And within a project you can add,
38 00:05:51.300 ⇒ 00:05:54.959 Uttam Kumaran: you know various tasks. So one the one thing I’m I’m asking the
39 00:05:56.600 ⇒ 00:05:58.569 Uttam Kumaran: I’m asking the team to do
40 00:05:58.700 ⇒ 00:06:02.980 Uttam Kumaran: is to go through and make sure that all stuff for Javi and Eden
41 00:06:03.200 ⇒ 00:06:06.070 Uttam Kumaran: and pool parts ends up in
42 00:06:08.160 ⇒ 00:06:14.090 Uttam Kumaran: ends up in in linear, and so that we can make sure that everything is tracked
43 00:06:15.331 ⇒ 00:06:24.659 Uttam Kumaran: and I can tell that Steven has started working on a few things. And so one of the things, for example, is, every single dashboard task will have
44 00:06:24.820 ⇒ 00:06:33.780 Uttam Kumaran: sort of 4 like 5 clear milestones, which is discovery data collection, cleaning, testing dashboard and then monitoring
45 00:06:34.700 ⇒ 00:06:37.989 Uttam Kumaran: but I think for today’s Javi meeting
46 00:06:39.310 ⇒ 00:06:45.522 Uttam Kumaran: for the folks there, which is Kyle, and a wish. I think we’ll probably work to try and help
47 00:06:46.270 ⇒ 00:06:52.690 Uttam Kumaran: Steven. Transfer everything that’s existing into into linear
48 00:06:53.266 ⇒ 00:07:02.963 Uttam Kumaran: and then, as we start to be able to plan future tasks, we’ll move everything here. The one thing that I think is is helpful. Here is
49 00:07:03.610 ⇒ 00:07:09.932 Uttam Kumaran: There’s a place just to see your own issues. And so for me, I just have one issue that I I created.
50 00:07:10.560 ⇒ 00:07:12.749 Uttam Kumaran: but I think it’ll be helpful to
51 00:07:13.730 ⇒ 00:07:17.980 Uttam Kumaran: have this sort of area where all of our tasks are here. And basically I think
52 00:07:18.310 ⇒ 00:07:22.259 Uttam Kumaran: the Pm. Team will start to run standups purely out of linear.
53 00:07:23.490 ⇒ 00:07:24.260 Uttam Kumaran: The
54 00:07:24.760 ⇒ 00:07:29.410 Uttam Kumaran: check out if you can accept, and if you got an invite, if you can just accept that and
55 00:07:29.600 ⇒ 00:07:32.770 Uttam Kumaran: and you should be able to see the teams.
56 00:07:33.170 ⇒ 00:07:38.529 Uttam Kumaran: I’m pushing them as much as possible to to get this done. Steven has been out for a few days.
57 00:07:39.023 ⇒ 00:07:45.030 Uttam Kumaran: But I I believe Amber Akash are are doing their best to get everything into here.
58 00:07:45.140 ⇒ 00:07:53.979 Uttam Kumaran: Any like questions about this or any like thoughts about project, management, software, or like how we should sort of arrange things in here in general.
59 00:08:01.960 ⇒ 00:08:02.580 Caio Velasco: All right.
60 00:08:02.580 ⇒ 00:08:02.980 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
61 00:08:02.980 ⇒ 00:08:04.000 Caio Velasco: Question.
62 00:08:05.120 ⇒ 00:08:05.930 Caio Velasco: So
63 00:08:07.010 ⇒ 00:08:15.720 Caio Velasco: let’s say. Well, just to give you the example about the the gorgeous dashboard, like if we had a request of, we had to view the new dashboard.
64 00:08:16.130 ⇒ 00:08:25.930 Caio Velasco: How would that go over there would be just like a ticket in Jira, or like the way we’ve been doing? Or would it have more detailed information
65 00:08:27.430 ⇒ 00:08:28.010 Caio Velasco: just to get.
66 00:08:28.010 ⇒ 00:08:28.580 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
67 00:08:28.580 ⇒ 00:08:31.500 Caio Velasco: Sense of how, how far we can go.
68 00:08:32.530 ⇒ 00:08:34.099 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I’m so
69 00:08:34.250 ⇒ 00:08:40.719 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want this to be seen. As like, okay. Now, everything has to wait until
70 00:08:41.140 ⇒ 00:08:43.739 Uttam Kumaran: it makes it into a ticket to get worked on.
71 00:08:44.140 ⇒ 00:08:49.649 Uttam Kumaran: If we do that, then things are, gonna it’s gonna take like it’s gonna take a week to get anything done.
72 00:08:49.880 ⇒ 00:08:54.970 Uttam Kumaran: So I feel like this is an opportunity for bigger items.
73 00:08:55.630 ⇒ 00:08:58.749 Uttam Kumaran: But, for example, there’s stuff on Eden where
74 00:08:59.780 ⇒ 00:09:01.890 Uttam Kumaran: or and and software Javi, where, like
75 00:09:02.020 ⇒ 00:09:04.779 Uttam Kumaran: some some fixes took like an hour to do.
76 00:09:04.890 ⇒ 00:09:07.910 Uttam Kumaran: and I don’t want it to wait to get to a ticket.
77 00:09:08.160 ⇒ 00:09:10.830 Uttam Kumaran: to then have to be assigned
78 00:09:10.960 ⇒ 00:09:20.100 Uttam Kumaran: and planned to then get executed. So that’s my like concern there. But I don’t know if ever anyone has thoughts, because there’s some stuff where, like
79 00:09:20.590 ⇒ 00:09:32.700 Uttam Kumaran: we’re gonna get, hey? This thing is wrong. Oh, it’s a 1 line fix. Can we go? Make it? And I think that’s up to us to figure out how to how to do that. We can. We can ask the Pm. Team to sort of say anything that
80 00:09:32.880 ⇒ 00:09:37.480 Uttam Kumaran: the the extreme version of that is any version, anything that gets worked on needs to be a ticket.
81 00:09:38.360 ⇒ 00:09:43.020 Uttam Kumaran: that the lax version is right now, which is, there’s no tickets.
82 00:09:43.580 ⇒ 00:09:49.530 Uttam Kumaran: So I want to find some place in the middle that we can all agree on. Maybe that’s a per client thing, you know.
83 00:09:51.000 ⇒ 00:09:51.400 Awaish Kumar: Yeah.
84 00:09:51.400 ⇒ 00:09:56.770 Demilade Agboola: Okay, okay, go, Kesh, are we sure?
85 00:09:57.670 ⇒ 00:10:05.077 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like, that’s how. Mostly we we have worked like when, like sometimes some tasks which we have planned, for example.
86 00:10:05.700 ⇒ 00:10:08.659 Awaish Kumar: for for Eden, we know, like we have to build some
87 00:10:08.820 ⇒ 00:10:15.569 Awaish Kumar: Mars, some marketing sources, or something like that. We can build the task for them. And whenever we have the
88 00:10:16.493 ⇒ 00:10:31.389 Awaish Kumar: like the authentication data or build the connections. And then we can start modeling. So that’s like plan things which can be easily be created into tasks and then executed. But then, when we have these
89 00:10:31.640 ⇒ 00:10:39.490 Awaish Kumar: like ad hoc questions, when, like at our queries, we have multiple questions, we go
90 00:10:39.840 ⇒ 00:10:42.870 Awaish Kumar: and and debug them. I
91 00:10:43.020 ⇒ 00:10:49.609 Awaish Kumar: like that’s like we know we don’t have like all the tickets for all these questions.
92 00:10:52.380 ⇒ 00:10:53.070 Demilade Agboola: Yeah.
93 00:10:54.470 ⇒ 00:10:56.180 Awaish Kumar: On also, like, when
94 00:10:56.796 ⇒ 00:11:11.690 Awaish Kumar: these questions turn into something bigger, like when we investigate and find out. Okay, now, this is going to take longer than we. We can fix in our or 2 or something. Then we can make that a ticket and and prioritize it.
95 00:11:15.560 ⇒ 00:11:16.550 Uttam Kumaran: Go ahead! Demalade.
96 00:11:17.780 ⇒ 00:11:30.769 Demilade Agboola: I agree. I think. The there needs to be a dedicated balance between like doing everything here and not doing anything at all. I think. One thing I’ve I’ve experienced before was a 24 h rule.
97 00:11:30.900 ⇒ 00:11:31.510 Demilade Agboola: So if.
98 00:11:31.510 ⇒ 00:11:31.860 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
99 00:11:31.860 ⇒ 00:11:39.260 Demilade Agboola: Something resolved in 24 h, like report to the Pm. Let them know, and it can be added here.
100 00:11:39.861 ⇒ 00:11:46.070 Demilade Agboola: So that way. It’s not officially something that you know we can keep track of, and also decide.
101 00:11:46.070 ⇒ 00:11:46.530 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
102 00:11:46.530 ⇒ 00:11:47.439 Demilade Agboola: Waste of our time.
103 00:11:47.850 ⇒ 00:11:48.360 Demilade Agboola: Okay.
104 00:11:48.360 ⇒ 00:11:50.389 Uttam Kumaran: And so can you explain that rule again?
105 00:11:51.220 ⇒ 00:12:10.120 Demilade Agboola: So 24 h, so ideally, usually end of day. But sometimes, if something comes up really late in the day, it might end up being like a 24 h thing. But the idea is if someone comes to you and says, maybe the dashboard is broken, or something, or there’s something weird with happening in the dashboard. If they bring it up at, say, you know, 9 9 am.
106 00:12:10.773 ⇒ 00:12:13.230 Demilade Agboola: If you haven’t resolved it by end of day
107 00:12:13.360 ⇒ 00:12:17.269 Demilade Agboola: you should tell the Pm. The next morning like immediately, like, Hey.
108 00:12:17.870 ⇒ 00:12:25.310 Demilade Agboola: I’m working on this dashboard. This is the project. I haven’t resolved it yet, so there’s like an ability to track it.
109 00:12:25.450 ⇒ 00:12:26.879 Demilade Agboola: However, if
110 00:12:28.610 ⇒ 00:12:36.129 Demilade Agboola: the resolve it ideals it to our fix, I mean, I don’t think there’s any need for a ticket as well. I think that’s just the there’ll be too many tickets, and it can be overwhelming.
111 00:12:36.703 ⇒ 00:12:52.420 Demilade Agboola: So I feel like that’s a decent balance. You might something to tweak with, like maybe the hours or the the timeframe. But the idea is just basically if it’s small, we don’t need to track it. If it’s big, then obviously we need to track it, or if it’s something that hasn’t been resolved quickly, we need to track it.
112 00:12:52.880 ⇒ 00:12:59.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And then let me play. Let me play the engineering management side for me. I want to see everything
113 00:12:59.880 ⇒ 00:13:05.509 Uttam Kumaran: tracked but it I wanna. Also, I don’t care whether it gets tracked in the moment.
114 00:13:05.950 ⇒ 00:13:12.410 Uttam Kumaran: Does that make sense like, I want to see? Actually all of the escalations, all of the bugs.
115 00:13:12.550 ⇒ 00:13:19.950 Uttam Kumaran: Because then I can. I can see, like, okay, which clients are actually much bigger than others.
116 00:13:20.120 ⇒ 00:13:21.390 Uttam Kumaran: Right now.
117 00:13:21.720 ⇒ 00:13:34.210 Uttam Kumaran: for example, and the reason why we were, have, like, literally, with all the reason why we’re having issues on Eden and pull parts. And we’re not having issues on other clients is because there’s no. Pm, there’s no filter between the product owner.
118 00:13:34.380 ⇒ 00:13:38.019 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re basically the client and us
119 00:13:38.380 ⇒ 00:13:50.429 Uttam Kumaran: classic problem. This is like top 5 classic problems. So that’s why I’m not very worried, and I I think I know Kyle, you. You’ve been pretty concerned. But like I don’t feel concerned, because
120 00:13:50.800 ⇒ 00:14:16.199 Uttam Kumaran: once we get a Pm. Like there will be a filter, but just like anything. I want to know how strong the filter is, and we’re just like a filter in your water filter like in your sink like water still has to come out right, and so how much water is still coming out is where I’ve I’ve been a project manager. I’ve been a product manager. I’ve been an engineer, and I I love this conversation because I want to know
121 00:14:16.340 ⇒ 00:14:22.659 Uttam Kumaran: how this team wants to operate right. My job is to
122 00:14:22.900 ⇒ 00:14:29.119 Uttam Kumaran: get us to be more efficient and have a consideration for risk versus reward.
123 00:14:29.480 ⇒ 00:14:31.089 Uttam Kumaran: But also, like
124 00:14:31.200 ⇒ 00:14:39.329 Uttam Kumaran: we can start more restrictive and move, we can start more lax and move. So I think something like the 24 h rule is great. I will still
125 00:14:39.590 ⇒ 00:14:50.749 Uttam Kumaran: tell the Pm’s that they need to track everything, whether that tracking happens at the end of the week, and they go back and look at everything. I don’t care right, especially for the stuff that happens intraday.
126 00:14:51.020 ⇒ 00:14:55.719 Uttam Kumaran: But I wanna I wanna know all the different bugs and issues
127 00:14:55.820 ⇒ 00:14:58.489 Uttam Kumaran: so that there’s 2 things that happen there. One.
128 00:14:58.880 ⇒ 00:15:05.039 Uttam Kumaran: if we’re actually doing more work than the client is paying us for. I need to go have that conversation with sales.
129 00:15:06.370 ⇒ 00:15:10.439 Uttam Kumaran: If if I’m able to notice that there are a lot of bugs coming up. And
130 00:15:10.770 ⇒ 00:15:14.570 Uttam Kumaran: in order to reduce that we should prioritize some data quality work.
131 00:15:14.860 ⇒ 00:15:20.830 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll go do that right. Those are things that right now we’re not having. We’re not able to have visibility on
132 00:15:22.630 ⇒ 00:15:25.270 Uttam Kumaran: so that would be my pitch from the other angle.
133 00:15:27.210 ⇒ 00:15:36.390 Caio Velasco: No, okay. I think I I think I understood like the main points. But I I would like to ask like a few questions to see
134 00:15:36.920 ⇒ 00:15:40.500 Caio Velasco: if it would take us in a different direction or not.
135 00:15:41.290 ⇒ 00:15:48.980 Caio Velasco: For example, 1st question would be like the the broader view, using linear and tracking
136 00:15:49.290 ⇒ 00:15:52.270 Caio Velasco: whatever we want to do, whatever we want to track.
137 00:15:53.600 ⇒ 00:15:57.500 Caio Velasco: Who is the person that that would be the most helpful
138 00:15:57.940 ⇒ 00:16:12.520 Caio Velasco: thing to? Who would be benefiting from it the most. I would be like the like, I said the the management side engineering side to understand what is happening, or would be the the endpoint like us.
139 00:16:13.089 ⇒ 00:16:24.669 Caio Velasco: I don’t know, being part time asynchronous, opening the laptop and saying, Okay, this is what I have to do or like. I think that if we can somehow
140 00:16:25.728 ⇒ 00:16:32.149 Caio Velasco: understand this scenario, maybe the answer would come in a more like.
141 00:16:32.730 ⇒ 00:16:34.359 Caio Velasco: in a simple way, I guess.
142 00:16:34.770 ⇒ 00:16:38.500 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, let’s take. Let’s take an example from
143 00:16:39.550 ⇒ 00:16:42.241 Uttam Kumaran: from Javi, right? Like, let’s
144 00:16:43.290 ⇒ 00:16:47.500 Uttam Kumaran: and I think the 24 h rule. And this thing sort of helps with all this.
145 00:16:47.989 ⇒ 00:16:53.420 Uttam Kumaran: And this is good like this isn’t gonna be something. This is something. Every sort of team
146 00:16:53.820 ⇒ 00:16:55.759 Uttam Kumaran: figures out one way or another.
147 00:16:56.140 ⇒ 00:16:59.080 Uttam Kumaran: I just want us to not take a
148 00:17:00.500 ⇒ 00:17:08.136 Uttam Kumaran: like an Ibm approach to this. And because those guys move so slow and they move slow because of part partly of this sort of bureaucracy.
149 00:17:08.569 ⇒ 00:17:12.429 Uttam Kumaran: and we’re all engineers, right? But I want the system to work for us.
150 00:17:12.630 ⇒ 00:17:20.000 Uttam Kumaran: And so like, let’s take an example like this. Bigger issue from Monday. Gross margin, 50% lower shipping fee seem to be duplicated
151 00:17:20.240 ⇒ 00:17:26.490 Uttam Kumaran: order example, client doesn’t like the way, why did we use? Okay? So like, let’s just take this one. Right? You guys can see this.
152 00:17:27.630 ⇒ 00:17:29.750 Caio Velasco: Yeah, this is a bit small, but I can see.
153 00:17:29.970 ⇒ 00:17:35.260 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Sorry. Here, it’s a little better.
154 00:17:36.170 ⇒ 00:17:37.140 Caio Velasco: Yes, perfect.
155 00:17:37.540 ⇒ 00:17:39.080 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so
156 00:17:40.580 ⇒ 00:17:50.729 Uttam Kumaran: this is the, this is a great example, because there’s a couple of things that a Pm. Needs to do here. Right? A great Pm. Will say this, and one say.
157 00:17:51.410 ⇒ 00:17:56.080 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you, we acknowledge, can you give us a sense of how urgent this is?
158 00:17:56.500 ⇒ 00:17:58.399 Uttam Kumaran: Can you give us a sense of what
159 00:17:59.180 ⇒ 00:18:01.470 Uttam Kumaran: the Pm. Should have an understanding that.
160 00:18:01.580 ⇒ 00:18:05.059 Uttam Kumaran: for example, me, looking at this, I know that this is
161 00:18:06.990 ⇒ 00:18:09.509 Uttam Kumaran: this is regarding the gross margin dashboard.
162 00:18:10.250 ⇒ 00:18:20.040 Uttam Kumaran: The Pm. Should try to work with the product owner or the client. Right and right now, Robert, is the voice, the client to understand urgency.
163 00:18:20.530 ⇒ 00:18:25.200 Uttam Kumaran: because every day it’s like cry. It’s like boy! Cries Wolf. Right now.
164 00:18:25.390 ⇒ 00:18:31.430 Uttam Kumaran: right so the Pm. Should have to go through each of these like engineers. We should not be tagged here unless
165 00:18:31.640 ⇒ 00:18:32.930 Uttam Kumaran: it’s something that
166 00:18:33.730 ⇒ 00:18:39.490 Uttam Kumaran: needs to be so urgently done or urgently looked at, that it should break up. What we’re planned to do
167 00:18:39.950 ⇒ 00:18:50.149 Uttam Kumaran: right now. We have no, we have no like broad planning on on these clients, so we are in a every day is a new day situation that will change. So
168 00:18:50.290 ⇒ 00:18:59.850 Uttam Kumaran: that’s gonna change very soon, where we will actually have planned work every day when issues like this come up. My expectation is that the Pm. And the engineer
169 00:19:00.080 ⇒ 00:19:01.819 Uttam Kumaran: work to understand
170 00:19:02.430 ⇒ 00:19:09.319 Uttam Kumaran: is this urgent? If it’s not urgent, it gets kicked immediately, like there’s no discussion, right? If they’re like, yeah, this can happen next week.
171 00:19:10.140 ⇒ 00:19:16.369 Uttam Kumaran: Great, if this comes up and it’s like, no, this is like a today problem.
172 00:19:16.810 ⇒ 00:19:27.100 Uttam Kumaran: The Pm should 1st play defense. To understand like, why is it a today issue? We have several other issues. Are these important than getting those done right? There has to be some negotiation.
173 00:19:27.300 ⇒ 00:19:29.359 Uttam Kumaran: If it’s if it is a today issue.
174 00:19:29.510 ⇒ 00:19:39.260 Uttam Kumaran: then this has to be. We have to. We have to tag us right. And this is like, when this is just like any service organization. There’s gonna be p, 1, p. 0 issues that will take on intraday.
175 00:19:39.510 ⇒ 00:19:42.530 Uttam Kumaran: But for this the engineers like looking at this.
176 00:19:43.870 ⇒ 00:19:46.690 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t. This is gonna take a few hours to look at.
177 00:19:49.190 ⇒ 00:19:53.940 Uttam Kumaran: So immediately, I would say, Hey, this is like at least half a day work.
178 00:19:54.800 ⇒ 00:19:58.590 Uttam Kumaran: It may roll over unless we move things off
179 00:19:58.720 ⇒ 00:20:01.580 Uttam Kumaran: right, and that conversation needs to happen right now.
180 00:20:01.780 ⇒ 00:20:16.499 Uttam Kumaran: We are almost discussing the client for the for the client and the stakeholder. Everything is urgent, right? So the Pm’s job is to talk them down and have them prioritize, because everything cannot be urgent like logically.
181 00:20:16.610 ⇒ 00:20:19.979 Uttam Kumaran: And so we’re missing that person here.
182 00:20:20.982 ⇒ 00:20:26.609 Uttam Kumaran: Very frankly, right? And so that’s why we have. That’s why we’re having a lot of these issues.
183 00:20:28.320 ⇒ 00:20:31.450 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s let me give you one more example. Let’s say.
184 00:20:31.580 ⇒ 00:20:35.859 Uttam Kumaran: in that example, this is a half day issue, and it’s already end of day.
185 00:20:36.610 ⇒ 00:20:45.540 Uttam Kumaran: So let’s take the point would be, hey, this isn’t gonna be able to get worked on and and like at least give an estimate or find more details
186 00:20:45.690 ⇒ 00:20:47.169 Uttam Kumaran: by the next day.
187 00:20:47.300 ⇒ 00:20:51.990 Uttam Kumaran: so can we please get this in a ticket, and we can talk about it. Stand up tomorrow. Perfect. Done.
188 00:20:53.170 ⇒ 00:20:53.850 Uttam Kumaran: Great.
189 00:20:55.210 ⇒ 00:20:55.800 Caio Velasco: Okay.
190 00:20:55.800 ⇒ 00:20:58.250 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what I that’s how I see. Yeah.
191 00:20:58.760 ⇒ 00:21:02.549 Caio Velasco: No, no, totally totally so. From what you said I,
192 00:21:02.830 ⇒ 00:21:19.389 Caio Velasco: I got the point that this okay, this is more of a project management issue in terms of understanding the urgency, and of course that would immediately affect. How engineers are working, how you would exactly use their hours. Let’s say.
193 00:21:19.390 ⇒ 00:21:19.860 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
194 00:21:19.860 ⇒ 00:21:25.069 Caio Velasco: Or our hours. Okay? But I, okay. So I think that’s a boundary. And when it comes to.
195 00:21:25.280 ⇒ 00:21:34.689 Caio Velasco: when it gets when it crosses that boundary and gets to our job daily. Then what I would be interested in seeing is.
196 00:21:34.910 ⇒ 00:21:39.779 Caio Velasco: where is that information being centralized? How
197 00:21:40.000 ⇒ 00:21:44.320 Caio Velasco: and how can I not get lost when I
198 00:21:44.470 ⇒ 00:22:05.170 Caio Velasco: go and see that this is something that I should be doing? I mean, then the urgency in the other part would be done by the Pm. I would know that it would be for tomorrow from the other day. Fine! But my 1st question every time is like, Where should I go check this? Where is this written? Because it’s select? Fine. But at the end of the day I think it just gets lost.
199 00:22:05.360 ⇒ 00:22:13.150 Uttam Kumaran: No, no. This like this has to like. For example, the Pm. Needs to work to be like, okay, what dashboard does this concern? Can you.
200 00:22:13.150 ⇒ 00:22:13.630 Caio Velasco: Okay.
201 00:22:13.630 ⇒ 00:22:21.789 Uttam Kumaran: There is a loom Walkthrough, right? So there is some overview of what it is. But this is going to be the negotiation between our team and the Pm team?
202 00:22:24.450 ⇒ 00:22:29.330 Uttam Kumaran: Which is, how much detail do we need? Right like.
203 00:22:29.750 ⇒ 00:22:32.779 Uttam Kumaran: up to what degree do we want to push onto them?
204 00:22:33.000 ⇒ 00:22:39.460 Uttam Kumaran: And are, the optimization is really like, how far, how much does this slow down the process?
205 00:22:39.620 ⇒ 00:22:53.420 Uttam Kumaran: This is where, like there’s gonna be some portion of this that has to get written to a ticket which is like, who’s asking for it? How urgent it is! What’s the dashboard? What are the potential tables to go look at right. There are tables called out here.
206 00:22:54.170 ⇒ 00:22:57.330 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe they have some documentation somewhere on these fees.
207 00:22:57.550 ⇒ 00:22:59.160 Uttam Kumaran: and that should be in a ticket.
208 00:22:59.890 ⇒ 00:23:02.640 Uttam Kumaran: But if you want the Pm. To go do more discovery
209 00:23:03.670 ⇒ 00:23:09.360 Uttam Kumaran: if the Pm’s have a very similar problem, because the Pm’s will start to be working on 1, 2, and 3 clients.
210 00:23:09.750 ⇒ 00:23:18.809 Uttam Kumaran: So we also need to consider their angle, which is, they’re always gonna play police, 1st line of defense.
211 00:23:19.230 ⇒ 00:23:21.270 Uttam Kumaran: But then how much.
212 00:23:21.640 ⇒ 00:23:28.190 Uttam Kumaran: how much detail and how much requirements gathering needs to happen. And I think it, I think it’s gonna vary
213 00:23:28.490 ⇒ 00:23:34.740 Uttam Kumaran: for stuff that’s like, for example, this is something that I
214 00:23:35.480 ⇒ 00:23:43.670 Uttam Kumaran: I got directly from the client like this is part of a pass requirement. So I was able to answer this pretty quickly. I still want this to end up in a ticket.
215 00:23:44.040 ⇒ 00:23:49.959 Uttam Kumaran: They could go do that later in the week, and mark it as me and market that I finished it in the middle of the day.
216 00:23:50.070 ⇒ 00:24:04.549 Uttam Kumaran: But I want to know my involvement. Everyone’s involvement how fast we’re doing things. The second piece is like for this. If I didn’t know this. Then I would expect the Pm. To go, probably look this up in documentation and then go answer this themselves.
217 00:24:04.830 ⇒ 00:24:12.250 Uttam Kumaran: There’s gonna be some questions that I think probably if Steven was completely on board he could go answer this himself. We had this documented
218 00:24:13.840 ⇒ 00:24:14.430 Caio Velasco: Yep.
219 00:24:15.010 ⇒ 00:24:17.720 Uttam Kumaran: I know that doesn’t directly answer the question, but.
220 00:24:20.260 ⇒ 00:24:35.119 Caio Velasco: Yeah, I think that maybe already gives us an idea of what? What do you ask? Like? Maybe the broader category in linear should be. I don’t know if those things are. If everything that been asked, it’s affecting the dashboard we built for them.
221 00:24:35.717 ⇒ 00:24:44.410 Caio Velasco: Then I think maybe the issues or the epic, whatever it’s called. The broader category should be the dashboard, and then everything would be within
222 00:24:45.360 ⇒ 00:24:48.960 Caio Velasco: that category, like the the tasks, or whatever.
223 00:24:50.080 ⇒ 00:24:55.619 Uttam Kumaran: Show you how. Yeah, exactly like. And and right in here, they can go in and and create a new issue.
224 00:24:56.670 ⇒ 00:25:01.710 Uttam Kumaran: And literally just do this from here, tag everything that’s necessary
225 00:25:02.720 ⇒ 00:25:03.540 Caio Velasco: Amazing.
226 00:25:03.970 ⇒ 00:25:05.940 Uttam Kumaran: And go for it. Right? So
227 00:25:06.140 ⇒ 00:25:10.660 Uttam Kumaran: I’m I’m for me. My hard line is everything needs to be ticketed.
228 00:25:10.980 ⇒ 00:25:15.570 Uttam Kumaran: whether we use the shortcut, whether we do this on Fridays
229 00:25:16.350 ⇒ 00:25:21.250 Uttam Kumaran: cause I need to see all the work that’s going on. I don’t want any work to go on
230 00:25:21.740 ⇒ 00:25:26.309 Uttam Kumaran: tracked, whether it’s tracked within the 24 h period. I don’t
231 00:25:26.660 ⇒ 00:25:30.669 Uttam Kumaran: I? I don’t have any rules on that right, because I’m not looking every day what’s going on.
232 00:25:30.900 ⇒ 00:25:34.379 Uttam Kumaran: but on a weekly and a monthly level. I have to reconcile
233 00:25:34.730 ⇒ 00:25:39.509 Uttam Kumaran: how much work is getting done with, how much people are getting with, how much money is coming in.
234 00:25:39.780 ⇒ 00:25:43.880 Uttam Kumaran: And for me as an end, the engineering leader. I need to look at how efficient we are
235 00:25:44.670 ⇒ 00:25:46.759 Uttam Kumaran: and opportunities to improve that.
236 00:25:47.080 ⇒ 00:25:47.870 Uttam Kumaran: So
237 00:25:48.280 ⇒ 00:25:52.540 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’s gonna be. I’m I’m sort of writing some notes here. I think that’s gonna be. My second thing is.
238 00:25:52.670 ⇒ 00:25:55.370 Uttam Kumaran: everything needs a ticket.
239 00:25:55.780 ⇒ 00:26:00.309 Uttam Kumaran: Jess doesn’t have to be immediately.
240 00:26:02.540 ⇒ 00:26:07.889 Uttam Kumaran: I think the other thing here is we should definitely have a meeting between
241 00:26:08.250 ⇒ 00:26:15.000 Uttam Kumaran: all of data and the Pm. Group on how we’re gonna do pickets.
242 00:26:15.350 ⇒ 00:26:19.530 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not sure like I’m happy to facilitate that
243 00:26:22.070 ⇒ 00:26:24.720 Uttam Kumaran: But I I do want it to be from
244 00:26:25.040 ⇒ 00:26:28.889 Uttam Kumaran: your your guys’s voice and from the Pm. Team’s voice, like.
245 00:26:29.720 ⇒ 00:26:33.359 Uttam Kumaran: I’m here to make sure that whatever software we need to do.
246 00:26:33.750 ⇒ 00:26:36.440 Uttam Kumaran: or maybe I have like one or 2 rules. But like.
247 00:26:37.010 ⇒ 00:26:42.760 Uttam Kumaran: for example, this. If this we’re all good with, then I want us to set those expectations up upfront. You know.
248 00:26:46.650 ⇒ 00:26:52.439 Caio Velasco: And one other question. For example, this 24 h rule. How does that?
249 00:26:54.270 ⇒ 00:26:55.959 Caio Velasco: How can I? How can I see?
250 00:26:57.530 ⇒ 00:27:00.719 Caio Velasco: For example, since we are working part time, most of us.
251 00:27:00.720 ⇒ 00:27:01.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
252 00:27:01.080 ⇒ 00:27:07.719 Caio Velasco: From from what I know, and also a synchronous, how would that effective effectively work?
253 00:27:09.760 ⇒ 00:27:13.519 Caio Velasco: So let’s say, that’s something like we should be for today or for tomorrow, but.
254 00:27:13.520 ⇒ 00:27:14.080 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
255 00:27:14.080 ⇒ 00:27:16.489 Caio Velasco: Someone is starting at the end of the day tomorrow, like at the end of the.
256 00:27:16.490 ⇒ 00:27:16.840 Uttam Kumaran: So.
257 00:27:16.840 ⇒ 00:27:21.430 Caio Velasco: It really being a bind, like binding solution. That’s I think, the name.
258 00:27:22.390 ⇒ 00:27:25.053 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, this is a good point. So I guess, like
259 00:27:25.750 ⇒ 00:27:30.239 Uttam Kumaran: your actual question. I don’t know. But let me give you one answer that may help. So
260 00:27:31.200 ⇒ 00:27:36.610 Uttam Kumaran: ideally, 50 50 to 80% of stuff is not urgent.
261 00:27:37.330 ⇒ 00:27:42.009 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Like this is always happening. I mean, like
262 00:27:42.580 ⇒ 00:27:47.149 Uttam Kumaran: them a lot a ways, you guys know, like in data, everything is urgent
263 00:27:47.560 ⇒ 00:27:51.760 Uttam Kumaran: and like the situation we’re in now is as bad as it gets.
264 00:27:52.410 ⇒ 00:27:58.570 Uttam Kumaran: which means like you have no breathing room every day you wake up. And there’s problems it’s horrible.
265 00:27:58.780 ⇒ 00:28:07.490 Uttam Kumaran: So I expect, with the addition of Pm’s, I mean, I actually require them to find a process by which
266 00:28:07.730 ⇒ 00:28:11.689 Uttam Kumaran: 50% of stuff is non-urgent, because we’ll never get ahead.
267 00:28:12.460 ⇒ 00:28:16.580 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s gonna be. One thing is, I think you should expect the amount
268 00:28:16.780 ⇒ 00:28:20.009 Uttam Kumaran: of requests that come in that are urgent to go down.
269 00:28:20.170 ⇒ 00:28:27.329 Uttam Kumaran: In fact, I think several of those requests had we, if we have good documentation, the Pm. Themselves can answer
270 00:28:27.590 ⇒ 00:28:30.930 Uttam Kumaran: right? So I think that’s that’s 1 point in this.
271 00:28:31.160 ⇒ 00:28:33.139 Uttam Kumaran: For the rest of the things
272 00:28:33.480 ⇒ 00:28:37.359 Uttam Kumaran: you’re right, I mean for me, there’s 2 equations. There’s 1
273 00:28:38.820 ⇒ 00:28:49.700 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna work to try to build redundancy across every client where we do have time, zone redundancy. But all of our clients right now are in the Us. So if something does come up
274 00:28:50.130 ⇒ 00:28:56.169 Uttam Kumaran: during us 9 to 5, and it is a P. 0.
275 00:28:56.820 ⇒ 00:28:58.450 Uttam Kumaran: Someone has to take it.
276 00:28:58.670 ⇒ 00:29:06.179 Uttam Kumaran: But I don’t know. I don’t know a situation. I don’t recall a situation, and where that’s happening. Like
277 00:29:06.470 ⇒ 00:29:11.029 Uttam Kumaran: Eden, everything is A. P. 0. It’s it’s it shouldn’t be the case.
278 00:29:11.150 ⇒ 00:29:13.740 Uttam Kumaran: Javi, that we’ve never had anything like that.
279 00:29:13.940 ⇒ 00:29:16.669 Uttam Kumaran: so I don’t. I don’t really want to.
280 00:29:16.930 ⇒ 00:29:22.340 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I we could. We could de determine that this is an edge case, so we should support it. But
281 00:29:23.360 ⇒ 00:29:31.117 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. I feel like for folks that are working in the morning or working until afternoon or working us hours.
282 00:29:31.780 ⇒ 00:29:39.600 Uttam Kumaran: I think that this will solve for that a little bit where we will have an understanding of who’s online when
283 00:29:40.430 ⇒ 00:29:56.219 Uttam Kumaran: and understanding how many hours are going into this project, and when you wake up, how to take on projects asynchronously like, I actually like the fact that we need to support asynchronous work because it forces us to do better on the documentation and the ticket side
284 00:29:56.900 ⇒ 00:30:09.859 Uttam Kumaran: cause if if we don’t, what we know what’s gonna happen we’re gonna have to meet every day all day. Blah! Blah! Blah like this is what happens with engineering teams because they don’t invest in great tickets and great documentation.
285 00:30:11.570 ⇒ 00:30:17.609 Uttam Kumaran: but it’s a good forcing function that we have this. But how do we support this short term? It’s it’s gonna be a little bit hard.
286 00:30:18.690 ⇒ 00:30:20.199 Uttam Kumaran: It’s gonna get better. But.
287 00:30:25.580 ⇒ 00:30:31.830 Demilade Agboola: Yeah. And also, I think, just generally, I think, one of the advantages, at least from a Pm. Perspective of
288 00:30:32.110 ⇒ 00:30:40.800 Demilade Agboola: and end of day, like just mentioning the ticket is that the next morning they they can go through and kind of prioritize much better.
289 00:30:41.000 ⇒ 00:30:49.539 Demilade Agboola: So you don’t want to keep quote unquote wasting time on a on a mini ticket or something when there are like higher priorities.
290 00:30:50.165 ⇒ 00:30:57.539 Demilade Agboola: But yeah, I think just generally speaking, though, like, if we get to the point where we’re not being tagged in issues.
291 00:30:57.800 ⇒ 00:31:03.060 Demilade Agboola: But the Pm. Is, it allows us to be able to take a breather.
292 00:31:03.220 ⇒ 00:31:09.300 Demilade Agboola: And so you kind of have an idea of what you’re working on on a day on that particular day.
293 00:31:10.001 ⇒ 00:31:20.219 Demilade Agboola: So that if you have to switch tickets, it’s not just because you were tagged in slack, but because the Pm. Has reached out to you and said, Hey, this is a higher priority ticket.
294 00:31:20.370 ⇒ 00:31:23.270 Demilade Agboola: Yes, we’re currently working on.
295 00:31:28.110 ⇒ 00:31:34.989 Demilade Agboola: I totally agree, and to be fair, I agree with you in the sense that
296 00:31:35.450 ⇒ 00:31:41.510 Demilade Agboola: sometimes switching between tasks is a bit annoying versus an inefficient to be honest, because.
297 00:31:41.510 ⇒ 00:31:44.176 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not even annoying dude. It’s actually like,
298 00:31:44.760 ⇒ 00:31:50.420 Uttam Kumaran: it’s actually just like it’s it, it completely impacts your brain and your effectiveness
299 00:31:50.640 ⇒ 00:31:55.200 Uttam Kumaran: like context switching. And I’ll I’ll try to find this article. I read about context switching.
300 00:31:55.510 ⇒ 00:32:00.800 Uttam Kumaran: It completely destroys your ability to do critical thinking.
301 00:32:02.650 ⇒ 00:32:07.830 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I know that as a fact, because my whole life right now is like what big context switch.
302 00:32:07.940 ⇒ 00:32:09.240 Uttam Kumaran: And so
303 00:32:09.550 ⇒ 00:32:16.329 Uttam Kumaran: it’s really, really hard. And so I really want to find a way to mitigate that for our engineering team.
304 00:32:17.210 ⇒ 00:32:19.760 Uttam Kumaran: But I don’t want that to come at the expense of speed.
305 00:32:20.170 ⇒ 00:32:23.100 Uttam Kumaran: Right? That’s where I’m gonna push on. This team is like.
306 00:32:24.040 ⇒ 00:32:28.020 Uttam Kumaran: let’s say we get everything in a beautiful ticket. Let’s say it’s beautiful documentation.
307 00:32:28.430 ⇒ 00:32:34.230 Uttam Kumaran: What? What can we tell the Pm. Team that they can expect right like.
308 00:32:36.170 ⇒ 00:32:38.960 Uttam Kumaran: That’s where I want us to think a little bit of like.
309 00:32:39.070 ⇒ 00:32:41.929 Uttam Kumaran: hey, you do this for us. We’ll do this for you
310 00:32:42.040 ⇒ 00:32:44.179 Uttam Kumaran: like this will get a little bit better, you know.
311 00:32:47.380 ⇒ 00:32:48.290 Demilade Agboola: Yeah, I, I think.
312 00:32:48.290 ⇒ 00:32:49.900 Caio Velasco: Maybe like one question.
313 00:32:50.050 ⇒ 00:32:50.770 Caio Velasco: Sorry.
314 00:32:52.522 ⇒ 00:32:57.600 Caio Velasco: The one thing that I was gonna that I was gonna ask was, what defines. I mean.
315 00:32:57.650 ⇒ 00:33:26.639 Caio Velasco: I remember that one time I told you that when I was working my in the previous company the guy that I put you in touch with Alexander, he proposed a a document just to, as he was always saying, to cover our assets from the client and then it reminded me of like what what is defining the urgency? Because if at the end of the day we have a relationship with the client, and we agree in some things.
316 00:33:26.690 ⇒ 00:33:29.784 Caio Velasco: and we somehow, or the Pm’s
317 00:33:30.400 ⇒ 00:33:41.360 Caio Velasco: made them sign whatever like this would say a week, 3 weeks whatever within that week things are not urgent. It’s urgent for the last day. Let’s say
318 00:33:42.062 ⇒ 00:33:54.030 Caio Velasco: but then, 1st I don’t know, like I’m just trying to see if there is a window that we can be working towards stuff, and then the urgency is is not gonna be there.
319 00:33:54.230 ⇒ 00:34:06.580 Caio Velasco: you know. It is urgent because we have to deliver something at the end of the day. Obviously. But if if everyone is on board with that, it’s just a matter of centralizing their requests, and and what is not working, or what is broken.
320 00:34:07.299 ⇒ 00:34:11.249 Caio Velasco: And then, yeah. And then in solving the issue.
321 00:34:11.250 ⇒ 00:34:30.510 Uttam Kumaran: I mean. So this is so. This is the sort of litigation that I hope happens in 2 meetings, right? So on a weekly or a bi-weekly basis. We’ll do planning that has to happen right? So that way. We all, because part of this is safety, right? And everything like this is all psychology is like, you want to have predictability in life.
322 00:34:30.710 ⇒ 00:34:34.260 Uttam Kumaran: And right now things are not predictable. And so
323 00:34:34.429 ⇒ 00:34:42.990 Uttam Kumaran: one thing I want to push the Pm. Team is, you guys need to make it predictable as much as possible for our for our engineering team.
324 00:34:43.139 ⇒ 00:34:54.300 Uttam Kumaran: Otherwise we won’t see the benefits of having amazing people getting being able to get work done quickly and have a solid understanding the business and getting to work on more challenging things.
325 00:34:54.489 ⇒ 00:34:57.209 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what I’m gonna sort of convey to them.
326 00:34:57.630 ⇒ 00:35:03.859 Uttam Kumaran: You’re right in that. Not everything needs to be done intraday. I think this is where we have a daily standup
327 00:35:04.270 ⇒ 00:35:07.820 Uttam Kumaran: to litigate. What needs to happen today. What’s happened yesterday?
328 00:35:08.250 ⇒ 00:35:12.399 Uttam Kumaran: I I don’t even believe like, for example, I don’t really think
329 00:35:12.890 ⇒ 00:35:32.890 Uttam Kumaran: the Pm. Function for me really exists because of this information overload, and not having great expectations, right? Like, I think, even as a as an engineering crew, we could probably run it. But it’s it is quite a bit of work when we’re in a service organization, when inputs come in all the time
330 00:35:33.110 ⇒ 00:35:44.050 Uttam Kumaran: to then have some sort of shield. And so I consider the Pm team to be that, but also to interact with the client and to deliver. But for us, I want to know, like I want to see that the actual
331 00:35:44.310 ⇒ 00:35:55.719 Uttam Kumaran: this is. And this is where I like. Again, I want to measure like I want to look at how many tickets came in, and what the time, how long did it? At what point after the ticket was created was a ticket executed on
332 00:35:55.900 ⇒ 00:36:00.390 Uttam Kumaran: ideally we should see less urgent tickets.
333 00:36:00.650 ⇒ 00:36:16.190 Uttam Kumaran: we should see that the tickets hit some sort of plateau with which is either like one to 3 days. And that’s what I’m gonna measure right. I want to know that most of the tickets for a client are not urgent meaning like I shouldn’t be seeing that stuff is happening
334 00:36:16.450 ⇒ 00:36:24.730 Uttam Kumaran: every single like the tickets are getting resolved same day. That would indicate to me that either we’re working on stuff that’s too small or everything is urgent.
335 00:36:25.040 ⇒ 00:36:28.760 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So I from from my perspective, like
336 00:36:28.870 ⇒ 00:36:30.829 Uttam Kumaran: I think I’ll see this in the data.
337 00:36:33.800 ⇒ 00:36:36.839 Uttam Kumaran: you know, and that’s where I will be looking across every client.
338 00:36:40.920 ⇒ 00:36:49.012 Caio Velasco: Yes, okay, I get and 1 1 other thing that it might, we can also consider in this urgency. Definition is,
339 00:36:49.830 ⇒ 00:36:55.660 Caio Velasco: For example, Robert was asking me some some things that I understood could be
340 00:36:56.410 ⇒ 00:37:02.239 Caio Velasco: like modeling that comes from both gorgeous and recharge.
341 00:37:02.862 ⇒ 00:37:20.169 Caio Velasco: Maybe it’s not. But that’s what I understood initially. And then, when I was going into the for whatever we had in the repo, I noticed that we don’t have a fact ticket effect table for the charges table.
342 00:37:21.100 ⇒ 00:37:25.660 Caio Velasco: and then, you know so. But things were already done.
343 00:37:26.470 ⇒ 00:37:37.729 Caio Velasco: and but this was not there. So at the end of the day. Even, I mean, we might be solving small things and creating urgency small things that at the end of the day
344 00:37:38.320 ⇒ 00:37:45.610 Caio Velasco: I’m not saying that they were not correct. But if we still have to add something new that can change everything, then what is the urgency for that.
345 00:37:45.610 ⇒ 00:37:46.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
346 00:37:46.220 ⇒ 00:37:48.969 Caio Velasco: You know what I mean? That’s that’s something a bit more abstract.
347 00:37:49.330 ⇒ 00:37:54.539 Uttam Kumaran: No, and this is also a pro. This is, this is again, this is like, this is classic, like stakeholder. Management
348 00:37:54.720 ⇒ 00:37:57.489 Uttam Kumaran: cannot make promises. You cannot keep.
349 00:37:57.780 ⇒ 00:38:01.530 Uttam Kumaran: And the the problem with Eden like in Stack Blitz.
350 00:38:02.380 ⇒ 00:38:08.129 Uttam Kumaran: I mean in stack with, I’ve been pming. We have not made promises that we can’t keep
351 00:38:08.270 ⇒ 00:38:12.679 Uttam Kumaran: same thing with our other clients. We’ve been pretty fair about like I’ve added Buffer.
352 00:38:12.870 ⇒ 00:38:21.649 Uttam Kumaran: The Pm’s job is not to accept work that is urgent like you cannot go to a client meeting and say, we’ll have this done by end of day.
353 00:38:21.900 ⇒ 00:38:25.799 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t. Wanna I don’t want to hear stuff like that unless, literally, the world is ending.
354 00:38:27.030 ⇒ 00:38:31.460 Uttam Kumaran: That’s gonna be that’s like, that’s gonna be what I tell them, because
355 00:38:31.940 ⇒ 00:38:44.240 Uttam Kumaran: I want us to over exceed expectations meaning we should say Friday, and we’ll have it done Thursday. But you can’t say we’ll have it done in 3 h, and then half the team is is already off for the day.
356 00:38:44.720 ⇒ 00:38:46.980 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what’s happening right? Like.
357 00:38:47.260 ⇒ 00:38:51.669 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s those are things where stakeholders should not like.
358 00:38:52.540 ⇒ 00:39:01.229 Uttam Kumaran: You can’t jump that on the team and be like, Hey, guys, can we get this done today for me from my perspective? I want to. I I will watch that and say.
359 00:39:01.360 ⇒ 00:39:08.860 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, did you have a conversation with the client and tell them that, how is this urgent?
360 00:39:09.340 ⇒ 00:39:14.560 Uttam Kumaran: And are they okay with this taking over other work and causing disruption?
361 00:39:14.940 ⇒ 00:39:19.349 Uttam Kumaran: Once you say that they’re going to be like? Oh, no, that’s fine. I’ll have it do it on Monday.
362 00:39:20.010 ⇒ 00:39:31.759 Uttam Kumaran: I know this is how these goes right, but if you talk to a client and you’re like you want to please, then you’re gonna be like, okay, we’ll get it all done. But guess what? It doesn’t matter. Your that decision affects 10 people.
363 00:39:32.000 ⇒ 00:39:36.400 Uttam Kumaran: you know. And so right now it’s it’s a pretty. It’s a not in a great spot.
364 00:39:36.870 ⇒ 00:39:39.959 Uttam Kumaran: One thing that we can talk to the team about is
365 00:39:40.090 ⇒ 00:39:49.330 Uttam Kumaran: how to work, how to work with clients. And this is something that maybe I’ll take to the Pm. Team is, how do they think about working with clients to make sure that everything isn’t urgent
366 00:39:50.700 ⇒ 00:39:54.100 Uttam Kumaran: cause? It’s not by definition. I know it’s not right like
367 00:39:55.030 ⇒ 00:40:02.240 Uttam Kumaran: we haven’t done it some of these things so clearly it wasn’t urgent. This. So
368 00:40:02.240 ⇒ 00:40:05.209 Uttam Kumaran: that’s like, that’s exactly what I mean is like.
369 00:40:06.250 ⇒ 00:40:12.940 Uttam Kumaran: It’s the truth. And so that’s where I’m gonna push back is like, how can we?
370 00:40:13.230 ⇒ 00:40:26.750 Uttam Kumaran: How can we facilitate discussions with Pm. With clients to mitigate same day tasks.
371 00:40:28.610 ⇒ 00:40:40.349 Demilade Agboola: And also I was just gonna say, ideally, most tasks that come up or impromptu tasks that come up are usually a part of a bigger task. So oh, we created a dashboard
372 00:40:40.828 ⇒ 00:40:46.199 Demilade Agboola: and then, you know, there is like some data quality issues with the dashboard or something like that
373 00:40:47.317 ⇒ 00:40:50.029 Demilade Agboola: so usually, I think.
374 00:40:50.520 ⇒ 00:40:57.840 Demilade Agboola: especially if we’re ahead of the actual big task, it cannot. You cannot actually classify it as urgent.
375 00:40:58.170 ⇒ 00:41:05.280 Demilade Agboola: So, for instance, we’re supposed to deliver dashboard by Friday. We deliver it on Wednesday. On Thursday. There’s a there’s an issue with the data. Quality.
376 00:41:05.630 ⇒ 00:41:11.430 Demilade Agboola: I don’t necessarily consider that urgent because it’s still within the scope of the initial project. Timeline.
377 00:41:11.900 ⇒ 00:41:12.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
378 00:41:12.510 ⇒ 00:41:23.660 Demilade Agboola: Yeah. So I think it’s just being able to understand and constantly keep track of what the larger picture is that can also help with mitigating how we define some of the things we consider as urgent.
379 00:41:25.780 ⇒ 00:41:26.890 Uttam Kumaran: I’m totally with you.
380 00:41:29.460 ⇒ 00:41:32.039 Caio Velasco: And and following on this thought,
381 00:41:32.900 ⇒ 00:41:38.960 Caio Velasco: if I may ask when, when a new client, because of the other clients, are already there, but when a new client comes.
382 00:41:39.260 ⇒ 00:41:54.249 Caio Velasco: usually, what? How is the request? Like like they do, they wanna like we wanna I don’t know. Build this dashboard. And then we have to do a Poc. We have to understand whatever they have, etc, etc. And then we define a date to deliver. How how does it usually work?
383 00:41:55.180 ⇒ 00:41:58.949 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So we. So we
384 00:41:59.080 ⇒ 00:42:03.700 Uttam Kumaran: so some of our clients, we do. We do an audit for like for a month.
385 00:42:03.990 ⇒ 00:42:06.960 Uttam Kumaran: where we just sort of build out the project plan.
386 00:42:07.660 ⇒ 00:42:12.610 Uttam Kumaran: Sometimes these are on a quarterly basis, sometimes they’re on a monthly basis.
387 00:42:13.225 ⇒ 00:42:18.450 Uttam Kumaran: So they’re not so well defined in that. We have already tickets made by the time that that’s done.
388 00:42:19.420 ⇒ 00:42:21.009 Uttam Kumaran: Soon as they agree to that.
389 00:42:21.520 ⇒ 00:42:26.199 Uttam Kumaran: This is where, like right now, it’s it’s been mostly my feedback on timelines.
390 00:42:26.908 ⇒ 00:42:36.109 Uttam Kumaran: But what’s gonna change is that as soon as the sow is sent, as soon as the sow is created, we are going to get.
391 00:42:36.710 ⇒ 00:42:43.050 Uttam Kumaran: We’re going to get feedback from everybody who’s on that assigned client pod to approve the timeline
392 00:42:43.440 ⇒ 00:42:48.030 Uttam Kumaran: right like. And so for Javi and these guys. Yeah, we we just inherit. Like
393 00:42:48.320 ⇒ 00:42:52.939 Uttam Kumaran: to be very honest, Javi. It was me and Robert like alone, doing everything.
394 00:42:53.190 ⇒ 00:42:58.500 Uttam Kumaran: Eden. It was 3 of us, E. Stahana and Robert.
395 00:42:59.081 ⇒ 00:43:01.190 Uttam Kumaran: Cool parts. It was just me
396 00:43:01.370 ⇒ 00:43:06.230 Uttam Kumaran: back, blitz it it was it was Luke. ABC was like 2 of us. So like
397 00:43:06.930 ⇒ 00:43:12.629 Uttam Kumaran: we’re suffering from there only being me and 1 1 other person.
398 00:43:12.940 ⇒ 00:43:23.989 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m like, you know, we’re just gonna wake up and do what I can. So now is where we’re gonna sort of consider that earlier and earlier, we are going to plan. So so when the sow comes
399 00:43:25.680 ⇒ 00:43:32.399 Uttam Kumaran: or ideally, right after they sign, and we have about a week or 2 to begin. We’re going to start to circulate that with the
400 00:43:32.640 ⇒ 00:43:34.720 Uttam Kumaran: with a team that’s going to be assigned
401 00:43:34.920 ⇒ 00:43:38.930 Uttam Kumaran: and start to build out the milestone and tickets
402 00:43:39.690 ⇒ 00:43:44.308 Uttam Kumaran: that’ll become. That’ll go earlier and earlier, and we’ll also get better and better predicting, for example.
403 00:43:44.770 ⇒ 00:43:54.350 Uttam Kumaran: this is the 3rd gross margin dashboard we built, we should know we should have a good sense by now, like roughly in Max. How long this takes to do.
404 00:43:54.550 ⇒ 00:44:00.629 Uttam Kumaran: Given the sources right? And that way we can already have pre-built tickets, pre-built epics.
405 00:44:00.960 ⇒ 00:44:06.269 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s actually what what gonna go towards. And I had a conversation last week with
406 00:44:06.799 ⇒ 00:44:14.619 Uttam Kumaran: another company who was like, you know, who’s much bigger than us. And how do? How do they do this? They basically said that they have pre-built epics.
407 00:44:15.230 ⇒ 00:44:27.719 Uttam Kumaran: meaning they have like gross margin. They have, like Amazon, ingestion epic. They already have those built, and scope being, when a client comes in, they just drag, and they’re like cool. Let’s just drag all the core epics that we know. They
408 00:44:28.350 ⇒ 00:44:30.689 Uttam Kumaran: and the timeline will automatically fill out
409 00:44:30.830 ⇒ 00:44:40.110 Uttam Kumaran: right? So that’s like the maximum place we can get to like. That’s our north star. Here is like, I have predetermined epics for most types of work.
410 00:44:43.420 ⇒ 00:44:48.570 Luke Daque: What do you mean by that? Can you like maybe expound further what like predetermined ethics.
411 00:44:49.140 ⇒ 00:44:52.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so you could, you could think about an epic as like
412 00:44:53.337 ⇒ 00:45:06.870 Uttam Kumaran: gorgeous data modeling right? And 1st step of that, the 1st ticket in that is ingesting it. The second ticket is building out each of the 5 different in tables. And then it’s like the 5 data marks.
413 00:45:07.420 ⇒ 00:45:13.110 Uttam Kumaran: That’s something that for any client with gorgeous it’s gonna take. It’s gonna be the same set of tasks.
414 00:45:13.270 ⇒ 00:45:21.739 Uttam Kumaran: The engineering team then goes and say, and as a group. We say we expect that for anyone on our team to take this, it should take 2 weeks
415 00:45:22.330 ⇒ 00:45:31.640 Uttam Kumaran: right, and then when a client comes to us. And they’re like, Hey, we have gorgeous, we have blah blah, and they’re like, How long will this take? We go? We just drag the epics
416 00:45:31.750 ⇒ 00:45:36.810 Uttam Kumaran: that are associated with what they wanted. And then we’re like, based on our estimation.
417 00:45:37.050 ⇒ 00:45:45.430 Uttam Kumaran: If you’re to pay this money with this many people, then we we can do it in this timeline. And so the the key change here is that the epics
418 00:45:45.630 ⇒ 00:45:47.150 Uttam Kumaran: become reusable.
419 00:45:49.090 ⇒ 00:46:04.710 Uttam Kumaran: right? And I think in data, we often think that everything is unique to a client. But a lot of this stuff we’ve done before just not centralized. And there’s no shared learning. So we want to start to create these reusable epics also for us to go tell a client how long things are going to take
420 00:46:05.206 ⇒ 00:46:16.279 Uttam Kumaran: and so that the engineering team is bought in right? So you guys will work to say for anyone on this team. It should take roughly anywhere from one to 3 weeks to do this or 2 to 5 days.
421 00:46:16.600 ⇒ 00:46:26.029 Uttam Kumaran: And then we’re all okay with that. Right? So that way, this set except sets expectations. If things slip or don’t on like. Okay, what happened here? How do we? How do we do a better job next time.
422 00:46:28.350 ⇒ 00:46:30.240 Luke Daque: Yeah, cool. Yeah, that makes sense like
423 00:46:30.680 ⇒ 00:46:39.389 Luke Daque: shopify. For example, like multiple clients, always use shopify as long as we get the raw data in. Well, we should be able to
424 00:46:39.580 ⇒ 00:46:43.500 Luke Daque: generate whatever marts related.
425 00:46:43.500 ⇒ 00:46:44.190 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly.
426 00:46:44.190 ⇒ 00:46:54.749 Luke Daque: Models, right? At least from an analytics engineer perspective. For example, I guess, like, since we’re using Dbt, we can always create our own DVD package for
427 00:46:54.940 ⇒ 00:47:01.620 Luke Daque: shopify, for example. And then that way we can reuse it for any other client, for any client that uses shopify
428 00:47:01.840 ⇒ 00:47:05.520 Luke Daque: and stuff like that. I guess we can also do something like that, for
429 00:47:06.150 ⇒ 00:47:08.679 Luke Daque: like, if we’re using real for the
430 00:47:09.470 ⇒ 00:47:17.200 Luke Daque: for the dashboards, then we can always have like templates for shopify related dashboards, for example.
431 00:47:18.170 ⇒ 00:47:19.020 Uttam Kumaran: Yes, I agree.
432 00:47:19.830 ⇒ 00:47:21.850 Luke Daque: Yeah, yeah, makes sense.
433 00:47:24.140 ⇒ 00:47:24.800 Luke Daque: Cool.
434 00:47:26.610 ⇒ 00:47:33.793 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, guys, thank you. This is really, really great. I’m gonna send this note to them to the Pm team. And I’m gonna ask them if we can.
435 00:47:34.870 ⇒ 00:47:40.590 Uttam Kumaran: if we can schedule a meeting with all of us to sort of agree on these expectations.
436 00:47:40.850 ⇒ 00:47:44.160 Uttam Kumaran: you know. Maybe at maybe on Friday, or
437 00:47:44.560 ⇒ 00:47:48.579 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. Sorry tomorrow’s already Friday, or maybe next week. Would you think that’s helpful?
438 00:47:50.590 ⇒ 00:47:51.850 Luke Daque: Yeah, definitely.
439 00:47:51.850 ⇒ 00:47:52.720 Caio Velasco: Them, yeah.
440 00:47:53.730 ⇒ 00:47:55.330 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, cool.
441 00:47:57.140 ⇒ 00:48:01.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect. I know we’re going to Eden. And then we have our Javi stand up later. So I’ll talk to you guys. There.
442 00:48:04.110 ⇒ 00:48:05.250 Caio Velasco: Cool. Thank you.
443 00:48:05.620 ⇒ 00:48:06.939 Caio Velasco: Thank you for this.