Meeting Title: Brainforge PMO Setup Interview Date: 2025-07-30 Meeting participants: Vinay Vittal, Amber Lin
WEBVTT
1 00:01:24.520 ⇒ 00:01:25.060 Amber Lin: Interesting.
2 00:01:27.300 ⇒ 00:01:32.310 Amber Lin: Hi, there! I’m so sorry about that. My Internet went bad, right as I was about to join.
3 00:01:32.310 ⇒ 00:01:35.380 Vinay Vittal: No worries at all, no worries at all. How are you.
4 00:01:35.380 ⇒ 00:01:40.559 Amber Lin: I’m doing great. I heard you had a great call yesterday.
5 00:01:40.930 ⇒ 00:01:50.690 Vinay Vittal: Yes, it was a refreshing call, fully transparent. And I like the energy that he’s coming with. So it it went off very well.
6 00:01:51.560 ⇒ 00:01:55.195 Amber Lin: Yeah, I’m glad to hear that. So I think.
7 00:01:55.940 ⇒ 00:02:01.160 Amber Lin: you let me pull up the notes that he had from yesterday.
8 00:02:02.192 ⇒ 00:02:07.009 Amber Lin: So that I don’t ask the exact same questions as he does.
9 00:02:07.660 ⇒ 00:02:08.460 Vinay Vittal: No worries.
10 00:02:17.700 ⇒ 00:02:18.560 Amber Lin: Right.
11 00:02:36.450 ⇒ 00:02:37.730 Amber Lin: Hi! Can you hear me?
12 00:02:37.950 ⇒ 00:02:39.109 Vinay Vittal: I can hear you now.
13 00:02:39.590 ⇒ 00:02:41.299 Amber Lin: Okay, sounds good.
14 00:02:41.887 ⇒ 00:02:47.260 Amber Lin: I was asking what type of questions you have.
15 00:02:48.940 ⇒ 00:02:51.190 Vinay Vittal: Oh, I have a lot of questions so like
16 00:02:52.380 ⇒ 00:02:58.462 Vinay Vittal: in the in the current state, like what type of methodology is kind of being enforced?
17 00:02:58.820 ⇒ 00:02:59.470 Amber Lin: Okay.
18 00:02:59.470 ⇒ 00:03:06.139 Vinay Vittal: Within Brainforge and what are the growing pains that you’re currently like? Kind of feeling right now.
19 00:03:06.780 ⇒ 00:03:09.849 Amber Lin: I see specific to the Pmo.
20 00:03:10.500 ⇒ 00:03:11.300 Vinay Vittal: Correct.
21 00:03:11.520 ⇒ 00:03:20.250 Amber Lin: Okay? So our current methodology is, let’s see, is a.
22 00:03:20.620 ⇒ 00:03:25.479 Amber Lin: it’s a hybrid between. I forgot the terminology.
23 00:03:25.480 ⇒ 00:03:26.490 Vinay Vittal: Waterfall.
24 00:03:26.490 ⇒ 00:03:39.900 Amber Lin: A little bit of waterfall and a bit of agile, because some of our projects do have a roadmap beforehand, and we do try to have a roadmap beforehand, though sometimes it’s more
25 00:03:40.700 ⇒ 00:03:45.754 Amber Lin: so. Generally we try to be incremental in our work.
26 00:03:46.520 ⇒ 00:04:11.170 Amber Lin: I think only one. The client is completely iterative, and that’s the AI client. And so most of them, we try to have a roadmap, and we interview the clients to get the requirements. Set the roadmap, and we try to follow the sprint schedule. But things do change as they go on smaller clients or newer clients. It’s less defined, and it would be more of an agile approach.
27 00:04:11.290 ⇒ 00:04:16.630 Amber Lin: depending on what requirements and new things come up as we work with them.
28 00:04:17.250 ⇒ 00:04:22.769 Vinay Vittal: Sure. And then what is the success rate of hitting those milestones within the roadmap.
29 00:04:25.150 ⇒ 00:04:31.700 Amber Lin: So you mean the you mean the time hitting the milestones on the time planned.
30 00:04:31.700 ⇒ 00:04:37.759 Vinay Vittal: On the time plan, or the or the roadmap, as far as like what is successfully getting accomplished like.
31 00:04:37.860 ⇒ 00:04:54.611 Vinay Vittal: See? Within my my last company. We made roadmaps, we made strict timelines, but due to nuances and updated requirements from enterprise clients, we are constantly having to adjust our roadmap or make changes with the blessing of the client. But
32 00:04:55.510 ⇒ 00:05:04.250 Vinay Vittal: That was always something to me. I know other organizations are very strict, according to their roadmap and timeline, so I was just trying to get an understanding on
33 00:05:04.720 ⇒ 00:05:15.169 Vinay Vittal: you said wagile was your methodology that you guys are incorporated. So like, how do you guys adjust to updated requirements or new scopes.
34 00:05:16.785 ⇒ 00:05:21.679 Amber Lin: So the room staffing is relatively new. I’ve joined.
35 00:05:24.810 ⇒ 00:05:26.300 Vinay Vittal: I think I lost you.
36 00:05:28.480 ⇒ 00:05:30.760 Amber Lin: Place hmm.
37 00:05:30.760 ⇒ 00:05:33.380 Vinay Vittal: I think I lost you. It it went blank for.
38 00:05:33.380 ⇒ 00:05:38.879 Amber Lin: Oh, I see. So what I said is, we started our. I started
39 00:05:39.140 ⇒ 00:05:54.719 Amber Lin: reinforced about 4 months ago, so I’m their 1st Pm. And after around around 2 months ago we started to build our Pmo and establish those processes. So road map has not always been in place and don’t have
40 00:05:55.910 ⇒ 00:05:57.680 Amber Lin: that many
41 00:05:58.788 ⇒ 00:06:15.479 Amber Lin: have that much context on if things or evidence that things to get resolved based on the clients I’ve been managing. Usually we complete the content described in the milestones, generally, because the roadmap is what the client needs.
42 00:06:18.830 ⇒ 00:06:20.429 Vinay Vittal: I think I lost you again.
43 00:06:24.910 ⇒ 00:06:26.040 Vinay Vittal: Can you hear me?
44 00:06:30.480 ⇒ 00:06:31.960 Amber Lin: Please let’s.
45 00:06:41.650 ⇒ 00:06:44.539 Vinay Vittal: Hey, Amber? I’m sorry I I can’t hear you at all.
46 00:06:44.540 ⇒ 00:06:45.320 Amber Lin: Hi!
47 00:06:47.350 ⇒ 00:06:48.300 Amber Lin: Can you use?
48 00:07:25.230 ⇒ 00:07:26.799 Amber Lin: Hi! Is this better?
49 00:07:26.980 ⇒ 00:07:28.440 Vinay Vittal: Yes, much better.
50 00:07:28.560 ⇒ 00:07:38.828 Amber Lin: I see I’m not sure if it’s on my end or on your end, because I can see your video moving. So I was not sure why the audio wasn’t translating over as well.
51 00:07:39.130 ⇒ 00:07:39.959 Vinay Vittal: No worries.
52 00:07:40.180 ⇒ 00:07:42.129 Amber Lin: Yeah, I was, I was saying that
53 00:07:42.300 ⇒ 00:07:54.369 Amber Lin: usually there’s ad hoc requests and then scope expansion because we keep finding new details as we work on those projects. So usually it is
54 00:07:54.690 ⇒ 00:08:01.719 Amber Lin: not completely on timeline. I think that’s the more consistent occurrence, and then completing it
55 00:08:02.020 ⇒ 00:08:05.990 Amber Lin: completely on the originally set timeline.
56 00:08:06.630 ⇒ 00:08:10.398 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, noted. So are there any implications? If
57 00:08:11.250 ⇒ 00:08:14.909 Vinay Vittal: if it’s not completed on time? Only reason, I ask is.
58 00:08:15.711 ⇒ 00:08:22.760 Vinay Vittal: In my last role I had enterprise clients where we signed sows and kind of airtight contracts, and.
59 00:08:22.760 ⇒ 00:08:23.350 Amber Lin: Yeah.
60 00:08:23.715 ⇒ 00:08:29.929 Vinay Vittal: One of our biggest issues was, if we did not complete the enhancement or project on time.
61 00:08:30.443 ⇒ 00:08:33.347 Vinay Vittal: our company would have to pay pay out
62 00:08:34.150 ⇒ 00:08:47.699 Vinay Vittal: you know, fines or increments to the enterprise clients. So we were very stringent on trying, ensuring that communication was at a very high level with our clients and trying to let
63 00:08:47.700 ⇒ 00:08:52.890 Vinay Vittal: there’s no or any roadblocks, or any nuances that might occur.
64 00:08:54.880 ⇒ 00:09:08.079 Amber Lin: I see. So I think for our clients, we are consultancy, so we are a bit, I do think we are less strict than what you just described.
65 00:09:10.960 ⇒ 00:09:12.270 Amber Lin: Though
66 00:09:12.390 ⇒ 00:09:40.520 Amber Lin: we are very much in touch with the client, so we sometimes we involve the client stakeholders in our stand ups or in our rituals, so generally they would, they would and should be updated on anything, any ad hoc requests, or any additional changes, so they would be informed of that, and then usually they would give verbal notice of like, oh, okay, this is something that we can expand the timeline on.
67 00:09:41.420 ⇒ 00:09:42.200 Vinay Vittal: Sure.
68 00:09:43.180 ⇒ 00:09:43.790 Vinay Vittal: Sure.
69 00:09:45.040 ⇒ 00:09:46.667 Vinay Vittal: So then, like
70 00:09:47.350 ⇒ 00:09:52.970 Vinay Vittal: seeing how you’re you’re leading up the Pmo office, where do you see the biggest need
71 00:09:53.280 ⇒ 00:10:02.590 Vinay Vittal: to strengthen the organization, and, like what you know, type of opportunities would be presented for the new Pm’s taking over.
72 00:10:05.447 ⇒ 00:10:17.683 Amber Lin: Let’s see. So for the Pmo. Right now we one have a shortage of project management, talent. There’s a few project that needs to be managed either
73 00:10:18.530 ⇒ 00:10:44.520 Amber Lin: with support from project coordinators. Some of the the projects are relatively small and can be managed by coordinators, or we would need more experienced Pm’s to manage higher value clients. So there’s a shortage of talent. That’s the 1st one. We are just starting to establish sops of how to run certain rituals, because none of those were
74 00:10:45.290 ⇒ 00:10:53.400 Amber Lin: in place. So nothing about the Pm. Pm. Process or anything existed before, say, 2 to 4 months ago.
75 00:10:53.660 ⇒ 00:11:02.249 Amber Lin: And so all of those are still in creation and in testing our internal teams sometimes also require project management.
76 00:11:02.900 ⇒ 00:11:11.980 Amber Lin: So overall, we’re, we’re we’re short of people. We’re short of established and tested processes
77 00:11:12.140 ⇒ 00:11:23.879 Amber Lin: among the team, so that when someone gets on boarded they can know what to do. Instead of figuring that out. We have a currently we have a Pmo plan. But
78 00:11:24.516 ⇒ 00:11:35.440 Amber Lin: I created that with my advisor Alex, and that is still under works. And we do want to have someone take over
79 00:11:35.650 ⇒ 00:11:38.039 Amber Lin: and lead this function.
80 00:11:38.400 ⇒ 00:11:39.170 Vinay Vittal: Sure.
81 00:11:39.950 ⇒ 00:11:43.899 Vinay Vittal: Sure. Yeah. Alex is a is a friend of mine.
82 00:11:43.900 ⇒ 00:11:50.699 Amber Lin: Wow! Oh, yeah, he he recommended you when I was calling him, and then was there. Oh, yeah, great. Let’s let’s go talk.
83 00:11:51.030 ⇒ 00:12:02.049 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, yeah, he, he kind of referred me to this position and said, You know, have a speak, have a talk with Utham, and have a talk with Amber, and see you know what you feel about the company, and
84 00:12:02.230 ⇒ 00:12:04.510 Vinay Vittal: so far I like the energy and
85 00:12:05.180 ⇒ 00:12:09.910 Vinay Vittal: how he’s anticipating the future of the company. That means a lot to me, and
86 00:12:10.160 ⇒ 00:12:18.380 Vinay Vittal: I kind of I wanted to get your co-sign on that as well. It’s like. What is it like working on the delivery side of Brainforge.
87 00:12:20.040 ⇒ 00:12:21.159 Amber Lin: Let’s see.
88 00:12:21.670 ⇒ 00:12:43.660 Amber Lin: so overall I I can speak to my experience in the in 2 aspects, and one is my overall experience in this company, and how I’ve developed in this position, and then, just in general, how I feel in delivery as is so, I joined 4 months ago with this is my 1st job out of college, so I have no
89 00:12:43.950 ⇒ 00:12:58.390 Amber Lin: practical experience as a project manager. I was a consultant, and I was data analyst before. So I was originally going to be hired as a data analyst. But I wanted to do Pm. For this company because they have no pm.
90 00:12:58.832 ⇒ 00:13:13.539 Amber Lin: so I did that. And was it was pretty rough getting started because there was no guidance. No one in the company had official training, didn’t have official training as a Pm. He was a product manager before, and so it was
91 00:13:13.660 ⇒ 00:13:22.370 Amber Lin: quite rocky getting started but now but they gave me chances to fail which to the company is
92 00:13:22.580 ⇒ 00:13:23.670 Amber Lin: the cost
93 00:13:24.140 ⇒ 00:13:32.659 Amber Lin: to lead projects and have them sometimes get them stall, have them stall, but then get them back on track again. So after that I’m
94 00:13:32.830 ⇒ 00:13:39.169 Amber Lin: grown in the side of project management and in managing in general.
95 00:13:39.450 ⇒ 00:13:47.239 Amber Lin: So, as a company, I do think, takes a takes a lot of bets on people, and there is a lot of chances to
96 00:13:47.360 ⇒ 00:13:51.019 Amber Lin: grow and learn in this company, which is something I really like.
97 00:13:51.400 ⇒ 00:13:52.030 Vinay Vittal: Sure.
98 00:13:52.030 ⇒ 00:13:58.659 Amber Lin: And I’ve been able to explore different sides that I want to do.
99 00:13:58.940 ⇒ 00:14:11.649 Amber Lin: They want me to go into a chief of staff position so ideally. I want to set up the Pmo. With you with Alex, and then, once this is done, I will move on to a different division to help set up. Set that up.
100 00:14:11.880 ⇒ 00:14:16.309 Amber Lin: So that’s something that I’d like. I’m really looking forward to.
101 00:14:16.310 ⇒ 00:14:20.417 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, that’s it’s kind of similar to the path that I created.
102 00:14:22.050 ⇒ 00:14:38.450 Vinay Vittal: I we started off with like 5 project managers. And based to the strength of those project managers it it wasn’t up to the expectation of what our owner was requesting, so he unfortunately laid off all 4 project managers and and kept me.
103 00:14:38.680 ⇒ 00:14:51.320 Vinay Vittal: and at that time it was a blessing. Because you know, I’m a couple of years into project management, and at this moment in life I’m like a sponge learning, and how to adjust how to adapt.
104 00:14:51.600 ⇒ 00:14:54.921 Vinay Vittal: So it gave me an opportunity to start creating
105 00:14:56.100 ⇒ 00:15:09.119 Vinay Vittal: a regimented, agile cycle in our company. I had to from from start from start to finish. I had to teach the company on sprint planning on daily stand ups, how to conduct sprint reviews.
106 00:15:09.944 ⇒ 00:15:12.685 Vinay Vittal: and how to get the team interacted with the
107 00:15:13.400 ⇒ 00:15:29.579 Vinay Vittal: Even during my sprint retrospectives I brought in all different departments to hear it out. And it took a lot of effort on my half, because a lot of the people in the company were so legacy based that they really didn’t want to catch on to this new methodology and.
108 00:15:30.390 ⇒ 00:15:35.000 Vinay Vittal: Fought me back a little bit, and I kept giving, you know.
109 00:15:35.330 ⇒ 00:15:58.981 Vinay Vittal: positive vibe, saying, this is this is the direction that the owner would like to take. There is proof in the pudding at the end of this. And I really didn’t get the buy in from the company until about like 3 releases were were completed, and then the developers, internally and externally, my Smes all started to buy in to what project management was.
110 00:15:59.340 ⇒ 00:16:00.850 Amber Lin: Oh, that’s lovely!
111 00:16:00.850 ⇒ 00:16:11.279 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, it it had. There was a couple of issues we had was knowledge. Transfers were not being conducted. And we were expecting our developers to.
112 00:16:11.380 ⇒ 00:16:24.889 Vinay Vittal: you know, make a mountain out of nothing. And I saw the gaps. I saw what the issues were. A lot of the senior developers. Kind of felt like their job was on the line. So.
113 00:16:24.890 ⇒ 00:16:25.330 Amber Lin: Yeah.
114 00:16:25.330 ⇒ 00:16:33.479 Vinay Vittal: Conducting Kts to them was like everything that I’ve worked or earned for. You’re going to teach somebody, and they’re going to remove me.
115 00:16:34.144 ⇒ 00:16:40.500 Vinay Vittal: And I, I get that. We all have families. We have responsibilities. So I brought that issue to the
116 00:16:40.680 ⇒ 00:16:49.250 Vinay Vittal: to my director. And I said, These are the concerns. These are my views, and how do we guarantee or secure our leads here? And
117 00:16:49.430 ⇒ 00:17:00.450 Vinay Vittal: we had a candid conversation with our leads, and saying, by releasing some of your knowledge. It’s not to replace you. It’s to make all of our team stronger so that we can all do better.
118 00:17:00.560 ⇒ 00:17:05.428 Vinay Vittal: And it. It slowly started to gain traction.
119 00:17:06.270 ⇒ 00:17:13.150 Vinay Vittal: It slowly started to gain traction. Then we started hiring 3rd party consultants from different countries, and
120 00:17:13.760 ⇒ 00:17:18.620 Vinay Vittal: the knowledge transfers had to be revamped and had to be improved. So
121 00:17:18.780 ⇒ 00:17:32.769 Vinay Vittal: I started kind of implementing documentation as a main source. Because today I’m here tomorrow I’m not. And there’s going to be new people that come in and out, and I don’t want them to encounter the same problems that I had.
122 00:17:33.254 ⇒ 00:17:40.069 Vinay Vittal: I think that was my main point of being there was organizing and making the company strong enough to to run
123 00:17:40.360 ⇒ 00:17:41.190 Vinay Vittal: and.
124 00:17:41.190 ⇒ 00:17:41.670 Amber Lin: Yeah.
125 00:17:41.670 ⇒ 00:17:50.409 Vinay Vittal: And fortunately we did that. I formed a critical support team that would adjust to all the critical financial bugs that were coming from our
126 00:17:50.570 ⇒ 00:17:52.600 Vinay Vittal: our retail locations.
127 00:17:52.720 ⇒ 00:17:59.369 Vinay Vittal: So that alleviated a lot of work off of our standard releases.
128 00:17:59.500 ⇒ 00:18:26.490 Vinay Vittal: and, you know, created confidence within our enterprise clients that you know you don’t have to wait for release to have issues resolved. We have our best Smes and lead developers on these cases and these tickets. It will be resolved as soon as possible, and at 1st there was no trust, but after they started to see that we were being consistent in our our work and our efforts. We got full buy in from our enterprise. Clients.
129 00:18:27.450 ⇒ 00:18:46.614 Amber Lin: See? Well, that’s really awesome. That’s how I that’s how I feel. A lot of times, too. I also create a lot lot of documentation, especially for the current sop. So I’m working on for how to run specific rituals because we have I asked. We’re currently getting help from
130 00:18:47.190 ⇒ 00:19:00.320 Amber Lin: someone who’s in Ops right now. We’re asking him to help a bit on the project management for internal teams. So he has no experience in Pm. And so making that Sops is really to
131 00:19:00.650 ⇒ 00:19:09.189 Amber Lin: tell them the the things that I’ve stumbled on, and things that we have failed before, and to have processes in place that keep that.
132 00:19:09.370 ⇒ 00:19:16.489 Amber Lin: So to prevent that from happening again. So I understand how you approach things, and I totally agree with that.
133 00:19:16.690 ⇒ 00:19:31.420 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, I mean, and and one thing about coaching people within the your own team. It. It creates more confidence within your own domain, and you by teaching somebody. It’s reinforcing the values that you’re trying to, you know, supplant into the company.
134 00:19:31.790 ⇒ 00:19:35.850 Amber Lin: Yeah, totally. I think I
135 00:19:36.400 ⇒ 00:19:44.770 Amber Lin: thank you for telling me your experience in previous companies. I don’t think I would go more in depth into that. I
136 00:19:45.140 ⇒ 00:19:59.009 Amber Lin: I from what you said, I trust your approach, and I trust Alex’s Referral. I kind of want to understand what you envision of what you would do if you were to join. I kind of want to see what direction you would take us.
137 00:19:59.530 ⇒ 00:20:16.619 Vinay Vittal: Sure. Well, 1st off it’s to learn the domain. Learn the company, and learn what the requirements are, and to learn from the past. As you said, I’d like to learn what those mistakes were, and to try to ensure that I don’t make those mistakes going forward.
138 00:20:17.820 ⇒ 00:20:26.130 Vinay Vittal: Mainly managing projects, keeping the timelines, keeping the communication clear throughout from top to bottom.
139 00:20:27.580 ⇒ 00:20:40.450 Vinay Vittal: I. I’m a big. I’m a big person in communication. I feel that any problem can be resolved through communication. But once the communication hastens, silos start getting created and.
140 00:20:40.910 ⇒ 00:20:50.119 Vinay Vittal: That kind of catapults into something that is unmanageable. So I try to stay on top of everything. There’s always going to be times where I miss something, but
141 00:20:51.310 ⇒ 00:20:57.960 Vinay Vittal: I try to make sure that I notate what was missed, and not to repeat the same issues.
142 00:21:00.580 ⇒ 00:21:01.300 Vinay Vittal: Yeah.
143 00:21:03.371 ⇒ 00:21:11.589 Amber Lin: I I think overall. I wanted to learn what you want for the Pmo. I know it’s a bit hard to
144 00:21:12.550 ⇒ 00:21:23.019 Amber Lin: make a make a plan, because you really I don’t think we’ve introduced much of what the existing state is, but just want to see like what
145 00:21:24.440 ⇒ 00:21:32.149 Amber Lin: your take is on the Pmo. So I know that our current business is a bit different from the business you worked at before.
146 00:21:32.150 ⇒ 00:21:40.669 Vinay Vittal: Yeah. Well, see, part of the part of what interested me in the role was is that the Pmo. Still on the ground getting developed and built so.
147 00:21:41.110 ⇒ 00:21:52.379 Vinay Vittal: That that kind of felt incredible to me that I’d be a part of sculpting the the templates, the the formation of where the Pmo. Will be, and for the company. So.
148 00:21:53.076 ⇒ 00:22:08.600 Vinay Vittal: That was something very interesting to me, because it’s not only am I going to be building the documentation for the company, but through that process I’ll be learning intricately what the company needs, where they see themselves going, and being a part of the company as a whole.
149 00:22:13.260 ⇒ 00:22:14.250 Amber Lin: I, see,
150 00:22:17.950 ⇒ 00:22:20.739 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, I see. I I like to stay busy.
151 00:22:21.610 ⇒ 00:22:31.180 Vinay Vittal: I, managing multiple projects for me, has not been an issue. Because I try to stay as organized as possible.
152 00:22:31.539 ⇒ 00:22:50.400 Vinay Vittal: And I have a clear list every day. I kind of come in earlier, and I have to accomplish these goals before the end of the day. That’s like my own pressure that I put on myself. That kind of makes me feel that what I’m doing makes sense. It’s accomplishing things that are needed for the company.
153 00:22:50.410 ⇒ 00:23:07.070 Vinay Vittal: and there’s a positive direction. It’s before I used to just come in and start doing my job. But ever since I started making you know list of things that I needed to accomplish. It’s a rewarding feature mentally, because I know that
154 00:23:07.180 ⇒ 00:23:11.019 Vinay Vittal: I’m doing what’s needed, and I’m accomplishing my task by task.
155 00:23:11.980 ⇒ 00:23:20.190 Amber Lin: I see. So I think for this role, there’s we’re looking for someone who can help
156 00:23:20.570 ⇒ 00:23:27.209 Amber Lin: build up and establish the Pmo. We have some processes, some
157 00:23:27.840 ⇒ 00:23:48.670 Amber Lin: frameworks in place that Alex helped put together. But we will need someone to help keep refining them based on our experience and make any new documentation or templates if needed, and you will also be managing projects. And I think with your experience, we’ll try to give you
158 00:23:48.800 ⇒ 00:24:09.579 Amber Lin: the bigger and more challenging clients that has multiple project multiple stakeholders. So I believe that would be the role. And I think the 3rd responsibility would be to look into how to hire and coach and onboard. New Pm’s to the Pmo.
159 00:24:09.880 ⇒ 00:24:14.410 Vinay Vittal: Sure. Yeah, I mean, I’m part of a big career coaching group and.
160 00:24:14.410 ⇒ 00:24:15.030 Amber Lin: So.
161 00:24:15.340 ⇒ 00:24:42.850 Vinay Vittal: So I’m constantly learning from my seniors and on how to really give confidence to people that are new into this role. And I came into this role as a restaurant owner many years ago, and many people said I could never do it. You don’t have the technical knowledge, but if the individual has the will to learn the curiosity that’s never ending. I can work with anybody fitting that category, but.
162 00:24:43.480 ⇒ 00:24:50.319 Vinay Vittal: If the curiosity is not there and the consistency is not there, it’s a tough position to to manage.
163 00:24:51.360 ⇒ 00:25:11.899 Vinay Vittal: So I mean, being a project manager is is being based off. Your success of working with people. Obviously, projects need to be completed in time, but it really is your rapport with the company your stakeholders do they feel confident in reporting things to you? And are they assured that things would be resolved. And
164 00:25:11.900 ⇒ 00:25:38.730 Vinay Vittal: that’s kind of what I pride myself on, like understanding the scenario, the requirements, and then bringing it into a non technical term to our team. So they understand that this is just not another Jira ticket. There’s implications behind this, and there’s a reason for it. So I ask lots of questions, because, you know, I need to understand everything at a granular level, because if I don’t understand it, I can’t lead with confidence.
165 00:25:39.387 ⇒ 00:25:40.222 Amber Lin: I understand?
166 00:25:41.074 ⇒ 00:25:48.149 Amber Lin: Let’s see, do you have any more questions for me, that you would like to learn about the company and learn about next steps.
167 00:25:48.380 ⇒ 00:25:55.180 Vinay Vittal: Well that one more thing that he said that was quite exciting was, that he’s implementing AI tools.
168 00:25:55.602 ⇒ 00:26:03.640 Vinay Vittal: For the project managers. Because, you know, one product I worked with that I highly stand behind was called Miro
169 00:26:04.392 ⇒ 00:26:29.230 Vinay Vittal: Brought on mainly by me because I saw the potential in it. They have whiteboards, they have never ending lists of templates. So it was something I was managing the whole Pmo office in my last role, so that kind of helped jump start my process of of having templates within. Having this giant whiteboard to work on with teams from India. The Philippines.
170 00:26:29.410 ⇒ 00:26:33.459 Vinay Vittal: It. It was quite easy to work with now they’re seeing it on a visual level.
171 00:26:33.580 ⇒ 00:26:49.999 Vinay Vittal: So my daily standups were orchestrated through Miro boards. They could go. Our retrospectives were handled through that pattern. But how are you implementing AI for the project managers to create ease or more fluidity in the organization.
172 00:26:50.786 ⇒ 00:26:52.690 Amber Lin: I see. Let me
173 00:26:53.140 ⇒ 00:27:04.850 Amber Lin: let me switch over this meeting to my computer and let me show you our how we currently manage this our clients, and what tools we are using. Just give me one second.
174 00:27:05.120 ⇒ 00:27:06.600 Vinay Vittal: That’d be awesome. I appreciate it.
175 00:27:12.550 ⇒ 00:27:16.140 Amber Lin: Okay, so let me share my screen.
176 00:27:16.759 ⇒ 00:27:41.939 Amber Lin: We use linear as a project management tool. Mostly chose this because this is very integrated with different Apis. And so we can, we can get all the data and pull it to our data warehouse, which will store all the story points or different tickets for the different users that’s assigned. And so, for example, right here
177 00:27:42.120 ⇒ 00:27:48.069 Amber Lin: we have different different cycles, and we have a burn down chart.
178 00:27:48.300 ⇒ 00:28:14.360 Amber Lin: and then we can filter by assignee, by projects. So it’s a lot more flexible. And this is shared with everyone, and whenever someone makes a comment here it can get updated, because usually for one client, there’s multiple projects running. And so it would be hard if we didn’t have a place for people to lift it, leave different comments and get them responded to.
179 00:28:14.740 ⇒ 00:28:21.699 Amber Lin: And then so that’s how we manage projects. Let me show you our AI platform.
180 00:28:22.310 ⇒ 00:28:23.929 Amber Lin: And so
181 00:28:24.720 ⇒ 00:28:50.650 Amber Lin: this is the platform that our internal AI team created. It started off as a place where we store all our Zoom Meetings. So usually when we have the Zoom Meeting. It’s recorded, but it’s hard to access the transcript access, the recording. So right here we can, you can search any call that has happened because all our calls are recorded, and then for each one of them
182 00:28:51.270 ⇒ 00:29:04.040 Amber Lin: you’ll have the chance. We can ask any questions with the AI Chatbot that has context to this transcript. You can copy this transcript and work on it with AI.
183 00:29:04.740 ⇒ 00:29:19.760 Amber Lin: So I usually this to fill in any roadmap documents to fill any tickets or requirements. Simple thing here is to create email summaries. We have ones for sales. Because for sales calls, you can make different
184 00:29:20.380 ⇒ 00:29:26.839 Amber Lin: different emails based on that. And for project management there’s a meeting summary same for slack.
185 00:29:27.040 ⇒ 00:29:29.569 Amber Lin: And this is the feature that
186 00:29:29.940 ⇒ 00:29:46.600 Amber Lin: is very helpful. So for meetings that I’m not attending. I usually use this to get a context of what the meeting talked about. And then I use this option to create linear tickets. Once it loads. It’ll show you the different potential tickets
187 00:29:47.350 ⇒ 00:29:52.569 Amber Lin: with quotes from oh, that did not load
188 00:29:53.550 ⇒ 00:30:03.000 Amber Lin: with different quotes from this meeting, and then you, if I click, create it will directly create that and sync it
189 00:30:03.150 ⇒ 00:30:08.820 Amber Lin: to linear. So to the project in linear and sign it to the right person, so that did not load.
190 00:30:09.050 ⇒ 00:30:14.679 Vinay Vittal: So when you say is linear, the the software tool that the developers use, you’re not using Jira.
191 00:30:14.950 ⇒ 00:30:21.339 Amber Lin: No, we’re not using Jira. It’s not. We’re not at a scale that we need. Jira.
192 00:30:21.530 ⇒ 00:30:22.260 Vinay Vittal: Okay?
193 00:30:26.040 ⇒ 00:30:27.420 Vinay Vittal: Noted. Okay?
194 00:30:27.850 ⇒ 00:30:28.510 Amber Lin: Nice
195 00:30:29.659 ⇒ 00:30:36.490 Amber Lin: what kind of approach? So you said they were using waterfall before, and then you switched them to agile.
196 00:30:37.270 ⇒ 00:30:49.439 Vinay Vittal: I. I switched them, but it it ultimately went back to a hybrid because our owner is a solo owner, and he has his visions of what he wants to see the company as, and
197 00:30:50.560 ⇒ 00:31:01.540 Vinay Vittal: he makes the the changes and the demands from a high level. So as much as I tried to adjust it to Agile it. It ultimately ended up in a hybrid scenario.
198 00:31:01.940 ⇒ 00:31:03.509 Amber Lin: I see, I see.
199 00:31:06.150 ⇒ 00:31:09.560 Amber Lin: So some more things here.
200 00:31:10.050 ⇒ 00:31:33.170 Vinay Vittal: And then how long did it take you to learn this linear based system to get onboarded correctly and utilize it to a high level. The only reason I ask is because I’m so used to Jira Asana and and other Pm tools. So just seeing this, it’s a little bit different, obviously. But just wondering on your timeline. It took to kind of get onboarded and learn this.
201 00:31:34.120 ⇒ 00:32:03.519 Amber Lin: I think, tool wise. It was pretty quick, because most mostly we have some documentation on how to navigate this. I can also walk you through when we get started. So there’s different. Mostly we have. It’s the same as here. We still have epics and project. We can still create the different projects, and for each project create a different tickets and then put them into a sprint. So cycles are essentially just sprints, and for me. It took around like
202 00:32:04.240 ⇒ 00:32:22.219 Amber Lin: about a week to get very familiar with it, because I had no one to guide me. But I think for Rico, who is someone who’s helping as a project coordinator. He got on pretty quick because I was able to walk him through most things.
203 00:32:22.420 ⇒ 00:32:23.240 Vinay Vittal: Awesome.
204 00:32:23.480 ⇒ 00:32:24.060 Amber Lin: Yeah.
205 00:32:24.900 ⇒ 00:32:28.619 Vinay Vittal: I mean like story points and things of that nature like.
206 00:32:28.720 ⇒ 00:32:33.050 Vinay Vittal: do those go within the ticket, or like estimations.
207 00:32:33.500 ⇒ 00:32:43.220 Amber Lin: Yeah. So as a sample, a ticket would have status priority assignee, you can add any labels.
208 00:32:43.909 ⇒ 00:33:00.289 Amber Lin: Put it into any project, and then you can have sub issues, every change log. It’s documented here. You can also leave comments. So it I do think it’s pretty similar to Jira. It’s just some more. Just a smaller
209 00:33:00.730 ⇒ 00:33:01.520 Amber Lin: app.
210 00:33:01.820 ⇒ 00:33:04.200 Amber Lin: Sure, that’s easier for us to manage, because.
211 00:33:04.200 ⇒ 00:33:18.800 Vinay Vittal: During your daily stand ups. Is this something that you would like? Because I started to use more of a Kanban based system. But like, how can you just like walk me through quickly, like how your stand ups? Go on a day to day basis.
212 00:33:20.190 ⇒ 00:33:22.710 Amber Lin: People can run their standups differently.
213 00:33:23.050 ⇒ 00:33:48.310 Amber Lin: So I like to use this view. You can use a Kanban view if you would prefer. I like to go by project. You can go by status. It doesn’t like individual preferences, at least for it right now. It doesn’t matter how you want to run. This stand ups. We can discuss together as you start. You can. You can give me feedback on if this is the best way to run it, because I really have no one else to
214 00:33:48.310 ⇒ 00:33:55.829 Amber Lin: tell me if if it’s better or worse, and what way you can run it based on projects. Look at it based on assignees.
215 00:33:56.187 ⇒ 00:33:59.880 Amber Lin: Or just look at it based on status and move things along.
216 00:34:00.050 ⇒ 00:34:09.420 Amber Lin: Or you can also have views into sorry right here of
217 00:34:11.960 ⇒ 00:34:12.565 Amber Lin: The
218 00:34:13.290 ⇒ 00:34:24.320 Amber Lin: story points based on the signee. So to just it gives you a lot of insight into the current load, and then the current progress of different things.
219 00:34:24.560 ⇒ 00:34:28.990 Vinay Vittal: Sure. And then are are you responsible for monitoring the developers? Time.
220 00:34:29.420 ⇒ 00:34:37.909 Amber Lin: Yeah. So as that’s a different, essentially, a different project that we’re developing right now. So currently, we
221 00:34:38.330 ⇒ 00:34:52.700 Amber Lin: time allocations check. So we check all the current hours and compare it to allocations monthly. We have a time allocations meeting. We just had that yesterday. And currently we’re developing a dashboard that shows
222 00:34:53.199 ⇒ 00:34:54.270 Amber Lin: ticket
223 00:34:54.440 ⇒ 00:35:08.189 Amber Lin: story points assigned versus hours logged, and all of that productivity and sprint velocity data. We want to show that in the dashboard. So that’s something that’s a project we’re kicking off today. Actually.
224 00:35:08.430 ⇒ 00:35:14.369 Vinay Vittal: Oh, awesome! That’s that’s something that I created for my owner’s dashboard, because
225 00:35:14.520 ⇒ 00:35:20.019 Vinay Vittal: it got to a point where he was getting confused with Jira, and didn’t know where to look, so
226 00:35:20.580 ⇒ 00:35:26.010 Vinay Vittal: I built out a like a robust dashboard for him, so that he could see it on a granular level and
227 00:35:26.140 ⇒ 00:35:36.449 Vinay Vittal: kind of create confidence for him that you know he’s hired the right people, and we are making progress. So sometimes tailoring the dashboard to the person kind of is a big win.
228 00:35:37.170 ⇒ 00:35:48.640 Amber Lin: Yeah, sounds good. I know you said. Oh, I think we’re a little bit short on time. So I’ll try to wrap up in 1 min because I need the meeting, or for a client meeting.
229 00:35:49.496 ⇒ 00:35:53.890 Amber Lin: Sounds like you’re a good fit for
230 00:35:54.410 ⇒ 00:36:11.740 Amber Lin: the needs of this position. I do know that you mentioned you are not as technical on certain things. I think that’s my main worry that I that I have, because most of our projects are related to data are related to AI.
231 00:36:12.800 ⇒ 00:36:20.159 Amber Lin: I’m also not the most technical person I didn’t come from. I wasn’t a developer turned. Pm, so
232 00:36:20.430 ⇒ 00:36:24.450 Amber Lin: like. That’s my worry for
233 00:36:24.900 ⇒ 00:36:32.400 Amber Lin: for me, for the Pmo. For someone leading the Pmo. So on the technical side of how that will be.
234 00:36:33.150 ⇒ 00:36:50.813 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, I mean to assure you, on that level. That was my same scenario, my last role. But I’m a very fast learner. I’m very curious. So I ask questions because I need to understand everything from a full technical perspective, so that I could lead with confidence. Right?
235 00:36:51.530 ⇒ 00:36:59.450 Vinay Vittal: So I want to assure you that technical gaps that might be there today will not be there tomorrow.
236 00:36:59.850 ⇒ 00:37:05.649 Vinay Vittal: because once I’m honed in on a system. I’m there to learn technical
237 00:37:06.080 ⇒ 00:37:26.639 Vinay Vittal: slangs, technical jargon that is being spoken amongst the teams. I set up one on one meetings with developers to kind of really hone in on the the technical issues, or what is being faced upon, what? Where can we work better? And through those one on one meetings. I it it develops my technical knowledge.
238 00:37:26.960 ⇒ 00:37:30.379 Amber Lin: Okay, sounds great. That’s great to hear.
239 00:37:32.130 ⇒ 00:37:32.760 Vinay Vittal: Yeah.
240 00:37:33.040 ⇒ 00:37:33.670 Amber Lin: Yeah.
241 00:37:34.030 ⇒ 00:37:34.360 Vinay Vittal: I mean.
242 00:37:34.360 ⇒ 00:37:36.920 Amber Lin: Thank you so much for this for this meeting.
243 00:37:36.920 ⇒ 00:37:39.550 Vinay Vittal: Sure. No, no, thank you for taking time to meet with me.
244 00:37:39.900 ⇒ 00:37:40.570 Amber Lin: Yeah.
245 00:37:40.984 ⇒ 00:37:59.549 Amber Lin: I think Uten will get to you, for with the next steps we usually start pretty quick with the trial period, because that gives us the most insight into how things go. I don’t know how, if that’s the case, for Pm’s, because we haven’t hired another Pm. Other than me, so I’ll let him confirm with you on the next steps.
246 00:37:59.550 ⇒ 00:38:03.189 Vinay Vittal: Sure. No, I I appreciate that. I look forward to hearing back.
247 00:38:03.370 ⇒ 00:38:07.109 Amber Lin: Yeah, you have my email ping me, if you have any questions.
248 00:38:07.310 ⇒ 00:38:11.270 Vinay Vittal: One last question like, Are you pressed for time, or do you have to go.
249 00:38:11.702 ⇒ 00:38:16.330 Amber Lin: I’m just worried that the client might join the meeting, and they won’t have the meeting room.
250 00:38:16.330 ⇒ 00:38:18.789 Vinay Vittal: No, no, by all means, no worries. I’ll I’ll let you go.
251 00:38:19.010 ⇒ 00:38:22.620 Amber Lin: Yeah, email me the question. I’ll respond, there.
252 00:38:22.620 ⇒ 00:38:24.580 Vinay Vittal: Absolutely. Thank you so very much. Amber.
253 00:38:24.580 ⇒ 00:38:25.350 Amber Lin: Thank you.
254 00:38:25.950 ⇒ 00:38:26.439 Vinay Vittal: Take care!
255 00:38:26.440 ⇒ 00:38:27.809 Amber Lin: Bye, have a great one.
256 00:38:27.810 ⇒ 00:38:28.530 Vinay Vittal: You too.