Meeting Title: Brainforge Stand-up Hosting Tips Sync Date: 2026-01-09 Meeting participants: Awaish Kumar, Clarence Stone, Samuel Roberts
WEBVTT
1 00:01:17.140 ⇒ 00:01:18.320 Awaish Kumar: Hi.
2 00:01:18.960 ⇒ 00:01:20.729 Clarence Stone: Hey, what’s up, Voish?
3 00:01:21.510 ⇒ 00:01:23.289 Awaish Kumar: All good, how about you?
4 00:01:26.900 ⇒ 00:01:29.770 Clarence Stone: So, what did you want to talk about? How can I help?
5 00:01:31.560 ⇒ 00:01:34.930 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I wanted to talk…
6 00:01:35.110 ⇒ 00:01:40.789 Awaish Kumar: About, like, in the new structure, the… That we are…
7 00:01:41.640 ⇒ 00:01:48.860 Awaish Kumar: having. There are a few things which I wanted to understand, how to drive them.
8 00:01:49.210 ⇒ 00:01:52.750 Awaish Kumar: So, for example, in stand-ups, so…
9 00:01:53.340 ⇒ 00:01:55.659 Awaish Kumar: Like, what I heard from Utam is, like, we…
10 00:01:56.450 ⇒ 00:02:04.030 Awaish Kumar: in a stand-up, which kind of… I’m driving, like, leading, basically, but… There’s nothing much that…
11 00:02:04.390 ⇒ 00:02:08.680 Awaish Kumar: I’m doing there, then calling out the names, right? Like, for example.
12 00:02:08.960 ⇒ 00:02:09.680 Clarence Stone: Oof.
13 00:02:09.940 ⇒ 00:02:13.510 Awaish Kumar: I, like, there’s a project, for example, Magic Spoon.
14 00:02:13.610 ⇒ 00:02:18.040 Awaish Kumar: Demolade is the CSO, he knows what’s going on with the customer.
15 00:02:18.680 ⇒ 00:02:27.170 Awaish Kumar: And the Aishwani is the engagement planner. He kind of knows what is going on in the linear.
16 00:02:27.420 ⇒ 00:02:29.480 Awaish Kumar: So, basically, I don’t have a…
17 00:02:29.840 ⇒ 00:02:33.349 Awaish Kumar: context until I hear from them what’s going on.
18 00:02:33.510 ⇒ 00:02:43.399 Awaish Kumar: Right? Once I hear them, I can just say, okay, either things are going well, or if some ticket is…
19 00:02:44.200 ⇒ 00:02:51.580 Awaish Kumar: is a blocker, or do they need some technical help, if they come up with, like, sentences like this, like, I need help, or…
20 00:02:51.840 ⇒ 00:03:04.050 Awaish Kumar: Or I can just observe with the conversation, like, it has been dragging too long, like, it has taken a few days, and we didn’t finish it yet. Okay, I think I can get involved, and I can say, okay. Yeah.
21 00:03:04.050 ⇒ 00:03:11.469 Clarence Stone: So, a couple things, Awash. Yeah, like, you made so many good points already, so I’m gonna, I’m gonna do it one by one. Okay, so…
22 00:03:11.470 ⇒ 00:03:13.889 Samuel Roberts: Can you recap them, too, since I… my… thank you.
23 00:03:13.890 ⇒ 00:03:22.800 Clarence Stone: Oh yeah, Sam, what’s up? So, Sam, we’re just talking about, like, some really refinement tips on hosting a better stand-up.
24 00:03:22.950 ⇒ 00:03:43.530 Clarence Stone: Right? Because, you know, this is an adjustment for everyone to make here, right? So, it’s okay that this week didn’t go to plan, or, you know, it’s not forming in the way that you think it is… you think it should be yet, but the first thing I want to say is, this stand-up is your time. You are the host, you run it.
25 00:03:43.640 ⇒ 00:03:51.690 Clarence Stone: Right, so if you want to modify the way it goes for your stand-up, feel free to. You are in charge of this time.
26 00:03:51.800 ⇒ 00:04:03.910 Clarence Stone: Right? And the objective of this is to make sure, like, you as the facilitator, your objective is to make sure everyone has a shared understanding of
27 00:04:04.180 ⇒ 00:04:08.340 Clarence Stone: Each of the projects that are going in front of, you know, the stand-up.
28 00:04:08.530 ⇒ 00:04:09.420 Clarence Stone: Right?
29 00:04:09.710 ⇒ 00:04:23.740 Clarence Stone: So, if that is the end-state goal, right, the first thing… I would say there’s 3 things that you need to know about a project to be like, yeah, I have a good understanding of what’s happening, right? The first thing is.
30 00:04:24.170 ⇒ 00:04:42.659 Clarence Stone: is, how is the customer feeling with the kind of work that we’re doing, right? So that’s the CSO. And you were saying, Awash, that sometimes, like, you’re not getting a strong understanding of how things are going, even after the CSO talks. Is that what it is?
31 00:04:42.980 ⇒ 00:04:44.480 Awaish Kumar: My question is, like.
32 00:04:44.730 ⇒ 00:04:55.639 Awaish Kumar: It seems like, in a stand-up, I’m not the one who’s talking, right? Like, I just call, like, emerging spoon, Demi, you are the CSO, let me know.
33 00:04:55.640 ⇒ 00:05:07.839 Clarence Stone: Yeah. So, yeah, you’re not the one talking, you’re the judge. Think about it. This is your show, right? And if you’re not hearing something that’s good enough, you can stop it and say, hey.
34 00:05:07.860 ⇒ 00:05:22.800 Clarence Stone: like, is that a good thing or a bad thing that you just said? Do you… like, what you just said there, do you need help, or are you just telling the team what’s happening? Right? You can clarify those things, because you own this stand-up.
35 00:05:23.390 ⇒ 00:05:24.300 Clarence Stone: Right?
36 00:05:24.440 ⇒ 00:05:36.099 Clarence Stone: So, yeah, you’re not going to be talking, but you’re sort of the judge. You get to say, like, you know, whatever Clarence just said, does that make sense at all? If it doesn’t, just be like, hey, stop, Clarence, like, what do you mean?
37 00:05:37.520 ⇒ 00:05:43.469 Clarence Stone: Tell it to me like I’m a normal person, stop using, you know, whatever jargon, like, tell me how your client is feeling.
38 00:05:44.020 ⇒ 00:05:48.409 Clarence Stone: So, so, remember that this is your show, and you have back control.
39 00:05:48.410 ⇒ 00:06:04.180 Clarence Stone: So you can stop and say, like, hey, you said a bunch of things, but I didn’t really understand. Like, is the client having a good time or a bad time? Are you ahead of schedule or behind schedule, right? Because if you don’t get away… if you don’t understand that, then probably no one else on the call does.
40 00:06:05.190 ⇒ 00:06:06.120 Clarence Stone: Right?
41 00:06:06.250 ⇒ 00:06:12.139 Clarence Stone: And if no one else understands it, well, you’re the host, you run this show, so you can just end it right there. Does that make sense?
42 00:06:12.500 ⇒ 00:06:14.250 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, now it does.
43 00:06:14.540 ⇒ 00:06:15.340 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
44 00:06:16.150 ⇒ 00:06:16.980 Awaish Kumar: I gave you.
45 00:06:16.980 ⇒ 00:06:27.750 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I know, you’re talking less than you would in the original stand-up, so you’re not supposed to be talking that much. I want other people to also help you with work. That’s the reason why I split it all up. Does that make sense, too?
46 00:06:28.410 ⇒ 00:06:33.949 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah, so… I get it, like, but, what I…
47 00:06:34.180 ⇒ 00:06:48.140 Awaish Kumar: So what I… I was reading in that doc for running the stand-up was, like, where it says, like, you have to talk, like, kind of 4 minutes to set the stage up for a client. That’s what I was confused with, like.
48 00:06:48.650 ⇒ 00:07:00.469 Clarence Stone: Okay, yeah, so, so the first part of what I said to the stand-up leaders is, just give a recap. Just be like, hey, yesterday we did this for this client.
49 00:07:00.720 ⇒ 00:07:04.759 Clarence Stone: Or yesterday, you told me that you were gonna do a client presentation.
50 00:07:05.070 ⇒ 00:07:05.460 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
51 00:07:05.460 ⇒ 00:07:08.350 Clarence Stone: Right. How did it go? What happened?
52 00:07:09.090 ⇒ 00:07:12.149 Clarence Stone: Right? Like, so, so you, you know, if, if…
53 00:07:12.470 ⇒ 00:07:26.399 Clarence Stone: people don’t know where to start or what to say, you’re the host of this show. So you can initiate a prompting question. Say, hey, CSO, yesterday you did this, or yesterday we talked about this. What happened?
54 00:07:26.950 ⇒ 00:07:33.850 Clarence Stone: Okay. Yesterday, you said you were going to do a breakout session and have a different huddle to solve a problem. Did you solve the problem?
55 00:07:34.170 ⇒ 00:07:45.130 Clarence Stone: Right? So that’s… that’s what I meant by, you know, by you kicking it off, is you have the opportunity to set the scene and focus of what that project conversation is going to be for standout.
56 00:07:45.920 ⇒ 00:07:47.570 Awaish Kumar: Okay. Okay.
57 00:07:48.100 ⇒ 00:07:52.600 Awaish Kumar: So for that, like, there is one thing that I can…
58 00:07:52.870 ⇒ 00:07:57.530 Awaish Kumar: Obviously, go back and take my notes, like, what was…
59 00:07:58.000 ⇒ 00:08:00.250 Awaish Kumar: It was said, you know, study for this client.
60 00:08:01.810 ⇒ 00:08:03.990 Awaish Kumar: But, like…
61 00:08:04.460 ⇒ 00:08:18.659 Awaish Kumar: in terms of updates, like, if people are not updating linear, I don’t know what, like, what they did. Like, I have to then just ask in the stand-up, right? Okay, you said this yesterday, how it’s going? Like, I don’t know yet.
62 00:08:18.660 ⇒ 00:08:32.730 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, a way you should think about it this way, you’re using cursor, you went on vacation for the weekend, and then you come back to that cursor chat window. I would probably initiate cursor chat with, hey, where did we leave off?
63 00:08:33.409 ⇒ 00:08:56.979 Clarence Stone: Right? And Cursor chat says, oh, you know, we were implementing this, and this is the thing that I changed last, this is what happened last, right? And these are the things that we haven’t finished according to the PlanMD file, right? I expect you to prompt that question to the project leader to say, hey, where are you with X, Y, and Z? Or, you know, where are you with this problem? Or how is this engagement going? You don’t have to know exactly what they’re working on.
64 00:08:56.980 ⇒ 00:08:59.310 Clarence Stone: But it’s… it’s to start the conversation.
65 00:08:59.590 ⇒ 00:09:00.310 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
66 00:09:00.820 ⇒ 00:09:03.590 Awaish Kumar: Okay, I’m clear on this.
67 00:09:03.870 ⇒ 00:09:04.500 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
68 00:09:04.710 ⇒ 00:09:16.150 Clarence Stone: This is your show, right? And I think, like, the whole time, you should be talking less, but also, like, when people are talking, does it make sense? Does it make sense to you?
69 00:09:16.930 ⇒ 00:09:20.920 Clarence Stone: Right? Because if it’s not making sense to you, then it’s not gonna make sense to anybody else.
70 00:09:21.210 ⇒ 00:09:22.159 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yep.
71 00:09:22.330 ⇒ 00:09:35.600 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and the other really nerdy thing that I want to share with you, maybe Awash and Sam, you guys will enjoy how much of a, I guess, a computer science take this is, but the way I formulated stand-up
72 00:09:35.990 ⇒ 00:09:39.599 Clarence Stone: it should be compacted context for AI.
73 00:09:42.030 ⇒ 00:09:49.159 Clarence Stone: Right? Like, if I were to start a new conversation with AI, and it had deltas of every single day.
74 00:09:49.380 ⇒ 00:09:55.179 Clarence Stone: Of what happened, it should have a compacted understanding of everything that’s happened on the project so far.
75 00:09:56.290 ⇒ 00:10:01.640 Clarence Stone: Right? Because what are the aspects of the stand-up? It’s, like, how is the client feeling?
76 00:10:02.210 ⇒ 00:10:03.800 Clarence Stone: Are we to plan?
77 00:10:04.180 ⇒ 00:10:05.899 Clarence Stone: And what are we gonna do today?
78 00:10:06.750 ⇒ 00:10:17.309 Clarence Stone: Right? And if you have those 3 things over and over and over again, over days after days after days, we can actually plug this into AI and actually get really good data patterns. And it becomes structured.
79 00:10:19.050 ⇒ 00:10:20.569 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, yeah, sounds great.
80 00:10:20.820 ⇒ 00:10:36.120 Clarence Stone: Right? But if you don’t understand what they’re saying for each one of those things, or it’s not clear, like, just think about would AI understand what this is as well, right? Like, if your context is not clear enough, then, you know, whatever we’re feeding these systems is not going to work later on, too.
81 00:10:36.830 ⇒ 00:10:37.940 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yep.
82 00:10:39.540 ⇒ 00:10:50.760 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, and the… other thing I want to talk about is, encouraging, like, team members.
83 00:10:51.120 ⇒ 00:10:54.660 Awaish Kumar: On, getting certifications, for example.
84 00:10:55.060 ⇒ 00:10:58.509 Awaish Kumar: Or, like, conducting workshops and things like that, or…
85 00:10:59.870 ⇒ 00:11:06.249 Awaish Kumar: Like, someone who knows some stuff, we can conduct a workshop, or other people to join it,
86 00:11:06.830 ⇒ 00:11:10.500 Awaish Kumar: So, like, that’s a plan, like, we wanted them… we wanted them to, like.
87 00:11:10.890 ⇒ 00:11:18.899 Awaish Kumar: Do certifications, do workshops, join workshops. But, like, we have… in the past, what we have tried didn’t work out.
88 00:11:19.350 ⇒ 00:11:23.640 Awaish Kumar: like, nicely. So, like, what would you recommend?
89 00:11:24.730 ⇒ 00:11:25.940 Awaish Kumar: Davis.
90 00:11:25.990 ⇒ 00:11:31.749 Clarence Stone: I mean… Let me put it this way.
91 00:11:31.920 ⇒ 00:11:45.040 Clarence Stone: you’ve got a nice beard, Sam’s photo is showing me he’s got a nice beard, I’m growing a little bit of one. But what it means to me is that we’re getting a little older, we’re getting a little, you know, we’re getting very skilled at what we do.
92 00:11:45.050 ⇒ 00:11:53.810 Clarence Stone: Right? And what that means is you can probably look at some… somebody who’s starting off that’s new and say, you could be really good at this.
93 00:11:54.420 ⇒ 00:12:11.799 Clarence Stone: Like, you have the talent to do this, right? Or, hey, you should try to study this instead, because you have, like, the brain to do it, right? So, number one, like, leadership is about identifying somebody’s capability and ability to do something, right?
94 00:12:12.270 ⇒ 00:12:19.549 Clarence Stone: And then once you do, I would have a one-on-one to say, like, hey, Awadesh, like, you’re really good at the service leader thing.
95 00:12:19.560 ⇒ 00:12:36.260 Clarence Stone: Like, I think you should own it and be that leader, right? So instead of just saying, like, I’m just gonna do a bunch of training, I actually connected with you and said, this is what I see in you, I think you could be super successful at this, and if you, you know, did A, B, C, and D, you would be very good at it.
96 00:12:36.460 ⇒ 00:12:43.219 Clarence Stone: Right? That’s essentially what I’m asking you to do at the technical level for other junior members.
97 00:12:44.250 ⇒ 00:12:52.860 Clarence Stone: So, it could be that, hey, like, you understand data structures really well, but, you know, we use Snowflake. You should take a look at, you know, this Snowflake training.
98 00:12:54.040 ⇒ 00:12:54.690 Awaish Kumar: Right.
99 00:12:54.870 ⇒ 00:12:57.970 Clarence Stone: That’s sort of, like…
100 00:12:58.310 ⇒ 00:13:12.739 Clarence Stone: what I want you to observe, and then, like, you know, you said, hey, we tried to do group training, but it didn’t work. Well, it’s because everybody’s on a different career path or journey. Like, one set of learning is probably not going to be, you know, applicable to everybody.
101 00:13:12.740 ⇒ 00:13:18.459 Clarence Stone: But if you do see that, like, hey, like, there’s, like, 6 people on this team, they all need to take Snowflake introduction.
102 00:13:19.030 ⇒ 00:13:23.699 Clarence Stone: Okay, now you’ve found a pattern where all of it matters.
103 00:13:23.840 ⇒ 00:13:25.880 Clarence Stone: And then we should do a group training.
104 00:13:26.640 ⇒ 00:13:41.509 Clarence Stone: Right. But I think, you know, today, especially today, learning is so custom to everybody. And it just takes somebody who understands technology and in-depth to be able to say, hey, you should look into this.
105 00:13:44.060 ⇒ 00:13:44.910 Awaish Kumar: Yeah.
106 00:13:45.190 ⇒ 00:13:51.909 Awaish Kumar: That also sounds good. Like, normally, when we have more junior people in the team.
107 00:13:52.160 ⇒ 00:13:56.540 Awaish Kumar: They… they take your advice, but,
108 00:13:56.910 ⇒ 00:14:02.010 Awaish Kumar: like, like, when, like, in Brain Forge, like, we all are almost, like,
109 00:14:02.290 ⇒ 00:14:08.330 Awaish Kumar: experience. All of us are… like, in my data team, like, I wouldn’t say anyone is less…
110 00:14:08.590 ⇒ 00:14:11.649 Clarence Stone: Yeah, there’s, like, almost no junior employees.
111 00:14:14.390 ⇒ 00:14:34.869 Clarence Stone: But then, the question is, how do you raise the bar for everybody, right? Like, I am certainly not good at back-end architectures and data structures as you two might be. Like, I’m a front-end developer, like, I will teach you how to make the best front-end animations, like, so, like, there’s still so much that I can learn from the two of you.
112 00:14:34.870 ⇒ 00:14:45.279 Clarence Stone: Right? So, you know, maybe if everybody, like, you’re feeling like everybody is at a really advanced technical level, part of, like, the sessions that you can do is exchanging information.
113 00:14:45.320 ⇒ 00:14:51.830 Clarence Stone: Right? To say, like, hey, Wish, I love how you do this, like, can we have a session where you show me how to do that, and I show you how to do this?
114 00:14:53.120 ⇒ 00:14:54.030 Clarence Stone: Right.
115 00:14:54.030 ⇒ 00:15:18.929 Clarence Stone: So that could be another way for you to develop each other, right? But really, you know, one of the capabilities of a great service leader or, like, somebody who’s an SME is that they are spreading the wealth of knowledge with everybody, instead of just being that person that everybody calls. Number one, it’s going to save you from having all these random phone calls. Like, everybody keeps calling you away, right? Well, let’s see, you know, what they’re calling you about all the time.
116 00:15:18.930 ⇒ 00:15:22.249 Clarence Stone: And can we, you know, teach them to think like you?
117 00:15:22.770 ⇒ 00:15:23.820 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, okay.
118 00:15:24.720 ⇒ 00:15:28.630 Clarence Stone: Right? So that’s… that’s the goal. The how…
119 00:15:28.790 ⇒ 00:15:38.899 Clarence Stone: I don’t know what the how is, right? I think the how is something for us to figure out together. I want you guys to tell me as well, like, like, hey, I have an idea, we should do this, right?
120 00:15:39.340 ⇒ 00:15:52.700 Clarence Stone: I don’t think the how is gonna be the same as we grow, as well, Oish, right? Like, like, today, everybody’s super talented, Sam, like you were saying, like, but we might start, you know, adding a ton of ICs.
121 00:15:53.230 ⇒ 00:15:53.770 Awaish Kumar: Yep.
122 00:15:53.770 ⇒ 00:16:01.579 Clarence Stone: Right? And those ICs may not have the same skill sets. Okay, then we can do group training, right? So, it’s hard for me to give you a…
123 00:16:01.720 ⇒ 00:16:04.879 Clarence Stone: This is how we do it list, because it’s gonna change.
124 00:16:05.850 ⇒ 00:16:15.960 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, okay, and the third thing was regarding, like, resourcing and, hours, booking, like.
125 00:16:15.960 ⇒ 00:16:18.300 Clarence Stone: in Clockify, so, like, we have…
126 00:16:18.480 ⇒ 00:16:24.110 Awaish Kumar: We have seen prior, like, normally, like, full-time employees.
127 00:16:24.850 ⇒ 00:16:30.090 Awaish Kumar: Don’t book the hours, like, as they should for each client.
128 00:16:31.910 ⇒ 00:16:37.949 Awaish Kumar: So… And because of that, like, Benford is not able to, like,
129 00:16:39.210 ⇒ 00:16:43.050 Awaish Kumar: Create a, like, invoice for the client, for the hours rewarded.
130 00:16:43.180 ⇒ 00:16:50.409 Awaish Kumar: So… Like, although we have tried paying people, like, like, once you’re paying in a month.
131 00:16:50.820 ⇒ 00:16:57.709 Awaish Kumar: They will do it in that month, when the next… in the next month, it’s… it’s not, like, they’re not following.
132 00:16:57.970 ⇒ 00:17:17.790 Clarence Stone: See, see, like, this, this is what I love about the fact that y’all got promoted to leadership roles, because now we have so many more eyes and ears, like, because I wouldn’t have never looked into this, so I appreciate you bringing this up, Rawish. So, let’s… let’s kind of, like, think through this as, you know, leaders trying to make a decision here, right? So, one.
133 00:17:17.790 ⇒ 00:17:28.889 Clarence Stone: You’re noticing that people who are full-timers are sometimes not putting in their timesheets, which means you can’t actually get a strong estimation of how long it’s taking them to do work, right?
134 00:17:28.890 ⇒ 00:17:44.929 Clarence Stone: And that becomes a detriment to how we build a client. So it’s like, number one, it’s so cool that you see the whole end-to-end problem set, right? It’s not just that you can’t estimate how well… it actually impacts customer experience and how we have relationships with clients.
135 00:17:44.980 ⇒ 00:17:46.520 Clarence Stone: So…
136 00:17:46.650 ⇒ 00:18:01.219 Clarence Stone: I can say that, like, for problems like this, there’s never ever one clear solution. I can tell you how it works at, you know, Big Four, where I came from. We have timesheets every Friday in Big Four.
137 00:18:01.510 ⇒ 00:18:04.479 Clarence Stone: And if you miss two timesheets.
138 00:18:04.780 ⇒ 00:18:09.820 Clarence Stone: you’re no longer eligible for bonuses that quarter. That’s how it works.
139 00:18:10.770 ⇒ 00:18:12.000 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
140 00:18:12.000 ⇒ 00:18:15.229 Clarence Stone: Yeah. So, like, I don’t think that’s fair.
141 00:18:15.470 ⇒ 00:18:18.340 Clarence Stone: Right? I think that’s a little heavy-handed.
142 00:18:19.350 ⇒ 00:18:36.520 Clarence Stone: But I don’t know what a better solution is. So maybe it’s as leaders, like, remember I said, like, in the write-up, there’s a good way to come up with solutions. Like, you identify the problem all the way to the end, right? Like, and you understand all the causal outcomes. And you’ve brought together a group of leaders who understand that.
143 00:18:36.520 ⇒ 00:18:40.170 Clarence Stone: Now we get to kind of think about what is a fair way to take care of this.
144 00:18:40.470 ⇒ 00:18:46.590 Clarence Stone: Right? Because, like, where I came from, I don’t like how I was treated if I missed timesheets, right?
145 00:18:46.830 ⇒ 00:18:51.690 Clarence Stone: But what is a better way to do it? I don’t know yet. Maybe something to think about, right?
146 00:18:51.690 ⇒ 00:18:52.200 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
147 00:18:52.200 ⇒ 00:18:54.550 Clarence Stone: And we can work with the ops team to implement it.
148 00:18:55.810 ⇒ 00:19:10.549 Clarence Stone: Right? But you should… you’re absolutely right. The two of you should not be spending time chasing people down to update their timesheets. Your time is way too high quality to be doing that, and it’s so important and great that you brought it up. We need to fix it.
149 00:19:12.350 ⇒ 00:19:27.250 Clarence Stone: maybe, I’ll throw this out there, like, I like to go from nice to mean, as to, right, if people stop complying towards the mean end, like, it gets worse and worse. So, like, from the nice side, what we can do is, like, maybe set up an automation.
150 00:19:27.260 ⇒ 00:19:35.739 Clarence Stone: Right? Where you’re not spending your time anymore, it’s automatically just every Friday, be like, it’s 6 o’clock on a Friday, you didn’t do your timesheet.
151 00:19:36.380 ⇒ 00:19:37.290 Clarence Stone: Right.
152 00:19:37.810 ⇒ 00:19:41.569 Clarence Stone: And by the way, we’re counting how many times this is happening.
153 00:19:43.490 ⇒ 00:19:45.930 Clarence Stone: Right, and nothing happens, you just get an email.
154 00:19:47.000 ⇒ 00:19:47.650 Awaish Kumar: Yeah.
155 00:19:48.000 ⇒ 00:19:55.650 Clarence Stone: Right? But it sends a message, like, we don’t… we’re not just sending this as an automation, we have a count on how many times this is happening.
156 00:19:56.810 ⇒ 00:19:59.719 Clarence Stone: Right, and I think that should send a message to somebody.
157 00:20:01.570 ⇒ 00:20:03.130 Clarence Stone: So maybe start there.
158 00:20:03.440 ⇒ 00:20:04.310 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah.
159 00:20:04.310 ⇒ 00:20:09.919 Clarence Stone: I don’t know, I don’t know what you guys think. What do you guys think, Sam? Sam, like, are you guys noticing, like, this is a common, common problem?
160 00:20:09.920 ⇒ 00:20:13.610 Awaish Kumar: That’s… that’s a good idea, like… like, I see…
161 00:20:13.800 ⇒ 00:20:21.480 Awaish Kumar: I’m… I’m also not in favor of what has been happening at Big 4, like, as you mentioned, like,
162 00:20:21.710 ⇒ 00:20:26.000 Awaish Kumar: But But, like, this idea of having it
163 00:20:26.770 ⇒ 00:20:33.220 Awaish Kumar: Having an email, from, like, ops team, or from someone who has authority, like.
164 00:20:33.780 ⇒ 00:20:38.169 Awaish Kumar: And that they are… this is visible to them, like, it makes…
165 00:20:38.370 ⇒ 00:20:40.860 Awaish Kumar: That will, like, push them to, like, book the.
166 00:20:40.860 ⇒ 00:20:48.859 Clarence Stone: Yeah, it’s like, we see you, we see this, right? And, you know, and then I think, like, the next step, Oish, is, like.
167 00:20:49.080 ⇒ 00:21:02.939 Clarence Stone: maybe we take that data, and on the Friday meeting, we say, hey, like, this is anonymized, but this is a chart of how many people are missing your timesheets. And one of you guys is on the leaderboard right here, right?
168 00:21:03.580 ⇒ 00:21:21.000 Clarence Stone: And by the way, like, you know, we’re not calling people out, we’re helping you understand the impacts of not doing that, right? This is who gets hurt, this is why it’s important, right? Like, I would rather do those types of things before we go to the point of, you missed two timesheets, no bonus for you.
169 00:21:21.670 ⇒ 00:21:29.870 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I think, like, a little playful just pointing it out to people, because I don’t think it’s intentional or malicious in any way, you know, I think it’s just…
170 00:21:29.990 ⇒ 00:21:38.179 Samuel Roberts: There’s a lot going on. The other side of it is I don’t have a ton of insight into what people are locking. Like, that’s not something I’ve seen until it was just raised.
171 00:21:38.380 ⇒ 00:21:40.179 Samuel Roberts: So I don’t even know, like.
172 00:21:40.520 ⇒ 00:21:44.719 Samuel Roberts: We’re… I don’t… yeah, like, I mean, you said it, like, we’re not the ones to necessarily stay on top of that as…
173 00:21:45.370 ⇒ 00:21:50.620 Samuel Roberts: our time, but also, I didn’t… I went into Clockify, I didn’t think I have access to see that stuff on my team, so…
174 00:21:50.900 ⇒ 00:22:09.269 Clarence Stone: And you know what, Sam? We should give you access, because you and Awash are the two people who can actually, like, take a look at how much time people are booking to the kind of outputs that they have. You guys have, like, that technology internal meter that’s, like, that’s BS, it doesn’t take 4 hours to do that, right?
175 00:22:09.270 ⇒ 00:22:11.199 Samuel Roberts: Right, right. No, that’s true, that’s true.
176 00:22:11.200 ⇒ 00:22:24.030 Clarence Stone: you know, in your more mature stages of being an SL, I’m sure this is going to be a report you might take a look at every 3 months or 4 months to just see, you know, is there any weird outliers that come up? Stuff like that. It’s good data for you guys.
177 00:22:24.030 ⇒ 00:22:25.839 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, oh, definitely, definitely.
178 00:22:26.060 ⇒ 00:22:27.679 Awaish Kumar: Yep. Okay.
179 00:22:28.640 ⇒ 00:22:29.980 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I think that…
180 00:22:29.980 ⇒ 00:22:31.230 Clarence Stone: Feeling better about it, man?
181 00:22:33.820 ⇒ 00:22:34.560 Awaish Kumar: Sorry?
182 00:22:34.850 ⇒ 00:22:36.509 Clarence Stone: Are you feeling better about it?
183 00:22:36.820 ⇒ 00:22:37.940 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, sure.
184 00:22:37.940 ⇒ 00:22:42.649 Clarence Stone: There’s a lot to think about, and I think you’re already awaits are asking very advanced questions.
185 00:22:42.650 ⇒ 00:23:06.210 Clarence Stone: like, you know, in week one, Utam and I were just like, we’d be so happy if people did that one goal for each role. And, you know, the two of you are like, hey, well, what about over here at the top of this mountain? So I love that you’re there, and I just want to let you know, you’re, you know, the two of you guys are advancing at a rate that we didn’t expect, so it’s good, it’s a good thing.
186 00:23:06.500 ⇒ 00:23:07.220 Awaish Kumar: Yeah.
187 00:23:07.530 ⇒ 00:23:12.530 Awaish Kumar: The second thing is, like, resourcing.
188 00:23:12.640 ⇒ 00:23:23.519 Awaish Kumar: like, for example, like, one thing is that, like, I need to understand hours that… that people are working on a plan for the resourcing part, but I also…
189 00:23:23.770 ⇒ 00:23:30.870 Awaish Kumar: wanted to… And just, like, understand how…
190 00:23:31.090 ⇒ 00:23:35.099 Awaish Kumar: How, like, I think it’s more of a question for Utam, like, I don’t know.
191 00:23:35.330 ⇒ 00:23:44.390 Awaish Kumar: For the resourcing, like, we have tried… I’ve tried sitting with Utam, come up with some plan, and the next day I see, things have changed.
192 00:23:45.110 ⇒ 00:23:53.760 Awaish Kumar: what we decided is… is… is almost, like, changed, so I’m not sure what was wrong, like… Okay.
193 00:23:53.760 ⇒ 00:24:09.530 Clarence Stone: So, in terms of resourcing, I want to be able to lift that requirement from the SLs. I think it needs to live with EPs, and we are working on hiring an ops lead to actually be able to consolidate that data. So,
194 00:24:09.550 ⇒ 00:24:23.610 Clarence Stone: it should get better. Hang in… hang in there with us. I… like, as soon as we get an ops leader, like, the first thing we’re gonna do is create a consolidated plan to aggregate that data and load balance resourcing. So…
195 00:24:24.830 ⇒ 00:24:40.770 Clarence Stone: Yeah, unless, like, you have… so, Sam goes for you, too, like, unless, like, there is a massive demand for a certain skill set that doesn’t exist on your current project team to do something, or, like, you’re short-staffed, right?
196 00:24:42.000 ⇒ 00:24:46.500 Clarence Stone: Like, just let the resourcing kind of happen as it’s happening.
197 00:24:46.720 ⇒ 00:25:04.680 Clarence Stone: Like, but we absolutely want you to call out, like, hey, we don’t have enough X, Y, and Z people, or, like, this project requires us to do this, and we don’t have any people that are able to do that. So that’s at the limit of where you need to be at resourcing right now, because in the next phase, like, we’re going to consolidate everything to get a better picture.
198 00:25:05.150 ⇒ 00:25:22.769 Awaish Kumar: So, I think why it, like, it lives with SLs a little bit is because, like, EPs know… knows what hap… what is happening for a client, right? For a single client, they can tell you, okay, I need maybe more… 20 more hours of an AI work on this project.
199 00:25:22.830 ⇒ 00:25:28.799 Awaish Kumar: But, overall, in a company, we… how much hours we need for an AE,
200 00:25:29.090 ⇒ 00:25:32.790 Awaish Kumar: a single EP cannot tell you, right? Yeah.
201 00:25:33.550 ⇒ 00:25:47.869 Clarence Stone: But you can’t tell me today yet either, Awash, because I’m not giving you the data. I don’t have the right data to give you, like, on what skill sets are being load balanced where, right? So I owe you that operational view.
202 00:25:48.430 ⇒ 00:25:49.230 Awaish Kumar: So, let me…
203 00:25:49.230 ⇒ 00:25:50.539 Clarence Stone: I think it’s a problem.
204 00:25:51.400 ⇒ 00:25:55.960 Clarence Stone: So that’s… that’s a problem, but, like, what we have been trying so far, that’s what I’m telling, like…
205 00:25:55.960 ⇒ 00:26:03.789 Awaish Kumar: what we have been trying with… I have been trying with Utam is, like, we go in operating, we just come up with a Google Sheet, and try to…
206 00:26:04.160 ⇒ 00:26:22.650 Awaish Kumar: using, like, Clockify or something and see how much AE are spending on Eden, for example. And we have these Ashwini 20 hours, here, and then 20 hours on Element, and then, like, a manual exercise, kind of, I’ve been doing to come up with some…
207 00:26:22.840 ⇒ 00:26:24.429 Awaish Kumar: resourcing plan.
208 00:26:26.550 ⇒ 00:26:31.270 Awaish Kumar: Like, at a company level, like, so that’s what I’m saying, like, if we…
209 00:26:31.620 ⇒ 00:26:39.570 Awaish Kumar: like, if it goes with EP, EP can tell you what’s going on with the client, but we still need someone, maybe is it an operational lead?
210 00:26:39.990 ⇒ 00:26:44.619 Clarence Stone: I would push that to the ops lead, like, I think, like.
211 00:26:45.100 ⇒ 00:26:56.430 Clarence Stone: And in a waysh, if you still want to do it, like, I’m not taking it away from you, by the way. Like, if you want to join the Ops Lead and sit with them, like, I think the ops lead would be so happy to get your help.
212 00:26:56.840 ⇒ 00:27:16.060 Clarence Stone: Right? But I’m just saying, you’re so much more talented, the two of you are capable of, like, driving teams and actually getting projects done. I don’t want you to be, like, focused on that anymore, right? I want you to be able to say, hey, I’m in the trenches, like, I’m building really awesome products, and by the way, ops leader, I need you to give me people who can do X, Y, and Z.
213 00:27:16.060 ⇒ 00:27:19.379 Clarence Stone: They’re like, I’m short on this, right? Let them figure it out.
214 00:27:19.750 ⇒ 00:27:28.239 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Because, like, like, they’re gonna create hiring pipelines, you know, job descriptions, and get the right people in, but, like, you should be saying, like, this is what I need to do well.
215 00:27:30.940 ⇒ 00:27:32.410 Awaish Kumar: That’s… that’s what I…
216 00:27:32.410 ⇒ 00:27:39.479 Clarence Stone: And you can still be a part of the planning session, of course, like, I’m not taking that away from you, I’m just saying, like, you shouldn’t have to own that, man.
217 00:27:40.250 ⇒ 00:27:47.089 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like, that’s where, like, I need… like, you’ll need a view to say this, like, kind of a…
218 00:27:47.270 ⇒ 00:27:50.839 Awaish Kumar: View of data, where you can see we have, like.
219 00:27:51.070 ⇒ 00:27:59.490 Awaish Kumar: 200 hours of AE work, and… but we only have 4 full-time people, which is, like, 160 per week, and we… we are missing 40.
220 00:27:59.720 ⇒ 00:28:02.709 Awaish Kumar: So, but I can only do once we have that.
221 00:28:03.060 ⇒ 00:28:08.420 Clarence Stone: We need to make that view, and I don’t know how you guys feel about it, but I’m not the biggest fan of Operate.
222 00:28:09.970 ⇒ 00:28:12.369 Clarence Stone: Like, it is really hard to work with.
223 00:28:12.960 ⇒ 00:28:13.630 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
224 00:28:14.630 ⇒ 00:28:15.300 Clarence Stone: So…
225 00:28:15.300 ⇒ 00:28:17.690 Samuel Roberts: I mean, are there good ones to work with? Like, I don’t know.
226 00:28:17.690 ⇒ 00:28:28.840 Clarence Stone: I gotta be honest, I’m normally just do it in a spreadsheet, and it might be weird, because, like, I come from, like, the accounting background where, like, I’m pretty decent with the spreadsheet.
227 00:28:28.840 ⇒ 00:28:30.010 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
228 00:28:30.200 ⇒ 00:28:35.820 Clarence Stone: That’s normally how I do these kinds of, like, workload basis, estimations.
229 00:28:36.040 ⇒ 00:28:44.469 Clarence Stone: I’m… I’ll put it this way, guys, like, I want the new operations lead to own it.
230 00:28:44.800 ⇒ 00:28:45.460 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, okay.
231 00:28:45.460 ⇒ 00:29:05.029 Clarence Stone: Right? And, as, you know, everything’s transparent in this company, which I absolutely love, I can just tell you guys, yesterday, I was the third interviewer for a new obsolete. So, and he was fantastic. So, you know, assuming everything goes well, and, you know, he signs, he’d probably start on Monday.
232 00:29:06.200 ⇒ 00:29:11.330 Clarence Stone: Oh, wow. So this is gonna be a problem we’re solving imminently, that’s what I can promise you.
233 00:29:15.470 ⇒ 00:29:16.390 Clarence Stone: Cool?
234 00:29:17.740 ⇒ 00:29:18.440 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
235 00:29:18.900 ⇒ 00:29:41.690 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so you do need, like, you need that view of, like, what are… what is the… how many hours of technical talent do we have, and how many do we have that, like, is activated, right? That is so important for the two of you guys, because, like, without that view, how can you argue that you want a new AI engineer, or you want a new backend, you know, developer, right? So I know that that view is important.
236 00:29:41.950 ⇒ 00:29:53.489 Clarence Stone: But if you have any thoughts on, you know, how it should look, what should be in that report for you, like, when that new, obsolete comes in, I’m gonna, I’m gonna bring them to you guys, is that okay?
237 00:29:53.990 ⇒ 00:29:55.739 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah, sure.
238 00:29:55.740 ⇒ 00:29:57.130 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Cool?
239 00:29:58.800 ⇒ 00:30:02.589 Clarence Stone: Oh, wait, are you sure? Like, you seem worried still.
240 00:30:02.590 ⇒ 00:30:05.140 Awaish Kumar: Okay, go ahead.
241 00:30:05.990 ⇒ 00:30:13.889 Clarence Stone: Alright, yeah, because, like, I don’t know how you feel, like, I felt like, like, I don’t want to take this away from you if you’ve been doing this with UTAM for a while.
242 00:30:14.640 ⇒ 00:30:18.649 Clarence Stone: But I think you’re… you’re… the time that you guys have is so much more valuable.
243 00:30:18.650 ⇒ 00:30:25.230 Awaish Kumar: who, like, I’ve… I’m just… Like, we are just trying to do it because there’s no obsolete yet, so…
244 00:30:26.200 ⇒ 00:30:29.420 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and this is what I mean, like, that’s why I’m trying to create these
245 00:30:29.420 ⇒ 00:30:48.259 Clarence Stone: you know, leadership roles, so that, like, people can, you know, just do what’s in their box instead of having to worry about all the things, right? Because, like, that’s what it was before. It’s like, oh, we have to do that, oh, we have to do this, and then, oh, I have to finish building something for the client. It gets a little bit chaotic, so trying to just organize things into the right buckets.
246 00:30:48.260 ⇒ 00:30:53.150 Clarence Stone: And in my perception right now, I think it’s the best way to just hand it over to ops.
247 00:30:53.470 ⇒ 00:30:54.900 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah, sure.
248 00:30:56.430 ⇒ 00:30:57.569 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I think…
249 00:30:57.570 ⇒ 00:31:00.299 Clarence Stone: their thoughts or questions, guys? Like, these are great ones.
250 00:31:01.440 ⇒ 00:31:07.739 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I think these were all from my side. I will just be, like, kind of,
251 00:31:08.130 ⇒ 00:31:14.320 Awaish Kumar: Following up on your advice for… Talking to team members, how…
252 00:31:14.570 ⇒ 00:31:19.069 Awaish Kumar: how to handle blockifier hours, how to handle, like, these… Yeah, I mean.
253 00:31:19.070 ⇒ 00:31:39.509 Clarence Stone: And also, if you want me to run your stand-up one day, I will. I will come in as somebody who knows nothing about anything that’s going on, and I will do it in that same format. That probably helps a lot, because I’ll just be like, hey, CSO, how’s your client relationship with Lilo? And, like, if it’s rambling, I’ll just be like, sorry, I don’t understand, was it good or bad?
254 00:31:41.450 ⇒ 00:31:50.070 Clarence Stone: Right? If you guys want me to do it, I will drop into your and just be like, hey, yeah, there’s a guest host today.
255 00:31:51.670 ⇒ 00:31:59.549 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like, I was just shocked, because it was completely different, and I have very little to say.
256 00:31:59.550 ⇒ 00:32:00.180 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
257 00:32:00.180 ⇒ 00:32:04.409 Awaish Kumar: I feel like I’m just calling the name out of the different people on this project.
258 00:32:04.410 ⇒ 00:32:15.620 Clarence Stone: I felt like it was punishment before. You know, whoever was posting the stand-up was talking a lot, and everyone was just sitting there, like, not even responding sometimes, and I’m like, no, everyone’s gonna talk on stand-up.
259 00:32:15.720 ⇒ 00:32:19.009 Clarence Stone: Which means you’re gonna feel like you’re dunking less, right?
260 00:32:19.780 ⇒ 00:32:20.380 Awaish Kumar: Yep.
261 00:32:20.710 ⇒ 00:32:21.260 Samuel Roberts: Yo.
262 00:32:22.090 ⇒ 00:32:28.740 Samuel Roberts: I mean, and classically, like, when you say… when you say stand-up, like, that’s… the point is to get those updates, the quick updates, the.
263 00:32:28.740 ⇒ 00:32:29.180 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
264 00:32:29.180 ⇒ 00:32:31.600 Samuel Roberts: blockers from everyone.
265 00:32:31.720 ⇒ 00:32:33.050 Samuel Roberts: We’ve…
266 00:32:33.190 ⇒ 00:32:36.580 Samuel Roberts: We need to get back to that a little bit, I think, so this makes sense. I think this is good.
267 00:32:36.580 ⇒ 00:32:37.859 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and, you know.
268 00:32:37.860 ⇒ 00:32:39.270 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I think it’ll… I think it makes sense.
269 00:32:40.640 ⇒ 00:32:41.570 Clarence Stone: Sorry?
270 00:32:42.600 ⇒ 00:32:45.260 Samuel Roberts: No, no, no, sorry, I was just… yeah, you’re good. Continue.
271 00:32:45.580 ⇒ 00:32:58.849 Clarence Stone: So, my point was, like, it’s still very early. Teams are still figuring out, you know, their work products and stuff, so you will… I think, next week, start to see a more established pattern, right?
272 00:32:59.020 ⇒ 00:33:13.000 Clarence Stone: And then from there, you’ll get more comfortable with it, and you’ll start to be enforcing it, like, hey, this is a conversation that you guys need to have outside. Let’s create a meeting about it and move on. Like, you’ll feel it here. Yeah.
273 00:33:13.300 ⇒ 00:33:14.730 Clarence Stone: You’ll, you’ll get there.
274 00:33:16.060 ⇒ 00:33:17.440 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah. Yeah.
275 00:33:17.440 ⇒ 00:33:27.169 Samuel Roberts: I think… I think I… yeah, I appreciate that, and I understand that. I think that’s where I’m maybe a little less worried about it than a ways at this point, because I’m like, we’re gonna figure it out as we do it,
276 00:33:27.300 ⇒ 00:33:35.960 Samuel Roberts: Not that, like, wait, you’re too worried, I think you’re on the right track already, really is what it is, you’re just, like, ahead, and I’m just like, it’ll find its way, this week is definitely an outlier, I think.
277 00:33:36.590 ⇒ 00:33:40.539 Samuel Roberts: And, yeah, but yeah, I think that’s where I’m at with this, so…
278 00:33:41.610 ⇒ 00:33:47.670 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah, great. Yeah, and thank you so much, France, for clarifying a lot of things.
279 00:33:48.380 ⇒ 00:33:49.770 Clarence Stone: Yeah, anytime, guys!
280 00:33:50.330 ⇒ 00:33:53.619 Clarence Stone: Alright, we’re over. Oh, I gotta hop over to this one.
281 00:33:54.280 ⇒ 00:33:55.300 Samuel Roberts: Oh yeah, go ahead.
282 00:33:55.300 ⇒ 00:33:57.420 Clarence Stone: Alright, thanks guys.
283 00:33:57.420 ⇒ 00:33:58.199 Awaish Kumar: Thank you.
284 00:33:58.410 ⇒ 00:33:59.049 Samuel Roberts: Talk to you later.
285 00:33:59.050 ⇒ 00:33:59.580 Clarence Stone: Bye.