Meeting Title: Brainforge SL Leads Weekly Sync Date: 2026-01-12 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran, Awaish Kumar, Elizah Joy, Samuel Roberts, Clarence Stone
WEBVTT
1 00:02:33.500 ⇒ 00:02:34.410 Awaish Kumar: Hello.
2 00:02:34.580 ⇒ 00:02:35.490 Uttam Kumaran: Ayy.
3 00:03:14.110 ⇒ 00:03:23.649 Awaish Kumar: and just run this retail data with the Gemini, Create a really nice… Chart and analysis of that.
4 00:03:23.870 ⇒ 00:03:25.150 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, wait, what do you mean?
5 00:03:26.570 ⇒ 00:03:29.280 Awaish Kumar: in the Excel sheet, like, in this…
6 00:03:30.270 ⇒ 00:03:34.459 Awaish Kumar: Google Sheet, I just added the wills… data generated for Will.
7 00:03:35.180 ⇒ 00:03:41.510 Awaish Kumar: And, like, there’s a Gemini feature in Excel, I just ask it to analyze it.
8 00:03:41.860 ⇒ 00:03:42.750 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, really?
9 00:03:44.220 ⇒ 00:03:44.830 Awaish Kumar: Hmm.
10 00:03:46.140 ⇒ 00:03:47.080 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, let me see.
11 00:03:51.930 ⇒ 00:03:54.110 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, wow. Okay, interesting.
12 00:03:58.040 ⇒ 00:04:00.960 Uttam Kumaran: But how did you calculate the number of stock outs?
13 00:04:02.860 ⇒ 00:04:06.389 Awaish Kumar: So it… that data already was in the…
14 00:04:06.390 ⇒ 00:04:08.679 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, they said the number of stock outs.
15 00:04:09.030 ⇒ 00:04:13.079 Awaish Kumar: Like, they sent, like, for each individual
16 00:04:13.190 ⇒ 00:04:16.520 Awaish Kumar: item, and a date. They said out of stock.
17 00:04:17.100 ⇒ 00:04:19.510 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, interesting.
18 00:04:22.340 ⇒ 00:04:24.330 Uttam Kumaran: Interesting. Yeah, this is cool.
19 00:04:25.230 ⇒ 00:04:29.270 Awaish Kumar: And then it… It created thresholds using the median.
20 00:04:29.500 ⇒ 00:04:32.220 Awaish Kumar: And figure out which to put in high.
21 00:04:32.540 ⇒ 00:04:33.050 Uttam Kumaran: Mmm.
22 00:04:34.020 ⇒ 00:04:34.740 Samuel Roberts: Vegas.
23 00:04:36.350 ⇒ 00:04:37.060 Uttam Kumaran: Blue.
24 00:04:37.690 ⇒ 00:04:43.440 Samuel Roberts: Sorry about that, again, I’m relying on granola and then having to close it because of memory issues.
25 00:04:43.440 ⇒ 00:04:44.440 Uttam Kumaran: No problem.
26 00:04:46.590 ⇒ 00:04:47.359 Samuel Roberts: What is this?
27 00:05:01.900 ⇒ 00:05:08.420 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, I wanted to… let me just pull up,
28 00:05:11.240 ⇒ 00:05:13.320 Uttam Kumaran: Eliza, did we have, like,
29 00:05:13.760 ⇒ 00:05:17.790 Uttam Kumaran: A Notion doc for this meeting? Forgot where that was.
30 00:05:18.250 ⇒ 00:05:23.490 Elizah Joy: I think it’s already linked in the calendar invite.
31 00:05:23.500 ⇒ 00:05:26.199 Uttam Kumaran: this SL meeting running agenda, right?
32 00:05:26.850 ⇒ 00:05:28.570 Elizah Joy: Yep, that’s it.
33 00:05:29.100 ⇒ 00:05:29.670 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
34 00:05:33.080 ⇒ 00:05:34.020 Uttam Kumaran: Got it.
35 00:05:35.320 ⇒ 00:05:39.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think we can just put in, like, Maybe we can…
36 00:05:39.820 ⇒ 00:05:45.590 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe take 2 minutes, you wanna… if you guys have any topics, we can just write down some… some thoughts.
37 00:05:48.500 ⇒ 00:05:50.270 Samuel Roberts: Where is this?
38 00:05:53.510 ⇒ 00:05:55.000 Elizah Joy: Yes, and…
39 00:05:55.280 ⇒ 00:05:56.200 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, go ahead, Alexa.
40 00:06:08.320 ⇒ 00:06:11.029 Elizah Joy: Okay, I’ve sent the link in the chat box.
41 00:06:12.130 ⇒ 00:06:12.790 Samuel Roberts: Thank you.
42 00:06:35.810 ⇒ 00:06:37.689 Samuel Roberts: Why is it opening? Where’d it go?
43 00:09:09.700 ⇒ 00:09:16.470 Samuel Roberts: Oh boy, okay. I’m, like, a little distracted because I just pushed something that broke the Lilo testing environment.
44 00:09:17.850 ⇒ 00:09:18.300 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
45 00:09:18.300 ⇒ 00:09:21.999 Samuel Roberts: And Bobby just noticed it, too, so I was like, oh, great. Alright.
46 00:09:23.730 ⇒ 00:09:24.690 Samuel Roberts: Okay, cool.
47 00:12:09.360 ⇒ 00:12:14.840 Uttam Kumaran: Clarence, we’re taking notes in, this, Notion talk, by the way, in case you…
48 00:12:14.930 ⇒ 00:12:15.470 Clarence Stone: Oh.
49 00:12:15.470 ⇒ 00:12:16.050 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
50 00:12:16.940 ⇒ 00:12:19.790 Uttam Kumaran: Working on a brief agenda, and then we can all chat.
51 00:12:33.950 ⇒ 00:12:38.149 Uttam Kumaran: Hi, Eliza, is there a… is there a CSO running Meeting Doc, also?
52 00:12:38.540 ⇒ 00:12:43.050 Elizah Joy: Yep. It’s also inside the calendar.
53 00:12:44.130 ⇒ 00:12:45.250 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, great.
54 00:12:46.010 ⇒ 00:12:46.899 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you.
55 00:12:50.160 ⇒ 00:12:55.899 Uttam Kumaran: Wondering if we can move this from ops manual to the CSO, like, page?
56 00:12:56.480 ⇒ 00:12:57.270 Elizah Joy: Okay.
57 00:12:59.150 ⇒ 00:13:03.560 Elizah Joy: Also, the SL, learning meeting agenda.
58 00:13:05.360 ⇒ 00:13:07.189 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that one, I think, is already there.
59 00:13:07.860 ⇒ 00:13:08.535 Elizah Joy: Mr.
60 00:13:39.960 ⇒ 00:13:46.830 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe one thing also, Liza, each, like, maybe on Monday morning, can also basically create, like, a little Slack
61 00:13:47.190 ⇒ 00:13:50.099 Uttam Kumaran: Reminder that just says… sends this out for…
62 00:13:52.200 ⇒ 00:13:54.159 Uttam Kumaran: So people can add it.
63 00:13:54.650 ⇒ 00:14:00.010 Elizah Joy: Okay. All, for all SL, CSO, and APs?
64 00:14:00.010 ⇒ 00:14:05.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I could just say, like, Monday… Monday morning, just, like, Prepare for…
65 00:14:05.630 ⇒ 00:14:11.480 Uttam Kumaran: Feel free to add any comment… add any notes for our meeting, that way people have, like, a few hours.
66 00:14:12.620 ⇒ 00:14:13.390 Elizah Joy: Okay.
67 00:14:15.490 ⇒ 00:14:19.549 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Okay, maybe we can get started,
68 00:14:25.160 ⇒ 00:14:29.440 Uttam Kumaran: So, maybe we can… let me just do one by one. So maybe,
69 00:14:30.650 ⇒ 00:14:35.860 Uttam Kumaran: Awash, your first question is how to impact quality delivery apart from stand-ups?
70 00:14:36.310 ⇒ 00:14:43.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, this is a good question. I think that… I think our… our stand-ups are going super well.
71 00:14:43.290 ⇒ 00:14:50.620 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, I guess I am interested in, like, In other ways that… We’re finding…
72 00:14:50.970 ⇒ 00:14:57.289 Uttam Kumaran: the ability to help. I think, Sam, you’ve been meeting kind of directly with your… Client teams, basically.
73 00:14:59.060 ⇒ 00:15:06.190 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, I know it’s mainly been ABC and Lilo, but I know you’re meeting directly with, like, the EPs, you’re helping them
74 00:15:06.790 ⇒ 00:15:07.880 Uttam Kumaran: do work.
75 00:15:08.090 ⇒ 00:15:08.470 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
76 00:15:08.470 ⇒ 00:15:10.470 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, I don’t know…
77 00:15:11.010 ⇒ 00:15:18.000 Uttam Kumaran: Also, Clarence, if you have thoughts on, like, other ways that the service leads can be helpful.
78 00:15:18.000 ⇒ 00:15:34.249 Clarence Stone: So off the top of my head, team, have people showed up prepared for stand-up? Are we looking at teams that are still not giving you full context? Are there still teams that haven’t finished plans? Let’s talk about that.
79 00:15:34.320 ⇒ 00:15:39.360 Clarence Stone: I haven’t been able to make all the stand-up, so it would be really good to get some insight from you.
80 00:15:43.090 ⇒ 00:15:44.270 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah.
81 00:15:46.580 ⇒ 00:15:51.780 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, so, like, for that, I have this question, like, what if in the…
82 00:15:52.410 ⇒ 00:16:00.140 Awaish Kumar: like, in the stand-up, I hear from both CSO and EP that… Client looks happy, and
83 00:16:00.430 ⇒ 00:16:04.670 Awaish Kumar: everything going well, but I don’t see any movement on that linear.
84 00:16:07.170 ⇒ 00:16:08.759 Awaish Kumar: Like, what should I do then?
85 00:16:09.210 ⇒ 00:16:10.549 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, so…
86 00:16:10.860 ⇒ 00:16:23.049 Clarence Stone: I wish I didn’t quite hear you, it was a little fuzzy, so I just want to reiterate. So you’re saying that CSOs are telling you that the client’s happy, but you’re not seeing any movement on many of your tickets?
87 00:16:23.520 ⇒ 00:16:28.450 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like, CSS and EP both are saying that client is happy.
88 00:16:28.460 ⇒ 00:16:31.180 Clarence Stone: And the work is being done. Well, if I…
89 00:16:32.160 ⇒ 00:16:35.479 Awaish Kumar: Like, it’s… but it’s not reflected all linear.
90 00:16:35.940 ⇒ 00:16:53.199 Clarence Stone: Okay, yeah, I mean, we have to make that call out and say, hey, you guys just… CSO, you told me client is happy, EP says everything’s to plan, but I’m not seeing any linear tickets that are being completed, right? Like, call them out right there and say, like, do we need to have a separate meeting, or are you just gonna update your tickets?
91 00:16:53.200 ⇒ 00:16:56.399 Clarence Stone: Because it could very much well be that they’re not updating their tickets.
92 00:16:56.630 ⇒ 00:17:08.670 Clarence Stone: Right? Which means, you know, we have to follow up with that on its own, merit, but two, like, OH, now that you’re a leader, you also have this gut instinct. Is it actually going well?
93 00:17:09.010 ⇒ 00:17:13.270 Clarence Stone: Or is that what they’re just saying? Like, what’s your sense of it?
94 00:17:15.220 ⇒ 00:17:16.380 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah.
95 00:17:16.380 ⇒ 00:17:23.499 Clarence Stone: Like, I mean, for you, what is your impression of the situation? Like, is it actually going well, or are they just telling you everything’s fine?
96 00:17:24.980 ⇒ 00:17:25.750 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
97 00:17:26.700 ⇒ 00:17:28.029 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, that’s a question.
98 00:17:28.770 ⇒ 00:17:30.350 Awaish Kumar: No, I’m… I’m…
99 00:17:30.660 ⇒ 00:17:32.599 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.
100 00:17:32.600 ⇒ 00:17:36.230 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, what I’m trying to say is that,
101 00:17:36.950 ⇒ 00:17:41.220 Awaish Kumar: Like, from, for example, from, like.
102 00:17:42.710 ⇒ 00:17:57.000 Awaish Kumar: from the tickets, like… like, sometimes you see, like, for example, for clients like Eden, if I… if I hear something like that and I don’t see the progress, like, I’ve been in that
103 00:17:57.220 ⇒ 00:18:04.560 Awaish Kumar: for that client, and have worked for it, so I have it, like, enough context to, like, make that call, okay? It seems like…
104 00:18:05.380 ⇒ 00:18:09.149 Awaish Kumar: Like, it’s not… it doesn’t seem like what they say.
105 00:18:09.370 ⇒ 00:18:16.500 Awaish Kumar: But sometimes, like, when there’s a completely new client, and I…
106 00:18:16.650 ⇒ 00:18:25.240 Awaish Kumar: like, if… like, if I’m not involved in, for example, reviewing client meetings, or looking at…
107 00:18:25.400 ⇒ 00:18:32.179 Awaish Kumar: Slack, continuously, it will be hard for me to make any… Kind of.
108 00:18:32.850 ⇒ 00:18:35.999 Awaish Kumar: Decision or… or… assumption.
109 00:18:39.150 ⇒ 00:18:58.899 Clarence Stone: Okay, so, I think that’s important. I think you should follow up with that team and find out exactly what’s going on, right? And all you really have to tell them is exactly what you told me, like, hey, you’re coming to stand up, you’re telling me the client’s happy, and that everything’s on schedule, but I’m noticing that linear tickets are not being, opened and closed according to your plan.
110 00:18:58.900 ⇒ 00:19:00.680 Clarence Stone: Are you guys on plan or not?
111 00:19:02.050 ⇒ 00:19:07.040 Awaish Kumar: Right? And can I help you, you know, figure out what your plan is if you’re off track?
112 00:19:07.040 ⇒ 00:19:09.899 Clarence Stone: Right? I mean, like, the thing is.
113 00:19:10.360 ⇒ 00:19:19.020 Clarence Stone: this is not designed to call anybody out. It’s so that we don’t end up in a last-minute crisis where, you know, everything is
114 00:19:19.360 ⇒ 00:19:38.419 Clarence Stone: misaligned, and we have to push out work for the client, and we mess things up, right? So, I mean, in my view, like, you’re just helping them make sure that everything is up-to-date and accurate. Mutam, I don’t know what you think, but I think, you know, having this direct follow-up is required if you’re not getting a good sense of
115 00:19:38.420 ⇒ 00:19:40.629 Clarence Stone: You know, how each of these engagements are going.
116 00:19:41.050 ⇒ 00:19:42.749 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I think, like.
117 00:19:43.280 ⇒ 00:19:49.629 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you have to act awash on that, like, spidey sense, or, like, that gut feeling.
118 00:19:49.860 ⇒ 00:19:55.170 Uttam Kumaran: by either bringing it up in that call, like, you know how what I do, right? It’s where if I hear something and I’m like.
119 00:19:55.370 ⇒ 00:20:02.140 Uttam Kumaran: That doesn’t make any sense to me, right? So, like, that’s… that’s my thing of, like, hey, I heard a lot of words.
120 00:20:02.500 ⇒ 00:20:07.310 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, yes, if I wasn’t, like, on the hook here, maybe I would be like, whatever, but…
121 00:20:07.560 ⇒ 00:20:26.479 Uttam Kumaran: I’m still not confident. And so you should say that in that meeting, right? Their job is to make you more confident. And their job is that you need to be like, this is on track, right? If it’s not, then you have to say, look, I’m still not convinced, so either we could talk about it now, or, like, I’d love for you to book some time with me to kind of convince me.
122 00:20:26.550 ⇒ 00:20:29.540 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, you’re the… you have to be convinced.
123 00:20:30.000 ⇒ 00:20:30.859 Uttam Kumaran: you know.
124 00:20:31.040 ⇒ 00:20:32.830 Uttam Kumaran: Like, you have to have conviction.
125 00:20:33.440 ⇒ 00:20:38.119 Uttam Kumaran: And if you don’t, then it’s up to them to give that to you. And then you could do that in many different ways.
126 00:20:38.370 ⇒ 00:20:54.300 Uttam Kumaran: And so that’s what I would say. So, like, I think one way is, like, you see… you guys see me whenever we’re having a conversation and, like, I don’t understand. It’s not that my natural instinct is to, like, interrupt. I remind myself that if I’m not… if I don’t have confidence.
127 00:20:54.710 ⇒ 00:20:59.439 Uttam Kumaran: then, like, what are we doing? Like, I still don’t know, I have to say that out loud.
128 00:20:59.520 ⇒ 00:21:17.779 Uttam Kumaran: you guys require that of me to say that. Otherwise, what if I’m gonna just say, like, okay, I still don’t get it, but, like, that’s okay. No, that’s not okay. So either one way is, like, I’m misunderstanding, which is… there’s a high chance, and so, like, let’s clear my step, or maybe my instinct is right, and there is something, like.
129 00:21:17.990 ⇒ 00:21:22.249 Uttam Kumaran: not fully here, right? So you guys have to start doing that as well.
130 00:21:23.270 ⇒ 00:21:23.990 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
131 00:21:24.370 ⇒ 00:21:27.880 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Like, don’t be amicable. Don’t worry about being amicable.
132 00:21:28.320 ⇒ 00:21:31.540 Uttam Kumaran: Worry about, like, being correct and having the confidence.
133 00:21:32.050 ⇒ 00:21:36.349 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, so, like, what I’m… Like, I’m getting…
134 00:21:37.070 ⇒ 00:21:40.480 Awaish Kumar: I’m actually getting double-minded on the thing that, like.
135 00:21:40.780 ⇒ 00:21:44.679 Awaish Kumar: to call out someone on the stand-up, I, like, I was going to…
136 00:21:45.900 ⇒ 00:21:48.340 Awaish Kumar: go with the people, like,
137 00:21:48.700 ⇒ 00:21:50.599 Awaish Kumar: Like, should I do that, or…
138 00:21:50.600 ⇒ 00:21:51.790 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, you should, yeah.
139 00:21:51.790 ⇒ 00:21:52.320 Clarence Stone: Yep.
140 00:21:52.980 ⇒ 00:21:54.099 Uttam Kumaran: You should, you have to.
141 00:21:54.290 ⇒ 00:21:55.819 Uttam Kumaran: You have to, actually.
142 00:21:56.000 ⇒ 00:22:07.250 Uttam Kumaran: Because otherwise, what’s gonna happen is they’re gonna drop the ball, and Clarence are gonna say, okay, let’s work our way backwards, from the ball being dropped all the way up.
143 00:22:07.310 ⇒ 00:22:17.699 Uttam Kumaran: where was, like, where was the ball dropped, right, before then? Like, why weren’t the checks in place? If we find that a client comes and is like, hey, we haven’t gotten anything in a week.
144 00:22:18.180 ⇒ 00:22:28.150 Uttam Kumaran: then I… then I’m like, okay, so let’s talk about stand-ups. Where did we miss it, right? So it’s… it’s gonna come back to somebody. It’s gonna come back to somebody in that… in that value chain, you know?
145 00:22:29.890 ⇒ 00:22:30.950 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah.
146 00:22:31.330 ⇒ 00:22:40.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And otherwise, if you don’t push it, I’m gonna have to push it, right? So you… but this is where, like, my job is to go find out why this system isn’t going to work.
147 00:22:41.220 ⇒ 00:22:42.930 Uttam Kumaran: And I need to be above…
148 00:22:43.260 ⇒ 00:22:45.250 Uttam Kumaran: Everybody, to kind of see, like.
149 00:22:45.660 ⇒ 00:23:02.550 Uttam Kumaran: okay, actually, we don’t have a checks and balance for something, it’s going wrong, everybody’s doing their job, still going wrong, let’s improve the system. That’s where you guys, like, need me to go sit. So I’m totally, if you should, if you’re, like, if you’re not confident, you should say that in the meeting, I’m not confident, help me get more confident, let’s work together.
150 00:23:04.070 ⇒ 00:23:04.830 Uttam Kumaran: Right.
151 00:23:05.740 ⇒ 00:23:06.840 Awaish Kumar: Yep, okay.
152 00:23:09.660 ⇒ 00:23:12.890 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, and… Did I go on, or…
153 00:23:13.640 ⇒ 00:23:18.930 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, let’s maybe talk, like, maybe, Sam, we could talk about yours, like, linear ticket templates.
154 00:23:19.120 ⇒ 00:23:19.750 Uttam Kumaran: For EP.
155 00:23:19.750 ⇒ 00:23:20.560 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, yeah.
156 00:23:20.560 ⇒ 00:23:22.080 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think this is something that…
157 00:23:22.080 ⇒ 00:23:22.690 Samuel Roberts: we’re…
158 00:23:22.690 ⇒ 00:23:25.980 Uttam Kumaran: Ops should probably completely, like, help own, basically, but…
159 00:23:25.980 ⇒ 00:23:26.550 Samuel Roberts: Okay.
160 00:23:27.540 ⇒ 00:23:46.680 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I feel like we did a good job of, like, the… the Gantz went to the tickets, and, like, most of the team has pretty good context on what they’re doing already. So, like, right now, it’s not been a crazy issue, but as we want to, like, get things, you know, passed a codecs or whatever, or cursor, I want to make sure that there’s
161 00:23:46.830 ⇒ 00:23:48.040 Samuel Roberts: more, like…
162 00:23:48.190 ⇒ 00:23:55.509 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, obviously, I’m just reiterating it, but yeah. We’ve had a lot of these conversations in the past, and I want to make sure that doesn’t get lost in this hole.
163 00:23:57.070 ⇒ 00:23:57.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
164 00:23:58.980 ⇒ 00:24:01.199 Samuel Roberts: So yeah, I mean, I know we have plenty of…
165 00:24:01.580 ⇒ 00:24:08.099 Samuel Roberts: documentation somewhere, I don’t know where, you know, we want to run with from here, but yeah, if ops can help the EPs with that, that would be…
166 00:24:08.760 ⇒ 00:24:10.259 Samuel Roberts: I think the best spot.
167 00:24:11.100 ⇒ 00:24:11.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
168 00:24:19.020 ⇒ 00:24:30.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so Eliza, I may even ask you to put that around, like, just, like, linear management, like, making sure that all the EPs are trained on how to use linear. Maybe it’s something we can talk, Eliza, on… with the EPs.
169 00:24:30.480 ⇒ 00:24:31.180 Uttam Kumaran: Tomorrow.
170 00:24:32.180 ⇒ 00:24:34.930 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s good, Sam. We’ll bring that up with them tomorrow.
171 00:24:35.160 ⇒ 00:24:35.830 Samuel Roberts: Okay.
172 00:24:37.100 ⇒ 00:24:41.900 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe let’s talk about,
173 00:24:42.620 ⇒ 00:24:51.769 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I thought the feedbacks are all going well. I think my one-piece commentary for me is, like, I’m starting to push Luke and the sales team to work with y’all.
174 00:24:52.990 ⇒ 00:24:54.649 Uttam Kumaran: Codify our services.
175 00:24:54.940 ⇒ 00:24:59.910 Uttam Kumaran: And so, as you guys are doing that, think a little bit about, like.
176 00:25:00.120 ⇒ 00:25:12.999 Uttam Kumaran: what is the information they need, and that way we can somehow streamline. We have a lot… there’s a lot of services we do, and for every service, there’s gonna be subservices. Our job is to give sales as much resource so they can sort of build out those marketing assets.
177 00:25:13.080 ⇒ 00:25:23.999 Uttam Kumaran: But ultimately, I’m starting to point them to you versus coming to me now, for, like, what are the services we do for customers. A good example today is, like, we want… we do this dbt audit service that we wanted to sort of propose.
178 00:25:24.140 ⇒ 00:25:43.040 Uttam Kumaran: But I sort of brought it up, but I’m like, Luke, you can go work with Awash and, like, figuring out what’s in that service. So, y’all are gonna start to take some of that off my plate, which is, like, what’s in a service, who have we done it for? What are the outcomes? How do we talk about it? You know, and they’ll be helping facilitate that, but just want to make you guys aware.
179 00:25:43.450 ⇒ 00:25:47.799 Uttam Kumaran: And then, like, maybe, maybe one more topic…
180 00:25:47.920 ⇒ 00:25:59.640 Uttam Kumaran: you know, and we can see if anything else we want to move async is… yeah, like, maybe let’s talk about Clockify. Like, that’s the… that’s one item that, I just want to make sure…
181 00:25:59.840 ⇒ 00:26:03.499 Uttam Kumaran: like… I just… one is, like, we just have to…
182 00:26:04.070 ⇒ 00:26:07.209 Uttam Kumaran: have hourly tracking for folks, so I don’t know, Clarence, like.
183 00:26:07.710 ⇒ 00:26:21.800 Uttam Kumaran: we just should just copy whatever the best people do on this. Like, finance is starting to just get on my ass every time we don’t have people fill out hours, because they can’t collect closed books. And also, a lot of our clients we bill hours for.
184 00:26:21.980 ⇒ 00:26:30.549 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, kind of screwed, like… and so they’re… there, on the other end, they’re like, don’t pay people if they don’t put in hours, and then claw back payment.
185 00:26:30.850 ⇒ 00:26:37.550 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t, like, want to do that. That’s, like, and that’s crazy, but, like, because I’ve also… I know filling hours is not the easiest.
186 00:26:37.850 ⇒ 00:26:46.710 Uttam Kumaran: But I don’t know, like, Clarence, what do you think we should do? And, like, I’m down to just do whatever the best… the thing that people do is, and, like, move on from this topic, and have ops implemented.
187 00:26:46.710 ⇒ 00:26:51.270 Clarence Stone: I don’t know Wish and I talked about this last week.
188 00:26:51.270 ⇒ 00:26:54.280 Uttam Kumaran: Whatever you guys want to do, let’s just do it, I don’t care.
189 00:26:54.280 ⇒ 00:26:55.249 Clarence Stone: I told them…
190 00:26:55.250 ⇒ 00:26:58.920 Uttam Kumaran: Because then I can blame you guys.
191 00:26:59.110 ⇒ 00:27:07.680 Clarence Stone: I told them that the industry standard is you don’t qualify for bonuses if you miss your timesheets on two Fridays.
192 00:27:07.800 ⇒ 00:27:11.819 Clarence Stone: In a quarter. That’s how it works at Big Ford.
193 00:27:12.160 ⇒ 00:27:25.120 Clarence Stone: And I don’t want to go there, right? But if there’s a lack of compliance on timesheets, me included, by the way, I’m, like, notoriously… I haven’t done a single timesheet since I’ve gone here.
194 00:27:25.120 ⇒ 00:27:39.940 Clarence Stone: But if that’s a persistent issue, then, you know, I think what’s super valuable right now, Tom, is maybe we do talk about what the recourse is, and, you know, how many warnings, or what is the structure for consequence, because
195 00:27:39.940 ⇒ 00:27:49.740 Clarence Stone: It’s important to at least log time, because there’s no way for us to figure out velocity and throughput and get analytics on engagements without this kind of data.
196 00:27:50.530 ⇒ 00:27:51.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
197 00:27:52.090 ⇒ 00:28:02.920 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like, the thing we discussed last week was To have more visibility, like, Based on individual people.
198 00:28:03.330 ⇒ 00:28:10.830 Awaish Kumar: like, no action, but just the visibility in email from Otam’s Gmail account going to someone.
199 00:28:10.940 ⇒ 00:28:14.549 Awaish Kumar: That you have missed 3 timesheets in this quarter.
200 00:28:14.990 ⇒ 00:28:37.119 Clarence Stone: Yeah, that’s… that’s what I said to Awash, like, on our last call. That’s a good reminder, thank you. Utam, I offer you this. The soft-handed approach is to publicly shame and be kind with frequent reminders. So, in automation where, hey, you missed your timesheet, and this is how many times you’ve missed it.
201 00:28:37.120 ⇒ 00:28:38.899 Clarence Stone: on, you know, on Fridays.
202 00:28:38.900 ⇒ 00:28:51.370 Clarence Stone: Right? And then, like, if you wanted to escalate that, think about our bi-weekly all-hands. What if the last slide is a list of all the names of people who forgot, right? Like, like…
203 00:28:51.430 ⇒ 00:29:05.669 Clarence Stone: there’s a factor to public shaming that I think works pretty well, and, like, because what’s the alternative if we start, you know, like, making people ineligible for bonuses? Because that is the number one thing that Big Four goes for.
204 00:29:06.390 ⇒ 00:29:06.990 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
205 00:29:07.260 ⇒ 00:29:09.090 Clarence Stone: That’s the industry standard.
206 00:29:09.860 ⇒ 00:29:12.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so, I mean, I would, like, basically…
207 00:29:12.900 ⇒ 00:29:15.289 Uttam Kumaran: on fri- like, I don’t really care about…
208 00:29:16.090 ⇒ 00:29:20.219 Uttam Kumaran: Ideally, like, everyone should do hours and a day.
209 00:29:20.650 ⇒ 00:29:34.920 Uttam Kumaran: by Friday at 3, it sort of all has to be there. So this is where, like, I’m… I want to push on ops and the service lead team to do whatever it takes. By Friday, midday, you should see if someone has zero hours booked this week.
210 00:29:35.180 ⇒ 00:29:43.620 Uttam Kumaran: they’re gonna probably end the week with that, too. So at that point, yeah, we should just send a shame Slack message to the Brainforge team channel.
211 00:29:43.920 ⇒ 00:29:50.700 Uttam Kumaran: And also, maybe, like, a, hey, all these people crushed it, they’re already filled it out. These people, you still have… you need to fill it out.
212 00:29:51.200 ⇒ 00:29:53.210 Uttam Kumaran: And that just goes there.
213 00:29:53.320 ⇒ 00:29:57.489 Uttam Kumaran: But then also, like, Saturday, Sunday, like, we still also, like, by Monday.
214 00:29:58.130 ⇒ 00:30:03.229 Uttam Kumaran: if they don’t fill it out, like, it has to happen, because we can’t do invoices.
215 00:30:03.230 ⇒ 00:30:08.289 Samuel Roberts: my next question, actually, because you said Friday at 3? Is that, like, for the week up to that, like.
216 00:30:08.290 ⇒ 00:30:09.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
217 00:30:09.410 ⇒ 00:30:10.150 Samuel Roberts: Okay.
218 00:30:10.150 ⇒ 00:30:11.879 Uttam Kumaran: Well, like, Friday closed, right? It’s just like…
219 00:30:11.880 ⇒ 00:30:13.290 Samuel Roberts: Royal Tournament, yeah, I just wasn’t sure, like.
220 00:30:13.290 ⇒ 00:30:19.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I would say… I would basically say Friday, 5PM, like, people shouldn’t be working, but, like, again.
221 00:30:19.430 ⇒ 00:30:25.280 Uttam Kumaran: between Friday and Monday, close of business, there kind of has to be… that person needs to get spammed, like…
222 00:30:25.340 ⇒ 00:30:26.989 Samuel Roberts: Until it happens.
223 00:30:27.230 ⇒ 00:30:31.809 Samuel Roberts: So Monday’s, like, the really, like, if it’s not there, then there needs to be something, probably.
224 00:30:31.940 ⇒ 00:30:32.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
225 00:30:33.580 ⇒ 00:30:35.659 Samuel Roberts: So I think shaming that week, and then…
226 00:30:35.660 ⇒ 00:30:42.079 Uttam Kumaran: And then I also wanna make… dude, I wanna make some, like, we have to make a better tool, like, I was gonna work on this, probably just this week.
227 00:30:42.310 ⇒ 00:30:46.159 Uttam Kumaran: It’s… I’m just gonna work on, like, a thing, like, a little UI to help…
228 00:30:46.300 ⇒ 00:30:55.530 Uttam Kumaran: pull it from your calendar, and then allow you a little thing where you can click, like, Log to Clockify, and it would pull from your calendar.
229 00:30:56.080 ⇒ 00:31:01.690 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m… I’m thinking about working on that, so it just makes it easier for people to go at the end of the week and see, like.
230 00:31:02.990 ⇒ 00:31:06.199 Uttam Kumaran: Or… and then also use natural language to basically talk
231 00:31:06.550 ⇒ 00:31:08.720 Uttam Kumaran: And be like, I did this, I did this, I did this.
232 00:31:10.110 ⇒ 00:31:12.449 Samuel Roberts: Weren’t we talking about something else besides Clockify at 1.2?
233 00:31:12.590 ⇒ 00:31:15.679 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, there’s a few others, they’re all, like, this shitty, though. Okay.
234 00:31:15.680 ⇒ 00:31:19.359 Samuel Roberts: Okay, I just remember there was something about that, and I… operating and stuff, I wasn’t sure where.
235 00:31:19.360 ⇒ 00:31:23.500 Uttam Kumaran: The thing about moving to operating, I don’t… it’s just not, like, I don’t care right now.
236 00:31:23.500 ⇒ 00:31:24.740 Samuel Roberts: Okay, that’s fine.
237 00:31:26.630 ⇒ 00:31:27.280 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
238 00:31:27.850 ⇒ 00:31:35.719 Samuel Roberts: One thing about that as well, like, I’m happy to, like, try to stay on top of my team. I don’t know if I have access to all that stuff in Clockify, like, I don’t know if I can see what they’re logging.
239 00:31:35.720 ⇒ 00:31:36.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe it’ll.
240 00:31:36.710 ⇒ 00:31:38.810 Uttam Kumaran: I… you should… you should have access, so ops…
241 00:31:39.240 ⇒ 00:31:39.740 Samuel Roberts: Okay.
242 00:31:39.740 ⇒ 00:31:41.510 Uttam Kumaran: Isaac can probably get you all that.
243 00:31:41.910 ⇒ 00:31:48.799 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I would say the main person is just, like, Demolade just always misses. Demolade misses, and then, like…
244 00:31:49.470 ⇒ 00:31:53.620 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like, for the most part, people are good, but I’m getting yelled at for him.
245 00:31:53.750 ⇒ 00:31:54.650 Uttam Kumaran: So.
246 00:31:54.650 ⇒ 00:31:55.260 Samuel Roberts: Excellent.
247 00:31:55.260 ⇒ 00:31:59.450 Uttam Kumaran: Especially this month, we actually… we actually missed… we, like, under-invoiced.
248 00:32:00.020 ⇒ 00:32:09.459 Uttam Kumaran: And so now I’m sort of like, when you touch the money, that’s when I sort of am like, okay, this is, like, gonna… this is pretty, like, this is a lot more serious for me. So…
249 00:32:09.820 ⇒ 00:32:15.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I always wanted to say that, like, by Friday, I would like this crew to maybe just, like.
250 00:32:16.210 ⇒ 00:32:18.820 Uttam Kumaran: understand where we are, and so maybe…
251 00:32:18.930 ⇒ 00:32:27.519 Uttam Kumaran: This is something that, like, ops and SLs, you all can just meet on Friday, even for 15 minutes, just to make sure this happens.
252 00:32:28.170 ⇒ 00:32:32.860 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, like, we have a cascading set of, like, risks here.
253 00:32:32.860 ⇒ 00:32:37.019 Samuel Roberts: But ideally, like, there should be some automation eventually, where it’s like…
254 00:32:37.210 ⇒ 00:32:43.959 Uttam Kumaran: if someone… is not out of office, and Bill’s, like, Less than 5 hours.
255 00:32:44.520 ⇒ 00:32:49.579 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, they should get spammed every hour from Friday until it’s done.
256 00:32:51.160 ⇒ 00:32:55.619 Uttam Kumaran: like, by all… by… through all channels. Like, they should get Slack, they should get emailed.
257 00:32:55.740 ⇒ 00:32:57.940 Uttam Kumaran: And they should get shamed, auto-shamed.
258 00:33:00.880 ⇒ 00:33:07.709 Uttam Kumaran: Because I’ve worked at consultancies where, like, you get a thing on Monday, and, like, but if I just had, like, 10 seconds on the weekend, I would have done it, you know, so…
259 00:33:07.710 ⇒ 00:33:08.430 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
260 00:33:11.030 ⇒ 00:33:14.559 Uttam Kumaran: So I think I’ll let… I can let you guys maybe think about closing that out.
261 00:33:15.560 ⇒ 00:33:21.360 Uttam Kumaran: And then maybe I wanna… I wanna move, maybe we can…
262 00:33:23.010 ⇒ 00:33:30.320 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s talk about the certifications on, in Slack. I just have to jump to another call, unless you guys want to stay on here and discuss, but…
263 00:33:32.590 ⇒ 00:33:35.860 Awaish Kumar: Like, we already discussed with Clarence on this part. Okay.
264 00:33:36.140 ⇒ 00:33:37.890 Awaish Kumar: But yeah, we can talk in Slack.
265 00:33:38.110 ⇒ 00:33:38.960 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
266 00:33:40.820 ⇒ 00:33:41.590 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
267 00:33:41.750 ⇒ 00:33:44.700 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Yeah, we’ll… I’ll keep 45 minutes for next week.
268 00:33:45.960 ⇒ 00:33:47.209 Awaish Kumar: Okay. A little bit more time.
269 00:33:49.450 ⇒ 00:33:51.470 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect. Thanks, guys.
270 00:33:51.470 ⇒ 00:33:52.100 Clarence Stone: Thanks.
271 00:33:52.190 ⇒ 00:33:52.880 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you.
272 00:33:53.150 ⇒ 00:33:54.110 Elizah Joy: Goodbye.
273 00:33:54.110 ⇒ 00:33:54.660 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.