Meeting Title: Brainforge EP Leads Weekly Sync Date: 2026-01-13 Meeting participants: Mustafa Raja, Pranav Narahari, Casie Aviles, Clarence Stone, Rico Rejoso, Uttam Kumaran, Amber Lin
WEBVTT
1 00:02:11.990 ⇒ 00:02:13.090 Uttam Kumaran: Hello!
2 00:02:15.440 ⇒ 00:02:16.610 Clarence Stone: What’s up, what’s up?
3 00:02:17.850 ⇒ 00:02:19.020 Uttam Kumaran: How’s everyone?
4 00:02:20.660 ⇒ 00:02:27.049 Clarence Stone: Good! I’m, just about headed home, so my audio quality should be better in a second.
5 00:02:29.260 ⇒ 00:02:30.260 Uttam Kumaran: Of course.
6 00:02:30.580 ⇒ 00:02:32.129 Uttam Kumaran: How’s everyone else’s day?
7 00:02:32.740 ⇒ 00:02:33.740 Mustafa Raja: Yeah, good.
8 00:02:35.270 ⇒ 00:02:36.330 Pranav Narahari: Pretty good.
9 00:02:37.730 ⇒ 00:02:39.140 Uttam Kumaran: Anything eventful?
10 00:02:40.510 ⇒ 00:02:42.110 Uttam Kumaran: Or business as usual.
11 00:02:47.460 ⇒ 00:02:49.100 Mustafa Raja: For me, it was pretty usual.
12 00:02:53.510 ⇒ 00:02:55.180 Pranav Narahari: Yep, just a normal Tuesday.
13 00:02:56.120 ⇒ 00:02:56.880 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
14 00:02:58.250 ⇒ 00:03:07.699 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I didn’t get a chance to… I mean, I was about to in this call, and then I… I had to talk, and then I got distracted, but I didn’t send out an,
15 00:03:07.850 ⇒ 00:03:16.050 Uttam Kumaran: a sort of an agenda doc ahead of time, but wondering if I can do that, and y’all would be interested in, like, maybe filling out
16 00:03:16.480 ⇒ 00:03:21.490 Uttam Kumaran: like, any, any sort of talking points that we…
17 00:03:21.760 ⇒ 00:03:26.440 Uttam Kumaran: we sort of want to discuss. Maybe I’ll… we can let, like.
18 00:03:27.020 ⇒ 00:03:34.279 Uttam Kumaran: give ourselves maybe, like, 5 minutes to sort of fill this out. I’ll send this in the engagement planner’s chat.
19 00:03:35.850 ⇒ 00:03:41.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, if you just want to, like, put your name, and then you can just put any questions, and we can sort of, like, go round robin.
20 00:03:42.160 ⇒ 00:03:44.509 Uttam Kumaran: That could be great, yeah.
21 00:04:14.450 ⇒ 00:04:20.450 Uttam Kumaran: I’m happy I got to wake up and go for, like, an hour walk. Like, I feel, like, so much happier and full of life.
22 00:04:22.710 ⇒ 00:04:26.720 Clarence Stone: You went out in the freezing cold tundra for a while.
23 00:04:26.720 ⇒ 00:04:29.720 Uttam Kumaran: This morning, yeah, fast.
24 00:04:29.720 ⇒ 00:04:34.899 Clarence Stone: Dude, I thought about doing that, and I was like, absolutely not, it’s so cold.
25 00:04:35.110 ⇒ 00:04:39.150 Uttam Kumaran: You have your Jersey roots, you don’t remember the… you don’t…
26 00:04:39.300 ⇒ 00:04:41.669 Uttam Kumaran: Come on, it’s not that bad here.
27 00:04:41.950 ⇒ 00:04:45.310 Clarence Stone: Oh, it’s bad, I ran away for a reason.
28 00:04:46.430 ⇒ 00:04:48.549 Clarence Stone: But yeah, I should probably go for a walk.
29 00:09:00.000 ⇒ 00:09:01.050 Uttam Kumaran: How do we feel?
30 00:09:01.800 ⇒ 00:09:06.009 Uttam Kumaran: I still… I mean, Pranav is the only person that put notes. Do you guys, like…
31 00:09:06.170 ⇒ 00:09:08.180 Uttam Kumaran: Is anyone else adding any notes?
32 00:09:10.660 ⇒ 00:09:14.259 Uttam Kumaran: Pranav, I’ll put your question here at the bottom, actually, sorry.
33 00:09:14.870 ⇒ 00:09:16.350 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna remove this.
34 00:09:17.360 ⇒ 00:09:18.880 Uttam Kumaran: this database.
35 00:12:04.560 ⇒ 00:12:07.569 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Ready? How do we feel?
36 00:12:34.640 ⇒ 00:12:36.130 Uttam Kumaran: Hi, crowd today.
37 00:12:36.310 ⇒ 00:12:38.920 Uttam Kumaran: Me and Clarence are gonna do all the talking, I think.
38 00:12:40.440 ⇒ 00:12:44.280 Uttam Kumaran: Amber, you haven’t said a word.
39 00:12:45.650 ⇒ 00:12:55.560 Amber Lin: No, I am having… You know I’m gonna say hi, I can’t, I can’t resist.
40 00:12:56.830 ⇒ 00:13:08.050 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, let’s talk through stuff. So, Pranav, I’m still not use… still not clear how to use operating as a way to understand the capacity the engineers on our client team have. Okay, is ops on here?
41 00:13:08.610 ⇒ 00:13:10.310 Uttam Kumaran: Rico, are you on here?
42 00:13:11.270 ⇒ 00:13:11.565 Rico Rejoso: or…
43 00:13:12.700 ⇒ 00:13:17.160 Uttam Kumaran: I know we talked, we talked last week, but I don’t know if you guys have made any progress, but last…
44 00:13:17.320 ⇒ 00:13:21.470 Uttam Kumaran: Last week, when we talked, we basically… said yes.
45 00:13:21.920 ⇒ 00:13:29.619 Uttam Kumaran: We should be using operating, but maybe you want to give an update to the team on when they’ll be ready to start to use that for hourly planning?
46 00:13:29.960 ⇒ 00:13:45.109 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, we have the SOP and how we can, add hours to operating and use it. It’s just that I think it’s not… I mean, I think what they need is a view on how, I mean, total hours of each engineer are gonna spend, or are…
47 00:13:45.210 ⇒ 00:13:52.420 Rico Rejoso: rendering for Brainforce, so they can also, you know, dissect how many hours they can allocate, per client that they’re handling.
48 00:13:52.640 ⇒ 00:13:59.360 Rico Rejoso: So I think we haven’t got to that yet, so that’s why they weren’t able to allocate any hours yet for their team.
49 00:14:01.260 ⇒ 00:14:04.099 Uttam Kumaran: Do you have, like, an estimation on when you think we’ll…
50 00:14:04.250 ⇒ 00:14:05.420 Rico Rejoso: We’ll get there.
51 00:14:13.690 ⇒ 00:14:16.259 Rico Rejoso: What do you think? Hmm.
52 00:14:17.410 ⇒ 00:14:19.210 Uttam Kumaran: I can wait, but I guess this is where, like.
53 00:14:19.340 ⇒ 00:14:22.459 Uttam Kumaran: Rob asked a good question, I know we already talked about it last week, but…
54 00:14:22.750 ⇒ 00:14:29.119 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, I think it’s helpful to give this team a through line onto when they can expect to be able to
55 00:14:29.340 ⇒ 00:14:30.370 Uttam Kumaran: Manage.
56 00:14:30.680 ⇒ 00:14:35.060 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, margin and hours and budget directly in operating.
57 00:14:39.240 ⇒ 00:14:43.159 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, best would be for this end of week. I’ll… Try to work on it.
58 00:14:43.460 ⇒ 00:14:49.240 Rico Rejoso: And, provide updates. I’ll start to provide updates by tomorrow, I guess.
59 00:14:50.340 ⇒ 00:14:56.599 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and I would also suggest that you, bring Pranav, like, loop in Pranav as you’re doing things.
60 00:14:56.600 ⇒ 00:14:56.990 Rico Rejoso: Yes.
61 00:14:57.150 ⇒ 00:14:59.290 Uttam Kumaran: And… and that way.
62 00:14:59.490 ⇒ 00:15:10.550 Uttam Kumaran: basically, operating is going to be used by multiple stakeholders, of which I am one, but more important to me is that the engagement planners feel very comfortable in the tool.
63 00:15:10.620 ⇒ 00:15:20.570 Uttam Kumaran: And so, partly is, like, you’re actually configuring it for them, I think, is the most… the important stakeholder, because they’re… they’re on the hook for making sure that
64 00:15:20.900 ⇒ 00:15:27.430 Uttam Kumaran: people are working, you know, the budget that’s allocated, and they’re able to manage margin. So…
65 00:15:27.650 ⇒ 00:15:39.389 Uttam Kumaran: I would suggest, like, this week, if you’re working on things, just have Pranav join you, or… I think that’s probably my ask for now, too, is for you to leverage, you know, this time to learn a bit more about,
66 00:15:39.760 ⇒ 00:15:42.970 Uttam Kumaran: operating and while Ricoh’s configuring.
67 00:15:43.240 ⇒ 00:15:46.339 Uttam Kumaran: So, because it’ll help, basically, everyone else on projects, too.
68 00:15:46.940 ⇒ 00:15:48.950 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, sounds good, I can definitely do that.
69 00:15:51.890 ⇒ 00:15:53.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we can…
70 00:15:53.030 ⇒ 00:15:56.030 Rico Rejoso: I’ll hop on a call for that, Oprah now. I’ll set up a meeting with you.
71 00:15:56.530 ⇒ 00:15:57.190 Pranav Narahari: Perfect.
72 00:15:59.270 ⇒ 00:15:59.800 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
73 00:16:00.130 ⇒ 00:16:05.519 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s move to Clarence’s question. Clarence, you wanna ask your question?
74 00:16:05.520 ⇒ 00:16:05.930 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
75 00:16:05.930 ⇒ 00:16:08.140 Uttam Kumaran: Like a radio show.
76 00:16:08.520 ⇒ 00:16:23.569 Clarence Stone: So, for each EP, I would like you to rate the quality of the documentation for each of your client projects out of 5, 5 being perfect, right? And if you don’t give yourself a 5, let me know
77 00:16:23.720 ⇒ 00:16:26.140 Clarence Stone: What we can do to help you get there.
78 00:16:27.840 ⇒ 00:16:39.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, maybe I can go… I can go first on my clients. I think I’m, like, probably, like, a 2 or a 3. I think I’ve been doing well with my EPs to build out
79 00:16:39.530 ⇒ 00:16:48.010 Uttam Kumaran: Gantt charts. I don’t think I’m doing a great job at all in, like, leveraging and spending time in linear, but that’s kind of mostly my fault.
80 00:16:48.250 ⇒ 00:16:50.829 Uttam Kumaran: But I think I’m getting better, so, like.
81 00:16:50.940 ⇒ 00:16:57.619 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like for the clients that I’m involved in, I’m spending more time thinking about Gantt and thinking about project plans.
82 00:16:57.750 ⇒ 00:17:02.139 Uttam Kumaran: one way I’m looking to improve is I’m actually just
83 00:17:02.480 ⇒ 00:17:08.619 Uttam Kumaran: spending less time in meetings, so I have more time to actually do that type of work, but that would be my…
84 00:17:08.940 ⇒ 00:17:14.279 Uttam Kumaran: That’s my answer. And I am leveraging Clarence. I call him every day for help and advice.
85 00:17:16.240 ⇒ 00:17:20.820 Clarence Stone: You’re still at a 2 or 3, so I gotta do… I gotta do better, too.
86 00:17:21.170 ⇒ 00:17:26.550 Uttam Kumaran: Yes. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, do better.
87 00:17:30.010 ⇒ 00:17:34.030 Uttam Kumaran: Who’s next? I can popcorn to… I can go… Amber.
88 00:17:34.120 ⇒ 00:17:36.390 Amber Lin: Oh, great.
89 00:17:36.390 ⇒ 00:17:37.430 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry, you’re just Mexican.
90 00:17:37.430 ⇒ 00:17:43.890 Amber Lin: Yeah, I… I was wondering about how you rated yourself, because, like.
91 00:17:44.290 ⇒ 00:17:47.340 Clarence Stone: in terms of documentation, I think there’s…
92 00:17:47.340 ⇒ 00:17:54.610 Amber Lin: Gantt, linear, and then Organization inside Notion, and then Google Drive.
93 00:17:55.020 ⇒ 00:17:55.610 Clarence Stone: I think…
94 00:17:55.610 ⇒ 00:17:57.309 Amber Lin: We… Go ahead.
95 00:17:57.310 ⇒ 00:18:16.750 Clarence Stone: I’ll give you a better way to rate yourself. It’s not a matter of, like, hitting a checklist. I want you to pretend like you’re somebody brand new that’s about to join your project, based on what already exists, all the documentation that’s available. Would that new person be able to figure it out without, you know, having a 3-hour one-on-one with you?
96 00:18:17.420 ⇒ 00:18:21.250 Amber Lin: Am I allowed to point them at what documents they should read?
97 00:18:21.250 ⇒ 00:18:29.500 Clarence Stone: Sure, sure, sure, let’s assume that, you know, they go to the Slack, and there’s an entire list of, you know, all your links, right? So you’re allowed to point them places.
98 00:18:29.500 ⇒ 00:18:40.760 Amber Lin: Okay, if I were to point them, I would say on ABC, we’re probably, like, at 3 or 4 in terms of documentation, because it’s just been a…
99 00:18:41.030 ⇒ 00:18:57.020 Amber Lin: long-term clients, so we have a lot on there. I would say organization’s not the best. Archive stuff has not been archived, so they would get confused, and it’s in… it’s on different accounts, it’s on different places.
100 00:18:57.150 ⇒ 00:19:04.660 Amber Lin: So, I think there’s more organization to do, but, I think documenting, we have a decent amount there.
101 00:19:06.190 ⇒ 00:19:07.720 Clarence Stone: Okay, sounds good.
102 00:19:09.890 ⇒ 00:19:12.000 Clarence Stone: How about your other projects team?
103 00:19:12.380 ⇒ 00:19:20.440 Amber Lin: My other projects are not really live right now, and I don’t know if they will continue, so ABC is my main concentration for now.
104 00:19:20.900 ⇒ 00:19:31.279 Clarence Stone: Perfect, cool. Yeah, so organization’s always a challenge, so we’ll… I’ll try to look into it. I may follow up with you to get a better understanding of how we can make that easier.
105 00:19:33.440 ⇒ 00:19:34.670 Amber Lin: Cool, sounds good.
106 00:19:37.570 ⇒ 00:19:41.499 Mustafa Raja: Yeah, I have a pretty similar situation going, with default.
107 00:19:41.570 ⇒ 00:19:58.209 Mustafa Raja: I believe, I have… I have a good Gantt chart, and then, an architecture diagram, and then linear board is pretty good. It’s the… it’s an organization within Notion that I’m struggling with, and what documents should they be, you know?
108 00:19:58.320 ⇒ 00:20:04.800 Mustafa Raja: So I’d rate myself a 3, and I know that I need to focus more
109 00:20:04.980 ⇒ 00:20:06.570 Mustafa Raja: On Notion.
110 00:20:07.230 ⇒ 00:20:11.460 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so… so for the parts in Notion that are challenging.
111 00:20:11.600 ⇒ 00:20:21.260 Clarence Stone: you should feel free to… Utam, do they all have access to the operations channel? No, we don’t. So ping me and Rico, at least.
112 00:20:21.260 ⇒ 00:20:23.669 Uttam Kumaran: Well, everybody’s in the engagement planning channel.
113 00:20:23.960 ⇒ 00:20:40.000 Clarence Stone: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. So, so the EEP channel, Mustafa, would love to hear, like, how we can make that Notion better. Rico has, on his, backlog, a, project to actually, improve the Notion, layouts.
114 00:20:40.000 ⇒ 00:20:46.150 Clarence Stone: So, just, like, your initial feedback on what’s working and what’s not working would be very helpful.
115 00:20:46.150 ⇒ 00:20:47.279 Clarence Stone: For that.
116 00:20:47.670 ⇒ 00:20:48.260 Mustafa Raja: Okay.
117 00:20:48.920 ⇒ 00:20:55.469 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Long story short, help us on the way, Mustafa. And, yeah. Notion is challenging, want to know exactly where. Where does it hurt?
118 00:20:55.800 ⇒ 00:20:56.550 Mustafa Raja: Okay.
119 00:21:00.290 ⇒ 00:21:01.400 Casie Aviles: Yeah, I would say…
120 00:21:01.460 ⇒ 00:21:02.060 Pranav Narahari: Oh, go ahead.
121 00:21:02.060 ⇒ 00:21:02.889 Casie Aviles: Very good.
122 00:21:03.470 ⇒ 00:21:07.480 Casie Aviles: Okay, so for me, I’m just EPing.
123 00:21:08.020 ⇒ 00:21:11.640 Casie Aviles: Eden Martech, so I’ve been supporting Zoran there.
124 00:21:12.060 ⇒ 00:21:16.750 Casie Aviles: I would say, yeah, I would also rate myself Around 3.
125 00:21:18.770 ⇒ 00:21:25.700 Casie Aviles: I think for linear… linear-wise, I’ve… I was able to stay a bit more on top there.
126 00:21:27.690 ⇒ 00:21:32.080 Casie Aviles: And making sure that it’s aligned with the Gantt chart that we have as well.
127 00:21:32.510 ⇒ 00:21:34.460 Casie Aviles: What I am working on…
128 00:21:34.660 ⇒ 00:21:40.020 Casie Aviles: Right now, is actually making it easier for the documentation.
129 00:21:41.340 ⇒ 00:21:44.379 Casie Aviles: Or, like, making it easier for someone to find this and…
130 00:21:45.640 ⇒ 00:21:47.650 Casie Aviles: We’re doing that through the…
131 00:21:47.920 ⇒ 00:21:52.469 Casie Aviles: the GitHub consolidation, so we’re consolidating that into a repo.
132 00:21:52.890 ⇒ 00:21:57.980 Casie Aviles: So yeah, that’s also one thing that I’m also working on.
133 00:21:59.200 ⇒ 00:22:05.360 Clarence Stone: Cool. Casey, great, great job, by the way. I, I, you know, followed up with you and, and
134 00:22:05.930 ⇒ 00:22:18.449 Clarence Stone: And Zoran about, like, how good, that Eden Martech documentation, came to be in just, like, in a matter of a day or two, so you guys did great, so keep it up.
135 00:22:19.390 ⇒ 00:22:24.560 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Casey, I am interested, how is it going with, with, Eden stuff? I mean, like, I…
136 00:22:24.790 ⇒ 00:22:28.060 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not really close to that client,
137 00:22:28.610 ⇒ 00:22:35.299 Uttam Kumaran: Which, these days, doesn’t actually make me that nervous, but, I am interested in how it’s going with… with Zoran, and I know,
138 00:22:36.090 ⇒ 00:22:40.619 Uttam Kumaran: Robert said he’s gonna ask for your help on a couple other things, so yeah, just curious how it’s going.
139 00:22:42.420 ⇒ 00:22:49.309 Casie Aviles: Yeah, I think it’s mostly, you know, I think it’s positive, being able to
140 00:22:49.570 ⇒ 00:22:52.460 Casie Aviles: chat with Zora, and so I’ve set up, like.
141 00:22:53.020 ⇒ 00:22:57.189 Casie Aviles: I was just talking with him constantly. He would also ping me and
142 00:22:57.660 ⇒ 00:23:02.240 Casie Aviles: make sure that, you know, we have our linear aligned. I think…
143 00:23:02.550 ⇒ 00:23:07.910 Casie Aviles: It’s, yeah, so far it’s going… it’s fine, I think…
144 00:23:08.210 ⇒ 00:23:12.009 Casie Aviles: There are things that definitely I still need to improve on.
145 00:23:13.970 ⇒ 00:23:19.730 Casie Aviles: As, you know, someone first doing, you know, EPing for the first time, so… But, yeah, it’s…
146 00:23:19.730 ⇒ 00:23:20.950 Uttam Kumaran: How’s the work been?
147 00:23:22.430 ⇒ 00:23:29.779 Casie Aviles: I’m not really, like, working on any actual tasks for Eden yet, but I think it’s being…
148 00:23:30.030 ⇒ 00:23:32.280 Casie Aviles: it’s nice that I’m able to, like.
149 00:23:33.710 ⇒ 00:23:41.849 Casie Aviles: Kind of put my shoes into someone who’s… You know, more on understanding How things are organized, and…
150 00:23:42.440 ⇒ 00:23:45.529 Casie Aviles: You know, because sometimes… before, I was just, you know.
151 00:23:45.820 ⇒ 00:23:49.099 Casie Aviles: on execution mode, and I wasn’t able to, like.
152 00:23:49.370 ⇒ 00:23:55.039 Casie Aviles: you know, zoom out a bit into how things are… how the pieces are moving. But, yeah.
153 00:24:01.080 ⇒ 00:24:01.900 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
154 00:24:03.350 ⇒ 00:24:10.610 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, and for me, really similar to what Amber and Mustafa were saying about, Notion,
155 00:24:11.190 ⇒ 00:24:14.120 Pranav Narahari: Yeah, I feel like Notion I can improve a little bit more on.
156 00:24:14.220 ⇒ 00:24:24.270 Pranav Narahari: Haven’t really even dove into it much for Lilo. I feel like I’ve been on top of the Gantt charts, the estimating.
157 00:24:24.490 ⇒ 00:24:27.410 Pranav Narahari: Even linear, just, like.
158 00:24:27.540 ⇒ 00:24:39.230 Pranav Narahari: for… on a week-to-week basis, of, like, what we need to get done by Friday. But yeah, Notion is probably, like, the least… what I’m least familiar with, and so…
159 00:24:39.620 ⇒ 00:24:43.859 Pranav Narahari: yeah, that’s something I definitely need to improve on, so I would… I’d also give myself a 3.
160 00:24:47.860 ⇒ 00:24:50.069 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and I think Notion is so open-ended.
161 00:24:50.220 ⇒ 00:24:56.639 Uttam Kumaran: You know, so what I’ll be looking for is that the ops team and this team decide on what is the best
162 00:24:56.830 ⇒ 00:25:03.249 Uttam Kumaran: like, format for Notion for a given client, because it can be really daunting to just see, like, blank screens.
163 00:25:03.910 ⇒ 00:25:20.450 Uttam Kumaran: I know for me, and also you guys will realize that a lot of the existing structure is something that, like, I just decided one day, or Robert or Rico, and so I do want this team to basically take the baton and make a group decision on, like, what is the best format.
164 00:25:20.490 ⇒ 00:25:38.410 Uttam Kumaran: if you guys don’t help make the… if I make the decision again, then it’ll sort of… you won’t really understand the reason, and someone will come in and be like, why did we do it this way again? So, I guess that’s my ask, is that this crew takes that ambiguity and then decides on, like, okay, what is… what is the structure that we want, you know? And…
165 00:25:38.690 ⇒ 00:25:42.789 Uttam Kumaran: I’m, of course, definitely opinionated, and I can tell you what’s worked, what doesn’t work.
166 00:25:43.180 ⇒ 00:25:54.099 Uttam Kumaran: and why, but certainly, like, I want this crew to sort of help propose the next structure. I think an ops team is leading that, like, Eliza is leading some of that, but…
167 00:25:54.250 ⇒ 00:25:59.400 Uttam Kumaran: it’s all… like, Notion is just here to help serve their customers better, you know, so…
168 00:26:22.140 ⇒ 00:26:26.770 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, shall we go to… Next question.
169 00:26:29.330 ⇒ 00:26:32.239 Uttam Kumaran: Amber, did we want to talk about Drive?
170 00:26:38.790 ⇒ 00:26:40.700 Amber Lin: Wait, what are you referring to?
171 00:26:41.520 ⇒ 00:26:44.220 Uttam Kumaran: Like, your next question, which is… Yeah.
172 00:26:44.220 ⇒ 00:26:49.030 Amber Lin: I see. I’ve been putting stuff in the shared…
173 00:26:49.270 ⇒ 00:27:01.440 Amber Lin: Google Drive that we have, but I’m not sure if all the EPs here know that that’s… that exists, and that’s where we should put… should be putting our Google documents.
174 00:27:01.600 ⇒ 00:27:04.490 Uttam Kumaran: Do you want to share screen for a second and just walk through that?
175 00:27:04.910 ⇒ 00:27:07.810 Amber Lin: Sure, let me pull it up one second.
176 00:27:07.810 ⇒ 00:27:08.360 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
177 00:27:09.070 ⇒ 00:27:10.789 Amber Lin: I just have a lot of tabs open.
178 00:27:10.790 ⇒ 00:27:25.889 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Google Drive organization sucks, but one thing I tried to do is just have, like, a shared folder for clients, and then have, like, have basically, each client have a folder.
179 00:27:26.330 ⇒ 00:27:27.580 Uttam Kumaran: So…
180 00:27:28.040 ⇒ 00:27:39.319 Amber Lin: If you can see on my screen, everybody should have, access to shared drives. Maybe you guys can check if you have that right now. And then in there, there should be a…
181 00:27:39.420 ⇒ 00:27:52.939 Amber Lin: a folder called Clients. I think this is where we will be organizing our documents, and just go find respected clients, and then we can discuss how we want to organize inside.
182 00:27:53.070 ⇒ 00:28:02.860 Amber Lin: In case, like, we want to have standard naming conventions if people want to reference it in cursor or whatever, but, that’s the location.
183 00:28:03.140 ⇒ 00:28:06.770 Amber Lin: Did everybody find it on their Google, Google Drive?
184 00:28:14.700 ⇒ 00:28:16.000 Clarence Stone: Yep, I can see it.
185 00:28:16.490 ⇒ 00:28:17.420 Amber Lin: Awesome.
186 00:28:18.650 ⇒ 00:28:19.970 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
187 00:28:19.970 ⇒ 00:28:29.130 Amber Lin: That might mean we might need to move some of the old stuff there, so we have to coordinate, like,
188 00:28:29.300 ⇒ 00:28:36.510 Amber Lin: Access shared with clients previously might get lost, so that’s something to be aware of when we’re moving things.
189 00:28:37.480 ⇒ 00:28:39.100 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like, basically…
190 00:28:39.380 ⇒ 00:28:53.859 Uttam Kumaran: right now, I just try to have everything as… I… when I start a client, I create a… even before, because sometimes during the discovery process, a client will share… share stuff with us, so I tend to just save any files there, and then…
191 00:28:54.280 ⇒ 00:29:00.769 Uttam Kumaran: Like, yeah, I… in case, like, there’s PDFs and things, I just link them there.
192 00:29:01.330 ⇒ 00:29:04.270 Uttam Kumaran: It’s usually my process.
193 00:29:10.830 ⇒ 00:29:14.999 Uttam Kumaran: And then even when I’m creating SOWs or presentations, I always just throw them in there.
194 00:29:23.300 ⇒ 00:29:25.819 Uttam Kumaran: Any other questions on, like, Google Drive?
195 00:29:33.460 ⇒ 00:29:39.670 Casie Aviles: Eventually, are we… eventually, are we going to want to sync these into, like.
196 00:29:40.060 ⇒ 00:29:43.710 Casie Aviles: you know, GitHub or something, like, be able to…
197 00:29:44.260 ⇒ 00:29:47.410 Casie Aviles: chat with it to purser, or… Sits up.
198 00:29:47.410 ⇒ 00:29:50.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m not sure yet, like, how we’re gonna do it, I think…
199 00:29:51.220 ⇒ 00:29:55.450 Uttam Kumaran: I think right now, Gabe is playing around with,
200 00:29:55.660 ⇒ 00:29:58.100 Uttam Kumaran: Gave us… gave us playing around with…
201 00:29:58.530 ⇒ 00:30:02.470 Uttam Kumaran: you know, MCP servers for… for Drive.
202 00:30:03.030 ⇒ 00:30:07.179 Uttam Kumaran: So as soon as he, like, As soon as he’s,
203 00:30:08.910 ⇒ 00:30:15.579 Uttam Kumaran: as soon as he’s ready, like, we’ll probably end up doing something. But I’m not yet sure what’s gonna happen.
204 00:30:16.510 ⇒ 00:30:17.160 Casie Aviles: Okay.
205 00:30:20.950 ⇒ 00:30:23.089 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I’m not sure if we’re gonna sync it, or…
206 00:30:23.910 ⇒ 00:30:25.499 Casie Aviles: Not sure if we’re gonna sink.
207 00:30:25.500 ⇒ 00:30:27.330 Uttam Kumaran: Or, yeah, MCP, yeah.
208 00:30:27.540 ⇒ 00:30:32.649 Casie Aviles: very… yeah, it’s gonna derate a lot… you know, I think it’s gonna unlock a lot of…
209 00:30:33.410 ⇒ 00:30:36.490 Casie Aviles: Make it easier to, you know, get onboarded.
210 00:30:36.670 ⇒ 00:30:37.850 Casie Aviles: Nice weekend.
211 00:30:38.160 ⇒ 00:30:40.600 Casie Aviles: Unless we’re able to, like, read from these…
212 00:30:42.140 ⇒ 00:30:43.129 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I agree.
213 00:30:51.320 ⇒ 00:31:01.030 Casie Aviles: Yeah, like, even with Lilo right now, I was having, like, documentation inside the repo. I was able to, like, just ask Cursor easily, and…
214 00:31:02.160 ⇒ 00:31:04.270 Casie Aviles: You know, so that’.
215 00:31:04.850 ⇒ 00:31:08.659 Uttam Kumaran: Exactly. So the way you see Lilo is sort of our… probably the latest
216 00:31:09.060 ⇒ 00:31:17.050 Uttam Kumaran: Lilo and Element are probably the two clients where I started adopting this, like, curs… this, like, file-based approach to, like.
217 00:31:17.530 ⇒ 00:31:19.609 Uttam Kumaran: Basically storing everything in there.
218 00:31:19.960 ⇒ 00:31:24.839 Uttam Kumaran: But it is manual right now, like, I still put the transcripts in there and things like that, but…
219 00:31:24.950 ⇒ 00:31:30.689 Uttam Kumaran: eventually, like, straight from Supabase, we’ll probably end up throwing the transcripts into the vault.
220 00:31:31.310 ⇒ 00:31:35.069 Uttam Kumaran: And we probably won’t… Save transcripts.
221 00:31:35.620 ⇒ 00:31:41.320 Uttam Kumaran: to… Each repo, because clients don’t really care about it much.
222 00:31:41.440 ⇒ 00:31:42.240 Uttam Kumaran: You know?
223 00:31:51.140 ⇒ 00:31:52.380 Uttam Kumaran: Next question.
224 00:31:57.220 ⇒ 00:32:00.000 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, Mustafa, it’s yours.
225 00:32:02.000 ⇒ 00:32:04.760 Mustafa Raja: Yeah, so,
226 00:32:05.720 ⇒ 00:32:20.489 Mustafa Raja: So, it’s really regarding this, Notion organization, right? So, I was wondering the other day if we have, for each streams, each work streams, if we have any must-have documents that we should have in our Notion?
227 00:32:20.710 ⇒ 00:32:30.909 Mustafa Raja: I talked about this with Clarence, and he said that, it’s really what I would really need.
228 00:32:31.110 ⇒ 00:32:39.590 Mustafa Raja: In Notion, but it’s really, if you zoom out, what really should be in Notion, you know?
229 00:32:41.280 ⇒ 00:32:46.540 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, I have a better answer then. Usaffa, like.
230 00:32:46.790 ⇒ 00:32:50.229 Clarence Stone: Or, Casey, who was the one that asked the question? Sorry.
231 00:32:50.850 ⇒ 00:32:51.509 Casie Aviles: No stuff.
232 00:32:51.510 ⇒ 00:32:52.890 Mustafa Raja: I…
233 00:32:53.360 ⇒ 00:33:07.480 Clarence Stone: So, my best advice to you, if you’re wondering if you’re missing any crucial documents, is to look at another project of the same type and see what documents were generated as part of that delivery.
234 00:33:08.870 ⇒ 00:33:09.750 Mustafa Raja: Yes.
235 00:33:11.450 ⇒ 00:33:29.869 Clarence Stone: because every project’s gonna be different, it’s gonna be hard for me to say, you need to have, I don’t know, like, an architectural diagram for every project. I mean, that’s not gonna apply, it’s not gonna work, right? So, my best advice is look at a previous project that was of the same type, and, you know, double check that you’re…
236 00:33:29.870 ⇒ 00:33:45.060 Clarence Stone: you’re going through all those documents and you have a version of that, if it’s relevant. And you’ll notice what I, like, what I mean when I say, like, it’s hard to give you a list, because you’re gonna go through that list of the other project and go, only half of this actually applies to me.
237 00:33:45.400 ⇒ 00:33:45.970 Mustafa Raja: Yep.
238 00:33:47.320 ⇒ 00:33:49.649 Mustafa Raja: Okay, okay, I’ll take a look.
239 00:33:50.060 ⇒ 00:33:54.629 Uttam Kumaran: And some clients, like, have a lot of writing, some clients, it’s purely execution.
240 00:33:55.140 ⇒ 00:33:59.339 Uttam Kumaran: Right? And that just sort of depends on the client, like…
241 00:33:59.600 ⇒ 00:34:05.059 Uttam Kumaran: ABC is a lot of… it’s, like, we’re not doing a lot of, like, memo writing.
242 00:34:05.200 ⇒ 00:34:12.880 Uttam Kumaran: And we have, like, one slide, but for Element, we’re doing a lot of writing, so it does really depend on, like, on your client and what they need.
243 00:34:13.590 ⇒ 00:34:22.749 Uttam Kumaran: But again, roughly, the goal of Notion is, like, if someone randomly were to come in, can they get a clear understanding of, like, the project and the status?
244 00:34:23.290 ⇒ 00:34:26.019 Uttam Kumaran: So, like, that’s what you’re solving for, you know?
245 00:34:26.239 ⇒ 00:34:30.640 Uttam Kumaran: Even if you check the box and everything, if it’s sort of, like, all…
246 00:34:30.770 ⇒ 00:34:32.750 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of, like, scattered everywhere.
247 00:34:32.929 ⇒ 00:34:37.470 Uttam Kumaran: Then, you know, it doesn’t really fulfill the check-to-check, you know?
248 00:34:37.989 ⇒ 00:34:38.539 Mustafa Raja: Yep.
249 00:34:41.040 ⇒ 00:34:41.659 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
250 00:34:42.040 ⇒ 00:34:46.239 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I think… is that… I think, Casey, you had one question?
251 00:34:46.790 ⇒ 00:34:49.590 Casie Aviles: Oh, it’s not a real question? Yeah.
252 00:34:49.590 ⇒ 00:34:50.250 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
253 00:34:50.250 ⇒ 00:34:51.840 Casie Aviles: It’s more of just a…
254 00:34:51.989 ⇒ 00:34:58.570 Casie Aviles: I was more of a reflection. But yeah, this, I guess it could also be related to, like, you know.
255 00:34:58.950 ⇒ 00:35:04.080 Casie Aviles: Operating, and how we could better use it to, you know,
256 00:35:05.720 ⇒ 00:35:10.790 Casie Aviles: handle, like, resourcing. I think that’s one area that I’m… I’ve yet to improve.
257 00:35:12.520 ⇒ 00:35:17.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think maybe, Clarence, do you want to… we can spend the rest of the time talking about
258 00:35:17.160 ⇒ 00:35:19.299 Uttam Kumaran: resourcing, I mean, I can give you…
259 00:35:19.460 ⇒ 00:35:25.029 Uttam Kumaran: my view and, like, how we got here. I’m interested in, like, the EY and, like.
260 00:35:25.250 ⇒ 00:35:28.650 Uttam Kumaran: your view? Like, I don’t know what you think is important.
261 00:35:31.260 ⇒ 00:35:49.570 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so I, like, the problem I have with operating is that it has an overlap of data with the Gantt charts and the project plans, but it doesn’t have all the hours, because, you know, if you sit outside of a project or you contribute outside of a project, we’re not collecting that in Gantt, right?
262 00:35:51.410 ⇒ 00:35:56.340 Clarence Stone: So, like, that’s why I operate exists. Is that correct? Am I thinking, Tom?
263 00:35:56.570 ⇒ 00:35:58.110 Uttam Kumaran: No, I mean,
264 00:35:58.260 ⇒ 00:36:12.139 Uttam Kumaran: Well, like, we need to plan… we need to budget and do forecasting, right? Like, Brain Forge, across all of the delivery team members, has X amount of hours. How are we allocating those hours?
265 00:36:12.260 ⇒ 00:36:14.650 Uttam Kumaran: to Y amount of projects.
266 00:36:15.270 ⇒ 00:36:15.830 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
267 00:36:16.020 ⇒ 00:36:17.089 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what we’re operating.
268 00:36:17.090 ⇒ 00:36:35.270 Clarence Stone: It’s on you for, like, this is my suggestion, and by the way, team, like, this is… like, we’re just discussing this live, so it’s not a real thing. But here’s what I’ll propose to you, Tom. I think people need to update their own operate with the projects that they’ve been assigned to and they are on.
269 00:36:35.350 ⇒ 00:36:37.380 Clarence Stone: Because, like.
270 00:36:37.380 ⇒ 00:36:38.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
271 00:36:38.170 ⇒ 00:36:51.280 Clarence Stone: One, it makes you self-aware of, like, hey, this is, like, how my time is being currently allocated, right? And I have, you know, if you notice you have a 20-hour hole, then, you know, you can start looking for work, right?
272 00:36:51.420 ⇒ 00:36:59.919 Clarence Stone: So it adds, like, personal agency and ownership to making sure your time is allocated. And then…
273 00:37:00.040 ⇒ 00:37:00.900 Clarence Stone: like…
274 00:37:01.080 ⇒ 00:37:16.430 Clarence Stone: the benefit here, Utam, is that the operations team really focuses on getting people with those extra hours, you know, assigned to projects, instead of having to chase people down, asking them, like, what is your actual availability?
275 00:37:17.810 ⇒ 00:37:29.050 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I agree. Like, operating was… is our main place for us to say, like, look, we have 15, 16 projects, and we have X amount of people, and so what is our…
276 00:37:29.230 ⇒ 00:37:39.959 Uttam Kumaran: what is our utilization rate, and, like, what are the projects coming up that we need to staff? So I do think that I would like to give… EPs, basically, should be able to look at
277 00:37:40.120 ⇒ 00:37:41.120 Uttam Kumaran: the…
278 00:37:41.500 ⇒ 00:37:55.600 Uttam Kumaran: staffing in terms of hours on their projects. And then be able to say, like, cool, my operating is set up in that, like, all of the people on my team are assigned and operating, and the hours that they’re asked to work
279 00:37:55.650 ⇒ 00:38:03.039 Uttam Kumaran: are put in there, at least for… on a monthly basis. And then the ops team, really, the way that surfaces is that, like, we get to see a view of, like.
280 00:38:03.120 ⇒ 00:38:07.200 Uttam Kumaran: okay, certain… some people are unallocated. Right now, I’m doing that in my head.
281 00:38:07.350 ⇒ 00:38:15.080 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I know everybody in the company, I know who’s working where, and I have a general sense of, like, this person has time versus this person doesn’t have time.
282 00:38:15.080 ⇒ 00:38:27.460 Uttam Kumaran: I can’t, like, I shouldn’t be doing this in my head, like, it should be in a system, basically. So, that’s the goal, and then there’s… there’s a good chance that we consolidate Clockify, because operating is releasing time tracking features.
283 00:38:27.740 ⇒ 00:38:30.679 Uttam Kumaran: So there’s a good chance that we…
284 00:38:30.990 ⇒ 00:38:35.559 Uttam Kumaran: we handle that. There’s a good chance that we end up building our own, like, time tracking thing, too.
285 00:38:35.700 ⇒ 00:38:40.089 Uttam Kumaran: Eventually, because the tools are kind of mediocre anyways.
286 00:38:40.380 ⇒ 00:38:43.870 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, that’s… that’s the big thing.
287 00:38:49.160 ⇒ 00:38:55.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so… I feel like… I feel like, yeah, I think, Rico, it’s on you and ops team to sort of get everyone set up in there.
288 00:38:55.610 ⇒ 00:38:58.120 Uttam Kumaran: If you’re having challenges, just let me know.
289 00:38:58.670 ⇒ 00:38:59.180 Rico Rejoso: Yep.
290 00:39:03.270 ⇒ 00:39:04.220 Uttam Kumaran: What else?
291 00:39:10.330 ⇒ 00:39:13.359 Uttam Kumaran: I think one thing, Clarence, is maybe we should schedule, like.
292 00:39:13.770 ⇒ 00:39:17.990 Uttam Kumaran: A time where we’re gonna do, like, that first, like, check of all… of all projects.
293 00:39:18.160 ⇒ 00:39:21.129 Uttam Kumaran: And maybe it can be kind of more scheduled.
294 00:39:21.390 ⇒ 00:39:25.860 Uttam Kumaran: Versus, like, I know in the document we have, like, It’s gonna be random.
295 00:39:26.220 ⇒ 00:39:27.609 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know what you think.
296 00:39:28.390 ⇒ 00:39:33.770 Clarence Stone: If you want to schedule and hook people up, that’s fine by me.
297 00:39:35.440 ⇒ 00:39:41.949 Uttam Kumaran: I would schedule it, just the first one, just so it’s like, okay, by this point, this is when we’re gonna sort of check
298 00:39:42.060 ⇒ 00:39:43.020 Uttam Kumaran: That way.
299 00:39:43.390 ⇒ 00:39:48.330 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t… I think, like, maybe end of the month is probably a good place, or at least… and then next week.
300 00:39:48.530 ⇒ 00:39:51.559 Clarence Stone: Yeah. For people to continue to ask for questions.
301 00:39:52.010 ⇒ 00:39:55.950 Uttam Kumaran: Because everybody’s still working on clients, so I know it’s not easy to get everything done.
302 00:39:57.390 ⇒ 00:40:12.899 Uttam Kumaran: But the nice thing is, like, look, you’re not updating an architecture diagram, like, all the time, you’re not updating a Gantt, like, every single day. So as soon as, like, you get one of these done, most of the work should really be in linear, and then every month or every two weeks, there’s, like, some
303 00:40:13.890 ⇒ 00:40:15.560 Uttam Kumaran: Maintenance stuff, you know?
304 00:40:16.300 ⇒ 00:40:17.000 Uttam Kumaran: So…
305 00:40:17.730 ⇒ 00:40:20.859 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so how about week of 26th?
306 00:40:23.680 ⇒ 00:40:29.020 Clarence Stone: If the ops team, you guys can help me schedule meetings with each EP.
307 00:40:29.530 ⇒ 00:40:31.830 Clarence Stone: To do a document.
308 00:40:32.490 ⇒ 00:40:35.070 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, or we should just do it in this call.
309 00:40:35.570 ⇒ 00:40:39.529 Clarence Stone: Yeah, we can do it on this call, but, like, are we gonna have enough time for everybody?
310 00:40:39.870 ⇒ 00:40:47.060 Clarence Stone: I would try it, why not? Let’s actually, yeah, I would prefer to not add more meetings, so I’m with you on that.
311 00:40:47.060 ⇒ 00:40:52.469 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I would prefer to just do it in this call, and that way we can just go through everybody’s stuff and, like, get feedback.
312 00:40:53.100 ⇒ 00:41:01.590 Uttam Kumaran: And Clarence, like, your job will be… because I really want you, because you don’t have any understanding of a lot of our existing client projects, so it would be helpful for you to go through
313 00:41:01.900 ⇒ 00:41:06.239 Uttam Kumaran: And be like, okay, I have clarity on what it is we’re doing, like, what the timeline is.
314 00:41:06.460 ⇒ 00:41:07.549 Uttam Kumaran: Things like that.
315 00:41:08.140 ⇒ 00:41:14.100 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so I mean, let’s just extend next week and the week after’s meeting to an hour.
316 00:41:14.100 ⇒ 00:41:14.670 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
317 00:41:14.920 ⇒ 00:41:20.060 Clarence Stone: Right? And we can do an audit. Yeah.
318 00:41:20.320 ⇒ 00:41:21.230 Clarence Stone: That works for me.
319 00:41:21.230 ⇒ 00:41:21.800 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
320 00:41:23.300 ⇒ 00:41:24.030 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
321 00:41:26.070 ⇒ 00:41:26.750 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
322 00:41:27.610 ⇒ 00:41:31.080 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, that’s really all I had, guys, so,
323 00:41:32.240 ⇒ 00:41:35.319 Uttam Kumaran: I think with that, we’re probably good, unless there’s any other questions.
324 00:41:40.110 ⇒ 00:41:40.880 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
325 00:41:41.240 ⇒ 00:41:43.010 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, Ben, I’ll talk to you guys at Slack.
326 00:41:45.310 ⇒ 00:41:45.890 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you.
327 00:41:50.540 ⇒ 00:41:51.400 Mustafa Raja: Thank you.