Meeting Title: Brainforge SL Role Transition Check-in Date: 2026-01-16 Meeting participants: Awaish Kumar, Clarence Stone, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:01:27.360 ⇒ 00:01:28.550 Clarence Stone: Hey, Waish!
2 00:01:32.460 ⇒ 00:01:33.700 Awaish Kumar: Hmm, hello.
3 00:01:34.750 ⇒ 00:01:35.730 Clarence Stone: How’s it going?
4 00:01:36.180 ⇒ 00:01:37.629 Awaish Kumar: All good, how about you?
5 00:01:39.010 ⇒ 00:01:41.789 Clarence Stone: It’s been so busy!
6 00:01:44.240 ⇒ 00:01:47.749 Clarence Stone: Let me tell him, I thought you weren’t get… He’s not connected yet.
7 00:01:56.870 ⇒ 00:02:00.010 Clarence Stone: Oh, he’s still connecting, wow.
8 00:02:05.990 ⇒ 00:02:10.530 Clarence Stone: So, how about you? How was your week, Awash?
9 00:02:11.559 ⇒ 00:02:23.599 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, it was good. It was… Yeah, it’s been expanding… times, on… on… clients like Element Hero.
10 00:02:24.449 ⇒ 00:02:30.559 Awaish Kumar: And, yeah, we’re… Meeting with different, like, team members.
11 00:02:32.359 ⇒ 00:02:41.609 Awaish Kumar: For pair, like, pair programming, or, like, kind of… Escalating through issues, helping them…
12 00:02:43.520 ⇒ 00:02:49.969 Clarence Stone: So, out of curiosity, do you get a lot of people reaching out to you for coding help and peer programming?
13 00:02:50.890 ⇒ 00:02:58.340 Awaish Kumar: That’s what… The… yeah, I’m… I’m finding the…
14 00:02:59.240 ⇒ 00:03:05.380 Awaish Kumar: blockers, where I can see, like, okay, they’re… they need help, or it might…
15 00:03:06.500 ⇒ 00:03:09.389 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, but I’m not seeing that,
16 00:03:10.710 ⇒ 00:03:15.869 Awaish Kumar: From the people to, like, just go ask for it, or something like that, so…
17 00:03:15.870 ⇒ 00:03:16.270 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
18 00:03:16.270 ⇒ 00:03:20.010 Awaish Kumar: like, more of a identify… if I identify something and I…
19 00:03:20.600 ⇒ 00:03:23.220 Awaish Kumar: ask, like, okay, let’s spell on it.
20 00:03:23.540 ⇒ 00:03:28.820 Awaish Kumar: That’s how it’s… mostly, like, How it’s going, apart from…
21 00:03:29.350 ⇒ 00:03:32.289 Awaish Kumar: Like, rare cases where people reach out.
22 00:03:32.690 ⇒ 00:03:38.490 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, that’s… Where? But I, like, ideally, I want them to, like.
23 00:03:38.710 ⇒ 00:03:39.360 Clarence Stone: Yeah!
24 00:03:40.090 ⇒ 00:03:48.890 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so I agree with you. Let’s talk a little bit about that, right? I think people should have the maturity to say.
25 00:03:48.980 ⇒ 00:04:04.209 Clarence Stone: I’m not sure if I’m doing this the right way, I should reach out to Awash and get his feedback. Instead of you looking at their code and saying, whoa, I’m not approving your pull request, because, you know, so,
26 00:04:04.740 ⇒ 00:04:13.269 Clarence Stone: And the reason, so my perspective, like, I like to share my values more than, like, you know, what to do, because I want you to know why, right?
27 00:04:15.120 ⇒ 00:04:30.509 Clarence Stone: I recently… it was… it was… okay, it’s a while ago. It was in 2021. After COVID, they didn’t have enough people to teach front-end development and UX design at UT, so I was an adjunct professor for two semesters.
28 00:04:31.140 ⇒ 00:04:32.230 Clarence Stone: And…
29 00:04:32.420 ⇒ 00:04:47.850 Clarence Stone: I never thought that I would enjoy doing it. I never thought that I would, like, how much, it would mean to people to, you know, give your advice, but my whole journey doing that helped me realize that when you’re good.
30 00:04:47.850 ⇒ 00:04:58.250 Clarence Stone: Right? At what you do. The next level is being able to teach the next group of people the future of your career path, the future of your profession.
31 00:04:58.280 ⇒ 00:04:59.470 Clarence Stone: what you know.
32 00:04:59.950 ⇒ 00:05:10.330 Clarence Stone: Right? And it’s sort of like levels. As you get really good, it’s like, hey, the only way to make things better is to make more people who know the things that I know.
33 00:05:10.430 ⇒ 00:05:17.340 Clarence Stone: Right. So, of all the things that, SLs are doing,
34 00:05:18.530 ⇒ 00:05:23.689 Clarence Stone: When it comes to, like, internal… priorities, I think
35 00:05:23.790 ⇒ 00:05:35.310 Clarence Stone: this is one of the most important things that you guys could be doing, which is, like, giving your time to help develop talent, right? So, I personally think this is,
36 00:05:35.770 ⇒ 00:05:41.630 Clarence Stone: you know, stewarding the profession is key. So, with that in mind, you know.
37 00:05:41.830 ⇒ 00:05:44.590 Clarence Stone: How do we get people to reach out to you instead?
38 00:05:44.820 ⇒ 00:05:46.720 Clarence Stone: Is the question, right?
39 00:05:46.930 ⇒ 00:05:49.040 Awaish Kumar: Do you have any thoughts on it?
40 00:05:50.070 ⇒ 00:05:58.649 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like, I don’t know, I… I, like, I… if we can take an example, like, we have an issue in Eden.
41 00:05:58.960 ⇒ 00:06:06.709 Awaish Kumar: For a client, Eden. There they want to create an ETL to get data from a marketing platform to
42 00:06:07.770 ⇒ 00:06:17.100 Awaish Kumar: to warehouse. That connector isn’t working, right? So we assign one of our team members there to work on it. Now.
43 00:06:17.300 ⇒ 00:06:24.290 Awaish Kumar: It has been, like… Like, to and fro between, like, the…
44 00:06:26.270 ⇒ 00:06:34.169 Awaish Kumar: the client, the… our team, and then the connector team, and the Polytomic, so they are discussing quite a few things.
45 00:06:34.310 ⇒ 00:06:41.709 Awaish Kumar: But, like, when I ask, like, how’s it going? All good, but when I see it, like, I don’t see, like, the…
46 00:06:42.140 ⇒ 00:06:46.790 Awaish Kumar: The… enough effort has been put into resolving that, like.
47 00:06:46.910 ⇒ 00:06:53.720 Awaish Kumar: what I’m seeing is, okay, I got… did read this, okay, let’s ask Polytomic, but it’s just an API request, like.
48 00:06:54.010 ⇒ 00:06:59.480 Awaish Kumar: We can do that, like, send it to Paris, get the response, send it back. We don’t need polyatomic for that.
49 00:06:59.850 ⇒ 00:07:00.420 Clarence Stone: Yep.
50 00:07:01.080 ⇒ 00:07:02.020 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Cool.
51 00:07:02.530 ⇒ 00:07:06.669 Awaish Kumar: And, yeah, then when I just… if I just say, okay, let’s pair.
52 00:07:07.340 ⇒ 00:07:10.899 Awaish Kumar: then they might join, but if I say, okay, if you need help.
53 00:07:11.100 ⇒ 00:07:13.730 Awaish Kumar: Like, I get… okay, no, I don’t need it.
54 00:07:13.730 ⇒ 00:07:16.500 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah. So,
55 00:07:17.660 ⇒ 00:07:35.360 Clarence Stone: so much to talk about here. So, one, you didn’t just discover a, you know, technical issue, you actually found a process issue, right? Because the description that you’re giving me is like, oh, we’re passing, you know, information through.
56 00:07:35.360 ⇒ 00:07:45.430 Clarence Stone: other teams that we didn’t have to, right? Which slowed things down overall, right? So, by the way, Oish, that is, like, a talent that…
57 00:07:45.430 ⇒ 00:08:04.130 Clarence Stone: you get as a engagement planner, right? But you already have it. You have that instinct that, hey, there’s a better process, there’s a better way to do it, right? Because you understand the technology behind it. So, my first advice is, you should tell your SL and CSOs, EP and CSO.
58 00:08:04.130 ⇒ 00:08:13.310 Clarence Stone: Like, hey, I saw this, like, can you guys, you know, if there’s a process that doesn’t seem right, and it’s taking too long, like, let’s talk about it next time, right?
59 00:08:13.360 ⇒ 00:08:18.679 Clarence Stone: And then two is… like… This is so hard to teach.
60 00:08:19.450 ⇒ 00:08:24.300 Clarence Stone: Right? Like, what you observed, and, like, the way you solved the problem.
61 00:08:24.610 ⇒ 00:08:43.449 Clarence Stone: And I think that’s my biggest challenge right now. Like, we are trying to teach that to the team. So, you know, any ideas or, you know, perspectives on how we can pass that along would be valuable. Because we’re in that moment, we’re going to scale a lot of people up, right?
62 00:08:43.919 ⇒ 00:08:50.539 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, so… Like, in… How can we help, right?
63 00:08:51.329 ⇒ 00:09:02.049 Awaish Kumar: like, how can I teach that? Like, so in my point of view, like, that… the things what I’ve been trying, like, I’m, like,
64 00:09:04.229 ⇒ 00:09:09.889 Awaish Kumar: So, number, like… like, obviously, I… I don’t want to say there’s one…
65 00:09:10.029 ⇒ 00:09:13.759 Awaish Kumar: Article or one thing which you can just show to them, and they’ll learn.
66 00:09:13.760 ⇒ 00:09:15.140 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
67 00:09:15.140 ⇒ 00:09:27.150 Awaish Kumar: But I think, like, I’ve been trying, like, for example, I started with, okay, let’s… with a polite way of saying, okay, I think if you need help, like, just ping me.
68 00:09:27.620 ⇒ 00:09:32.879 Awaish Kumar: we can meet on this, we can pair on this. From that, I started doing now, like.
69 00:09:33.050 ⇒ 00:09:37.759 Awaish Kumar: okay, let’s pair, like, okay, like, then I can just go in and say, okay.
70 00:09:37.890 ⇒ 00:09:50.230 Awaish Kumar: we… we are going to follow this, like, this process, like, there are… these are the next steps, like, step one, you will do that, step two, step three, and then we ask…
71 00:09:50.450 ⇒ 00:09:52.159 Awaish Kumar: Their portfolio, like…
72 00:09:52.480 ⇒ 00:10:02.769 Awaish Kumar: Like, for that, like, but I do mention that we are going to follow that, process for, like, anything in future, but yeah, like…
73 00:10:03.210 ⇒ 00:10:07.449 Awaish Kumar: Well, I think it’s just… it will go with the… I like it.
74 00:10:07.830 ⇒ 00:10:12.040 Awaish Kumar: While we keep on doing this for a few times, it will just get across.
75 00:10:12.500 ⇒ 00:10:22.550 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, one of the most powerful tools that you have as a service leader to have oversight and awareness of this
76 00:10:22.770 ⇒ 00:10:26.049 Clarence Stone: Happening, is your stand-ups.
77 00:10:26.340 ⇒ 00:10:27.400 Clarence Stone: Right?
78 00:10:27.580 ⇒ 00:10:52.539 Clarence Stone: on stand-up, you have the opportunity to get off the floor to talk to anybody, and even though I gave you a format, it doesn’t mean that you can… it doesn’t mean you have to stick to it, right? So, if you think, you know, certain things aren’t moving quickly or not, like, feel free to use stand-up to also ask questions. Right? So, for example, I just… off the top of my head, I thought of two really good ones.
79 00:10:52.540 ⇒ 00:10:58.730 Clarence Stone: I think, like, you should ask the team, you know, did anything take longer than you thought it should this week?
80 00:11:01.520 ⇒ 00:11:11.030 Clarence Stone: Right? Now, at this point, you’re not asking if people need help, you’re not asking for any of it, you’re just saying, did you think, you know, that something took longer than it should have?
81 00:11:11.380 ⇒ 00:11:18.009 Clarence Stone: Right, maybe they’ll be honest with you and tell you, yeah, this doesn’t seem right, but I just did it that way.
82 00:11:18.290 ⇒ 00:11:19.160 Clarence Stone: Right.
83 00:11:19.660 ⇒ 00:11:28.650 Clarence Stone: Cause I’m… it… I think you’re right, we can’t give a process, a checklist, or, you know.
84 00:11:28.810 ⇒ 00:11:38.249 Clarence Stone: to solve this. There’s no way, right? But what we can do is try to get people to think more like you.
85 00:11:39.790 ⇒ 00:11:44.970 Clarence Stone: Right, so I took your scenario, and I said, oh, like, Oish found an efficiency, because
86 00:11:45.050 ⇒ 00:12:02.379 Clarence Stone: he saw an inefficiency, right? He saw that there was something that’s inefficient. So maybe you can ask the team, you know, maybe it’s a slow stand-up, and you have some time at the end. You should say, okay, I just have one question for every single group here, you know, did anything take longer than you think it should this week?
87 00:12:02.540 ⇒ 00:12:16.699 Clarence Stone: I have another, another one. This, this I actually ask for… so I… I’m coaching an AI team, like, as a consultant. So, for this team, every week, I ask them one question only.
88 00:12:16.910 ⇒ 00:12:20.369 Clarence Stone: And by the way, they do weekly sprints, Oish.
89 00:12:20.880 ⇒ 00:12:27.800 Clarence Stone: So I said, on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the efficiency of your work this week?
90 00:12:30.370 ⇒ 00:12:32.960 Clarence Stone: Right, 10 being it was very efficient.
91 00:12:33.220 ⇒ 00:12:35.440 Awaish Kumar: One being not efficient.
92 00:12:35.710 ⇒ 00:12:44.379 Clarence Stone: And this week was actually really good. Somebody… somebody said, I rate myself a 7.5. And I said, how do I get you to a 10?
93 00:12:44.460 ⇒ 00:12:56.970 Clarence Stone: Right? Because that’s my goal as a consultant. I was like, I’m going to get you going faster, right? I want to hear a 10 every time. If it’s not a 10, I have to find out why, right? So, he says 7.5. I said, why?
94 00:12:57.430 ⇒ 00:13:04.200 Clarence Stone: It’s like, well… I… I’ve been running agents on Cloud Code, right? And…
95 00:13:04.570 ⇒ 00:13:17.540 Clarence Stone: the agents are taking very long to run. So, as I’m… as one of them is done, you know, like, I have to drop everything that I’m doing, and then make sure that that’s, you know, respond to that agent.
96 00:13:17.850 ⇒ 00:13:18.700 Clarence Stone: Right.
97 00:13:19.180 ⇒ 00:13:28.820 Clarence Stone: And I was like, so are you using MD files? Are you setting up a plan? Are you, you know, doing any of these tricks to get,
98 00:13:28.930 ⇒ 00:13:31.219 Clarence Stone: Opus 4.5 in a loop.
99 00:13:31.970 ⇒ 00:13:34.270 Clarence Stone: And he’s like, what’s that?
100 00:13:34.480 ⇒ 00:13:44.119 Clarence Stone: Right? I’m like, okay, let’s talk about code planning, right? So, you know, when you ask questions like this, the hope is that
101 00:13:44.190 ⇒ 00:13:55.649 Clarence Stone: whoever’s on the other side is going to give you an answer that you can pick at, right? Because they’re… like, yeah, if you just ask a question of, how can I help you, what can I do for you? Generally.
102 00:13:55.650 ⇒ 00:14:09.310 Clarence Stone: you’re not gonna get a very, you know, specific answer. So, that’s my only, tool in my toolkit, is to ask good questions, and asking good questions, or think… even ideating good questions is so hard.
103 00:14:10.300 ⇒ 00:14:27.210 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, it’s even, like, yeah, your scenario applies, like, when I don’t… like, when I’m not talking to a specific thing, like, when I’m in stand-up and I can ask, like, okay, did something take longer than usual, or how the sprint is going, things like that, but…
104 00:14:27.560 ⇒ 00:14:28.480 Awaish Kumar: Like…
105 00:14:28.700 ⇒ 00:14:37.660 Awaish Kumar: in the scenario I shared, like, there is an issue, I’m saying it, I’m just asking for that, like, okay, do you want to care about this?
106 00:14:38.040 ⇒ 00:14:41.760 Awaish Kumar: I don’t hear, like, okay, yes.
107 00:14:42.240 ⇒ 00:14:52.490 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah, so if nobody answers, right, so you can say, like, hey, did anything take longer than you think it should? Nobody answers, right? You can say, well, I found something.
108 00:14:53.790 ⇒ 00:14:55.739 Clarence Stone: Right? Here’s what I saw.
109 00:14:56.200 ⇒ 00:15:01.219 Clarence Stone: Here’s how it could have gotten faster. Does anyone have any other, you know, suggestions?
110 00:15:01.700 ⇒ 00:15:09.010 Clarence Stone: Right? Because, I, I, like… 8.
111 00:15:09.280 ⇒ 00:15:18.589 Clarence Stone: I don’t know where, like, where people came from, like, where they used to work before, but normally when there’s questions like this, people think they’re gonna get fired, they’re gonna get in trouble.
112 00:15:18.750 ⇒ 00:15:37.329 Clarence Stone: Right? And it’s not about that here. We’re not trying to get anybody in trouble, we’re just trying to be better, right? And it’s so hard to get better unless we’re honest and we, like, communicate and, you know, share information with each other. So, hopefully we can continue to grow that culture where we share information freely.
113 00:15:42.540 ⇒ 00:16:00.399 Clarence Stone: Okay, so I don’t think Utam’s gonna be here, so, let me get… there is an objective to this meeting. So, Oweish, what Utam and I have been doing is we’ve set up one-on-ones with every single person that got promoted into a lead role this year.
114 00:16:00.940 ⇒ 00:16:08.759 Clarence Stone: Right. And the goal of these one-on-ones is to, one, make sure that you understand everything in your role.
115 00:16:08.830 ⇒ 00:16:24.419 Clarence Stone: Right? Two, understand that we’re here to help and support you, right? And three, is to ask you for your feedback on how things are going. Because, you know, we see things externally, but you’re the one running the day-to-day, stand-up. So,
116 00:16:24.480 ⇒ 00:16:33.349 Clarence Stone: the outcomes that we’re hoping for is, like, validation from you that, hey, I understand my role, you know, things are going well. Two,
117 00:16:33.350 ⇒ 00:16:48.660 Clarence Stone: getting some feedback from you on what else we can do to help you at your new role. If it’s creating new SOPs, if it’s creating new meetings, it’s creating… getting you access to tools, right? We can do all of those things. So,
118 00:16:48.880 ⇒ 00:16:55.120 Clarence Stone: really, this time is for us to connect on that topic. So, I guess let’s go top to bottom.
119 00:16:55.460 ⇒ 00:17:09.240 Clarence Stone: How’s it feeling as an SL? I feel like you’re one of the people who have already been doing the job, practically, right? So you got some practice before everyone else. But it’s official now. How does it feel? How’s it going?
120 00:17:10.930 ⇒ 00:17:20.689 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, it’s… it’s going well, like, it… it has always been going, well, like, in terms of what I am doing, and…
121 00:17:20.890 ⇒ 00:17:29.200 Awaish Kumar: But the… Yeah, like, okay, there are a few things where I don’t see how to…
122 00:17:29.430 ⇒ 00:17:31.790 Awaish Kumar: Actually, I… how to, like…
123 00:17:32.040 ⇒ 00:17:50.769 Awaish Kumar: like, show it in a tangible format. Like, I’m doing this stuff, I’m… sometimes, maybe I meet with people on Slack or something, but it’s not always possible that everybody goes on Slack and… Yeah.
124 00:17:51.420 ⇒ 00:18:08.489 Awaish Kumar: like, for example, like, shout out or something, right? So I… like, but… and that is… isn’t, like, that’s… I don’t know if… if, like, you or Utam or anybody knows that, for example, I… I met with people, but, like, there’s no…
125 00:18:08.960 ⇒ 00:18:11.930 Awaish Kumar: Linear ticket, like, monitoring.
126 00:18:11.930 ⇒ 00:18:13.280 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
127 00:18:13.280 ⇒ 00:18:15.830 Awaish Kumar: in that, yeah? So, yeah.
128 00:18:15.830 ⇒ 00:18:17.460 Clarence Stone: So, Uta.
129 00:18:17.460 ⇒ 00:18:18.090 Awaish Kumar: Oh, okay.
130 00:18:18.090 ⇒ 00:18:25.080 Clarence Stone: Tom and I are aware that you’re meeting with people, because we do get some analytics on, Zoom.
131 00:18:25.080 ⇒ 00:18:40.299 Clarence Stone: And, as well as, like, just, like, chat rates on Slack and stuff like that. So, we do know. And, you know, on top of that, others have said that you’ve been a true technical leader, helping them with a lot of things when they’re stuck, so…
132 00:18:40.300 ⇒ 00:18:45.150 Clarence Stone: I hope you know that we are observing, definitely, you know, your contributions.
133 00:18:45.870 ⇒ 00:19:00.360 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I know the Zoom, but, like, I… there are a few things, like, like, I… like, normally setting up a meeting is much more, like, it takes time, like, just go there and Slack, like, when you’re in Slack, you just put a…
134 00:19:00.460 ⇒ 00:19:02.989 Awaish Kumar: Slack hurdle and start off. Yeah.
135 00:19:03.210 ⇒ 00:19:20.289 Awaish Kumar: So, like, I do that sometimes. So, like, at the same, maybe there’s, like, the same, the rate as, like, going to Zoom, maybe, like, Misfa or somebody wants to talk to me, for a minute, like, we can just meet, on Slack.
136 00:19:20.520 ⇒ 00:19:26.409 Awaish Kumar: And second, like, that’s what I’m saying is that, like, I’m doing… trying to do my job.
137 00:19:26.550 ⇒ 00:19:29.130 Awaish Kumar: And then I’d, like,
138 00:19:29.370 ⇒ 00:19:36.160 Awaish Kumar: I don’t know how, like, maybe we don’t… right now, we don’t have any… anywhere where we fit in, like.
139 00:19:36.470 ⇒ 00:19:39.510 Awaish Kumar: Something like, to formalize it.
140 00:19:40.290 ⇒ 00:19:42.310 Awaish Kumar: In terms of outcomes.
141 00:19:42.940 ⇒ 00:19:56.579 Awaish Kumar: But apart from that, if I’m meeting, like, the stand-ups are going well, if I just give feedback on the people I’m meeting with, like, right now, I think everybody has
142 00:19:56.740 ⇒ 00:20:05.300 Awaish Kumar: Much more clarity, because the way we have structured our… Stand-ups, like, everybody, not…
143 00:20:06.120 ⇒ 00:20:17.240 Awaish Kumar: So, things are now tied, like, to customer success. That was not happening before, which is, I think, really was a challenge, and so, like, two things…
144 00:20:17.690 ⇒ 00:20:24.339 Awaish Kumar: Which has been done in this new structure, which are really… I think…
145 00:20:24.740 ⇒ 00:20:39.259 Awaish Kumar: I’ve been with Utam and Robert for some… for quite a long time now, so I think the issues we have faced in the past, like, is more, like, customer success, and then, like, delivering, actually showcasing your work to clients, like, okay.
146 00:20:39.260 ⇒ 00:20:45.090 Awaish Kumar: team worked on some things, like, Robert was busy in sales, he come back, and…
147 00:20:45.150 ⇒ 00:20:56.969 Awaish Kumar: Like, you don’t know what was done, how to share those wins with the client, but this new structure is really making a difference in that, because now everybody’s owning their own.
148 00:20:57.170 ⇒ 00:20:58.670 Clarence Stone: Part, like.
149 00:20:58.920 ⇒ 00:21:04.760 Awaish Kumar: Like, for example, at Element, I’m the one, like,
150 00:21:05.070 ⇒ 00:21:19.009 Awaish Kumar: although the Utam is CSO, I’m also trying to help him, like, okay, what I get gauge from the meeting, what are the to-dos, like, how to then go back and create a deck for the client, and what should be the agenda, so, like…
151 00:21:19.160 ⇒ 00:21:34.049 Awaish Kumar: although he’s the final approver, like, I’m also putting a lot of efforts into it, and everybody’s doing it on their clients, like Demi, or Mustafa, or whoever is in their role, like, they are on Magic Spoon CTA, everybody’s…
152 00:21:34.130 ⇒ 00:21:42.040 Awaish Kumar: filling that out for, for example, for Rotam, or for Robert. So, like, And, and,
153 00:21:42.160 ⇒ 00:21:45.709 Awaish Kumar: It catches… it is also catching everything now that…
154 00:21:45.910 ⇒ 00:21:52.909 Awaish Kumar: Because the people who is working on the… who are working on the client are actually filling in, like, what was the… what were the wins?
155 00:21:53.020 ⇒ 00:21:59.920 Awaish Kumar: Okay, the language might not be the best, like, maybe we’ll find it, but…
156 00:22:00.430 ⇒ 00:22:03.860 Awaish Kumar: Like, the people are now feeling that, so…
157 00:22:04.530 ⇒ 00:22:10.159 Awaish Kumar: Like, the team knows how customer is feeling, so that gap is bridged.
158 00:22:10.310 ⇒ 00:22:23.190 Awaish Kumar: So, the customer knows what the team is doing and what are the wins. So that, I think, is… and apart from that, like, the stand-up, also, like, on a broader
159 00:22:24.010 ⇒ 00:22:32.529 Awaish Kumar: like, if Utam, or I… me as a wrestle, like, if I, as a wrestle, want to know the overall view of the data clients.
160 00:22:32.970 ⇒ 00:22:35.769 Awaish Kumar: We can easily, like, get it from,
161 00:22:36.310 ⇒ 00:22:41.320 Awaish Kumar: from this stand-up. So, these are the real, changes, and the…
162 00:22:41.440 ⇒ 00:22:46.270 Awaish Kumar: like, in a good way, like, which are really making the difference that I can see.
163 00:22:46.270 ⇒ 00:22:51.339 Clarence Stone: Nice, nice. Are there any challenges so far?
164 00:22:52.910 ⇒ 00:23:03.430 Awaish Kumar: challenges I already shared, like, it’s, yeah, it’s not in terms of, like, stand-up, or it’s also not, not in, like, in terms of,
165 00:23:04.350 ⇒ 00:23:13.319 Awaish Kumar: technical things, like that. Like, everybody’s, like, well skilled, but sometimes the process could be…
166 00:23:14.840 ⇒ 00:23:18.379 Awaish Kumar: much better, or, like, as I mentioned, like, when we are…
167 00:23:18.580 ⇒ 00:23:22.239 Awaish Kumar: Like, the friction of meeting someone, friction of…
168 00:23:22.450 ⇒ 00:23:27.890 Awaish Kumar: like, calling someone for help is… that’s what I want to resolve.
169 00:23:28.050 ⇒ 00:23:28.910 Clarence Stone: Fair enough.
170 00:23:29.050 ⇒ 00:23:32.449 Awaish Kumar: So I don’t, like, I want everybody in the team, if they…
171 00:23:33.620 ⇒ 00:23:53.000 Awaish Kumar: feel stuck, like, okay, just get on a call. So, like, what was happening? Like, that is a change which I need, and it’s still like what it was before. So, with the new structure, that hasn’t changed. So, I’ll just tell you what is… what has not changed. So, Utam.
172 00:23:53.270 ⇒ 00:23:58.959 Awaish Kumar: like, previously, like, mostly, if I’m on the clients, and
173 00:23:59.280 ⇒ 00:24:08.690 Awaish Kumar: Everybody’s on their clients, and then somebody’s stuck, nobody noticed, and then what happens is that, like, some… when the drop, like, the ball drops.
174 00:24:09.060 ⇒ 00:24:22.909 Awaish Kumar: Otam or Robert, like, comes here, come in, like, okay, like, the client is not feeling well, or they have escalated this issue, and how is it going? Like, it’s… this is lingering here for a few weeks now, like, what’s going on?
175 00:24:23.580 ⇒ 00:24:27.870 Awaish Kumar: And then we, basically, everybody just said, just, like.
176 00:24:28.500 ⇒ 00:24:31.330 Awaish Kumar: Gets on that issue and solves it.
177 00:24:31.720 ⇒ 00:24:33.770 Awaish Kumar: And… and that…
178 00:24:33.930 ⇒ 00:24:40.560 Awaish Kumar: thing is still in that way. Like, other few things I told you, like, they have improved.
179 00:24:40.560 ⇒ 00:24:42.769 Clarence Stone: This thing is still in that way, like.
180 00:24:42.770 ⇒ 00:24:52.579 Awaish Kumar: maybe now I’m the one trying to see if there’s a friction, and maybe try to escalate it, but I’m still not seeing it from… coming from the team.
181 00:24:53.200 ⇒ 00:24:54.790 Clarence Stone: Gotcha.
182 00:24:55.850 ⇒ 00:25:05.510 Clarence Stone: Okay, I’ve got some follow-up questions, because you’re right, I never changed that process, right? By the way, when I created this, like.
183 00:25:05.750 ⇒ 00:25:23.039 Clarence Stone: new style of working, I was very afraid of changing anything at all. Like, I want it to be as close to what it was before, but make everybody have ownership, and… and become a leader so that they’re sharing in the
184 00:25:23.040 ⇒ 00:25:26.749 Clarence Stone: The delivery and customer satisfaction aspect of things.
185 00:25:26.750 ⇒ 00:25:31.939 Clarence Stone: So, here’s some, like, questions that come to mind. One,
186 00:25:32.060 ⇒ 00:25:41.749 Clarence Stone: Just out of curiosity, how much time is, like, you checking on other people’s work and spotting these deficiencies?
187 00:25:41.940 ⇒ 00:25:49.640 Clarence Stone: like, just, you know, just a guesstimate. It doesn’t have to be, like, you don’t have to give me an exact number, but, like, how much of, like, percentage-wise your time is this taking.
188 00:25:49.640 ⇒ 00:25:58.390 Awaish Kumar: No, I… so right now, I haven’t… I wouldn’t say, like, I’ve started putting a lot of time into it. So, what’s happening right now is…
189 00:26:00.690 ⇒ 00:26:16.369 Awaish Kumar: for… for, like, it’s still regarding the clients which… where I have worked on, or I’m working actively. I’m not still not talking about the new clients, so it’s, like, Eden, or something, it’s in the…
190 00:26:17.090 ⇒ 00:26:23.929 Awaish Kumar: like, ABC, or somewhere I have contributed something, and now that…
191 00:26:23.970 ⇒ 00:26:37.219 Awaish Kumar: I have a little bit of know-how. I’m spotting those issues, maybe in the stand-up, maybe in the Slack, or maybe I just got randomly pulled in once, and then I am following that thread.
192 00:26:37.420 ⇒ 00:26:38.839 Awaish Kumar: To get to know that.
193 00:26:38.980 ⇒ 00:26:44.830 Awaish Kumar: Right? So, like, for these things, like, what I’m saying is that, like.
194 00:26:45.130 ⇒ 00:26:59.290 Awaish Kumar: So I will get time, basically, to put, like, aside a dedicated time for that. So I’m working on the client, still, like, obviously doing the development, and then all the meetings, all the…
195 00:26:59.540 ⇒ 00:27:05.939 Awaish Kumar: like, documentation, deck creation, all of that. Then, I’m also…
196 00:27:06.460 ⇒ 00:27:22.490 Awaish Kumar: meeting with the team, as it… as it comes, like, it’s like, if somebody… or if I, like, identify something and ask to peer with someone, and then I meet with him, following the threads where I have been before, or the clients I have been before.
197 00:27:22.750 ⇒ 00:27:31.620 Awaish Kumar: And then… Or, or somebody just comes in, if, like, rarely, but still, but…
198 00:27:31.620 ⇒ 00:27:46.890 Clarence Stone: So, by the way, this is where my head is at. Like, this is the… you have the largest group as an SL, by the way. You know that, right? Like, you have the most projects. So, like, now I’m seeing a concern about, like, how many
199 00:27:47.010 ⇒ 00:27:52.690 Clarence Stone: like… projects you should be on as an SL. Like, I want you to have
200 00:27:52.980 ⇒ 00:27:59.209 Clarence Stone: enough time to be able to mentor and spot these deficiencies, so I, like…
201 00:27:59.860 ⇒ 00:28:24.149 Clarence Stone: what I’m trying to figure out is, like, how much time… of your time should I figure out how to free up, right? Like, for example, like, can we say that you’re only on two projects, but you’re an SL across the board for all of these services, so then you’ll have more time? Like, what kind of structure can we do for you so that… like, if you ask me, like, Awash on a project, that’s amazing, because, like, you’re such a good developer, right?
202 00:28:24.150 ⇒ 00:28:29.820 Clarence Stone: But when you look at it from a company perspective, Awash as a mentor for all our developers.
203 00:28:29.820 ⇒ 00:28:31.229 Clarence Stone: I put that up here.
204 00:28:31.880 ⇒ 00:28:39.070 Clarence Stone: Right? Because you’re so much more valuable sharing and teaching other people, versus just delivering your work on this side.
205 00:28:39.200 ⇒ 00:28:40.150 Clarence Stone: Right? Yeah.
206 00:28:40.320 ⇒ 00:28:54.270 Clarence Stone: So, I want you to be that leader, I want you to be that mentor. So, like, if it’s a conversation of, should we put you on less project work so that you can be, spotting more deficiencies and improving technical deliveries, I think that’s totally fine.
207 00:28:54.720 ⇒ 00:29:04.539 Clarence Stone: Right, so, I… but, like, I don’t know if that’s gonna work for you. I want to understand from your side what we can do to… to get you to this balance.
208 00:29:05.130 ⇒ 00:29:12.100 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I’m also in the way, like, in the process of being there, so… like…
209 00:29:13.880 ⇒ 00:29:21.739 Awaish Kumar: I’m on client works, like, like, if I’m on one client, and then I… obviously, I will have a lot of time to basically,
210 00:29:22.750 ⇒ 00:29:36.510 Awaish Kumar: actually look at the inefficiencies, and, like, I can spend other time there, but, like, now, like, if you say, like, I’m working on Element, then I have…
211 00:29:36.670 ⇒ 00:29:38.980 Awaish Kumar: Hydra, then we have Eden.
212 00:29:39.110 ⇒ 00:29:55.559 Awaish Kumar: Where I’m being pulled in, and also I have Eden Ramo, like, so there are… there’s a lot of client work coming in. So I’m not able to dedicate some time to just go and review some GitHub PRs which were closed, or things like that.
213 00:29:55.620 ⇒ 00:30:04.120 Awaish Kumar: So, what I’m doing right now is I’m spotting on the spot, like, if I’m able to spot in the Slack thread, or a meeting, or…
214 00:30:04.310 ⇒ 00:30:11.760 Awaish Kumar: Or, like, things like that. Like, if I’m in a Magic Spoon meeting with a client for once or twice, and…
215 00:30:11.830 ⇒ 00:30:28.680 Awaish Kumar: and I see, okay, how is it going? Like, then, like, I’m spotting that way. I’m not sure if that’s the best way, or should I be spending more time actually reading… going into the GitHub and looking at the code, or if we want to, like.
216 00:30:29.120 ⇒ 00:30:37.940 Awaish Kumar: If you want me to, like, have some dedicated time for that, then maybe, okay, we will need some more data people to actually
217 00:30:38.050 ⇒ 00:30:41.859 Awaish Kumar: Come in, like, like… on Element,
218 00:30:42.320 ⇒ 00:30:49.210 Awaish Kumar: you know, we can have, like, we have the actual media, like, on Element Hydian, like, there’s some…
219 00:30:49.700 ⇒ 00:31:04.529 Awaish Kumar: planning work, some architecture level things, and then there is implementation. Yeah, so I can, like, do that, like, I can help with planning and architecture design or anything, and then I can engage an AP to just… for the development.
220 00:31:05.090 ⇒ 00:31:10.020 Clarence Stone: Yeah, that’s right. I think your approach right now totally makes sense. If…
221 00:31:11.070 ⇒ 00:31:29.030 Clarence Stone: the thing is, like, if you’re feeling like you’re going to need some additional help on the data side soon, this is a good time to tell us, because unfortunately, hiring people takes, like, a month, right? So if we start now, you should be able to have help in a month. So,
222 00:31:29.080 ⇒ 00:31:48.159 Clarence Stone: I want to take this feedback and try to get you more help, because ideally, I think you as a leader, it makes more sense if you are actively participating in the planning, scoping, and architecture process of all of these projects, right? And you’re reviewing and seeing the pull request, right?
223 00:31:48.590 ⇒ 00:31:51.470 Clarence Stone: And you do less of the actual building.
224 00:31:51.700 ⇒ 00:32:00.239 Clarence Stone: Right? Because if you… if you do less of the building, you’ll have more time for the other two things, right? And it, like…
225 00:32:00.640 ⇒ 00:32:10.879 Clarence Stone: I don’t know how you feel about that, though. Are you okay with that kind of switch? Because, you know, it’s really… it’s a huge change, right? I remember when I stopped coding.
226 00:32:11.210 ⇒ 00:32:13.620 Clarence Stone: Because I became a product owner.
227 00:32:13.700 ⇒ 00:32:31.459 Clarence Stone: it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right for a long time. I stopped coding, I didn’t even get to UX design after the first year. So, like, the two years, for the three years, two of them, I didn’t even touch my… my profession, right? And it felt a little sad, but… I think, like…
228 00:32:31.690 ⇒ 00:32:39.689 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, that’s what I shared initially with Utam in the past, that, okay, I still want to be really hands-on.
229 00:32:40.410 ⇒ 00:32:45.589 Awaish Kumar: But what I’m seeing right now, and with a lot of change we’ve made with using AI,
230 00:32:45.750 ⇒ 00:32:50.340 Awaish Kumar: Like, kind of, nobody’s actually writing the full.
231 00:32:50.340 ⇒ 00:32:51.980 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
232 00:32:51.980 ⇒ 00:32:58.899 Awaish Kumar: all telling the AI to basically write code, and most of the things are, like, planning.
233 00:32:59.580 ⇒ 00:33:09.279 Awaish Kumar: So, still in the, like, if there is some, like, really challenging… until there is something really challenging, like, okay, we need, some data from, really, some…
234 00:33:09.860 ⇒ 00:33:14.249 Awaish Kumar: Some source where we are not able to do it with our standard ways.
235 00:33:14.420 ⇒ 00:33:16.900 Awaish Kumar: I can comment, then. Okay, let’s…
236 00:33:17.250 ⇒ 00:33:27.390 Awaish Kumar: Like, we got something really different than the ones we get, and okay, then, okay, come in, do an architecture, or maybe go for implementation.
237 00:33:27.740 ⇒ 00:33:32.980 Awaish Kumar: Like, we can do that, but really, like, the normal, like, model building, or,
238 00:33:33.720 ⇒ 00:33:36.800 Awaish Kumar: or, like, just writing SQL.
239 00:33:36.950 ⇒ 00:33:40.219 Awaish Kumar: I, I, like, that… I think I’m…
240 00:33:41.000 ⇒ 00:33:50.409 Awaish Kumar: only, like, I’m still, I think that’s, like, can be, like, What to say?
241 00:33:51.070 ⇒ 00:33:51.980 Awaish Kumar: delegately.
242 00:33:51.980 ⇒ 00:34:10.049 Clarence Stone: Okay, yeah, okay, that makes sense. As long as you’re happy with that, I think I would want you to do more of the leadership aspect of things. So, like, given that you are on the most projects, I want to see if we can bring you more help.
243 00:34:10.659 ⇒ 00:34:11.239 Awaish Kumar: Yeah.
244 00:34:11.709 ⇒ 00:34:13.519 Awaish Kumar: And that being said.
245 00:34:13.709 ⇒ 00:34:21.929 Awaish Kumar: I would, like, I need help also, like, that is the transition for me as well, so…
246 00:34:22.479 ⇒ 00:34:28.329 Awaish Kumar: I’m not sure, like, in terms of my impact, like, how I’m doing.
247 00:34:28.699 ⇒ 00:34:51.579 Clarence Stone: Oh, okay, yeah, I mean, I can tell you straight up, you’re doing great, you’re doing amazing. Like, I just don’t want you to get burned out doing too much, so that’s why we have these conversations, right? To say, hey, is everything okay? Like, you know, are you too busy? Like, because, like, we want everyone to be able to come to work and be able to contribute every day, not just, like, for a few months, right? So…
248 00:34:51.579 ⇒ 00:34:54.349 Clarence Stone: I think you’re doing great.
249 00:34:54.969 ⇒ 00:34:59.639 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I think that’s my, like, cons… concern, in terms of, like…
250 00:35:01.599 ⇒ 00:35:18.439 Awaish Kumar: like, I’ve been, in those conversations before as well, with the term, so what I’m… like, as a… if I’m, for example, if I’m taking a role of a service lead, what are the few things which I should try to…
251 00:35:18.809 ⇒ 00:35:24.669 Awaish Kumar: like… Where, actually, like, which… which can be, like,
252 00:35:26.579 ⇒ 00:35:44.459 Awaish Kumar: which really can be tied to some kind of, like, the tangible things, which basically can be measured, and also I… if… if I get guidance on, okay, how to achieve that, that would be nice, because in the past, like, we have been trying a few things.
253 00:35:44.739 ⇒ 00:35:49.769 Awaish Kumar: But, like, I don’t know, like, maybe… And then,
254 00:35:50.419 ⇒ 00:35:54.599 Awaish Kumar: We don’t know, like, how to measure that, like, how… how to go from…
255 00:35:54.719 ⇒ 00:35:56.929 Awaish Kumar: What you are doing, if it’s light or not.
256 00:35:56.930 ⇒ 00:36:04.710 Clarence Stone: Okay, so this is gonna be, I think, the hardest transition for a lot of people here at Brainforge.
257 00:36:05.370 ⇒ 00:36:09.830 Clarence Stone: This is actually something that I’ve heard in a lot of one-on-ones already, Oish.
258 00:36:09.940 ⇒ 00:36:20.359 Clarence Stone: We are moving from, like, being a leader, right, means that a lot of the things you do might not be measurable at all.
259 00:36:22.080 ⇒ 00:36:38.759 Clarence Stone: because it comes with maturity, experience, and wisdom, right? There isn’t a number that I can show you. So, for example, when you found that inefficiency, right? Like, is it because you’re looking at a dashboard with reports?
260 00:36:38.760 ⇒ 00:36:47.020 Clarence Stone: No. It’s because you saw something happen, and then in here, and then up here, you’re like, it doesn’t seem right.
261 00:36:47.270 ⇒ 00:36:53.950 Clarence Stone: Right? It’s like a gut instinct that comes from inside, from that experience that you have over time. So…
262 00:36:54.240 ⇒ 00:37:06.289 Clarence Stone: like, it’s very hard for me to say, this is exactly how you should do something, right? Because as a leader, it’s about, you know, being able to see all the conditions that are happening, evaluate it.
263 00:37:06.320 ⇒ 00:37:25.460 Clarence Stone: and then make a leadership decision. So, what I can say is that the objective of your role is to develop people, right? Make sure that products that we create are of high quality, right? And to make sure that, like, from a technical standpoint, you’re running the day-to-day,
264 00:37:25.460 ⇒ 00:37:31.010 Clarence Stone: kind of, like, stand-ups, right? So, with that given, like.
265 00:37:31.040 ⇒ 00:37:50.430 Clarence Stone: you’re gonna have to kind of balance a bunch of plates, right? Like, delivering project work, mentoring people, running stand-up, making, taking a look at plans and architecture, right? But of all of those things, I personally think the importance of your role for the client is that we deliver really high-quality products.
266 00:37:50.430 ⇒ 00:37:53.670 Clarence Stone: And for internal, is that you develop people.
267 00:37:53.890 ⇒ 00:38:11.360 Clarence Stone: Right? And by developing people, we will transitively continue to deliver high-quality products. So if I were to just, like, completely distill, you know, the focus of your role, it’s using your technical knowledge to make sure that the things that we deliver are of high quality.
268 00:38:11.530 ⇒ 00:38:26.249 Clarence Stone: Right? So, and all of that cascaded down, that’s going to change on a day-to-day, month-by-month, client-by-client basis, right? Because if we have, let’s say we have 50 clients that are really easy projects that people can just use Cursor for.
269 00:38:26.820 ⇒ 00:38:34.529 Clarence Stone: Well, you don’t need to check their code all the time, right? You don’t need to, help them with architectural planning.
270 00:38:34.530 ⇒ 00:38:57.970 Clarence Stone: But let’s say we only have 5 projects, and they are all unique, difficult, and special, and specific, and we’ve never done it before. Well, yeah, you need to actively be, you know, in the planning. You need to be actively looking at the code. You need to be actively, you know, reviewing how operations is working, right? So, it depends on the moment.
271 00:38:58.000 ⇒ 00:39:07.549 Clarence Stone: on what you’re seeing, what is happening, right? What I can do for you, Awash, is, like, if you are seeing things and you don’t know how to interpret it.
272 00:39:08.050 ⇒ 00:39:18.259 Clarence Stone: like, this is where we can have a good conversation, right? So you can say, hey, you know, this Lilo team, it’s been 3 weeks in a row, they haven’t met their plan.
273 00:39:19.000 ⇒ 00:39:22.629 Clarence Stone: Right? They plan to do all these tickets, and they’re always one or two tickets short.
274 00:39:23.220 ⇒ 00:39:40.110 Clarence Stone: okay, let’s take a look at what they’re doing, let’s take a look at their code, let’s take a look at their plan, and just go, was it because the plan is unreasonable? Was it because they’re being inefficient? Right? We can… we can kind of figure it out together as leaders on how to deconstruct the problem, but
275 00:39:40.210 ⇒ 00:39:44.239 Clarence Stone: On a day-to-day, what’s important? That’s really hard.
276 00:39:44.450 ⇒ 00:39:44.940 Clarence Stone: Right?
277 00:39:44.940 ⇒ 00:39:51.760 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I… I feel it, like… I… I… I feel… I…
278 00:39:52.130 ⇒ 00:39:54.890 Awaish Kumar: I think it is difficult to…
279 00:39:55.030 ⇒ 00:40:04.189 Awaish Kumar: like, then we have the Clockify thing, then it’s really difficult to, like, justify, like, okay, I’ve spent,
280 00:40:04.490 ⇒ 00:40:14.149 Awaish Kumar: 5 hours. Doing what? Like, reading slacks? Like, I don’t know who’s going to believe that. So…
281 00:40:14.530 ⇒ 00:40:28.919 Clarence Stone: First of all, we believe that, I believe that. Actually, yesterday, I was doing a one-on-one with Amber, and she said, ever since we made this leadership transition, that people are talking a lot more.
282 00:40:29.370 ⇒ 00:40:41.299 Clarence Stone: Right? Everyone’s communicating a lot more. And I was like, good, that’s how it should be, right? Because we should be talking to each other. But the side effect is, and I asked, and I was like, wait, Amber.
283 00:40:41.770 ⇒ 00:40:57.390 Clarence Stone: are you noticing that, like, it’s taking more time to read through all the messages? She’s like, yes, it’s taking so much time. So, by the way, we understand. If you booked 5 hours and said, I was responding to messages, reviewing code, and looking at Slack, we’re like, we get it, Awish.
284 00:40:57.390 ⇒ 00:41:08.040 Clarence Stone: That’s really… it really is how much it takes. Like, I don’t know how to tell you this, this week is the first week where, at Brainforge, I have not been able to read all the channels every day.
285 00:41:08.730 ⇒ 00:41:24.150 Clarence Stone: I promise, like, every day, morning and evening, I will go through every single channel and make sure that I kind of at least scroll through and I understand what’s going on. I haven’t been able to do that this week, because there’s so much communication. Now, I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
286 00:41:24.480 ⇒ 00:41:36.540 Clarence Stone: Right? So I want the communications to happen, but on the flip side, if you told me it took you 5 hours this week, I believe you. I believe you. It definitely takes that much time. So don’t worry about that.
287 00:41:38.160 ⇒ 00:41:45.189 Clarence Stone: But if you’re wondering, where do you book the time, that’s a good question. I need to ask Utam on how he wants to manage clocks.
288 00:41:46.810 ⇒ 00:41:52.779 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like, my point is that, like, as you mentioned, it’s… that was just a… just an example, a slack.
289 00:41:53.230 ⇒ 00:42:11.209 Awaish Kumar: there are a few things, like, if I’m on an element, as a developer right now, so I’m doing stuff, I know, I built the model, it took me 2 hours or 3 hours, let’s book it, okay? I had a meeting one hour, I delivered a document one hour, and, like, these are things you can easily…
290 00:42:11.380 ⇒ 00:42:16.890 Awaish Kumar: Mayor, your time on the plans. And there are… there are things which you don’t, like…
291 00:42:17.080 ⇒ 00:42:32.180 Awaish Kumar: which you are not able to measure, like, for example, I want to understand, okay, there is a friction in my team. I want to just Google it and read it, like, a few articles, if I can find some clues.
292 00:42:32.590 ⇒ 00:42:37.680 Awaish Kumar: But then, like, okay, if I… even if I read it, like, I don’t know, like, how to…
293 00:42:38.070 ⇒ 00:42:42.020 Awaish Kumar: Talutan that, okay, I spent 3 hours doing this.
294 00:42:44.330 ⇒ 00:42:53.420 Clarence Stone: So, so, okay, I, I have some ways to help you here. Okay, so this reading, you did it for a client’s project?
295 00:42:54.180 ⇒ 00:42:55.280 Awaish Kumar: No worries.
296 00:42:56.360 ⇒ 00:42:59.629 Awaish Kumar: It’s for, like, like, general, like, you need, like.
297 00:43:01.100 ⇒ 00:43:20.240 Awaish Kumar: So, as an SL, now I’m leading the team, and there’s a, like, the… I want them to escalate the issues to me, and like, the… how to build great teams, or things like that, like, the friction… removing the friction.
298 00:43:20.620 ⇒ 00:43:32.620 Awaish Kumar: that people just come to you, or things like that. So you just go on and figure out a few things, and read something, and it can take some time. Yeah. And then maybe you are…
299 00:43:32.970 ⇒ 00:43:34.000 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, not…
300 00:43:34.430 ⇒ 00:43:42.780 Awaish Kumar: But, like, if that does not really change the team. So, until… until that happens, there’s no outcome of my work, so…
301 00:43:42.780 ⇒ 00:43:57.200 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah. So, one, I, like, I wouldn’t worry so much about outcome, because we are watching so closely, you know, how each of the teams are performing, that, like…
302 00:43:59.360 ⇒ 00:44:13.300 Clarence Stone: like, in our leadership Slack, every week, we have a list of all the leads, right? And me, Robert, and new Tom actually rank all of you guys to say.
303 00:44:13.580 ⇒ 00:44:20.190 Clarence Stone: Doing better than the standard. Doing the standard, not doing great, we need to review.
304 00:44:21.330 ⇒ 00:44:25.119 Clarence Stone: So we, we literally keep a pulse on everybody every week.
305 00:44:25.480 ⇒ 00:44:30.339 Awaish Kumar: So I, like, let me put it that way. So, like, I wouldn’t worry so much about that.
306 00:44:30.360 ⇒ 00:44:33.559 Clarence Stone: I… I would worry more about, how do you book that time?
307 00:44:34.110 ⇒ 00:44:56.209 Clarence Stone: Right? So, this is how I would do it. I’m gonna double-check with you, Tom, just in case, but I don’t think he’s gonna disagree with me. I think you should book it to that team. For example, you know, Lilo has an inefficiency, you have to read through some, you know, maybe understand how their platform works, or understand their technology, you have to read some stuff, and then you’re gonna give them some advice.
308 00:44:56.210 ⇒ 00:44:59.059 Clarence Stone: Right Book time to Leela.
309 00:45:00.320 ⇒ 00:45:06.169 Clarence Stone: And in the description, just say, improving operational efficiency by doing this.
310 00:45:06.570 ⇒ 00:45:07.500 Clarence Stone: That’s it.
311 00:45:10.070 ⇒ 00:45:10.970 Clarence Stone: Right?
312 00:45:11.240 ⇒ 00:45:15.500 Clarence Stone: That’s okay. Like, like, it doesn’t matter that you’re not on the project.
313 00:45:17.500 ⇒ 00:45:20.310 Clarence Stone: Right? It doesn’t mean you can’t book time to that project.
314 00:45:21.490 ⇒ 00:45:26.429 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah, that sounds… Yeah, that sounds good.
315 00:45:26.710 ⇒ 00:45:27.490 Awaish Kumar: Oh, yeah.
316 00:45:27.490 ⇒ 00:45:29.229 Clarence Stone: So, for example, like,
317 00:45:29.680 ⇒ 00:45:43.150 Clarence Stone: I have a client, EY, right? And, just yesterday, I had a partner come to me and say, hey, my dev team is so slow. I don’t know what they’re doing, or what they’re doing wrong, or if they’re supposed to take this long.
318 00:45:43.550 ⇒ 00:45:44.729 Clarence Stone: Can you take a look?
319 00:45:45.770 ⇒ 00:45:53.899 Clarence Stone: Right? I go, okay, what project is it? They give me the project name, and I just book my time to that project.
320 00:45:55.190 ⇒ 00:45:58.310 Clarence Stone: So that’s essentially how it works for you, too.
321 00:46:00.060 ⇒ 00:46:00.400 Awaish Kumar: Okay.
322 00:46:00.400 ⇒ 00:46:00.920 Clarence Stone: Right?
323 00:46:01.450 ⇒ 00:46:02.929 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah.
324 00:46:03.390 ⇒ 00:46:13.029 Awaish Kumar: I get it now. Yeah, second thing, yeah, I don’t know if it’s just a second week with this… with these new changes, so…
325 00:46:13.450 ⇒ 00:46:20.899 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I’ve been trying to convey my… regarding upgrading linear tickets and cleaning up the board.
326 00:46:22.890 ⇒ 00:46:29.430 Awaish Kumar: and the Gantt chart, so, like, but I don’t think, like, everything is… Is up-to-date, right?
327 00:46:30.320 ⇒ 00:46:38.159 Clarence Stone: Is there certain teams that need additional support, or is it just across the board, not everyone is there yet?
328 00:46:39.270 ⇒ 00:46:41.649 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, it’s, like, across the board.
329 00:46:41.660 ⇒ 00:46:42.910 Clarence Stone: Okay.
330 00:46:42.980 ⇒ 00:46:56.919 Awaish Kumar: what I want to say is that, like, people are working on tickets, but the board is not ready for… for stand-up, for example. Yeah. The tickets I’m seeing are still from, like, the…
331 00:46:57.090 ⇒ 00:47:00.340 Awaish Kumar: The last cycle, or the last week, or…
332 00:47:00.880 ⇒ 00:47:09.700 Awaish Kumar: like, the pass tickets are still in there, there’s no cleanup, or, like, if I… I don’t know how to also
333 00:47:10.850 ⇒ 00:47:18.720 Awaish Kumar: how, like, I don’t know if it needs an… like, authoritative voice, so I…
334 00:47:19.180 ⇒ 00:47:34.819 Awaish Kumar: like, when I say speak to people, like, okay, we need to… we have this Slack message, we need to create some tickets here, and it should be ready by next stand up, and yeah, I don’t see it there. I still raise it, and okay, I will do that again, and…
335 00:47:35.090 ⇒ 00:47:37.460 Awaish Kumar: That… that’s… just goes on.
336 00:47:37.990 ⇒ 00:47:50.030 Clarence Stone: Okay, yeah, and that’s… that’s definitely a moment where you can escalate to Utam or Robert to say, like, hey, I asked this team to update their ticket, like, on this date, and then this day is still not happening, right?
337 00:47:50.070 ⇒ 00:48:01.590 Clarence Stone: We’re gonna give people a little bit of grace right now for the lack of updates, because I haven’t done the initial audits yet. So let me actually double check right here…
338 00:48:02.230 ⇒ 00:48:12.919 Clarence Stone: Yeah, okay, so starting next Tuesday, all the engagement partners on their, EP lead meeting, they are going to, present
339 00:48:12.930 ⇒ 00:48:24.470 Clarence Stone: all of their work products. We’re gonna look at everybody’s tickets. We are going to look at everybody’s, linear. We’re gonna look at all of those things.
340 00:48:24.600 ⇒ 00:48:29.400 Clarence Stone: Right? And then they will be put on stage with all the other ETs in the room.
341 00:48:29.570 ⇒ 00:48:53.579 Clarence Stone: And, like, we’re gonna fix it, right? So, help is on the way in that sense, but if people aren’t listening to you on that, I would tell Lutam or me, and then we will make sure that it happens. There has to be some discipline in terms of, like, keeping your, you know, spaces clean and up-to-date. So, thank you for calling that out. But…
342 00:48:53.630 ⇒ 00:49:02.479 Clarence Stone: Yeah, we’re doing our best to kind of, you know, it’s only week two, so we’re giving people some freedom. But,
343 00:49:02.790 ⇒ 00:49:06.380 Clarence Stone: watch me in February, I’m gonna be a little bit more mean.
344 00:49:08.610 ⇒ 00:49:17.240 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah, and yeah, Utam is normally in the stand-up himself, because he’s the CSO on many clients.
345 00:49:18.910 ⇒ 00:49:29.819 Awaish Kumar: And, yeah, that’s also the, I don’t know, like, I… maybe it is make… it makes me nervous, like, yeah, him being there, like, I’m… I’m, like…
346 00:49:30.550 ⇒ 00:49:33.370 Clarence Stone: It’s funny, I…
347 00:49:34.090 ⇒ 00:49:42.069 Clarence Stone: I should have connected the dots. I actually, I yelled at him for not updating his work products yesterday.
348 00:49:42.490 ⇒ 00:49:50.559 Clarence Stone: So, yeah, like, I, I, he’s, he’s probably the bottleneck in a lot of this.
349 00:49:53.780 ⇒ 00:49:55.380 Awaish Kumar: Yeah,
350 00:49:58.410 ⇒ 00:50:03.010 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, normally, like, I don’t know, I don’t… Like, I don’t…
351 00:50:03.400 ⇒ 00:50:10.240 Awaish Kumar: say anything, like, like, Futam says, okay, I’m happy with the client, like, it’s going well. Okay, then, like.
352 00:50:10.990 ⇒ 00:50:14.650 Awaish Kumar: like, I don’t know what not to say, like, if I’m not seeing things on.
353 00:50:14.650 ⇒ 00:50:16.119 Clarence Stone: Oh, you do? Well, yeah.
354 00:50:16.120 ⇒ 00:50:18.450 Awaish Kumar: But he’s still air on his cell, so how…
355 00:50:18.450 ⇒ 00:50:42.259 Clarence Stone: just because things are well with the client doesn’t mean all is well in-house, right? And you can still say, hey, I’m glad we’re delivering really great work for the client, but, like, for me to be able to operate efficiently and deliver high-quality products, we have to make sure that our requirements are in, the linea tickets are appropriately sorted, and I’m just not seeing that yet, right? So, let’s do even better.
356 00:50:42.300 ⇒ 00:50:47.420 Clarence Stone: Right? There’s client happiness, which the CSO is going to be happy if the client’s happy.
357 00:50:47.530 ⇒ 00:50:51.100 Clarence Stone: Right, but what about the EP and that stuff? You guys all need to be happy.
358 00:50:51.220 ⇒ 00:50:58.620 Clarence Stone: Right, so, you are just as, much of a leader and just as important in this, you know, you know.
359 00:50:58.740 ⇒ 00:51:02.290 Clarence Stone: project leadership group, right? So,
360 00:51:02.720 ⇒ 00:51:10.959 Clarence Stone: Yeah, feel free to bring that up. I already beat him up for that, so… I said, I think you’re a bottleneck on some of these projects.
361 00:51:11.330 ⇒ 00:51:19.290 Clarence Stone: So, yeah, we’ll work towards solving that. I think the EP scrub is going to solve a lot of these problems.
362 00:51:19.750 ⇒ 00:51:21.549 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah, that’s great.
363 00:51:22.720 ⇒ 00:51:35.009 Clarence Stone: Anything else? Dude, I have taken you an extra 30 minutes, right? So, but I am more than, happy to hear about anything that’s on your mind. This is, you know, the time for us to chat about those things.
364 00:51:35.940 ⇒ 00:51:39.289 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I think we already spent quite a lot of time.
365 00:51:39.640 ⇒ 00:51:40.580 Awaish Kumar: Yeah. Okay.
366 00:51:40.580 ⇒ 00:52:00.500 Clarence Stone: Okay, so, here’s what I will do. You gave me really great feedback, so don’t ever stop, keep telling me how things are going, you know, and if you need me to take a look at a situation, or just, like, give you my personal thoughts on how to handle something, like, don’t ever hold back, just schedule a meeting with me. I’m always available.
367 00:52:00.500 ⇒ 00:52:06.099 Clarence Stone: Two, I’m going to see if we can make sure that we put a data
368 00:52:06.100 ⇒ 00:52:16.789 Clarence Stone: person on the list of new hires that we need to look for. I think that, you know, I will advocate for you in the sense that it’s so much more important to mentor our people
369 00:52:16.800 ⇒ 00:52:27.220 Clarence Stone: Versus having you on projects, right? So, in order to give you that balance, I think I need to give you more data engineers. So, we’ll work on that.
370 00:52:27.420 ⇒ 00:52:32.439 Clarence Stone: yeah, those are gonna be my next two steps, and you keep me up to date, cool?
371 00:52:33.040 ⇒ 00:52:35.979 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, so I think the…
372 00:52:36.260 ⇒ 00:52:39.670 Awaish Kumar: what I want to say, like,
373 00:52:41.090 ⇒ 00:52:48.679 Awaish Kumar: I think, yeah, that’s… that sounds great. I think Utham already knows about the TE. I think he already mentioned he’s interviewing people.
374 00:52:49.160 ⇒ 00:52:53.790 Awaish Kumar: So all good in that sense. Yeah, I wanted to ask, like.
375 00:52:54.290 ⇒ 00:52:58.920 Awaish Kumar: in terms of, like, this transition, like, I have… I haven’t done that…
376 00:53:00.140 ⇒ 00:53:08.110 Awaish Kumar: before, right? Or, like, what would you recommend? Like, reading, like, reading some kind of book, or I’m trying to…
377 00:53:09.150 ⇒ 00:53:21.739 Awaish Kumar: like, to structure also myself in this new role, where I’m able to make the difference or impact on the projects in a good way.
378 00:53:21.740 ⇒ 00:53:40.189 Clarence Stone: First thing, like, if you haven’t read it, this is gonna only take you maybe half a day on a weekend. It’s such a short book. It’s called The Mythical Man Month. It’s a free book, it’s available online. Let me give you a link to that. And by the way, this book, this book is written by a developer.
379 00:53:40.650 ⇒ 00:53:57.569 Clarence Stone: Right? And he’s a really good developer, super PhD, like, this is back in the 70s, Oish. So, like, when they were, like, programming with the cards and stuff, right? But basically, the whole book is about leadership in development.
380 00:53:57.910 ⇒ 00:54:09.960 Clarence Stone: And the biggest thing that he said is, like, a lot of the times in corporate America, when he was working, they would say, oh, your development is taking too long, how about we just give you more people?
381 00:54:10.660 ⇒ 00:54:19.310 Clarence Stone: Right? And he said, that’s the one thing that makes me most angry, because people don’t understand that just adding people to a problem actually makes it worse.
382 00:54:19.320 ⇒ 00:54:36.019 Clarence Stone: And he actually shows, like, data on why. And then he says, this is how you should handle, you know, if you need to accelerate development or make development efficient, here’s my strategies on how we did that. And it doesn’t involve adding more people to the problem.
383 00:54:36.330 ⇒ 00:54:49.119 Clarence Stone: Right. So, to me, this book was one of the fundamentals of computer science. On leading technical teams, I would start there, and then, like, I will give you more, like.
384 00:54:49.310 ⇒ 00:55:02.530 Clarence Stone: current materials that are, like, more up-to-date, which are probably going to be more videos, because, like, it’s mostly YouTube these days, so I’ll send you some YouTube links as well, but I would just start with reading that book. I think your mind will be blown.
385 00:55:02.860 ⇒ 00:55:09.980 Clarence Stone: Like, it is really cool. It is the book that caused me to say the… every project should just have 3 people.
386 00:55:10.450 ⇒ 00:55:25.529 Clarence Stone: If we can just deliver on 3 people, we should have 3 people. If you need some more ICs to fill in, that’s fine, but, like, we need to have a small team that’s working and talking efficiently together. So it’s been an inspiration for how this all came together.
387 00:55:26.250 ⇒ 00:55:27.100 Awaish Kumar: Okay, yeah.
388 00:55:27.100 ⇒ 00:55:28.409 Clarence Stone: Let me get that to you.
389 00:55:32.320 ⇒ 00:55:35.320 Clarence Stone: But yeah, that’s my advice.
390 00:55:37.880 ⇒ 00:55:41.929 Awaish Kumar: Great, yeah, I will take that, and yeah, read that.
391 00:55:44.330 ⇒ 00:55:55.949 Clarence Stone: Awesome! So it was great touching base with you, man. Feel free to schedule any other time. You know, I’m always available. I want everyone to succeed, so you’re doing a great job.
392 00:55:56.100 ⇒ 00:55:59.299 Clarence Stone: And we’re gonna continue to make this better. Cool?
393 00:55:59.690 ⇒ 00:56:01.600 Awaish Kumar: Well, okay, great, thank you.
394 00:56:01.760 ⇒ 00:56:02.630 Clarence Stone: Awesome.
395 00:56:03.450 ⇒ 00:56:05.569 Clarence Stone: Hey, have a great weekend, if I don’t see you again.
396 00:56:06.120 ⇒ 00:56:08.370 Clarence Stone: Yep, bye!
397 00:56:08.370 ⇒ 00:56:08.850 Awaish Kumar: Right.