Meeting Title: Brainforge CSO Weekly Sync Date: 2026-01-26 Meeting participants: Uttam Kumaran, Greg Stoutenburg, Clarence Stone, Sheshu Chandrasekar
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1 00:00:10.270 ⇒ 00:00:11.370 Clarence Stone: What’s up?
2 00:00:11.370 ⇒ 00:00:12.050 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, dude.
3 00:00:12.960 ⇒ 00:00:13.660 Greg Stoutenburg: Hey, guys.
4 00:00:27.680 ⇒ 00:00:31.610 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, let’s see… Boss.
5 00:00:34.840 ⇒ 00:00:38.150 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Utom, your dog is so cute. In the back, sleeping.
6 00:00:40.980 ⇒ 00:00:43.060 Clarence Stone: I wish I was asleep right now.
7 00:00:43.930 ⇒ 00:00:45.319 Uttam Kumaran: Take a fat nap.
8 00:00:47.500 ⇒ 00:00:48.500 Greg Stoutenburg: Are you a napper?
9 00:00:49.570 ⇒ 00:00:54.410 Uttam Kumaran: No, I don’t like it at all, but I feel like I understand its use.
10 00:00:55.140 ⇒ 00:01:01.589 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t like… I really don’t… I don’t like… I don’t wish I didn’t have to sleep. I’m not… I have to sleep for a long time.
11 00:01:01.870 ⇒ 00:01:03.779 Uttam Kumaran: Which means I have to sleep early.
12 00:01:04.400 ⇒ 00:01:05.530 Greg Stoutenburg: And…
13 00:01:05.530 ⇒ 00:01:08.110 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I just get tired. I just, like…
14 00:01:08.560 ⇒ 00:01:10.979 Uttam Kumaran: it’s just a necessary thing, I guess.
15 00:01:11.160 ⇒ 00:01:14.670 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. I’m jealous of people that do things like…
16 00:01:14.790 ⇒ 00:01:19.890 Greg Stoutenburg: stay up until 1. They sleep 4 hours, and then they’re, like, back at it. I’m like, how do you do that?
17 00:01:20.250 ⇒ 00:01:21.600 Uttam Kumaran: I can do…
18 00:01:21.810 ⇒ 00:01:26.820 Uttam Kumaran: Two days, and then it all catches up, and it’s getting less and less from what I can handle.
19 00:01:27.140 ⇒ 00:01:28.040 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
20 00:01:28.640 ⇒ 00:01:46.460 Greg Stoutenburg: I, I became a power napper in grad school. I can… I could lean back in this chair right now, set a timer for 8 minutes, and I will fall asleep. And it’s like, it’s not enough sleep to feel, like, rested, but it’s, like, enough of a reboot that that tired feeling, like, that yawning, sleeping feeling, just goes away for the rest of the day.
21 00:01:47.910 ⇒ 00:01:53.879 Uttam Kumaran: That’s good. Yeah, I just, like, I used to just drink way more coffee, more coffee, more coffee.
22 00:01:54.190 ⇒ 00:01:55.929 Uttam Kumaran: And I, I just, like…
23 00:01:56.450 ⇒ 00:02:04.739 Uttam Kumaran: And it would be useless, because I wouldn’t do, like, anything more. I would just sort of loop around checking Twitter, or…
24 00:02:04.870 ⇒ 00:02:07.370 Uttam Kumaran: Doing one thing and getting distracted, but…
25 00:02:07.780 ⇒ 00:02:08.330 Greg Stoutenburg: Right.
26 00:02:08.330 ⇒ 00:02:12.809 Uttam Kumaran: These days, for the most part, if I can just get, like, some time to do some deep work.
27 00:02:13.700 ⇒ 00:02:18.869 Uttam Kumaran: I feel like that is what saves my energy, versus if I’m in just meetings, it gets really, really tough.
28 00:02:19.400 ⇒ 00:02:22.709 Uttam Kumaran: You know, so… It might.
29 00:02:22.710 ⇒ 00:02:24.259 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I get eating fatigue big time.
30 00:02:24.260 ⇒ 00:02:27.960 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it might just be… it might just be us today,
31 00:02:28.340 ⇒ 00:02:32.820 Uttam Kumaran: I think I’m gonna have, Pranav start joining these next week.
32 00:02:33.130 ⇒ 00:02:35.840 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, I mean, I guess…
33 00:02:35.970 ⇒ 00:02:40.769 Uttam Kumaran: we can just have a discussion, the four of us, about, like, how things are going. I mean, I can…
34 00:02:41.010 ⇒ 00:02:44.429 Uttam Kumaran: Give a sense on my clients,
35 00:02:44.930 ⇒ 00:02:47.770 Uttam Kumaran: I think this week should be a lot better than the last.
36 00:02:47.980 ⇒ 00:03:04.920 Uttam Kumaran: three, I feel like… first two weeks were really, really busy, and I didn’t get a ton of time for a lot of planning. Last week was… was good, and so I was able to plan out a few clients, like, for at least the next, like, 2-3 months. And so this week, I’ll be putting a lot of that into linear…
37 00:03:05.260 ⇒ 00:03:08.320 Uttam Kumaran: And it’s a Gantt,
38 00:03:08.770 ⇒ 00:03:11.139 Uttam Kumaran: And then, really, it’s like, I’m just trying to help.
39 00:03:11.320 ⇒ 00:03:24.030 Uttam Kumaran: a few other folks get, like, SOWs over the line, like, I’m trying to help Demolade get one for Magic Spoon, and then I’m trying to help Sam get one over for a potential client.
40 00:03:24.220 ⇒ 00:03:27.550 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m just, like, trying to share more, like.
41 00:03:28.050 ⇒ 00:03:37.490 Uttam Kumaran: share more wisdom, like, how I do those, have people try, give feedback, versus then… versus me just doing it and sending it to folks for reviews, so trying to lean more on the team.
42 00:03:37.710 ⇒ 00:03:44.020 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, I’m sort of interested to also spend less time in…
43 00:03:44.340 ⇒ 00:03:57.490 Uttam Kumaran: the… less time in, like, pre-scheduled, like, update meetings, and more time, like, one-on-one with people. Like, I think Greg will be spending time, which is great. And, like, kind of with a lot of the… for the folks that are really, like.
44 00:03:57.650 ⇒ 00:04:03.070 Uttam Kumaran: Taking this, new model, like, you know, really seriously, and trying to, like.
45 00:04:03.180 ⇒ 00:04:13.339 Uttam Kumaran: you know, ride it as we sort of go. I just want to help you do that. And so, I want my time to shift less on being in, like.
46 00:04:13.790 ⇒ 00:04:27.069 Uttam Kumaran: weekly update meetings. Unfortunately, I still have probably, like, 6 or 7 hours of client-related meetings, but I want the remaining time to be going to sales, recruiting, or just, like, kind of coaching-type stuff, so…
47 00:04:27.400 ⇒ 00:04:33.149 Uttam Kumaran: I think I’m gonna say this to kind of everybody, but, like, that time is, like, available, and I can make it…
48 00:04:33.510 ⇒ 00:04:38.690 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m not gonna go spend time with folks that aren’t showing, like…
49 00:04:38.900 ⇒ 00:04:44.079 Uttam Kumaran: That, like, excitement for this new model, or aren’t, like, pushing, you know, what we can do, so…
50 00:04:44.830 ⇒ 00:04:46.369 Uttam Kumaran: That’s kind of my update.
51 00:04:46.490 ⇒ 00:04:49.340 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
52 00:04:54.220 ⇒ 00:04:56.730 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem.
53 00:04:57.240 ⇒ 00:05:01.300 Uttam Kumaran: Anyone else want to kind of give updates on, like, CSO side of things?
54 00:05:05.620 ⇒ 00:05:07.600 Uttam Kumaran: Shayshu or Clarence…
55 00:05:12.320 ⇒ 00:05:14.920 Clarence Stone: Cso-specific?
56 00:05:15.130 ⇒ 00:05:15.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
57 00:05:15.680 ⇒ 00:05:19.000 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah, I don’t have too much CSO-specific.
58 00:05:19.000 ⇒ 00:05:21.559 Clarence Stone: Y’all on? Where are the rest of them?
59 00:05:21.560 ⇒ 00:05:28.800 Uttam Kumaran: Demi is not on, and I’m… I think Zoran should be on around this time, but I don’t know, he’s not on right now.
60 00:05:30.610 ⇒ 00:05:33.150 Clarence Stone: I haven’t seen Surf in a minute, either.
61 00:05:33.270 ⇒ 00:05:35.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, surf, we’re not gonna consider part of.
62 00:05:35.570 ⇒ 00:05:36.280 Clarence Stone: Okay.
63 00:05:36.280 ⇒ 00:05:37.030 Uttam Kumaran: this stuff.
64 00:05:37.920 ⇒ 00:05:41.279 Uttam Kumaran: And then I said we’re gonna start looping in Pranav next week.
65 00:05:41.600 ⇒ 00:05:42.320 Clarence Stone: Sweet.
66 00:05:42.610 ⇒ 00:05:43.180 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
67 00:05:46.110 ⇒ 00:05:48.040 Uttam Kumaran: It’s so stuff, I mean…
68 00:05:53.710 ⇒ 00:05:55.220 Clarence Stone: How do I put it?
69 00:05:58.750 ⇒ 00:06:00.879 Clarence Stone: I, I, I think,
70 00:06:02.910 ⇒ 00:06:08.189 Clarence Stone: I think the EPs need some more mentorship on how to keep track of how things are going.
71 00:06:09.910 ⇒ 00:06:10.720 Clarence Stone: it…
72 00:06:10.870 ⇒ 00:06:27.099 Clarence Stone: It’s… and maybe this is a good discussion, Tom, I want your thoughts on this. We just came out of the service lead meeting, and, you know, after multiple chains of questioning and discussions, we really did get to the root cause of the issue.
73 00:06:27.100 ⇒ 00:06:31.610 Clarence Stone: A lot of conversations about what’s happening in the work
74 00:06:31.610 ⇒ 00:06:43.120 Clarence Stone: for the tickets in Lanier is happening in the Slack chats. So, for the SLs that are not directly working, on that project, they actually
75 00:06:43.200 ⇒ 00:06:51.070 Clarence Stone: Are missing a lot of critical, like, context, because that conversation happened, you know, really far away from the linear.
76 00:06:51.230 ⇒ 00:06:52.240 Clarence Stone: So…
77 00:06:54.280 ⇒ 00:07:10.869 Clarence Stone: what should happen is EP should have, you know, the ability to say, hey, this is critical to the delivery of this task. I need to update with, you know, the decision that was made in our chat, or our call, or our meeting, right? But that hasn’t been happening, so…
78 00:07:12.190 ⇒ 00:07:21.690 Clarence Stone: I think at the CSO level, my ask is that make sure that the EPs are going back and updating the right resource documents, but, you know, for the floor here.
79 00:07:21.720 ⇒ 00:07:39.990 Clarence Stone: you know, I would expect that to be the flow. Is that the flow? Should, like, can I proceed with making SOPs and documentations with that in mind? Or is that not a problem for you guys? Like, everybody just, you know, talks about whatever they’re doing in the client chat. Is that enough? Is that okay?
80 00:07:40.250 ⇒ 00:07:42.579 Clarence Stone: Like, what’s y’all’s take on this?
81 00:07:46.090 ⇒ 00:07:47.679 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, I’ll just share an opinion.
82 00:07:47.720 ⇒ 00:07:52.269 Greg Stoutenburg: partly from here, partly from past experience, which is that Slack is great for
83 00:07:52.300 ⇒ 00:08:02.539 Greg Stoutenburg: updates and for resolving issues that come up as they come up, but I like to pretend that Slack just doesn’t have a memory, because it’s just… it’s just not optimized for
84 00:08:02.540 ⇒ 00:08:09.970 Greg Stoutenburg: anything that you might have to refer back to some conversation from 2 days ago. I mean, even just my threads and activity area, like.
85 00:08:09.970 ⇒ 00:08:23.379 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, there are messages that I got this morning that I feel like I’m scrolling forever to find it, so… so I think that stuff needs to go in linear, and linear is maybe not the right place for conversation, but it is… it is the place to provide some update, even if it’s just… this is blocked right now.
86 00:08:24.200 ⇒ 00:08:27.960 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah, and… so, Greg,
87 00:08:28.680 ⇒ 00:08:31.839 Clarence Stone: This, this is another conversation, like, this, this is like…
88 00:08:32.840 ⇒ 00:08:51.650 Clarence Stone: project by project, or just as a, you know, set of three leaders, like, this conversation needs to happen on, how you would, as the CSO, want work tracked in linear as well, right? I’m just gonna use Sesshu’s example from our earlier call.
89 00:08:51.690 ⇒ 00:09:02.399 Clarence Stone: He’s like, what if the SOW says we’re gonna put 4 wheels on a car, and then we put 4 silver wheels, because, like, that’s a default, and the client comes back and says, no, no, no, I want black wheels.
90 00:09:02.610 ⇒ 00:09:03.530 Clarence Stone: Well…
91 00:09:03.790 ⇒ 00:09:21.230 Clarence Stone: you change the requirements, there’s an additional requirement now, right? And, you know, if the service leader says, hey, that needs to be a new ticket, right, I think there’s something in it where the CSO should have a voice, too, because that’s how you should be tracking change orders, too.
92 00:09:21.430 ⇒ 00:09:22.350 Clarence Stone: Right.
93 00:09:22.480 ⇒ 00:09:31.469 Clarence Stone: If, you know, based on the SOW, we committed to a certain type of delivery, and the way it’s delivered, and the client says, no, no, no, I also want this.
94 00:09:31.610 ⇒ 00:09:47.410 Clarence Stone: Right? I’m sure this is happening on many accounts where the scope is creeping, you’re delivering more work than you originally promised, right? And at some point, there should be a way for you to be able to go back and prove the additional value you’ve added. So, like.
95 00:09:47.470 ⇒ 00:09:53.530 Clarence Stone: Is that something that you would want to track too, and how would you prefer to track it, Greg? Like.
96 00:09:54.320 ⇒ 00:09:55.609 Clarence Stone: Change orders, right?
97 00:09:56.070 ⇒ 00:10:03.160 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. Yeah, that’s so tricky, because, sometimes it seems… I don’t always know,
98 00:10:03.850 ⇒ 00:10:14.670 Greg Stoutenburg: I don’t know that I can always provide a principle that’s gonna say, okay, this is… to distinguish those ones where it’s just, like, a minimum change from, something that actually feels like a new request, right? Like.
99 00:10:14.830 ⇒ 00:10:30.259 Greg Stoutenburg: The wheels example is good, because… well, that’s clearly on the side of, like, I need to, like, order a new product, I need to take the tires off, I need to, you know, put the tires on the wheels, I need to put them back on the car. It’s a lot of work. But if it’s just, you know, like, make… highlight these numbers in the cell.
100 00:10:30.300 ⇒ 00:10:34.999 Greg Stoutenburg: That feels like, okay, well, this took me another 10 minutes.
101 00:10:35.450 ⇒ 00:10:40.180 Greg Stoutenburg: In any case, I still think it all goes in linear. I mean, I think… I think, ideally.
102 00:10:41.130 ⇒ 00:10:54.889 Greg Stoutenburg: as CSOs, we should want to be able to… we should be able to say that everything that’s essential for what’s going on in our projects with clients is viewable and linear, and that, you know, if someone needed to be onboarded to the project to… to…
103 00:10:54.890 ⇒ 00:11:08.259 Greg Stoutenburg: help out, we could say, alright, well, look at all of the tickets that are to-dos and in progress as of right now, and you’ll get a decent understanding of what we’ve been working on. That doesn’t mean it’ll be the whole context, you still need to talk to the client, but
104 00:11:08.700 ⇒ 00:11:10.960 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I would still want that in linear.
105 00:11:11.870 ⇒ 00:11:17.269 Greg Stoutenburg: So, in this example, I don’t know, I think maybe it is a new ticket. In this particular example, with the new wheels, I think it is a new ticket.
106 00:11:17.450 ⇒ 00:11:18.859 Greg Stoutenburg: It’s like a follow-up.
107 00:11:20.920 ⇒ 00:11:37.240 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and that’s literally the struggle that I’ve been facing, Greg, is the team wants me to write set documentation requirements, and I’m like, I cannot write you documentation that counts for every single circumstance.
108 00:11:37.240 ⇒ 00:11:37.620 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
109 00:11:37.620 ⇒ 00:11:48.570 Clarence Stone: Things that you make as a team to say, this is either a new ticket, or a change request, or an update to an existing ticket. That’s something that you guys need to do as the three of you at stand-up, and decide together.
110 00:11:48.570 ⇒ 00:11:48.930 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
111 00:11:48.930 ⇒ 00:11:52.549 Clarence Stone: So that does happen, as you guys all commit to it.
112 00:11:53.110 ⇒ 00:11:59.449 Clarence Stone: But that doesn’t seem like a good enough answer, Sashu, so we need to come up with a stronger… Yeah, well, actually…
113 00:11:59.450 ⇒ 00:12:00.680 Sheshu Chandrasekar: It did help me…
114 00:12:00.820 ⇒ 00:12:12.799 Sheshu Chandrasekar: paint a little bit of perspective here. So, what if, let’s say in this case, we’re in progress in dealing with this ticket, right? And it happens to be the customer says, I want black wheels while we’re about to install the silver wheels.
115 00:12:13.170 ⇒ 00:12:17.519 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Would we create an amendment or a child ticket done?
116 00:12:17.790 ⇒ 00:12:28.899 Sheshu Chandrasekar: like, I’m just thinking about, like, what’s the DoD here, right? What’s the definition of done? Like, when do we create a new ticket? I think it should happen when the event is taking place, like the,
117 00:12:29.150 ⇒ 00:12:35.429 Sheshu Chandrasekar: if it’s in progress, not started, it’s done, right? If we can classify it in those three buckets.
118 00:12:35.560 ⇒ 00:12:42.039 Sheshu Chandrasekar: maybe would that help, EPs? Like, because maybe in their head, they’re thinking, okay, it’s already done, like.
119 00:12:42.500 ⇒ 00:12:52.790 Sheshu Chandrasekar: we just need to create a new ticket, but what if it’s actually happening right now? Like, what if they’re… what if the developers are working on it right now, or what if… sorry, what if the, the SLs are working on the ticket right now, and then…
120 00:12:53.170 ⇒ 00:12:55.730 Sheshu Chandrasekar: the customer comes back and says, no, no, no, I want to change it.
121 00:12:55.880 ⇒ 00:13:03.649 Sheshu Chandrasekar: So, like, the trigger should be when the event is taking place, is what I’m thinking right now.
122 00:13:04.170 ⇒ 00:13:06.050 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Maybe that’d be a little bit more useful.
123 00:13:06.890 ⇒ 00:13:08.969 Sheshu Chandrasekar: But I… I could be wrong here as well.
124 00:13:15.130 ⇒ 00:13:18.100 Greg Stoutenburg: So, I mean… here’s a…
125 00:13:19.540 ⇒ 00:13:36.979 Greg Stoutenburg: just to add to Chishu’s, way of analyzing this. So, something that the engineering manager would do in one of the roles I was in was, you know, before a sprint, we’ve got all of our issues, and they all have the amount of story points that are anticipated. Now, this is always anticipated, right? Like.
126 00:13:37.370 ⇒ 00:13:52.730 Greg Stoutenburg: Then the engineer starts working on it. Sometimes it turns out there are these other dependencies that have to be delivered on first, and so what happens by the end of it is that you’ve got new tickets that have been opened, they also have sizes on them.
127 00:13:52.850 ⇒ 00:14:09.919 Greg Stoutenburg: But then, sometimes this looks like a change, sometimes it looks like additional work. And the way that we would talk about those things is, if it turns out you were just wrong about how much work you had to do for something, or how long it was going to take someone, just change the size and make a note.
128 00:14:10.010 ⇒ 00:14:20.010 Greg Stoutenburg: So we said this was a size 3, it turned out to be a 5, and we put 5. This is important partly because we’re doing things like billing hours, right? Took longer than expected.
129 00:14:20.010 ⇒ 00:14:31.200 Greg Stoutenburg: Nobody’s fault, some discovery had to happen, it was actually a 5. If instead it’s… there was new work that had to be delivered, then this needs to be new tickets that are open mid-sprint.
130 00:14:31.280 ⇒ 00:14:41.499 Greg Stoutenburg: And those get a size on them as well. So, I think for something like the customer… because in your example, Shashu, the customer asked for something that they didn’t initially ask for.
131 00:14:41.670 ⇒ 00:14:47.110 Greg Stoutenburg: You don’t increase the size on the ongoing work, you make a new issue.
132 00:14:47.110 ⇒ 00:14:48.840 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Newswicket. That makes sense.
133 00:14:48.840 ⇒ 00:15:00.569 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah. Now, I think on the old ticket, you can still, you know, you… you don’t, like, cancel it, because that is still a work in progress. You know, you… you complete that, close it out, but then, you know, then you get a new ticket that’s, like.
134 00:15:00.810 ⇒ 00:15:04.430 Greg Stoutenburg: Change request, customer wants modified wheel color.
135 00:15:04.990 ⇒ 00:15:05.780 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Gotcha.
136 00:15:07.170 ⇒ 00:15:23.399 Greg Stoutenburg: Now, that’s also a choice. It doesn’t have to be that way. You could actually just go, no, we actually just treat changes as increases in scope, and we make a comment, and we increase the scope, or increase the story points. You could do it that way. In principle, you end up at a similar result. My opinion is that it’s not quite as tidy, though.
137 00:15:26.190 ⇒ 00:15:34.999 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think overall, I agree, Clarence, like, they’re not doing enough updating of tickets and getting everything, like, as a habit, like, into linear every day.
138 00:15:35.710 ⇒ 00:15:39.670 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, they should… they should be, it’s, like, part of their scope.
139 00:15:40.300 ⇒ 00:15:43.660 Uttam Kumaran: So, not sure.
140 00:15:44.030 ⇒ 00:15:47.629 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, I mean, the one message I gave back to the
141 00:15:47.730 ⇒ 00:16:02.319 Clarence Stone: service leaders is they do run stand-up, right? And they do have the floor starting off on every single project. So, if there was, you know, tickets that are in bad shape, there’s tickets missing information, there’s tickets that need to be created.
142 00:16:02.570 ⇒ 00:16:12.279 Clarence Stone: The SLs can just stop the show from the top and say, hey, yesterday we had a conversation, we agreed that we’re going to create a change order ticket, I don’t see it yet. When will I see it?
143 00:16:13.490 ⇒ 00:16:22.709 Clarence Stone: Right? So, like, that’s the advice I’ve given to the stand-up leaders, to be able to just, like, stop and say, hey, this is what needs to happen, you know, today.
144 00:16:22.920 ⇒ 00:16:29.029 Clarence Stone: So… That’s step one, but two, like, dude, I don’t think people are reading your vault.
145 00:16:29.930 ⇒ 00:16:39.600 Clarence Stone: I… all I had to do was look up how tickets should be managed or written, and I see, like, all these documentations. I go through it, and I’m like, wait, Sam, like, Awash, like, I think, like, what you guys.
146 00:16:39.600 ⇒ 00:16:49.700 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but this is what I’m saying, like, what do I do about that? Every fucking meeting I’m in, I tell people to open it, right? So I don’t… it’s like, what do you want… what do I do about that? Like…
147 00:16:50.160 ⇒ 00:16:54.119 Uttam Kumaran: I… it’s… this is why it’s so painful, because, yes.
148 00:16:54.230 ⇒ 00:17:05.790 Uttam Kumaran: Like, dude, you could literally take the transcript of a meeting we’re in, open in cursor, and say, go create me or update any relevant tickets, it’ll do it. I’m just having a hard time because I’m, like, really pushing for it.
149 00:17:05.849 ⇒ 00:17:14.980 Uttam Kumaran: And so far, like, I think, Greg, you’re doing a good job. Some people are sort of openly being like, I’m gonna go try to figure this out. Other folks are not doing it.
150 00:17:15.260 ⇒ 00:17:18.210 Uttam Kumaran: So my ask to you is, like, okay, what do we try next?
151 00:17:19.310 ⇒ 00:17:27.040 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, it depends how draconian we want to be, because, like, Dev teams have no…
152 00:17:29.790 ⇒ 00:17:48.359 Clarence Stone: like, they don’t have a duty to perform work for our project if it’s not clearly scoped out, has the right requirements, and it has the criteria of, like, what’s going to be accepted, right? So if those tickets don’t look good, like, I want to get to a point where, like, Awage can say, we don’t… we don’t start this work, because you don’t have your work planned out.
153 00:17:48.680 ⇒ 00:17:58.410 Clarence Stone: But we don’t want to go there, right? So, like, what I’ve told them is, if it’s getting to that point, just stop the show and let me know, so we can take a look at everything. But…
154 00:17:58.550 ⇒ 00:18:04.089 Clarence Stone: Essentially, like, if we’re gonna hit maturity and, like, we see this type of behavior, like, just…
155 00:18:04.470 ⇒ 00:18:09.580 Clarence Stone: that TSO is gonna be, you know, begging you for help, because, like.
156 00:18:09.750 ⇒ 00:18:13.280 Clarence Stone: No work is going to get done on that project until it finishes planning.
157 00:18:13.860 ⇒ 00:18:19.189 Clarence Stone: Like, it has to be that way, or else, like, SLs have no power to enforce anything.
158 00:18:26.400 ⇒ 00:18:44.090 Clarence Stone: But that’s also what I told the team. I said, hey, I can write documentation for you all day, I can make a ton of SOPs, but if we don’t stop and hold people accountable, right, then they’re just a bunch of documents, right? So, first thing, you know, everyone needs to do is read the documentation.
159 00:18:44.250 ⇒ 00:18:48.559 Clarence Stone: And, you know, if they’re not complying with it, you have to point at the part where they’re not.
160 00:18:50.530 ⇒ 00:19:03.160 Uttam Kumaran: But this is where… this is where I’ll say, like, if you go to the AI team meeting in the morning, I don’t know if they’re running… like, I don’t feel like it’s being run like the data team meeting is. Like, the data team meeting, we go through tickets.
161 00:19:03.450 ⇒ 00:19:09.639 Uttam Kumaran: And we’re going through, like, CSO, and then EP, CSO, EP. The other meeting’s not being run like that.
162 00:19:09.940 ⇒ 00:19:12.770 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, again, this is where I’m like, what do I…
163 00:19:12.880 ⇒ 00:19:22.139 Uttam Kumaran: what can I do about… I’m expecting that feedback to come from you, because then it’s all the feedback coming from me, and it’s, like, sort of, like, I can only give so much feedback.
164 00:19:22.450 ⇒ 00:19:25.690 Uttam Kumaran: And otherwise, I’m just gonna have to just start doing… I’m just gonna do the thing.
165 00:19:25.690 ⇒ 00:19:26.080 Clarence Stone: So.
166 00:19:26.080 ⇒ 00:19:26.530 Uttam Kumaran: You know what?
167 00:19:26.530 ⇒ 00:19:39.330 Clarence Stone: really interesting, the difference between those two stand-ups is that, Sam is actually reading all the project, chats, so he actually knows what’s going on. Yeah, because he has 3 clients.
168 00:19:39.800 ⇒ 00:19:44.340 Clarence Stone: Yeah. Which doesn’t. So, like… the…
169 00:19:45.520 ⇒ 00:19:49.469 Clarence Stone: I think we’re hitting, like, a capacity for SLs. Awish might actually.
170 00:19:49.470 ⇒ 00:19:51.640 Uttam Kumaran: No, I don’t agree, I don’t agree at all.
171 00:19:51.820 ⇒ 00:20:04.010 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I totally disagree. We’re not. Like, Sam is involved in those two… in those two clients. Awish has all those clients, and he’s getting the reporting he needs. Like, he’s not involved at all in Magic Spoon.
172 00:20:04.140 ⇒ 00:20:10.199 Uttam Kumaran: Demi gives him the update, and we have the tickets. He’s not involved in a couple other clients.
173 00:20:10.450 ⇒ 00:20:12.780 Uttam Kumaran: I give them the update, right? Like.
174 00:20:13.820 ⇒ 00:20:19.109 Uttam Kumaran: the… I still, like, if Sam only has 2 clients, then that meeting should be 10 minutes.
175 00:20:19.360 ⇒ 00:20:20.899 Uttam Kumaran: We should be in and out of there, right?
176 00:20:20.900 ⇒ 00:20:35.659 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so Sam is not the one making the complaint. It came from a wage saying that he still has projects that, don’t have linear boards up to date. And I just said, stop the show, are you guys doing work that’s not specified in linear? And he’s like, yeah.
177 00:20:37.860 ⇒ 00:20:40.629 Uttam Kumaran: But then, did he say which EP is on the hook for that?
178 00:20:40.630 ⇒ 00:20:42.669 Clarence Stone: He won’t… he won’t name names, man.
179 00:20:42.670 ⇒ 00:20:50.079 Uttam Kumaran: What the… what does that mean? I’ll tell you what it is, I noticed, like, I… but see, this is why I’m not here. I can’t solve the problem, because this is my child.
180 00:20:50.080 ⇒ 00:20:56.730 Clarence Stone: I’m asking for how brutal I’m allowed to be in enforcement of this.
181 00:20:56.730 ⇒ 00:21:10.259 Uttam Kumaran: I would rather… I mean, I don’t know, I’m interested in what the others think, but I feel like we have… we’ve had 4 weeks in where I think some people have done a good job at, like, leveling into their role. I think some folks have not.
182 00:21:10.500 ⇒ 00:21:13.939 Uttam Kumaran: And so, I… I don’t know, I’m sort of at the point where
183 00:21:14.090 ⇒ 00:21:17.279 Uttam Kumaran: It would either be, I would like us to understand
184 00:21:17.540 ⇒ 00:21:21.939 Uttam Kumaran: Whether we’ve placed people into the right roles, or whether those are still open.
185 00:21:22.310 ⇒ 00:21:27.940 Uttam Kumaran: Because then I’ll just fill those until we can fill someone into those EP roles if the things are not being taken care of.
186 00:21:28.250 ⇒ 00:21:30.699 Uttam Kumaran: Right? So I would rather us…
187 00:21:31.250 ⇒ 00:21:34.049 Uttam Kumaran: Move towards a world of, like, more accountability.
188 00:21:36.680 ⇒ 00:21:41.160 Uttam Kumaran: Versus stringing it along, because it’s only… it’s already been 4 weeks.
189 00:21:41.360 ⇒ 00:21:46.149 Uttam Kumaran: Because even if we’re saying, okay, cool, you’re no longer the EP on a project, I’ll just go… I’ll start doing it.
190 00:21:46.800 ⇒ 00:21:50.760 Uttam Kumaran: And that’s fine, until… We fill… get someone to fill that in.
191 00:21:51.200 ⇒ 00:22:01.670 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so first off, like, I don’t want this to be, like, a five-alarm thing that happened, because I know confidently, just by looking at each of these project chats, that people are doing work.
192 00:22:01.670 ⇒ 00:22:02.100 Uttam Kumaran: Totally.
193 00:22:02.100 ⇒ 00:22:18.290 Clarence Stone: We are getting things through. It’s… it’s the fact that Awasht is saying, hey, the things that they’re saying that they’re doing isn’t matching what’s happening on Linear. And I was like, hey, Awish, you need to stop the show and make sure that they update that… that work product, right? So that’s… that’s really the problem, right?
194 00:22:18.290 ⇒ 00:22:18.650 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
195 00:22:18.650 ⇒ 00:22:36.409 Clarence Stone: It’s having conversations out of linear that need to be in linear. That’s it. Like, that’s the root cause analysis. It’s not the end of the world, right? But still worth talking about, because we… this is more of a how-do-we-want-to-work question, instead of, you know, there’s an emergency or things, you know, going wrong.
196 00:22:39.740 ⇒ 00:22:56.740 Greg Stoutenburg: Just to interject here, if it’s me, I mean, I think I would start by… if someone’s been asked to put things in linear and they’re not doing it, I would ask them why they’re not doing it. And, you know, if they feel like they’re in the kind of environment where they think it’s safe to give a sincere answer, it could be, I forget, because my normal workflow hasn’t been in linear.
197 00:22:56.740 ⇒ 00:23:05.519 Greg Stoutenburg: I know it’s there, but I actually don’t think it matters, because I also have work in these other places. You know, I think Slack is good enough. I mean.
198 00:23:05.960 ⇒ 00:23:11.440 Greg Stoutenburg: it’s possible you could get that kind of feedback. Or, I tried, I think linear is confusing, I mean, you know.
199 00:23:11.700 ⇒ 00:23:22.320 Greg Stoutenburg: this is a pretty techy place, people might not say that, but, I’ve been in environments before where I had coworkers who thought that, like, GitHub was just, like, a complete mystery, as, you know, so, by analogy.
200 00:23:22.320 ⇒ 00:23:22.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
201 00:23:22.800 ⇒ 00:23:24.049 Greg Stoutenburg: I don’t know, might learn something.
202 00:23:24.790 ⇒ 00:23:27.409 Uttam Kumaran: So, Clarence, is that on a wish to go do?
203 00:23:27.670 ⇒ 00:23:28.770 Uttam Kumaran: Basically.
204 00:23:28.970 ⇒ 00:23:29.690 Clarence Stone: Yep.
205 00:23:29.850 ⇒ 00:23:47.209 Clarence Stone: And I also asked Sam and Awash, like, if you guys are getting partial tickets, tell me what you want to see in a perfect ticket. I already know it’s been written down in the vault right here. Yes. But, you know, if that is wrong, if the vault… so the first question was, review the documentation. Is the vault wrong?
206 00:23:48.080 ⇒ 00:23:50.830 Clarence Stone: If Vault is not wrong, then you will start
207 00:23:50.840 ⇒ 00:24:04.040 Clarence Stone: Pointing people to, this is how we operate, this is how we work, and enforcing it in your stand-ups. If what is wrong, and we need to update documentation, sure, let’s just take a step back, update documentation, announce it, and make sure everyone’s, you know, getting aligned.
208 00:24:04.040 ⇒ 00:24:14.379 Clarence Stone: So that’s… those are the two… two next steps, and I think, you know, it’s not the end of the world, it’s not a big deal, but we do need to kind of, like, decide how we want to solve those kinds of things.
209 00:24:15.520 ⇒ 00:24:16.549 Clarence Stone: That’s all.
210 00:24:17.330 ⇒ 00:24:22.749 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think, yeah, I think both of them just need to really… I think, again.
211 00:24:23.020 ⇒ 00:24:24.980 Uttam Kumaran: People are really avoiding, like.
212 00:24:25.700 ⇒ 00:24:33.489 Uttam Kumaran: either stopping the meeting and doing it, or just saying, let’s meet later and do it. But ultimately, like, in this situation, I’m hearing what I’m hearing.
213 00:24:33.670 ⇒ 00:24:39.420 Uttam Kumaran: the… kind of the issue is more on the EPs. Like, I think all the CSOs on clients are doing great, because
214 00:24:39.570 ⇒ 00:24:46.869 Uttam Kumaran: we’re communicating effectively. I think it’s all… it’s… the EPs clearly aren’t doing something, but the service lead is the check.
215 00:24:47.010 ⇒ 00:24:47.830 Uttam Kumaran: for that.
216 00:24:48.120 ⇒ 00:25:00.959 Uttam Kumaran: So, naturally, like, they have to go push the equation. I think what’s also happening on AI is Sam is involved on the development side for both the clients he’s working on, and for that reason, he fills in the gaps because he knows
217 00:25:01.630 ⇒ 00:25:03.469 Uttam Kumaran: He knows what’s going on.
218 00:25:03.610 ⇒ 00:25:09.980 Uttam Kumaran: on both of those clients, there’s gaps. Like, I’m getting questions from the clients on when things are gonna happen.
219 00:25:10.250 ⇒ 00:25:11.270 Uttam Kumaran: And…
220 00:25:12.020 ⇒ 00:25:18.080 Uttam Kumaran: the… it’s not getting translated. So, this is where I’m, like, I also think both of them have, like, kind of homework to do.
221 00:25:19.300 ⇒ 00:25:21.180 Clarence Stone: Okay, yeah.
222 00:25:22.490 ⇒ 00:25:27.130 Uttam Kumaran: So, I mean, but what do you think is the best way to remedy that? Like, should I… yeah, I guess, like.
223 00:25:27.420 ⇒ 00:25:33.249 Uttam Kumaran: I think putting pressure on both of them, they’re both very highly leveraged, and both very senior, and know all the people on their teams.
224 00:25:33.390 ⇒ 00:25:35.689 Uttam Kumaran: They should be able to go remedy this.
225 00:25:36.180 ⇒ 00:25:41.190 Uttam Kumaran: You know, but I don’t want them to really… yeah, I think they should be able to figure it out.
226 00:25:44.530 ⇒ 00:25:51.490 Clarence Stone: My bigger concern is a lot of them… both of them feel like they do have it figured out, and it doesn’t look like it’s figured out, so…
227 00:25:51.490 ⇒ 00:25:51.920 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
228 00:25:51.920 ⇒ 00:26:01.759 Clarence Stone: That’s… that’s the… that’s my broader concern, but, we’re good. They’re gonna tell me if the documentation is correct, and then we can go from there.
229 00:26:01.760 ⇒ 00:26:02.420 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Yeah.
230 00:26:02.420 ⇒ 00:26:07.469 Clarence Stone: Be an update, and we’ll update it, and, announce it, and we’ll get it sorted.
231 00:26:08.620 ⇒ 00:26:19.010 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I’m also thinking maybe, like, because in our last call, we asked them, like, hey, can you give us a good example of a good ticket and a bad one? So they’re gonna also provide us those materials.
232 00:26:19.760 ⇒ 00:26:39.670 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I’m thinking maybe we need to create some sort of, like, agenda templates, because maybe sometimes, you know, the EPs just don’t understand, and they don’t have, like, an agenda, like, on what to talk about, so maybe some sort of templates to facilitate that conversation could help out, right? Because clearly they’re not reading the vault documentation, so…
233 00:26:40.530 ⇒ 00:26:54.649 Sheshu Chandrasekar: I don’t know, maybe that could be somewhat of use, but I think one of the biggest things I’ll be doing is sitting in on those calls, seeing how that… that conversation is happening between the two, and seeing where the bottlenecks really lie. If it’s really more of a behavior problem, or if it’s something like.
234 00:26:55.470 ⇒ 00:27:01.299 Sheshu Chandrasekar: And if it is a behavioral problem, now I think about it, then maybe we’d need a better way of facilitating those conversations.
235 00:27:01.880 ⇒ 00:27:09.829 Uttam Kumaran: Like, let me give you an example of something that just came from a client today. This is from Lilo. And these guys freak out every week, but…
236 00:27:10.440 ⇒ 00:27:12.610 Uttam Kumaran: I guess what I’m trying to say is, like.
237 00:27:12.980 ⇒ 00:27:21.170 Uttam Kumaran: We got… I got a message saying, like, hey, we doubled the retainer, I want to make sure we’re tracking to what we agreed to. I don’t think we made progress on forecasting, which is a work stream.
238 00:27:21.680 ⇒ 00:27:28.739 Uttam Kumaran: The night… the lovely thing is, I talked to Pranav on Friday. We are making progress on… on forecasting.
239 00:27:28.990 ⇒ 00:27:31.899 Uttam Kumaran: But it seems like this is something that…
240 00:27:32.180 ⇒ 00:27:36.889 Uttam Kumaran: the CSO, which basically at this point is Pranav, Should’ve presented on.
241 00:27:37.320 ⇒ 00:27:47.099 Uttam Kumaran: So I think in this moment, like, I’m interested in, like, what I should do. My first inclination is to send this to engineering and basically tag Pranav and Sam and be like.
242 00:27:48.030 ⇒ 00:27:50.999 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what’s up, or what’s good?
243 00:27:51.260 ⇒ 00:27:55.000 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t, like, I’m also needing some, like, how do… how should I, like.
244 00:27:55.220 ⇒ 00:28:03.460 Uttam Kumaran: How should I circle on on this? Because the one thing I don’t want to do is, like, Pranav is gonna basically be CSO for this client. I do want this to come from him.
245 00:28:04.080 ⇒ 00:28:11.509 Uttam Kumaran: Right? If a client is not sure about the status of a work stream, or understanding where we are in the Gantt chart.
246 00:28:11.660 ⇒ 00:28:12.430 Uttam Kumaran: Right?
247 00:28:13.340 ⇒ 00:28:19.360 Uttam Kumaran: So, is that… I guess, like, what do you guys think? Like, is that fair? Should I just send this into engineering and be like.
248 00:28:19.760 ⇒ 00:28:22.659 Uttam Kumaran: Would love you guys to answer this directly in the channel.
249 00:28:22.950 ⇒ 00:28:23.959 Uttam Kumaran: To the client.
250 00:28:24.300 ⇒ 00:28:27.909 Clarence Stone: I mean, the next update from Pranav should be, hey, just…
251 00:28:28.220 ⇒ 00:28:41.180 Clarence Stone: want to make sure that I update you on, you know, the forecasting progress that we’ve made already, and the changes and benefits to what we’re going to be delivering to you for the additional monthly fees.
252 00:28:41.320 ⇒ 00:28:43.680 Clarence Stone: Let me know if there’s, you know.
253 00:28:43.680 ⇒ 00:28:48.680 Uttam Kumaran: But that sounds like you answering it. Which, yes, you win. I agree.
254 00:28:48.680 ⇒ 00:28:51.689 Clarence Stone: I mean, if we’re not as a DSO, they shouldn’t.
255 00:28:51.890 ⇒ 00:29:06.180 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, no, okay, so that’s so… but I guess, like, let’s even take one step further. I agree, like, that should be his… that should be his response. More in, like, what do I do now in my position? Should I just send it to the CSO channel and be like, hey, Pranav, this is your responsibility?
256 00:29:07.410 ⇒ 00:29:24.319 Clarence Stone: I would send this to the entire project team and say, hey, this is what the client is saying. The sentiment from the client is that they are not clear on what we’re actually going to be delivering on them. Let’s make sure we cross-prescribe that to make that absolutely, abundantly clear throughout updates this week and our weekly presentation.
257 00:29:24.320 ⇒ 00:29:27.160 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay. Right. Alright, so that’s what I’m gonna do.
258 00:29:27.160 ⇒ 00:29:30.569 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and I’m sure they’re gonna take care of that. I… yeah.
259 00:29:30.820 ⇒ 00:29:39.240 Clarence Stone: This is just because they upgraded their… their, project, right? And… This is recent.
260 00:29:40.060 ⇒ 00:29:44.600 Clarence Stone: This is recent, and I, like, again, I pretty… I’m fairly confident.
261 00:29:44.770 ⇒ 00:29:46.449 Uttam Kumaran: like, what… this is where I’m…
262 00:29:46.570 ⇒ 00:29:48.789 Uttam Kumaran: But again, this is just examples of, like.
263 00:29:49.030 ⇒ 00:29:53.300 Uttam Kumaran: okay, how should I even deliver the feedback? Like, is it best for everybody to see this?
264 00:29:53.690 ⇒ 00:29:58.720 Uttam Kumaran: So that other people can learn, or should I just send it to the client channel? Because not everybody’s there.
265 00:29:58.950 ⇒ 00:30:05.269 Clarence Stone: Greg’s a great limits test for me on this. I think the whole entire project team needs to hear about sentiments coming from the client.
266 00:30:05.270 ⇒ 00:30:11.569 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, but project team as in, like, everybody at Brain… like, everybody who does projects at Brainforge, or just this client?
267 00:30:11.570 ⇒ 00:30:13.360 Clarence Stone: The Lilo project team.
268 00:30:13.360 ⇒ 00:30:14.210 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
269 00:30:15.530 ⇒ 00:30:19.729 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, yeah, that… I wasn’t really debating sending this to them, it was more of, like, how big…
270 00:30:20.020 ⇒ 00:30:23.579 Uttam Kumaran: How big of an example should I, like, share this with? Like, everybody?
271 00:30:23.580 ⇒ 00:30:42.510 Clarence Stone: And ideally, like, if Pranav’s like, hey, dude, I sent this to them on Monday, this is what I sent to them on Friday, like, can you just tell me where it was unclear that we’re actually not working on this? Like, right? So, you know, if that bubbles up, then we can talk about that too, but, like, but, you know…
272 00:30:43.370 ⇒ 00:30:49.810 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, that’s… I also… that’s what I’m assuming, because again, these guys freak. So, this guy wakes up every day, and they’re like.
273 00:30:50.000 ⇒ 00:31:05.099 Uttam Kumaran: they’re on Zins all day, they just, like, spazzed out, and so… I’m really… I’m really aware of that, so I’m not, like… I don’t see messages like this and, like, blame the team. Like, half… most… more than half the time, we crush. Like, we’re great. Like, we don’t have problems. But more, it’s like…
274 00:31:05.350 ⇒ 00:31:17.530 Uttam Kumaran: I’m wondering, like, why… why these guys don’t feel comfortable just hitting Pranav directly? Or, like, hey, okay, Pranav, you gotta wake up every day, talk about forecasting for the next two weeks straight. Just say something about forecasting.
275 00:31:17.680 ⇒ 00:31:25.169 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Because ultimately, I don’t… I don’t want to do this and be like, blame the client, I’ll patch it, and then every 3 days this happens.
276 00:31:25.370 ⇒ 00:31:29.190 Uttam Kumaran: Instead, I’m like, okay, Tweak something, you know, tweak something in the messaging.
277 00:31:29.190 ⇒ 00:31:42.899 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and I think the last line of that message from Pranav responding to this should just be something like, if there’s a, you know, different update you want to see related to forecasting on a daily or weekly basis, please let me know.
278 00:31:43.590 ⇒ 00:31:46.270 Clarence Stone: Right? He needs to take that conversation back over.
279 00:31:46.500 ⇒ 00:32:01.909 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so can I have you… I think part of this is that many people are not… don’t have the Rolodex of getting burned by clients, and have not A-B tested this as much as me and you have, to know even, like, some ways of handling this.
280 00:32:01.970 ⇒ 00:32:12.169 Uttam Kumaran: Yep. So one thing I want to do is almost share with them, hey, this is an example of a client not being sure where we are in the roadmap, and also…
281 00:32:12.320 ⇒ 00:32:20.289 Uttam Kumaran: like, these guys are just… again, they’re, like, tough negotiators, they’re always gonna bring up the money and try to, like, bully. It’s just, like, weird. I don’t know why they do this, but…
282 00:32:20.390 ⇒ 00:32:26.840 Uttam Kumaran: you could say, I just think giving people options on, like, here’s a couple of suggestions on how to respond.
283 00:32:27.420 ⇒ 00:32:29.580 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want to write the thing for him.
284 00:32:29.860 ⇒ 00:32:32.669 Uttam Kumaran: But I do want to say, like, here are some things…
285 00:32:32.670 ⇒ 00:32:41.269 Clarence Stone: Well, I mean… To consider when responding. The outcomes of what needs to happen, right? One is, like, Pranav, you need to make it clear to Bobby that you are the point of contact.
286 00:32:42.360 ⇒ 00:32:43.000 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
287 00:32:44.230 ⇒ 00:32:46.729 Clarence Stone: Right. Two, like…
288 00:32:46.870 ⇒ 00:32:56.229 Clarence Stone: Because there’s a concern about, you know, progress made towards forecasting, we need to show clear commitment, progress, and our wins related to that this week.
289 00:32:57.020 ⇒ 00:32:57.500 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
290 00:32:57.500 ⇒ 00:32:58.180 Clarence Stone: Adrian.
291 00:32:59.790 ⇒ 00:33:02.889 Clarence Stone: Right? And that’s… that’s really it. Like, if you do 1 and 2,
292 00:33:03.250 ⇒ 00:33:05.289 Clarence Stone: He’ll take the conversation back over.
293 00:33:11.890 ⇒ 00:33:18.360 Uttam Kumaran: I like this. I mean, dude, this is, like, what I do every day, but see, my problem is, like, I don’t like having to go do the work.
294 00:33:18.570 ⇒ 00:33:22.099 Uttam Kumaran: Because if I… I might as well just go do it. Like, I don’t like…
295 00:33:22.100 ⇒ 00:33:22.890 Clarence Stone: Exactly.
296 00:33:23.070 ⇒ 00:33:26.569 Uttam Kumaran: You know, so I’m trying to get better at giving feedback that’s helpful.
297 00:33:26.750 ⇒ 00:33:29.950 Uttam Kumaran: But that also, like, leads someone down a path.
298 00:33:30.180 ⇒ 00:33:37.219 Uttam Kumaran: But sometimes, I think some people have just never… they haven’t gotten burned enough to sort of know some of these, so I do want to give, like.
299 00:33:37.420 ⇒ 00:33:39.239 Uttam Kumaran: Here’s a couple things to consider.
300 00:33:41.200 ⇒ 00:33:47.200 Uttam Kumaran: And I also just… I don’t wanna… I’m not trying to be abrasive, right? Like, I’m… I don’t see this and, like, freak out, I’m like…
301 00:33:47.940 ⇒ 00:33:52.839 Uttam Kumaran: I’m pretty sure I talked to Pranava this Friday morning, stressed this. I’m fairly confident he would have done that.
302 00:33:52.960 ⇒ 00:33:55.460 Uttam Kumaran: So, he should just own this.
303 00:33:55.460 ⇒ 00:34:05.759 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and I really see, like, outcomes like this not really towards one person, but rather the entire leadership team related to that project, so, like.
304 00:34:06.400 ⇒ 00:34:07.340 Clarence Stone: if…
305 00:34:08.960 ⇒ 00:34:18.159 Clarence Stone: you know, something like this happens, I would want everybody in that project leadership to know, hey, this is the current sentiment of your client.
306 00:34:18.449 ⇒ 00:34:21.930 Clarence Stone: Right? You need to course-correct this narrative.
307 00:34:23.489 ⇒ 00:34:24.109 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
308 00:35:04.459 ⇒ 00:35:05.969 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great.
309 00:35:09.149 ⇒ 00:35:09.979 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
310 00:35:10.119 ⇒ 00:35:14.189 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, yeah, I think that’s still, like, a lot of that. I think… I think,
311 00:35:14.919 ⇒ 00:35:17.799 Uttam Kumaran: More than likely, I think it’s just, on…
312 00:35:18.269 ⇒ 00:35:25.019 Uttam Kumaran: like, I think it’s probably Mustafa, Casey, and Ashwini on the EP side that just need to, like, start running their shit better.
313 00:35:25.249 ⇒ 00:35:35.319 Uttam Kumaran: Like, that’s… I mean, those are… they manage most of the projects. Eden, I don’t really have awareness of, but Ashwini on CTA and Magic Spoon is supposed to be owning
314 00:35:35.559 ⇒ 00:35:42.899 Uttam Kumaran: the timeline and the linear. So, that’s on him. Mustafa is default. Casey is,
315 00:35:43.019 ⇒ 00:35:45.779 Uttam Kumaran: Casey’s gonna be Lilo and Andy.
316 00:35:45.919 ⇒ 00:35:49.259 Uttam Kumaran: So… I think both of them just need to, like, level up.
317 00:35:50.039 ⇒ 00:35:56.579 Uttam Kumaran: if they’re not able to do it, they need to ask for support on how to… because I’m not… I have no… there’s not a bandwidth problem.
318 00:35:56.809 ⇒ 00:36:09.729 Uttam Kumaran: Like, you can… this is all possible within just, like, an hour… an hour every, like, 2 or 3 days to just make sure all that stuff’s set up. So, they’re either not doing it, or they’re trying to do it, getting stuck, and they’re not asking for, like, how do I speed this up?
319 00:36:10.669 ⇒ 00:36:13.319 Uttam Kumaran: Which, that’s… that’s much easier for me to answer, you know?
320 00:36:14.880 ⇒ 00:36:15.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
321 00:36:16.500 ⇒ 00:36:20.950 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s just… it’s… I would say it’s those three. I think, again, part of it is, like.
322 00:36:21.170 ⇒ 00:36:27.199 Uttam Kumaran: I, like, I’m the CSO for one of those, and I’m not putting a lot of pressure
323 00:36:27.740 ⇒ 00:36:30.900 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, I should start… I’ll start doing that also.
324 00:36:32.310 ⇒ 00:36:33.980 Clarence Stone: Yeah, apply some pressure.
325 00:36:40.250 ⇒ 00:36:41.010 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
326 00:36:41.350 ⇒ 00:36:42.350 Uttam Kumaran: What else?
327 00:36:43.890 ⇒ 00:36:49.310 Clarence Stone: Nothing for me, unless you want something off-topic. Have you already, interviewed Davis?
328 00:36:50.610 ⇒ 00:36:52.389 Uttam Kumaran: I did, yeah.
329 00:36:52.390 ⇒ 00:36:54.280 Clarence Stone: Right. How was it? Dude, like…
330 00:36:54.750 ⇒ 00:36:58.020 Uttam Kumaran: Davis was that kid I told you, who’s the… who’s the waiter.
331 00:36:58.020 ⇒ 00:37:04.999 Clarence Stone: Oh, perfect, perfect. Okay, good. He just slid on my calendar… Like, in 5 minutes, so…
332 00:37:05.000 ⇒ 00:37:08.290 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, this is a wild card, so you tell me.
333 00:37:08.290 ⇒ 00:37:09.210 Clarence Stone: Thank you.
334 00:37:09.210 ⇒ 00:37:10.040 Uttam Kumaran: You tell me.
335 00:37:10.570 ⇒ 00:37:11.660 Clarence Stone: Cool, cool.
336 00:37:14.640 ⇒ 00:37:22.740 Clarence Stone: Anything else? Yeah. And, we’re gonna start that new EP-type session tomorrow with Amber, so,
337 00:37:22.950 ⇒ 00:37:24.220 Clarence Stone: Well, we’ll get there.
338 00:37:25.470 ⇒ 00:37:26.950 Uttam Kumaran: Anything else, Greg?
339 00:37:28.120 ⇒ 00:37:28.700 Uttam Kumaran: Guys.
340 00:37:28.700 ⇒ 00:37:38.029 Greg Stoutenburg: I don’t think so. My projects where I’m CSO are just kind of in a funny position, where it’s like, you know, client expresses some enthusiasm, they give him an SOP.
341 00:37:38.030 ⇒ 00:37:41.719 Uttam Kumaran: And defaults moving, kind of, right?
342 00:37:41.970 ⇒ 00:37:50.850 Greg Stoutenburg: A little. I mean, so actually, just during this call, Caitlin pushed back and was like, well, Phoenix isn’t gonna be ready to go, but maybe we can start tracking SKUs.
343 00:37:50.970 ⇒ 00:38:00.020 Greg Stoutenburg: And it’s like, alright, I think we’re… you know, it’s like what we talked about this morning, where I think the update is we’re just gonna have to do this a little bit at a time as we move forward.
344 00:38:00.020 ⇒ 00:38:12.140 Greg Stoutenburg: Hedra pushed back on price, and I’m trying to get them to say something about what reduced scope they would like. Robert’s take there is that Sandra is figuring out what
345 00:38:12.150 ⇒ 00:38:24.260 Greg Stoutenburg: her bounds are within the company, probably to figure out what she can push for. And then, yeah, and then, you know, README was… the update is… well, similarly, just seeing what…
346 00:38:24.260 ⇒ 00:38:30.769 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, it’s like, well, all of them are kind of in the same stage on that, so it’s like…
347 00:38:31.120 ⇒ 00:38:45.320 Greg Stoutenburg: all right, there are things being done, but the CSO part of it for me is, like, just… it’s sending these nudges and trying to get that engagement from the client, and sometimes I get a little, sometimes I don’t. I don’t think there’s a problem there, because, you know, I’m…
348 00:38:45.320 ⇒ 00:38:45.959 Uttam Kumaran: We’re talking about it every day.
349 00:38:45.960 ⇒ 00:38:50.840 Greg Stoutenburg: But, I think this is, by luck, that’s where these projects are at.
350 00:38:51.240 ⇒ 00:38:58.800 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay. Yeah, I think default will move, Iger, regardless, and then… yeah, we have, we have maybe one or two more clients that are coming, so…
351 00:38:59.120 ⇒ 00:38:59.610 Greg Stoutenburg: Damn.
352 00:38:59.610 ⇒ 00:39:00.320 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s see.
353 00:39:00.930 ⇒ 00:39:01.600 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
354 00:39:02.890 ⇒ 00:39:06.729 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. This is good. No, I like… I like talking about this. I think…
355 00:39:07.480 ⇒ 00:39:18.940 Uttam Kumaran: More than likely, I think, Clarence, like, I’ll start to have you get more involved on these. I like talking… I think the CSOs is where I can be the most relevant, because this is, like, really the touchy-feely part of our engagement. I…
356 00:39:19.150 ⇒ 00:39:26.190 Uttam Kumaran: as much as I love Gantt charts and linear, I really think it’s, like, just… you just gotta do those types of things. And the service leads, like.
357 00:39:26.630 ⇒ 00:39:28.130 Uttam Kumaran: You just gotta run it tight.
358 00:39:28.310 ⇒ 00:39:33.749 Uttam Kumaran: Super tight stand-up, and both of them are very, very kind people, so they’re not doing as much as, like, they should be.
359 00:39:33.940 ⇒ 00:39:38.000 Uttam Kumaran: Like, Robert’s good at being like, Robert just stopped talking.
360 00:39:38.460 ⇒ 00:39:41.669 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, they kind of have to have that sense.
361 00:39:41.900 ⇒ 00:39:45.180 Uttam Kumaran: Especially Sam is, like, very, very nice, and I think…
362 00:39:45.380 ⇒ 00:39:48.269 Uttam Kumaran: He’s not able to, like, push really hard.
363 00:39:48.510 ⇒ 00:39:53.239 Uttam Kumaran: So maybe he has to figure that out. Oasis’ getting better, though.
364 00:39:53.580 ⇒ 00:39:56.109 Clarence Stone: I gave them another nudge about being too nice.
365 00:39:56.900 ⇒ 00:39:59.639 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not even, like, night, you know, it’s not, like, about being mean.
366 00:39:59.640 ⇒ 00:40:01.439 Clarence Stone: It’s not about nicer…
367 00:40:01.440 ⇒ 00:40:03.090 Uttam Kumaran: They’re so direct, they’re not direct enough.
368 00:40:03.090 ⇒ 00:40:17.910 Clarence Stone: You’re getting tricked into a rabbit hole to discuss something very technical, and it’s a topic that you love, I know you want to talk about it. This is not the time, not during stand-up, buddy. Yeah, exactly. Don’t get tricked, is what I told them.
369 00:40:17.910 ⇒ 00:40:18.470 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
370 00:40:20.480 ⇒ 00:40:21.310 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
371 00:40:22.080 ⇒ 00:40:22.840 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
372 00:40:24.070 ⇒ 00:40:25.960 Uttam Kumaran: Awesome. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate it.
373 00:40:25.960 ⇒ 00:40:26.429 Sheshu Chandrasekar: Have a good one.
374 00:40:26.890 ⇒ 00:40:27.350 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
375 00:40:27.350 ⇒ 00:40:28.329 Greg Stoutenburg: See you guys. Thanks.