Meeting Title: Brainforge Operations Introduction and Updates Date: 2025-12-19 Meeting participants: Clarence Stone, Elizah Joy
WEBVTT
1 00:00:07.730 ⇒ 00:00:09.310 Clarence Stone: Hello!
2 00:00:13.410 ⇒ 00:00:15.150 Clarence Stone: Hi! Can you hear me?
3 00:00:21.480 ⇒ 00:00:25.919 Clarence Stone: Can you hear me? Oh, wow, my camera looks weird, I don’t know what’s going on.
4 00:00:26.560 ⇒ 00:00:35.389 Clarence Stone: Let’s… Do this? Is this… oh, wow, it’s so weird. Am I still stretched for you, too?
5 00:00:35.660 ⇒ 00:00:36.849 Elizah Joy: It’s… yeah.
6 00:00:37.250 ⇒ 00:00:39.200 Clarence Stone: Yeah, this is weird, let me…
7 00:00:39.630 ⇒ 00:00:41.599 Clarence Stone: Let me just reset the camera, maybe.
8 00:00:44.430 ⇒ 00:00:45.290 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
9 00:00:45.490 ⇒ 00:00:46.380 Clarence Stone: Okay.
10 00:00:49.940 ⇒ 00:01:02.549 Clarence Stone: Oh, it’s still stuck, I’m so sorry! I guess we’re gonna have to deal with this. I apologize. I’m still trying to figure out how to work on 3 laptops at the same time, so I have my client laptop.
11 00:01:03.150 ⇒ 00:01:16.019 Clarence Stone: And then, like, I have two keyboards, because I have to… there’s another client laptop here. So, bear with me as I figure all of these things out.
12 00:01:16.270 ⇒ 00:01:31.519 Clarence Stone: I just wanted to introduce myself, because I noticed that, you’ve been, like, really great at updating you, Tom, and the group every day at what you’re doing, and, we’re about to hire a new operations lead, and…
13 00:01:31.620 ⇒ 00:01:34.679 Clarence Stone: You know, there’s gonna be some more help on the way.
14 00:01:34.680 ⇒ 00:01:59.009 Clarence Stone: But I wanted to just see, you know, how things are going from your end, what you’ve been working on, and then I can show you more about, like, what you, Tom, and I have been talking about, and provide you a broader vision. But before all that, just want to introduce myself. I’m Clarence. I come from about 6 years of management consulting at EY, specifically focused on innovation and
15 00:01:59.010 ⇒ 00:02:17.409 Clarence Stone: Wealth Asset Management, and prior to that, I was a front-end developer, UX designer, product leader, right? That’s sort of like the progression that I went through in e-commerce. So, a lot of the things that you guys talk about, you know, trying to discover the benefits for your clients using analytics to lever.
16 00:02:17.600 ⇒ 00:02:28.010 Clarence Stone: results on income sales, like, that’s all the things that I used to do, and I absolutely love that. It’s a lot more fun than doing, you know, corporate work.
17 00:02:28.360 ⇒ 00:02:39.500 Clarence Stone: And I think the last thing is, like, I’ve got 12 years as a reserve cyber officer, so I still understand, like, deeper technology, architecture, and stuff like that. So, yeah,
18 00:02:39.500 ⇒ 00:03:02.550 Clarence Stone: I’m actually here because, like, you Tom and I were talking, and he’s like, I’d love to, you know, get your insights and input on getting things together, and it just started with, you know, writing a job description, and now I’m very much involved in helping with operations and figuring out a better way to work. So, you know, the whole point of this call is just for me to introduce myself and get, you know, to learn a little bit about you and what you’ve been up to.
19 00:03:02.590 ⇒ 00:03:04.579 Clarence Stone: So, what’s up?
20 00:03:05.020 ⇒ 00:03:16.929 Elizah Joy: Yes, so hi again, so I’m Eliza. So, I’ve been at Brain Forge just for the past 2 weeks, and the past two weeks, I’ve been on, like, this, trial.
21 00:03:16.990 ⇒ 00:03:28.850 Elizah Joy: trial period for 2 weeks, and earlier I’ve had a good conversation with Utam that will continue forward, moving past the two-week trial.
22 00:03:28.980 ⇒ 00:03:37.129 Elizah Joy: And yes, so my background is more on, operations management for 6 years.
23 00:03:37.310 ⇒ 00:03:52.379 Elizah Joy: But, initially, before or prior to that 6 years, I’ve been, it’s called an integrator role? Integrator role, wherein it’s a combination for project management, like, basically.
24 00:03:52.650 ⇒ 00:03:58.019 Elizah Joy: Integrating all the different departments in the department of the business.
25 00:03:58.380 ⇒ 00:04:08.329 Elizah Joy: And with my role as an operations manager for the past 6 years, I don’t have, like, a specific industry that I’ve worked with,
26 00:04:08.660 ⇒ 00:04:09.420 Elizah Joy: like…
27 00:04:10.580 ⇒ 00:04:20.030 Elizah Joy: how can I say? Like, for the six… for that six years, so, like, it varies, so different industries, but, mainly…
28 00:04:20.050 ⇒ 00:04:33.689 Elizah Joy: my role for, as an operations manager, because I lean towards metrics and data, in operations, so that’s why I was really interested to work with Brainforge when I found, found out
29 00:04:33.850 ⇒ 00:04:48.759 Elizah Joy: about this open role here. So yeah, for the past two weeks, what I’ve been up to is, Udom gave me this list of things that they’d need help with in the automation side of the business.
30 00:04:49.100 ⇒ 00:04:59.470 Elizah Joy: And… what I’ve been doing was, I think that was the recruitment process, helping streamline that recruitment process.
31 00:04:59.540 ⇒ 00:05:16.609 Elizah Joy: creating automations for that. However, the automations aren’t set up yet. So far, because I have, as I mentioned, so we’re… during this two weeks, we’re still on the trial period, so I did not have much access to most of the tools.
32 00:05:16.630 ⇒ 00:05:20.449 Elizah Joy: that we have, but they’re already outlined in Notion.
33 00:05:20.550 ⇒ 00:05:39.719 Elizah Joy: And… yeah, so I’ve been helping with the recruitment process, the timesheet accountability that we do every Friday, so we’ve already created a system for that, and a process for that, as well as a policy, escalation policy, I mean, for…
34 00:05:39.840 ⇒ 00:05:46.619 Elizah Joy: Yeah, people who… does not fill out those hours during Fridays, but…
35 00:05:46.620 ⇒ 00:05:53.389 Clarence Stone: So, Eliza, I’ll be the first one to admit, I haven’t filled out my timesheets since I…
36 00:05:53.390 ⇒ 00:05:54.280 Elizah Joy: Love it.
37 00:05:54.850 ⇒ 00:06:04.780 Elizah Joy: Yeah, because, yeah, it’s still a new process, still a new policy, and hopefully we’re encouraging everyone, of course, to,
38 00:06:04.780 ⇒ 00:06:16.190 Elizah Joy: do or comply with that policy. But yeah, what else? For the past two weeks, I’ve been working closely with Recall for the past 2 weeks.
39 00:06:16.190 ⇒ 00:06:23.260 Elizah Joy: He’s been very helpful for me, familiarizing myself with the business, and then…
40 00:06:23.440 ⇒ 00:06:31.580 Elizah Joy: I’ve also been reviewing the systems and processes that we’ve had in place in the business, and…
41 00:06:31.920 ⇒ 00:06:36.990 Elizah Joy: I think, for me, another thing on that is I’ve been helping…
42 00:06:37.130 ⇒ 00:06:51.479 Elizah Joy: the data team, setting up a playbook, yeah, a delivery playbook for SOPs for the services that we had, so that’s on my list for this week, but I think, for the past week.
43 00:06:51.890 ⇒ 00:06:57.110 Elizah Joy: Nothing major on my end, more on setting up the foundation.
44 00:06:57.610 ⇒ 00:07:16.050 Elizah Joy: for the systems and processes that we have in place. I am assuming, yeah, for the next couple of days and weeks, maybe after the holidays, I’ll be taking on more, tasks and ownership of the role, of the tasks that we have, and maybe help it go out.
45 00:07:16.080 ⇒ 00:07:22.879 Elizah Joy: And, of course, helping the team and encouraging the team to…
46 00:07:23.660 ⇒ 00:07:27.599 Elizah Joy: Do the processes that we have and systems that we have in place.
47 00:07:28.000 ⇒ 00:07:38.729 Clarence Stone: Yeah, yeah, and that’s what I was gonna mention to you. I think, you know, from your own personal experience, getting people to follow the processes is probably the hardest thing to do.
48 00:07:38.950 ⇒ 00:07:58.439 Clarence Stone: Yeah, like, I mean, even Rico’s going through it, right? You know, he created such a great system where a project is started, and there’s a thread in Slack, and all of these awesome things that should go into Notion, and I look at some of these Notions, they’re completely empty.
49 00:07:58.530 ⇒ 00:07:59.180 Clarence Stone: Right?
50 00:07:59.180 ⇒ 00:08:00.350 Elizah Joy: Yeah.
51 00:08:00.350 ⇒ 00:08:16.829 Clarence Stone: And, you know, I see some chats about, like, slides being made. I’m like, where do I even find this? Right? Because it’s not in the Notion, and then, like, you Tom said, oh, like, you weren’t in the Slack channel. Here it is, go to the client Slack channel. I’m like, oh my gosh, like, this is kind of difficult, right?
52 00:08:16.900 ⇒ 00:08:23.309 Clarence Stone: I think that’s the biggest operational challenge that we have coming ahead, is getting people to…
53 00:08:23.590 ⇒ 00:08:30.389 Clarence Stone: Actually take these, you know, manual actions and do, you know, the processes.
54 00:08:30.630 ⇒ 00:08:35.439 Clarence Stone: I worry that, you know, it will end up
55 00:08:35.669 ⇒ 00:08:53.140 Clarence Stone: you know, being additional work, so, like, people will resist it, so I think my one recommendation that I can, provide to you as you, you know, go into your break and, like, come back as a, you know, as a team member is, what can we do with AI to help that?
56 00:08:53.140 ⇒ 00:08:53.540 Elizah Joy: Right.
57 00:08:53.540 ⇒ 00:09:02.779 Clarence Stone: So I said, like, you, Tom, like, what if we just, like, took everything that’s, like, all the conversations happening in Slack, and put a summary of that in Notion?
58 00:09:02.990 ⇒ 00:09:15.660 Clarence Stone: Like, this is what people have been talking about over the past few days on this account, right? That way, like, we don’t have to update the notion with decisions that are made, we can just say, here’s the Slack messages that are related, right? So…
59 00:09:16.140 ⇒ 00:09:26.249 Clarence Stone: kind of think expansively on that, because, you know, it’s so near and dear and close to you, Tom’s heart that we start using AI for those kinds of functions.
60 00:09:26.680 ⇒ 00:09:32.219 Clarence Stone: And yeah, and since you just started, like, I don’t have the same ask that I have for,
61 00:09:33.570 ⇒ 00:09:50.039 Clarence Stone: your other ops team member, Rico, I had asked Rico, like, hey, based on the existing processes, like, what did you… like, what do you imagine should have happened, and tell me where it’s kind of breaking down? Because I think…
62 00:09:50.060 ⇒ 00:09:58.869 Clarence Stone: Brainforge doesn’t lack processes, but really, like, we need to figure out how they’re all stitched together, right? Because it’s almost like a…
63 00:09:58.900 ⇒ 00:10:02.049 Clarence Stone: Something gets lost in the start and end phase. For example.
64 00:10:02.310 ⇒ 00:10:15.059 Clarence Stone: when Rico tells me, like, hey, you, Tom and Robert will tell me when they finish writing an SOW, and then he’s like, I prepare the legal documents for them, it gets signed.
65 00:10:15.250 ⇒ 00:10:19.289 Clarence Stone: And I was like, okay, then where did all of that stuff go?
66 00:10:20.300 ⇒ 00:10:20.970 Elizah Joy: It’s like…
67 00:10:20.970 ⇒ 00:10:38.709 Clarence Stone: oh, it’s in, like, Utahn’s draft somewhere. I was like, well, that’s not really, like, the best place, right? And, you know, as soon as it gets to a certain location, we should trigger creating that Teams channel, we should trigger, you know, creating that Notion, and all those things, so…
68 00:10:39.110 ⇒ 00:10:51.710 Clarence Stone: I think in the next, you know, quarter, especially with Lauren on board, what I’m going to kind of, like, ask for is, like, let’s take a real end-to-end look, right, at the processes.
69 00:10:52.060 ⇒ 00:10:57.990 Clarence Stone: And… and find out where the missing links are.
70 00:10:58.760 ⇒ 00:11:14.309 Clarence Stone: I also think it’s really difficult to get people to use the same tools for everything. I noticed that, like, product requirement documentations are in cursor for some people, some people write them in the linear ticket, you know, some people write it out in Notion, and…
71 00:11:14.510 ⇒ 00:11:24.840 Clarence Stone: like, getting that all in one place is super important, too. So, a lot of interesting challenges ahead, but I don’t think any of these things are new to you, since you’ve been in ops for a while. What do you think?
72 00:11:25.720 ⇒ 00:11:42.699 Elizah Joy: Yeah, I do agree with, especially, with what you’ve said, especially the one, the channels and teams. Yeah, I’ve had, I did experience that over this past, two weeks that I’ve, worked with Brainforge.
73 00:11:42.700 ⇒ 00:11:54.019 Elizah Joy: And then Slack channels. Initially, when I was, onboarded, I was only in, like, the operations channel, and then come to find out, we’ve had, like.
74 00:11:55.140 ⇒ 00:12:07.310 Elizah Joy: many Slack channels in there, right? So, I think, for me, initially that was also the challenge, and then the, access to things that,
75 00:12:07.440 ⇒ 00:12:20.559 Elizah Joy: because, you know, as days go by, like, I’m finding out that we keep different, assets that we have for the business. Like, there’s some in Google Drive, there are some in
76 00:12:20.790 ⇒ 00:12:30.570 Elizah Joy: notion. So I think having that centralized, location, so that… because, what we’ll be using… of course, we’ll be using
77 00:12:30.740 ⇒ 00:12:50.679 Elizah Joy: bunch of tools, like, maybe for, client work, right? But I think with us, it’ll be important for, to have that centralized place. And I think with… even if we have a lot of these SOPs and processes in place, a lot of our team members don’t even know that they exist.
78 00:12:50.680 ⇒ 00:12:52.610 Clarence Stone: Yes. I think.
79 00:12:52.630 ⇒ 00:13:02.129 Elizah Joy: that’s another factor and another challenge that we have, is having them, to look at those SOPs and maybe review them.
80 00:13:02.130 ⇒ 00:13:13.339 Elizah Joy: Because, yeah, what I did find in Notion was some of the SOPs, they are outdated, and of course, a lot of the things that are in our… that we do in our processes, they do rely on recall a lot.
81 00:13:13.340 ⇒ 00:13:31.330 Elizah Joy: So, there are things, of course, we can automate. The one that you’ve mentioned in Slack, the conversations in there, I do agree that we should automate that and use AI for that, because, yeah, we’re a data and AI company, so we should leverage AI a lot, right? And I think, from an operations standpoint.
82 00:13:31.410 ⇒ 00:13:39.260 Elizah Joy: Yeah, as I mentioned, a lot of things and processes, they do rely on
83 00:13:40.430 ⇒ 00:13:51.670 Elizah Joy: like, manual work, and as much as possible, that we’d like to leverage AI for that. Especially that, I think, I’ve heard that we’re gonna be doing another recruitment campaign.
84 00:13:51.950 ⇒ 00:14:07.609 Elizah Joy: I think next… starting next year again, so we’ll be bringing in more people in the business, and having those systems set up already, right? So I mentioned, I’ve helped during these two weeks, I’ve helped with the recruitment process, which,
85 00:14:07.820 ⇒ 00:14:24.770 Elizah Joy: Riko and Uta mentioned that there’s been a lot of challenges in that area, right? So I think the system of the recruitment process itself, and then, bringing those people in the business as much as possible, we would like to have those systems set up already before
86 00:14:24.770 ⇒ 00:14:29.930 Elizah Joy: we start doing that. So in an ideal world, that’s what we want to do.
87 00:14:30.420 ⇒ 00:14:34.689 Elizah Joy: But yeah, I do agree with, the challenges that you’ve mentioned.
88 00:14:34.940 ⇒ 00:14:54.929 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so, as we go into the new year, and hopefully Lauren accepts her role, and if she does, you’re gonna have somebody to go to to, you know, help you, like, formulate these plans and actually execute on these projects. So, there will be definitely plenty of things coming, for you, right? So we can actually, like, focus on certain things.
89 00:14:54.930 ⇒ 00:15:07.320 Clarence Stone: But the one thing I want to share with you is, I work with another client, and they also are an AI… they’re an AI team within a large company, a massive company.
90 00:15:07.320 ⇒ 00:15:22.289 Clarence Stone: And, to keep track of all the AI feature requests, they’re actually using a view like this. So right now, I can see all the projects that have been deployed, the value of those projects, the value of the projects in the pipeline, and things that have been scheduled.
91 00:15:22.290 ⇒ 00:15:46.080 Clarence Stone: And, this is, like, the status of every single thing. So, like, for us, you can think about these projects as clients and client projects, right? And if you look at active sprints, you can see what each of the teams are working on. So, like, here they’re just creating a technical support system, right? And if you look at this view, this is amazing. You can see what phase they’re in just by looking at this, right? When it was started, what the expected value is, the total process.
92 00:15:46.080 ⇒ 00:15:48.689 Clarence Stone: Who’s on this team, and what is their role?
93 00:15:48.800 ⇒ 00:15:51.749 Clarence Stone: Right? And what are the deliverables by day?
94 00:15:52.680 ⇒ 00:16:03.179 Clarence Stone: Right? You know, problem statement documents that are related to this, which is, like, pre-work approvals and SOWs, historical changes on what was done.
95 00:16:03.240 ⇒ 00:16:16.120 Clarence Stone: The project status as a whole, sprint breakdown, and then if you look at the breakdown itself, you can see that, you know, if there’s documentation required, it’s like, you have to upload it, or it’s not done.
96 00:16:17.550 ⇒ 00:16:18.220 Clarence Stone: Right.
97 00:16:18.220 ⇒ 00:16:22.340 Elizah Joy: That’s so cool, like, everything’s centralized.
98 00:16:22.580 ⇒ 00:16:31.480 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and then, like, after everything’s done and you have to deploy it, so they have a deployment cycle since they do a lot of local AI, so they have their own checklist for deployments.
99 00:16:33.360 ⇒ 00:16:49.149 Clarence Stone: It’s so cool, right? And then you can see, like, this was the requester, if you want to, you know, pick up the phone and call the person that requested this feature. The… when they scored the difficulty of this, they said this was a 9, you know, like, what week it’s scheduled for.
100 00:16:49.150 ⇒ 00:17:00.879 Clarence Stone: I think this is, like, a really great visualization to show you guys on, you know, what really a great solution looks like. And this was all vibe-coded by somebody on their team that isn’t a full-stack developer.
101 00:17:02.350 ⇒ 00:17:20.890 Clarence Stone: So, just something to share with you, like, this is the vision I want to bring everyone towards. So, you know, something to keep in mind, Eliza, yeah. But, yeah, it was just great, you know, getting to meet you. I wanted to share some of these things so that you kind of see what’s coming up soon, and, yeah. Do you have any questions for me?
102 00:17:24.270 ⇒ 00:17:32.019 Elizah Joy: I think, first of all, not question, but what you’ve shown, that is really cool, and yeah, I do…
103 00:17:32.410 ⇒ 00:17:35.959 Elizah Joy: A feel, like, what… maybe once we have that.
104 00:17:36.160 ⇒ 00:17:48.219 Elizah Joy: in the business, it’ll be very easy for everyone, not just in the ops team, but all the team members that we have, currently have, I think the team members that we’re going to have in the future.
105 00:17:48.220 ⇒ 00:17:57.740 Elizah Joy: Questions is… Uda mentioned that if I do have anything, and she mentioned earlier that if I do have anything, operations.
106 00:17:58.290 ⇒ 00:18:02.949 Clarence Stone: operation-wise question, so you’re the person that I…
107 00:18:02.980 ⇒ 00:18:07.220 Elizah Joy: So, I think, yeah.
108 00:18:08.700 ⇒ 00:18:22.850 Elizah Joy: for, like… Because you’ve already shared me the vision of that one earlier, right? But I think… for… the…
109 00:18:23.400 ⇒ 00:18:24.740 Elizah Joy: How can I say?
110 00:18:27.270 ⇒ 00:18:33.659 Elizah Joy: Is the dashboard also, do you think it’ll be good for us, like, internally, or…
111 00:18:33.660 ⇒ 00:18:58.399 Clarence Stone: Yeah, so what I shared with you was just one type of project that that organization does. Sometimes they have, like, internal builds just for themselves, right? Like, they created one just to make that website, right? So the structure is completely different, right? They could have projects that are just a one-day thing to explore to see if something is possible, and they have, like, steps and processes that they need to do there, too.
112 00:18:58.790 ⇒ 00:19:08.760 Clarence Stone: Right? And I think there’s, like, 3 or 4 different categories. I can share with you guys, like, how they structured it, but it’s not gonna be the same, because, like, they’re a manufacturing company.
113 00:19:08.760 ⇒ 00:19:32.730 Clarence Stone: they, like, have an assembly line and robots and stuff like that, so it’s a little different, but I, like, the thinking is, like, you can use this framework for anything, but you just have to pick your project type, right? So if it’s a analytics project that’s for a client, it’s gonna look this way, but if it’s, like, planning a social event for Brainforge, it could be completely different, right? But you can use the same dashboard for all of it.
114 00:19:32.950 ⇒ 00:19:46.289 Clarence Stone: I don’t know if you’ve been given access to this, like, you know, UTom’s very interested in building a similar solution. In some ways, like, what he’s already built is better than what Casper has. Have you seen this?
115 00:19:46.520 ⇒ 00:19:49.029 Elizah Joy: Oh yeah, yeah, the platform, BrainPerge.
116 00:19:49.350 ⇒ 00:19:57.320 Clarence Stone: I told him that it needs to live in the platform, right? The client tab should look like the project tab that I just showed you from Casper.
117 00:19:57.590 ⇒ 00:20:08.280 Clarence Stone: And we should fill in, like, even more analytics, you know, put more of the project timelines in here, like, more of the… about the client thing. So, like, the page exists!
118 00:20:08.280 ⇒ 00:20:14.030 Clarence Stone: like, where we can go towards for it, you know, there’s so many more things that we could do. So,
119 00:20:14.030 ⇒ 00:20:28.759 Clarence Stone: as some context, Lauren is definitely going to get budget and, and time with Gabe to be able to request new features on this platform. So, like, some of the things that you might do with her is, like, she’s gonna pick a project and start, you know, you know.
120 00:20:28.790 ⇒ 00:20:34.190 Clarence Stone: writing out the requirements and building those solutions out. So,
121 00:20:34.280 ⇒ 00:20:40.160 Clarence Stone: that’s what you can kind of expect in the future. I kind of give you a little vision of the end state. This is, I think, where it’s going to live.
122 00:20:41.770 ⇒ 00:20:59.000 Elizah Joy: Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, us, like, leveraging the platform app for that. I think that’s a good idea, vision for me to think about, not just after my break, but also during the holidays.
123 00:20:59.000 ⇒ 00:21:23.590 Clarence Stone: Yeah, something to kind of, you know, think on, because I’m noticing that the only companies that are doing something innovative like this are the companies who are adopting AI rapidly. Like, I work for really old-school companies, and they would never be able to get to this point, especially in a short amount of time, so, like, feel free to be super expansive, creative, ambitious with, you know, what you have in mind, because…
124 00:21:23.590 ⇒ 00:21:38.989 Clarence Stone: there’s so much more that we can do with AI at a low cost. So, yeah, like, coming back into the new year, you’ll probably be helping Lauren, you know, spec out some of these builds, identify what processes should be, and things like that. So, very exciting things.
125 00:21:39.680 ⇒ 00:21:46.070 Elizah Joy: Yeah, definitely. I think if you have time, if it’s okay, if I do have, like, one more question.
126 00:21:46.070 ⇒ 00:21:48.299 Clarence Stone: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, what’s up?
127 00:21:49.370 ⇒ 00:21:57.029 Elizah Joy: having to… you’ve already talked to Rico, right? And having, have the perspective on, like.
128 00:21:57.230 ⇒ 00:22:00.609 Elizah Joy: Perspective on the office department.
129 00:22:00.810 ⇒ 00:22:05.459 Elizah Joy: And with Lauren coming in, like, how do you see…
130 00:22:06.240 ⇒ 00:22:10.709 Elizah Joy: the dynamics between me, Rico, and Lauren, like.
131 00:22:11.320 ⇒ 00:22:14.889 Elizah Joy: Who owns what, and stuff like that.
132 00:22:15.030 ⇒ 00:22:23.240 Clarence Stone: So there’s gonna be a little bit of a rotation, too, and so none of this is set in stone, I’m just giving you a preview, because I like being super transparent, right?
133 00:22:23.350 ⇒ 00:22:46.880 Clarence Stone: Alright, so UTom wants Rico to get some experience actually working on projects as a project planner and a strategist. So, some of his time is going to be dedicated toward project work now, when Lauren comes in. And, you know, now that we’re going to have you on board, you’re going to be able to cover a little bit of, you know, like, maybe a quarter of, you know, Rico’s time that’s lost there.
134 00:22:46.880 ⇒ 00:22:52.420 Clarence Stone: But from then on, the interplay should really be, You know, first 30 days.
135 00:22:52.420 ⇒ 00:22:59.769 Clarence Stone: You’re probably going to have a lot of discussions with Rico, Lauren, On how things work today.
136 00:22:59.830 ⇒ 00:23:19.139 Clarence Stone: Right, and I think it’s going to be mostly Rico-led, because he’s been around the longest, right? And I can expect that within the first week or two, you’ll be doing a lot of mapping of processes, right? Like, for example, there’s some journeys that I think we should map out. One is, what does a new hire’s journey look like?
137 00:23:19.210 ⇒ 00:23:25.860 Clarence Stone: Like, who’s gonna talk to them? What does their day one look like? Where do they go? What meeting do they sit in? Right?
138 00:23:26.130 ⇒ 00:23:34.029 Clarence Stone: what does their first week look like? What’s their first month look like, right? We need to create that kind of structure, so…
139 00:23:34.250 ⇒ 00:23:40.530 Clarence Stone: And so things like that. What does the project lifecycle look like?
140 00:23:40.870 ⇒ 00:23:41.420 Elizah Joy: Mmm.
141 00:23:41.420 ⇒ 00:23:50.929 Clarence Stone: And we’re only going to just say, this is what it is today, right? And then the second activity is, these are all the things that we should improve on top of it.
142 00:23:51.790 ⇒ 00:23:56.499 Clarence Stone: All the things that we can improve on, what are process changes, and what requires technology?
143 00:23:56.980 ⇒ 00:23:57.490 Clarence Stone: Right.
144 00:23:57.490 ⇒ 00:23:57.810 Elizah Joy: And…
145 00:23:57.810 ⇒ 00:24:19.820 Clarence Stone: And once we identify that within the first 30 days, Lauren can then say, okay, I think I’m confident in making an investment request on, you know, these three items for new technology, right? Eliza, will you come and work with me on creating the product requirement documents, you know, helping me figure out what KPIs we’re going to use to measure the success of this, right? And that’s going to go to you, Tom, for approval.
146 00:24:20.080 ⇒ 00:24:26.540 Clarence Stone: And, you’re probably going to work with Gabe or somebody on the platform team to build out those features.
147 00:24:26.670 ⇒ 00:24:37.089 Clarence Stone: And then, on the flip side, there’s gonna be operational changes, right? So, like, if there’s more documentation, or there’s, like, certain process changes that need to happen, there’s gonna be different projects on that, too.
148 00:24:37.190 ⇒ 00:24:41.539 Clarence Stone: And I guess, like, very much connected to…
149 00:24:42.110 ⇒ 00:24:51.740 Clarence Stone: your thought of using, the project management tool for operations, I’ve been using Linear to track all the things that I’ve been doing for ops.
150 00:24:52.020 ⇒ 00:25:06.300 Clarence Stone: So, no, this is, like, my linear, all the sub-things that I’ve been doing, these are all the people I’m supposed to talk to, etc, etc, right? So, like, this is just how I started doing things with, like, all my resources here.
151 00:25:06.700 ⇒ 00:25:22.210 Clarence Stone: we can continue to do it this way, and plug operations into Linear, you can work in the platform, you can do it in Notion, but, like, I want Lauren to decide and, you know, kind of lead the team, and if you have opinions on it, like, you know, tell her for sure, right? So,
152 00:25:22.270 ⇒ 00:25:29.649 Clarence Stone: Yeah, that’s what you can expect, and I’ll be around throughout the whole process, so don’t worry, I’ll be here to help.
153 00:25:30.790 ⇒ 00:25:36.730 Clarence Stone: Any other questions, Eliza? I’ve got to hop to talk to you, Tom, soon.
154 00:25:37.530 ⇒ 00:25:42.069 Elizah Joy: No more questions on my end. I think that’s it for now from me.
155 00:25:42.070 ⇒ 00:25:54.690 Clarence Stone: Yeah, and if anything comes up, don’t, don’t be scared to ping me, just send it. I really don’t have any working hours, I just literally go from laptop to laptop.
156 00:25:55.180 ⇒ 00:26:02.670 Elizah Joy: Alright, I will send you a message if anything comes up, and thank you so much for your time, this is very insightful.
157 00:26:03.520 ⇒ 00:26:07.919 Clarence Stone: Yeah, anytime, seriously, just book my time, okay? Cool.
158 00:26:07.920 ⇒ 00:26:11.030 Elizah Joy: Thank you so much. Nice to meet you. Bye.
159 00:26:11.030 ⇒ 00:26:12.480 Clarence Stone: meeting you. Bye!