Meeting Title: Uttam_Aater Date: 2025-03-06 Meeting participants: Aater Suleman, Uttam Kumaran
WEBVTT
1 00:02:52.830 ⇒ 00:02:53.640 Aater Suleman: Hey? Autumn.
2 00:02:54.530 ⇒ 00:02:55.399 Uttam Kumaran: How are you?
3 00:02:55.800 ⇒ 00:02:57.279 Aater Suleman: Doing? Well, how about yourself?
4 00:02:57.940 ⇒ 00:02:59.250 Uttam Kumaran: Sorry you’re sick.
5 00:03:00.339 ⇒ 00:03:07.749 Aater Suleman: No, it’s just with kids at home. This is a very frequent happening for us. Unfortunately, they keep.
6 00:03:08.440 ⇒ 00:03:12.619 Uttam Kumaran: My girlfriend works with with kids as well. She’s an aba therapist.
7 00:03:12.980 ⇒ 00:03:13.739 Aater Suleman: Oh, I see!
8 00:03:14.120 ⇒ 00:03:20.386 Uttam Kumaran: And she used to work in school as a special Ed teacher. And now she works more in home care.
9 00:03:20.970 ⇒ 00:03:24.520 Uttam Kumaran: But yeah, if if I have like 3 days where I don’t sleep.
10 00:03:24.760 ⇒ 00:03:26.920 Uttam Kumaran: as of course it’s because of the work.
11 00:03:27.280 ⇒ 00:03:34.410 Uttam Kumaran: and she’s like it’s like the winter, and she’s many kids guaranteed like sickness.
12 00:03:35.435 ⇒ 00:03:37.000 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah.
13 00:03:37.500 ⇒ 00:03:51.119 Aater Suleman: Yeah, no, definitely. So it happens like, for us, like we are with kids. Basically, I mean, that was one of the unfortunately, the best parts about Covid kids not going to school. So for a year, nobody got sick. Basically, we just.
14 00:03:53.050 ⇒ 00:04:02.359 Aater Suleman: But then, once Covid finished, I think we have seen a flurry of infections since then which have never surfaced before. The frequency is pretty crazy, high.
15 00:04:02.360 ⇒ 00:04:09.079 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I feel like, yeah, again, it’s it’s crazy. We’re still going through like the the facts of like
16 00:04:09.600 ⇒ 00:04:12.100 Uttam Kumaran: all that. I mean, it’s just like it’s
17 00:04:12.740 ⇒ 00:04:16.619 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know. It’s like one big science experiment. It’s it’s insane to see.
18 00:04:18.390 ⇒ 00:04:23.379 Aater Suleman: Definitely, so definitely, so. Alright should we just follow the agenda you had sent me.
19 00:04:23.380 ⇒ 00:04:29.193 Uttam Kumaran: Please. Yeah, that would be great. Let me just pull. Let me just pull it up on my side. And
20 00:04:31.980 ⇒ 00:04:33.468 Uttam Kumaran: yeah. So I think.
21 00:04:35.070 ⇒ 00:04:46.940 Uttam Kumaran: I think number one is is probably the overarching theme of everything that’s top of mind for me. And for Robert right now that that second Kr
22 00:04:48.340 ⇒ 00:04:49.490 Aater Suleman: Hi, ma’am. Now, yeah.
23 00:04:49.490 ⇒ 00:04:55.890 Uttam Kumaran: The second kr affects every single thing like I. We all like. I only have
24 00:04:56.400 ⇒ 00:05:07.970 Uttam Kumaran: 12 to 15 HA day ideally less than that and our ability to spend time on the highest leverage stuff matters. And so one thing that we’ve really done and took a lot of.
25 00:05:08.230 ⇒ 00:05:11.809 Uttam Kumaran: I’d say it took a lot of courage from both of us to do is to really
26 00:05:12.130 ⇒ 00:05:16.960 Uttam Kumaran: go higher. And you know, of course, we’re not venture funded. So this cash comes out of
27 00:05:17.070 ⇒ 00:05:23.920 Uttam Kumaran: the new cash that comes in. In fact, it hasn’t come in. So we’re we. That’s the problem this month. But
28 00:05:24.190 ⇒ 00:05:29.630 Uttam Kumaran: I know it’s coming. And so we go make bets with it. And so one of the things that we did is
29 00:05:30.050 ⇒ 00:05:41.839 Uttam Kumaran: and and we we sort of kicked this off actually in in January. And so we we were able to bring on 2 folks that are gonna take over. And I just had 2 amazing conversations with people
30 00:05:42.660 ⇒ 00:05:51.610 Uttam Kumaran: that Ali put me in touch with, and so I’ll probably use the like the right language that they told me. But basically 2 people that are going to start to fit into the scrum master
31 00:05:52.039 ⇒ 00:06:03.699 Uttam Kumaran: and one that may be able to also act as a product owner. But folks that to start to take on everything about when the engineers wake up in the morning. What do they work on? But also
32 00:06:04.100 ⇒ 00:06:09.142 Uttam Kumaran: everything around the the client getting timelines and things like that, I guess.
33 00:06:10.240 ⇒ 00:06:13.400 Uttam Kumaran: one of the things I just wanted to talk about was
34 00:06:13.918 ⇒ 00:06:19.339 Uttam Kumaran: sort of like how you think if there’s any high leverage resources about moving into that like
35 00:06:19.960 ⇒ 00:06:23.580 Uttam Kumaran: player, coach, mindset, or moving out of sort of the day to day.
36 00:06:23.750 ⇒ 00:06:26.670 Uttam Kumaran: I sort of have some of the core themes about
37 00:06:26.920 ⇒ 00:06:34.110 Uttam Kumaran: giving more ownership, letting people make the decisions things like that. But I don’t know. That’s sort of the probably the overarching theme of everything on my mind.
38 00:06:34.970 ⇒ 00:06:36.100 Aater Suleman: Fair enough, fair enough.
39 00:06:36.350 ⇒ 00:06:43.640 Aater Suleman: I think, the the the 5 step framework that you shared with me is a
40 00:06:43.690 ⇒ 00:07:11.820 Aater Suleman: I I mean, it’s pretty universal, actually. And that’s the only way people learn. So I think what I would say is, let me get into a little bit more of the specifics that I worked for us. Very well. You’ve already had all at least half of them. But basically the if I just purely apply my engineering mind to the problem right? And start from which is the end game is that you are only involved in like 20% of the work. 25 was your number, if I remember correctly, from your
41 00:07:12.580 ⇒ 00:07:17.960 Aater Suleman: so what that means is that they have to be able to understand the requirements
42 00:07:18.830 ⇒ 00:07:28.320 Aater Suleman: they have to be able to complete the requirements, they have to be able to deliver it and Qa it with high confidence
43 00:07:28.700 ⇒ 00:07:41.559 Aater Suleman: cause. If any of those pieces are failing. They’re gonna pull you in 25 more than 25% of the time. So essentially, if I were to break this down into those steps again, right. They have to be able to understand what’s needed. So you need a good process for that.
44 00:07:41.970 ⇒ 00:07:47.079 Aater Suleman: And I guess this is a general leadership life lesson
45 00:07:47.970 ⇒ 00:08:07.940 Aater Suleman: that whatever you believe, you need to tell them they’re gonna need to know more than that has been my life. Actually, every time I have tried to, I would. Whatever seems obvious to me is never obvious to anybody else, and doesn’t matter how smart they are. That means it’s a it’s a personal issue. It’s not, it’s not. It’s a universal personal issue.
46 00:08:08.020 ⇒ 00:08:18.579 Aater Suleman: So I think giving commands if you will, giving delegation in itself requires, like they have to understand. So what I started doing was eventually
47 00:08:18.790 ⇒ 00:08:29.780 Aater Suleman: that I started to bring them in more and more earlier into the conversations directly with the customers that started to give them more ownership, even if they were just a fly on the wall
48 00:08:30.090 ⇒ 00:08:42.400 Aater Suleman: so effectively like this can be the end state. But let’s start with the end state, and then I’ll tell you how we got there. But the end state was that even if I’m doing all the talking on the call, they also on the call, just listening and take notes.
49 00:08:42.590 ⇒ 00:08:54.200 Aater Suleman: and this starts to give the team more comfort that well, they can’t at least say that. Oh, nobody asked me this, because at the end I will say, Well, do you have any questions? And that’s time get away from that.
50 00:08:54.310 ⇒ 00:09:06.729 Aater Suleman: The second part that this was before the AI age. By the way, so I have some new ideas now. But back in the day, basically, we did not have AI and note takers. We did not have AI call recording was not as common.
51 00:09:06.730 ⇒ 00:09:09.930 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, I mean last, this is like, 2 years ago for me, like, you know.
52 00:09:09.930 ⇒ 00:09:26.969 Aater Suleman: Yeah. So now you have the opportunity to. But but one thing we started doing was that we did start repeating recording calls. And for engineers who could not be there could then watch the recording, and then, that was the 1st part of it. Just pull them to the left just shift left in your mind. Bring them early
53 00:09:27.393 ⇒ 00:09:39.319 Aater Suleman: second part of it was that I used to, after every one of those requirement gathering calls like I would do a post call where we will say, Okay, what did you understand? What did you understand? We just kind of spend some time on that one.
54 00:09:39.920 ⇒ 00:09:42.700 Aater Suleman: so that requirements were clearer.
55 00:09:43.340 ⇒ 00:09:49.089 Aater Suleman: Oh, then came the next part about like, what is it that I want them to do
56 00:09:49.684 ⇒ 00:09:53.440 Aater Suleman: part right like? What is it that I expect them to do? Want them to do?
57 00:09:53.890 ⇒ 00:10:06.330 Aater Suleman: I think that’s where the agile framework come in handy so essentially what the illusion that we created was that I was the solution architect which started acting like a product owner. We used to call them the voice of the customer.
58 00:10:06.500 ⇒ 00:10:07.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
59 00:10:07.380 ⇒ 00:10:27.819 Aater Suleman: And just like product owners are expected to write epics and user stories. I would write the epics and user stories for my engineers. So once we have had a discussion, the discussion is before the backlog. Basically, we talk about it. High level. We understand. Okay, this is what needs to be done, client. They have heard the client talk directly, and sometimes they would ask questions that I would not have asked, so that was great, too.
60 00:10:28.150 ⇒ 00:10:35.879 Aater Suleman: But then we took that knowledge and we tried to memorialize it into a backlog. So I used to do like a post call meeting. Then I used to write the backlog.
61 00:10:36.030 ⇒ 00:10:36.720 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
62 00:10:36.720 ⇒ 00:10:54.719 Aater Suleman: And then we would come back and just talk about it one more time. And so agile was very big, very good friend there in that I used to try to follow the best practices to the T basically like the way I would write my epics and stuff the success criteria, the definition of done used right, all of the above.
63 00:10:55.370 ⇒ 00:11:03.149 Aater Suleman: so that gave them so there, at that point, in theory, at least, there was very clear thing on. This is what you need to do. This is what you need to check off.
64 00:11:04.000 ⇒ 00:11:15.840 Aater Suleman: Then came the actual implementation. So I used to call them micro decisions. This is, by the way, before Ali completely took the leadership of the engineering team. So I’m talking about still the time where you are. When I was the leader at flux 7
65 00:11:16.230 ⇒ 00:11:22.329 Aater Suleman: and so then I actually noticed that people just got tangled into
66 00:11:22.880 ⇒ 00:11:28.479 Aater Suleman: actually 90% of the time, there were 2 types of tech decisions that micro decisions that people had to make
67 00:11:29.500 ⇒ 00:11:41.050 Aater Suleman: decision number one was, Well, what like is this available or not? Like very, very syntactical stuff, right? Like, do we use camel case on our variables or not? Stuff like that?
68 00:11:41.110 ⇒ 00:11:43.200 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, yeah, so like, conventions.
69 00:11:43.200 ⇒ 00:11:47.150 Aater Suleman: So I just created design guidelines. So we’re just problem solved.
70 00:11:47.260 ⇒ 00:11:57.949 Aater Suleman: That was an easy one. The second one was what is worth complicating and engineering and what is not what is over engineering and what is okay left, as is, for example.
71 00:11:58.180 ⇒ 00:12:06.280 Aater Suleman: it’s like the engineer. So they’re 2 types of engineers right? They’ll be the over engineering ones. They always want to say, Well, if I did this as a separate class, then it like.
72 00:12:06.280 ⇒ 00:12:07.160 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
73 00:12:07.160 ⇒ 00:12:08.389 Aater Suleman: The outcome, and give us.
74 00:12:08.390 ⇒ 00:12:09.000 Uttam Kumaran: Totally.
75 00:12:09.000 ⇒ 00:12:14.319 Aater Suleman: And then there’s ones that’ll just hack the damn thing up. And then at the end, what the hell did you just do?
76 00:12:14.530 ⇒ 00:12:31.379 Aater Suleman: So I actually came up with. That was, I think, was very unique. I have not seen anywhere, but I actually created a scoring system for that. And I said, well, like it was basic. I wish I had it somewhere. I don’t know if I will, because it was many years ago, but I created a very simple system. And I said, well, questions like that right
77 00:12:32.130 ⇒ 00:12:34.970 Aater Suleman: is this, are we aware that
78 00:12:35.080 ⇒ 00:12:40.570 Aater Suleman: this piece of the decision you’re about to take? I think I put it in terms of scope, changes and scope creep.
79 00:12:40.680 ⇒ 00:12:49.590 Aater Suleman: and I said, Well, if you’re about to do something the more complex way, ask yourself these 10 questions, and if the answer to 7 of them is a Yes, do it, and if it’s not, then don’t do it.
80 00:12:50.320 ⇒ 00:12:54.090 Aater Suleman: The questions on those just to give you. The magnitude of the questions were like.
81 00:12:54.430 ⇒ 00:13:18.440 Aater Suleman: Is this something that this customer has asked for? Well, if the customer is saying, Yes, that’s 1 out of the 10 like, is there? Did you have you specifically basically been asked for committed that you’re gonna do it this way, then just do it right like. But well, I actually made it very linear. So it was. There was no such decision tree there. It was like, Okay, you get 1 point. If the you have. If the if you have committed to the customer, you get 1 point. The customer asked for it specifically, you get another point.
82 00:13:18.600 ⇒ 00:13:33.270 Aater Suleman: If you have. If you see that this is something we will do again for another customer, then fine do it the more complicated way it basically 10 reasons. In another way, to phrase that list would be 10 reasons. It’s okay to do more work than required.
83 00:13:34.560 ⇒ 00:13:43.239 Aater Suleman: And so when is over, engineering a good idea right? So like, if the customer is asking for a job engineer it. If you think that there is going to be repeatability of this code over, engineer it.
84 00:13:43.380 ⇒ 00:13:49.399 Aater Suleman: If you’re gonna be doing this yourself, is it? Is it an easy change or a big change? If it’s an easy one, then you get a.
85 00:13:49.400 ⇒ 00:13:53.719 Uttam Kumaran: How much of that did you see in just like the Pr review process? Because I
86 00:13:54.250 ⇒ 00:13:57.569 Uttam Kumaran: kind of the next step for me is like. So right now.
87 00:13:58.040 ⇒ 00:14:05.380 Uttam Kumaran: I’m still doing every job. We’re basically, I’ve we’ve hired enough engineers to remove me out of coding.
88 00:14:05.710 ⇒ 00:14:21.810 Uttam Kumaran: I still think I’m probably the most senior data person. We have this one other person. So both of us have to most likely review a lot. And that’s probably where I can catch that until I basically can then.
89 00:14:22.280 ⇒ 00:14:26.299 Aater Suleman: So I think this is me shifting left on that to catch with the earth.
90 00:14:26.300 ⇒ 00:14:27.200 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay. Okay.
91 00:14:27.200 ⇒ 00:14:31.879 Aater Suleman: Set the guidelines. One of the things I’ve learned, and this is a leadership issue. By the way.
92 00:14:31.980 ⇒ 00:14:39.519 Aater Suleman: is that if you expect, if you set a criteria like this, and then you give feed the same feedback at the end. It hits much harder.
93 00:14:39.520 ⇒ 00:14:45.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it’s like, Oh, you guys, this is why it gives you the reason.
94 00:14:46.180 ⇒ 00:14:52.390 Uttam Kumaran: There’s a tendency to say, I’m over engineering when it’s a criteria. Yeah, it’s okay. It makes a lot of sense.
95 00:14:52.390 ⇒ 00:14:58.210 Aater Suleman: I think it gives them for the 1st time gives them a tool to shut you up to it, because, as managers, we tend to do that, too. It’s like we.
96 00:14:58.210 ⇒ 00:14:59.190 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
97 00:14:59.190 ⇒ 00:15:09.730 Aater Suleman: All the time we are less consistent. So so instead, I would say, Well, did you think about this decision? What were the criteria here, and then they will have to answer, and if the answer is, I didn’t think about it.
98 00:15:09.990 ⇒ 00:15:16.840 Aater Suleman: Well, that’s a problem right there, and if they think about it, and then they give you the answer. I would say frankly that
99 00:15:17.790 ⇒ 00:15:18.800 Aater Suleman: maybe
100 00:15:19.050 ⇒ 00:15:27.490 Aater Suleman: or I, I might not be exaggerating at all that, especially with the with the for the lack of a better word. The non number ones, like the smart engineers.
101 00:15:27.770 ⇒ 00:15:28.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
102 00:15:28.390 ⇒ 00:15:32.340 Aater Suleman: They would prove me wrong about half the time, so I would question something, and then they’ll pull up.
103 00:15:32.340 ⇒ 00:15:39.490 Uttam Kumaran: For the smart people I mean. That’s what I hope. I I think we’re not at that point yet where people are bringing stuff to me where I’m like surprised.
104 00:15:39.670 ⇒ 00:15:43.819 Uttam Kumaran: There’s maybe one person in the team who can, who’s at that level now. But
105 00:15:44.690 ⇒ 00:15:46.019 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, and it’s still like.
106 00:15:46.020 ⇒ 00:15:53.250 Aater Suleman: If you take that down, you’ll make them. That was, I felt, was this decision. Criteria was very powerful. It’s like just to do it this way? Why.
107 00:15:53.390 ⇒ 00:16:01.340 Aater Suleman: and then, rather than them. Then at that point, writing a narrative of how they were feeling that morning, which is what most of those answers are
108 00:16:01.800 ⇒ 00:16:21.099 Aater Suleman: them. Pulling up a spreadsheet and saying, I scored it, and it was 7 out of 10. It met the criteria. I would not even bother challenging him on the micro micro like, why did you think this is reusable? I don’t think this is reusable. I think that’s that was too low for me to be getting. If an engineer believes this is reusable, and it give them one out of 10 points
109 00:16:21.430 ⇒ 00:16:47.199 Aater Suleman: power to you. I’m not going to disagree with that. But the point is that you start to put them in there for the lack of a better word. Put them in the critical, thinking mindset that these decisions require a few minutes of respect. Respectful thinking coding isn’t just the only one. Whichever way you feel like. That isn’t the way to code. You have to think a little bit. So that framework, I think, like I say, about several things in Vixel, right? It was not the framework. It was the process of thinking about the framework that made us
110 00:16:47.200 ⇒ 00:16:52.409 Aater Suleman: that made them better, and give them a tool to prove me wrong, because otherwise they
111 00:16:52.560 ⇒ 00:17:05.200 Aater Suleman: just like it gave me a tool to hold them accountable and say, Hey, why did you not look at the decision? Or why did you do it? Even though the decision criteria was saying, a 5, not a 7, it gave them a tool to shut me up and say, well.
112 00:17:05.650 ⇒ 00:17:07.780 Aater Suleman: I don’t care what your intuition says.
113 00:17:08.210 ⇒ 00:17:26.220 Aater Suleman: There’s a criteria, and I believe it’s a 7 out of 10. And I would that would shut me up. I’m like, Yeah, that’s fine. Okay. So that gives them a. So your point about you want them to come challenge you, but they will only challenge you when this gives them a tool to challenge you, especially the the more timid ones that are not comfortable coming and challenging you. Okay.
114 00:17:26.510 ⇒ 00:17:35.410 Aater Suleman: so so that was the one thing that I think I did. That was pretty unique. Everything else is mostly standard stuff. I’m just giving you the framework. But that decision criteria was pretty pretty cool in that
115 00:17:35.810 ⇒ 00:17:47.079 Aater Suleman: it used to also help them tie, break amongst each other during sprints, like people used to use that when I even then I, when I was not in a stand up. I’ve heard stories of people using it to just tie, break amongst themselves, too. Sometimes.
116 00:17:47.380 ⇒ 00:17:53.359 Uttam Kumaran: Another piece I kind of like we’re at. The moment was where I don’t know for some of our clients
117 00:17:53.670 ⇒ 00:18:01.530 Uttam Kumaran: whether we can afford to, or whether we should even have a separate product owner and a scrum master. I get that at
118 00:18:01.850 ⇒ 00:18:18.469 Uttam Kumaran: at like again. If we have budget to do that. It’s a luxury. We’re at the point where I’m doing both. And we have engine and I’m and and engineering, in fact, right? So I I we do have some clients where I’m I’m of the mindset that I want to just push our scrum masters to do be the product owner as well.
119 00:18:18.620 ⇒ 00:18:35.540 Uttam Kumaran: If we, of course, if we have someone on the client side, that is, that can come. That’s a luxury that’s great. Most of our clients are not like that. We’re reporting to the C-suite or something. But I don’t think like again, because my my role is gonna switch to that.
120 00:18:35.760 ⇒ 00:18:47.670 Uttam Kumaran: But then I’m if I’m on the hook for doing the backlog, it’s it’s not gonna happen. And so I have to make a trade off right now, which is what to do with that scenario. And
121 00:18:48.010 ⇒ 00:18:48.490 Uttam Kumaran: yeah.
122 00:18:48.490 ⇒ 00:19:11.909 Aater Suleman: I think the product owner is the one that will be a hard one to get off of you. Scrum, master is the easier of the 2 to get off of you and already going that route. The product owner is a tricky one, and the reason is that that as you become the voice of the customer. It it doesn’t have to be you, but it has to be somebody good like that engineer, and unfortunately, it’s an engineer who talks well, which is actually a harder one to.
123 00:19:11.910 ⇒ 00:19:23.679 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s gonna be me. I guess I guess less about eliminating it more about what portions of that. What’s the 80 20 on that person’s role like, if I just sit with the scrum, master, and I’m like.
124 00:19:24.230 ⇒ 00:19:30.190 Uttam Kumaran: here is everything that needs to happen. Go break it up, and then tell me the tickets review. That’s much better.
125 00:19:30.530 ⇒ 00:19:35.240 Uttam Kumaran: even better is like, I literally just send them. I I don’t know like that’s I’m trying to think about.
126 00:19:35.650 ⇒ 00:19:36.180 Aater Suleman: By the way.
127 00:19:36.180 ⇒ 00:19:40.529 Uttam Kumaran: That I need to do in that role because I’m trying to. Really.
128 00:19:41.520 ⇒ 00:19:48.339 Uttam Kumaran: I’m trying to really put this next phase is like, Try really hard to get out, because I’m still involved
129 00:19:48.650 ⇒ 00:19:54.499 Uttam Kumaran: with 4 or 5 with like 2 to 4 h per per client per week. It’s
130 00:19:54.860 ⇒ 00:19:56.970 Uttam Kumaran: it’s gonna it’s gonna be tough.
131 00:19:57.330 ⇒ 00:20:15.460 Aater Suleman: Yeah, no. So the well, so there’s 2 parts to that, then, let’s plan on training somebody on your team that you trust to be a second product owner because you want to multiply that role. So we are not talking about delegation anymore. It’s not you delegating it. It’s like parallel to you.
132 00:20:15.940 ⇒ 00:20:32.480 Aater Suleman: One thing that worked very well for us, by the way, was to actually send the our best engineers to product owner training. There is a like. You just spend the money and may send them to a training, because the good thing about using the agile framework is that it’s a framework, right? So there is a lot of resources. There are books written on.
133 00:20:32.480 ⇒ 00:20:37.960 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, what is I would love to? I mean, I have, like probably one person that I think could be good at that.
134 00:20:38.280 ⇒ 00:20:39.750 Uttam Kumaran: Similarly.
135 00:20:39.750 ⇒ 00:20:42.611 Aater Suleman: Give you the name of the trainer we used
136 00:20:43.750 ⇒ 00:20:50.789 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Similarly, Melinda, who I just talked to, she mentions from alliance, from alliance something like that, or.
137 00:20:50.790 ⇒ 00:20:55.109 Aater Suleman: From alliance training. So there was actually a guy his name was you know
138 00:20:55.480 ⇒ 00:21:19.489 Aater Suleman: something about a goat and a mountain. Actually, it’s funny how I’ll come back to it because a mountain goat software, so goat and a mountain I was right about that part. The only part I missed was software mountain goat software. This is the one we use pretty heavily I never took his training so I can’t vouch for it personally, but my agile coach sworn by this guy, and then we quite a few people to him, and it worked very well.
139 00:21:20.170 ⇒ 00:21:23.000 Uttam Kumaran: And they just did the like. The generic.
140 00:21:23.860 ⇒ 00:21:35.569 Aater Suleman: Generic training of how to be a good product owner. It talks about things like things that actually are very much salesy, actually. And what we want our engineers to understand, which is like the point is value. The point is not to do the work.
141 00:21:35.730 ⇒ 00:21:43.180 Aater Suleman: The point is to talk in terms of quantum of value rather than in terms of quantum of time or quantum of money. Whatever metrics
142 00:21:43.440 ⇒ 00:21:48.930 Aater Suleman: it coaches them on how to write quality backlog, which means small things like be explicit how to.
143 00:21:48.930 ⇒ 00:21:53.919 Uttam Kumaran: Did these people always come from? They you took them from engineering into that. Did they ever come from other.
144 00:21:54.640 ⇒ 00:21:58.510 Uttam Kumaran: I assume, like sales, would be hard like.
145 00:21:58.510 ⇒ 00:22:02.300 Aater Suleman: One exception where somebody came from sales, but he really really wanted to become.
146 00:22:02.300 ⇒ 00:22:05.029 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, there’s no I was. I’m like, Yeah, there’s no.
147 00:22:05.030 ⇒ 00:22:10.150 Aater Suleman: Yeah, so my more sales engineers were my, I think my absolute
148 00:22:10.400 ⇒ 00:22:21.610 Aater Suleman: people come from a sales engineering background. But even engineers, I think, can do fine in this role, but you do have to give them some training, and rather than doing it yourself. I guess this is a cheat way of doing it.
149 00:22:21.610 ⇒ 00:22:23.900 Uttam Kumaran: No, this is it like, I, yeah, I. In fact.
150 00:22:23.900 ⇒ 00:22:24.420 Aater Suleman: And.
151 00:22:24.420 ⇒ 00:22:25.240 Uttam Kumaran: One of this is like
152 00:22:25.760 ⇒ 00:22:30.320 Uttam Kumaran: trying to reinvent the wheel I can reinvent is like how to use AI everywhere.
153 00:22:30.570 ⇒ 00:22:32.420 Uttam Kumaran: The this but I could.
154 00:22:32.730 ⇒ 00:22:33.789 Aater Suleman: This is just used.
155 00:22:33.790 ⇒ 00:22:35.570 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t. Wanna yeah, yeah.
156 00:22:35.930 ⇒ 00:22:46.229 Aater Suleman: Yeah. So I would definitely say that if you can get like another product owner train, this is how I did it. I was the product owner. Ali, by the way, was never really a product owner. So he doesn’t understand this precise role.
157 00:22:46.390 ⇒ 00:22:52.249 Aater Suleman: So my role at Flux 7 for the 1st 4 years was I was the lead engineer and the lead solution architect.
158 00:22:52.760 ⇒ 00:23:06.120 Aater Suleman: So what that meant is a leader, solution, architect and flux zone flux 7 was an implicit product owner and the term product owner came later. In fact, for a long time I didn’t even have a name for what I did, but what I did was eventually I called it Solution Architect.
159 00:23:06.540 ⇒ 00:23:12.699 Aater Suleman: And then I built a solution architect team. And then that training, that team became the product owners. Once we became good at Agile.
160 00:23:12.700 ⇒ 00:23:18.200 Uttam Kumaran: We were. Gonna we were gonna call it architect engagement lead. I knew there’s something here, because I’m like.
161 00:23:18.470 ⇒ 00:23:21.300 Uttam Kumaran: I can’t leave these because I there’s something.
162 00:23:21.300 ⇒ 00:23:29.810 Aater Suleman: I would say, call them solution architect. It’s a nice fancy name, and these things matter right when I, when they introduce themselves to it. It’s the same reason banks call everyone a Vp, even if they’re like 20
163 00:23:31.320 ⇒ 00:23:37.080 Aater Suleman: like. So basically, solution, architect is a nice, respectful name that people understand.
164 00:23:37.080 ⇒ 00:23:53.069 Uttam Kumaran: With them being product owner. Because I actually find that people like me never have a good spot in software companies, because what happens to you. They either push you to become a tech. They push you to become a IC architect, or they push you to become an engineering manager.
165 00:23:53.290 ⇒ 00:23:56.479 Uttam Kumaran: They don’t push you to do this, which is like
166 00:23:56.610 ⇒ 00:24:02.919 Uttam Kumaran: somewhat product. This is probably product management, but, like minus the.
167 00:24:02.920 ⇒ 00:24:04.879 Aater Suleman: Product manager is a little less technical, especially.
168 00:24:04.880 ⇒ 00:24:06.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, minus the bs.
169 00:24:06.510 ⇒ 00:24:07.000 Aater Suleman: They’re.
170 00:24:07.000 ⇒ 00:24:10.730 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, like, I don’t. I don’t wanna hire product managers for this.
171 00:24:11.248 ⇒ 00:24:22.719 Uttam Kumaran: This isn’t necessarily that I would rather promote from engineer into this. So maybe that’s our pipeline is. I’ll pick off one or 2 like I already can think of 2 where
172 00:24:23.130 ⇒ 00:24:50.470 Uttam Kumaran: once they scale again. I want to give people the next level like for anyone that starts. I want to say, here’s what’s 2 steps ahead for you, because the great people are always gonna want to know that. And so if I can say there are 2 branches, you can either you can go towards scrum. You can go towards something on the technical side, where maybe it’s an engineering manager or something, or you can go towards product owner. That’s what I would like to do, because I have had some engineers voice that they wanna
173 00:24:50.680 ⇒ 00:24:57.029 Uttam Kumaran: get involved. But I know that they’re not talking about running sprints. They’re talking about like what I do.
174 00:24:57.240 ⇒ 00:24:59.629 Uttam Kumaran: which is sort of like, you know, this.
175 00:24:59.840 ⇒ 00:25:11.199 Aater Suleman: So that’s basically the product owner, slash solution, architect job, right? So let. So my job used to be, I used to typically be the 1st person to get on the call with them, understand their requirements. So the 1st thing was requirement gathering.
176 00:25:11.660 ⇒ 00:25:17.109 Aater Suleman: then, from their sow preparation, I would prepare the sow. Send it over to them.
177 00:25:17.535 ⇒ 00:25:22.503 Aater Suleman: By the way, there’s something I said to Ben the other day, and I you probably picked up on it as well having
178 00:25:24.930 ⇒ 00:25:30.740 Aater Suleman: send I don’t know how to say it right, but, like a good virtual assistant, is a real godsend.
179 00:25:30.740 ⇒ 00:25:35.229 Uttam Kumaran: Well, yeah. So this is what our 3, rd our 3rd bullet is really like on that which is
180 00:25:35.850 ⇒ 00:25:40.280 Uttam Kumaran: operate. I mean, we can get to that after this, which is like operations, which, again, is like, it’s just like.
181 00:25:40.280 ⇒ 00:25:59.850 Aater Suleman: Yeah. So I had. Tracy Tracy was my sales, I mean. Vishnu was my second in charge with operations, but Tracy was my second in charge with sales. So Tracy would like, basically make sure that the sow will go out like. And she could write the sow. It just meant that I didn’t have to worry that we are gonna.
182 00:25:59.850 ⇒ 00:26:05.089 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, so we have. We have people doing that now on the contracts, both for new client, new employee.
183 00:26:05.090 ⇒ 00:26:05.600 Uttam Kumaran: Fantastic.
184 00:26:05.600 ⇒ 00:26:10.199 Uttam Kumaran: But that’s my I mean, we could even go there. I think my 3rd question was, basically.
185 00:26:10.340 ⇒ 00:26:13.060 Uttam Kumaran: how do I? I want to do the same for that crew?
186 00:26:13.340 ⇒ 00:26:20.456 Uttam Kumaran: One thing I was like you guys should go read the goal. I got pretty. I got halfway through it, but I’ll read it with them.
187 00:26:21.020 ⇒ 00:26:21.440 Aater Suleman: That’s a good.
188 00:26:21.440 ⇒ 00:26:28.279 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe you guys should just muscle through that, and we could do a book club on that. But like I but that’s a tough, because
189 00:26:28.390 ⇒ 00:26:34.629 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve never run an operations team. I have, I? But I think of everything like engineering, even our brand marketing. I’m like.
190 00:26:35.630 ⇒ 00:26:44.109 Uttam Kumaran: run this any differently like I want to run. You plan the work you execute. We do a retro, we we cycle. There’s no, I really don’t like that.
191 00:26:44.890 ⇒ 00:26:55.800 Uttam Kumaran: What? What part of this is not engineering. You guys are putting workout. It’s it’s all the same. And I want them to go through the same revision. Look back, cycle, make a better like iterate.
192 00:26:55.800 ⇒ 00:26:57.760 Aater Suleman: Print reviews, print planning basically.
193 00:26:57.760 ⇒ 00:26:59.140 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, but I do.
194 00:26:59.140 ⇒ 00:27:06.030 Aater Suleman: Run her team like an agile. By the way, Vishnus was the operations team, and I mean even our Hr. Team used to have daily standups and weekly sprint.
195 00:27:06.030 ⇒ 00:27:16.319 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, I don’t. I want everybody to run that way. And I I don’t feel like there’s any real argument for it to not except for we have to. We have. I have to get the client stuff done first.st
196 00:27:16.320 ⇒ 00:27:21.349 Aater Suleman: They may use their different names for them by the way, like sales, never call them sprints, and.
197 00:27:21.350 ⇒ 00:27:22.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
198 00:27:22.170 ⇒ 00:27:27.360 Aater Suleman: I don’t care. But the point was that they are doing retrospectives. They’re doing feedback, they are. They.
199 00:27:27.360 ⇒ 00:27:40.210 Uttam Kumaran: That’s usually the pieces they’ll drop is they’ll talk every day. But then there’s never event session where they talk about process. There’s never like a moment where they plan, they wake up, and every day is a new day. I hate that. I’m like allergic to that sort of stuff like.
200 00:27:40.540 ⇒ 00:27:57.660 Aater Suleman: Yeah. And that’s, I mean, there’s a lot to talk about on that, like a lot of people will fall into that mode. And that’s where you want your leaders. By the way, that your leaders need to understand that they need to zoom out like that stuff. Will not that stuff kind of goes from the top right when you will do it, then your leaders will do it when your leaders will do it. So the team.
201 00:27:57.660 ⇒ 00:28:06.560 Uttam Kumaran: Particular in that, like, I tell people like we’ve seen this stuff a hundred times for us to get to like. Even yesterday I called Robert, because I was like, Okay, 20 million is a number.
202 00:28:06.680 ⇒ 00:28:15.229 Uttam Kumaran: I was like, I was looking forward to what the number was. And I’m like, that’s a number. And he’s like, we’re a long ways from. And I’m like, Yeah, if we grow 50, it’s gonna take 7 years. But I’m like.
203 00:28:15.900 ⇒ 00:28:21.620 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, okay. But then, okay, if we if we go 100%, it’ll be 3. So that’s that’s the goal. Then well, how do we do that?
204 00:28:21.720 ⇒ 00:28:28.690 Uttam Kumaran: And like, I think of everything like cycles because I follow house. I follow Spacex. I follow Starlink. I’m trying to think about
205 00:28:28.800 ⇒ 00:28:33.779 Uttam Kumaran: how, though if that company was to say, we want to build a data analytics service company.
206 00:28:34.300 ⇒ 00:28:54.920 Uttam Kumaran: They’re gonna they’re gonna increase the cycles. That’s it, right? And so that’s our job is to increase the cycles across. Every team needs to increase the cycles. And the constant thing I told the team is like, you’re always gonna think that hiring more people is a solve here, and I’m going to stop. I I’m very much we hired. We hired a lot of people. It’s it’s like.
207 00:28:55.420 ⇒ 00:29:03.849 Uttam Kumaran: I’m very much gonna stop that once we get a good sense of like how many tickets are throughput, and it’ll all be math based on if we make hires
208 00:29:04.010 ⇒ 00:29:04.810 Uttam Kumaran: like, you know.
209 00:29:04.810 ⇒ 00:29:10.850 Aater Suleman: Yeah. Well, and the the other thing, by the way, and you will hear me say I. I have not said it, perhaps enough times in this cohort. But
210 00:29:11.000 ⇒ 00:29:18.589 Aater Suleman: anytime you want to hire in delivery, I’m gonna ask you, could you just raise prices? Because, there’s almost always flex and pricing still.
211 00:29:18.590 ⇒ 00:29:19.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
212 00:29:19.220 ⇒ 00:29:31.920 Aater Suleman: Yeah. So hiring is like the last resort, right? Like everything hiring, including saying no to the customer, should come hiring, because sometimes you do have customers from hell that are better just fired, and somebody else brought in.
213 00:29:31.920 ⇒ 00:29:40.859 Uttam Kumaran: You’re totally right. We’re we’re even at a place where we’re not even like we don’t have breathing room to even like. Think about raising, which is a sad part, which is like.
214 00:29:40.960 ⇒ 00:29:47.469 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, we could have probably not taken on as much. Customers kept some room upgraded. Those we are where we are
215 00:29:47.700 ⇒ 00:29:52.559 Uttam Kumaran: one I’m just maintaining we are hitting a baseline of like, are there tickets every day for everyone to work on?
216 00:29:52.930 ⇒ 00:29:56.950 Uttam Kumaran: Then I can go. And I’m gonna look at everything being measured. And basically
217 00:29:57.230 ⇒ 00:30:00.889 Uttam Kumaran: again, we’re gonna use linear for everything, metric throughput. Everything.
218 00:30:00.890 ⇒ 00:30:08.099 Aater Suleman: I think you’re thinking about it the absolutely the right way. So basically, my process that I was talking about for making engineers more enabled.
219 00:30:08.280 ⇒ 00:30:14.530 Aater Suleman: if you think about it, that was me just applying purely 1st engineering principles, right? Like people are getting stuck in making. I mean.
220 00:30:14.650 ⇒ 00:30:22.759 Aater Suleman: they’re coming to the Pr. With the same crap, and I was looking at the Pr’s. They’re coming to this Pr. With the same crap every time. Why, the hell is that? Well.
221 00:30:22.760 ⇒ 00:30:23.490 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
222 00:30:23.490 ⇒ 00:30:28.319 Aater Suleman: Because I haven’t set the expectations I’m expecting them to learn by their mistakes.
223 00:30:28.320 ⇒ 00:30:34.040 Uttam Kumaran: No, we’re literally in that across. Every conversation I have is because we haven’t set expectations.
224 00:30:34.040 ⇒ 00:30:34.680 Aater Suleman: Yes.
225 00:30:35.092 ⇒ 00:30:38.390 Uttam Kumaran: It gives a lot of clarity, you know.
226 00:30:38.390 ⇒ 00:30:58.220 Aater Suleman: It gives a lot of clarity to you as well. I completely agree. Like I I we have again take things that I would love to if I had, like you guys, for all full day, for 90 days, there’s so many topics to cover like another one of those, by the way where setting expectations helps a lot is setting culture. Because you guys and you and Robert are starting to get to a point where culture is gonna start to hit you.
227 00:30:58.220 ⇒ 00:31:02.869 Uttam Kumaran: That’s actually where I think we’ve done. That’s what saved us a lot in that.
228 00:31:03.410 ⇒ 00:31:08.309 Uttam Kumaran: because we’re both technical. We both are have come from a data background
229 00:31:09.180 ⇒ 00:31:18.539 Uttam Kumaran: we have, we have been able to get people. We probably couldn’t have previously afford to take less to come into an environment with low structure.
230 00:31:18.640 ⇒ 00:31:30.559 Uttam Kumaran: But we are, we are. We’re able to afford them because we’re not assholes. And this isn’t like a a crazy messed up place. But that’s like where we are right now, and.
231 00:31:30.560 ⇒ 00:31:45.759 Aater Suleman: I was gonna say that. And I I think I’m gonna be a little one negative on that and tell you that’s we thought we were. We had, I mean Ali and I, both from very technical background. Wish knew as well when we went like an engineering company. We never thought we’d need
232 00:31:45.870 ⇒ 00:31:52.020 Aater Suleman: systems. And then, like all of a sudden, you get to 50 people, and the reality hits like dude. We have no idea what we are doing.
233 00:31:52.020 ⇒ 00:31:57.270 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, we’re we’re I knew the day would. It’s just a it’s like everything sort of like
234 00:31:57.400 ⇒ 00:32:17.950 Uttam Kumaran: is right now, especially the last 3 weeks, which is so tough because it coincided exactly with the pixel work. But I’m really glad, I mean, like for better, for worse. We’ve actually got almost everything through and like it’s actually we. It wouldn’t have. I don’t know if there would have been a better time. But we are hitting the wall. Literally right now we are hitting the wall.
235 00:32:18.520 ⇒ 00:32:23.690 Uttam Kumaran: In fact, this last 3 weeks has probably been the hardest 3 weeks of running this business, since.
236 00:32:23.800 ⇒ 00:32:26.260 Uttam Kumaran: not having any money like, probably.
237 00:32:27.510 ⇒ 00:32:32.089 Uttam Kumaran: and you know it’s live. It’s a live pro. Every day we wake up with having to
238 00:32:32.400 ⇒ 00:32:35.399 Uttam Kumaran: build the plane while the plane is like nosedive
239 00:32:36.272 ⇒ 00:32:39.650 Uttam Kumaran: and catching clients catching people. But
240 00:32:40.130 ⇒ 00:32:53.400 Uttam Kumaran: again, we don’t have a brand where nobody, in fact, our only reason we’ve been able to get people is through our own reputation, and being able to tell people, you know, hey, we will do right by you if you join us, and we want to build a company that’s like
241 00:32:53.620 ⇒ 00:32:59.160 Uttam Kumaran: for the people that work for it. And that’s why even the yesterday the equity profit sharing stuff like that.
242 00:32:59.360 ⇒ 00:33:01.210 Uttam Kumaran: That’s sort of why, cause I
243 00:33:01.430 ⇒ 00:33:08.099 Uttam Kumaran: that’s why the folks our folks trust us. And so it’s a big topic of mine which is like, How do I retain?
244 00:33:08.260 ⇒ 00:33:11.499 Uttam Kumaran: Of course, there’s the metric, which is the attrition and stuff like that. But
245 00:33:11.830 ⇒ 00:33:28.379 Uttam Kumaran: I know what it’s like to be in tech right now. And it’s so because people just wanna get in, get out and like, those aren’t the people we want to attract. But again, are a lot of our. The reason we’re gonna lose people over the next 2 months. If we continue, this is because there’s no systems.
246 00:33:28.520 ⇒ 00:33:33.909 Uttam Kumaran: It’s not gonna be because we’re not nice. It’s gonna be because the systems fail us, basically.
247 00:33:34.580 ⇒ 00:33:44.049 Aater Suleman: Definitely. So I think what what I would recommend, where I was going even with the culture was that you’re gonna have to set expectations and set them in writing.
248 00:33:44.350 ⇒ 00:33:56.359 Aater Suleman: And so, by by the way, one thing I’ve definitely noticed is that in writing has a very big is much better than talking about when you’re setting expectations.
249 00:33:57.000 ⇒ 00:34:20.569 Aater Suleman: and you can take advantage of chat, Gpt, or something like that, like crazy like. Explain to it and have it write a culture book. By the way, a culture book was one of the most important assets we wrote at Flux 7. So I literally wrote down back. Then again there was No. Ii. So I had to write it word by word. But it’s like a it was a document. Very informal document had nothing about Hr policies. It was literally about how I expect people to behave with each other just that.
250 00:34:20.830 ⇒ 00:34:42.210 Aater Suleman: It’s like, I expect that if you are going to talk about this, then you will talk like that, and if I expect that if you don’t like somebody, then you’re going to go give them feedback before talking to their manager. I expect that if I am making a mistake, and I mean that was very powerful. Actually the the culture expectation. So the same thing applies. Coming back to our original point.
251 00:34:42.219 ⇒ 00:34:42.979 Uttam Kumaran: Expectation.
252 00:34:42.980 ⇒ 00:34:56.729 Aater Suleman: Expectation, setting in writing. Perhaps the only second thing I’m saying, because that’ll remember. Keep force you to, and then and that also goes away to like. I don’t remember you saying this problem right? Because dude, it’s written, and if you didn’t write it, then you will take the blame.
253 00:34:56.730 ⇒ 00:34:57.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
254 00:34:57.390 ⇒ 00:35:01.300 Aater Suleman: Hold your feet, give them a tool to hold your feet to the fire, and vice versa.
255 00:35:01.300 ⇒ 00:35:01.920 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
256 00:35:02.110 ⇒ 00:35:10.298 Aater Suleman: Then, Pr’s is the again the standard Qa agile process that was actually next on my list that I had written down. And
257 00:35:10.970 ⇒ 00:35:14.419 Aater Suleman: I guess automated queue is the only other thing I would add to the picture that.
258 00:35:14.420 ⇒ 00:35:42.869 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, that’s so we we do a lot of that. So I mean, the reason why, you know, even I, I had some success in data is because I brought a lot of what had was happening in software engineering into data which now it’s getting more. People are more familiar with that. But like, even when I was doing this like 5 years ago, people were not doing Cicd any of that. So we do. We do that across the board. So that saves a bunch of problems. I’m actually any sort of data challenge. I’m not worried in terms of like, technically.
259 00:35:43.200 ⇒ 00:35:47.250 Uttam Kumaran: there’s a hundred things. We’re gonna automate, everything. I think we’re gonna be good there. It’s.
260 00:35:47.250 ⇒ 00:35:50.190 Aater Suleman: So you know you you can trust them. I’m I’m sorry I got you.
261 00:35:50.190 ⇒ 00:35:50.820 Uttam Kumaran: Damn!
262 00:35:50.820 ⇒ 00:35:58.920 Aater Suleman: System you have designed, you set your expectations, then you have automated. Qa. Then you have manual Pr reads in the beginning and ideally.
263 00:35:59.190 ⇒ 00:36:04.740 Uttam Kumaran: We’re gonna we’re gonna I’ll I’ll tell you. We’re evaluating 3 vendors for automated Pr reviews.
264 00:36:04.920 ⇒ 00:36:09.939 Aater Suleman: That’s a good idea, too. By the way, Pr. Reviews used to work very well for us, too, so that.
265 00:36:09.940 ⇒ 00:36:26.459 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I love. And we do that in our stand up because I still run the analytics engineering stand up and we do peer reviews as a group. It’s great, because I get to say, Hey, 3 companies ago I saw this example of modeling this like, like, let me walk you through that. It’s nice. I thought, I like that.
266 00:36:26.880 ⇒ 00:36:28.879 Uttam Kumaran: So I think we’re gonna we’re basically gonna find.
267 00:36:28.880 ⇒ 00:36:35.220 Aater Suleman: The only problem with that is, you being the peer right? Cause you’re not a peer.
268 00:36:35.615 ⇒ 00:36:36.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
269 00:36:36.010 ⇒ 00:36:42.700 Aater Suleman: So the fear would be is, let the let others kind of talk more, see what they do. And even if it’s stupid, just kind of tolerate it. Sometimes they will.
270 00:36:43.085 ⇒ 00:36:43.470 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
271 00:36:43.470 ⇒ 00:37:08.480 Aater Suleman: Time and again coming back to expectation. Setting is like. My expectation is that you will give each other feedback and not hesitate and not hold back, but I will stay quiet and let you guys start to do this. We I’ve I’ve shown you how to do it for the last X weeks. It’s time that you do it. I’m gonna go quiet now. If I have feedback I might send you later. But what I want is for you to get help each other get better like something like that. So the expectation.
272 00:37:08.680 ⇒ 00:37:20.920 Aater Suleman: let them do it, because that is how it will start to scale. But yeah, those are my kind of, I think the just some generic leadership tips. I have learned just expectation settings, etc. And then also particularly around engineering. I think, though
273 00:37:21.650 ⇒ 00:37:45.370 Aater Suleman: what was obvious to me was not obvious to anybody else. So writing it down with like decision criteria, sometimes it. Some of it was frankly, soul searching, because when I wrote that decision criteria, I had to almost sit down by myself for an hour and think about what is it that I’m thinking, when I make this decision I make a call and like to think I make the right calls. What the hell am I thinking? And then this came up that okay, well, I’m thinking about this angle and that angle.
274 00:37:45.840 ⇒ 00:38:02.649 Aater Suleman: especially once I wrote it down, even for my own self. It became so much easier right? Because then this time I did not have to think as hard. I knew that check check decision done, problem solved. Move on. And the other thing is, 80% of those decisions matter much less than we’d like to believe. So having anything is better than having no criteria right? Like.
275 00:38:02.650 ⇒ 00:38:03.320 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
276 00:38:03.320 ⇒ 00:38:26.980 Aater Suleman: Those decisions are often all reversible, like if they put a class or they don’t put a class won’t kill you either way. So, but giving them the feeling that they have a mechanism to hold you accountable. You have a mechanism to hold them accountable, can all kind of come together. So I think, zooming out, you are absolutely right, and if I may be completely zoom out at the top, that that what you told me right that you will have to.
277 00:38:27.190 ⇒ 00:38:35.410 Aater Suleman: I mean, you can’t really do this. You? I guess you can. I’ve pulled enough all nighters back in the day, but it’s 1 of those things that you’re gonna have to just make some time.
278 00:38:35.410 ⇒ 00:38:43.400 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, I would rather I like not doing. It is not a choice. It’s just a matter of when and like how fast
279 00:38:43.590 ⇒ 00:38:45.429 Uttam Kumaran: I can exit right? It’s like.
280 00:38:45.780 ⇒ 00:38:54.149 Uttam Kumaran: And so and we’ve one way is like we’ve hired. So now we’ve we’ve cut, we’ve killed the like. There are hours available to put to these problems.
281 00:38:54.670 ⇒ 00:39:00.670 Uttam Kumaran: My thing is like, can I go from 75 to 25 next week?
282 00:39:00.980 ⇒ 00:39:11.089 Uttam Kumaran: Or what pieces can I be very aggressive on being like it’s theirs even for as much pain as it causes me. I can catch it if it falls.
283 00:39:11.200 ⇒ 00:39:16.630 Uttam Kumaran: But I don’t wanna do the slow roll, because it’s not gonna work.
284 00:39:16.850 ⇒ 00:39:19.600 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m trying. That’s why, even when? Because everybody is.
285 00:39:19.600 ⇒ 00:39:29.110 Aater Suleman: And if we just stick to the po role just as a starting point is, create your create the epics. In fact, let them create the user stories or.
286 00:39:29.110 ⇒ 00:39:34.637 Uttam Kumaran: That’s what I want. That’s the thing is like, I I’m I’m I’m gonna or what what I’m gonna do is I’m like, I’ll record you.
287 00:39:35.490 ⇒ 00:39:46.649 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve been using this thing called whisper, which you should check out. It’s basically like you can talk. It’s just all text. It’s basically like what dragon used to be, but like text speech. But it’s it’s like incredible AI text to speech.
288 00:39:46.650 ⇒ 00:39:49.560 Aater Suleman: It’s it’s a it’s an open source library, isn’t it? Whisper.
289 00:39:49.560 ⇒ 00:39:52.679 Uttam Kumaran: Well, there there is whisper, Open AI’s Library
290 00:39:53.440 ⇒ 00:39:58.914 Uttam Kumaran: company, called Whisper Wispr. They’re basically they sit live on your machine. You press a
291 00:39:59.680 ⇒ 00:40:07.350 Uttam Kumaran: a thing, and anytime anything your cursor is highlighted on you can just narrate into, and then it’ll and then you just press the button, and it’s done.
292 00:40:07.540 ⇒ 00:40:18.400 Uttam Kumaran: And so I’m like, hey, what if I just keep? And I’ll I’ll just give you the brain dump. Throw that into our Gpt for ticket creation, validate all those, and then go for it right like that’s.
293 00:40:18.900 ⇒ 00:40:19.490 Aater Suleman: That’s true.
294 00:40:19.490 ⇒ 00:40:20.840 Uttam Kumaran: That’s it, right?
295 00:40:21.050 ⇒ 00:40:42.330 Aater Suleman: And then I think so. So I would say, responsibility wise, just like we talk about everyone else from an outcome standpoint. Right? Your your job is. So I think you’re very close to being a Po. So let’s start right there, right like to truly waste that role. So your job is to create a quality epic backlog, but it has to go past the brain, drum, and all I mean by that is.
296 00:40:42.340 ⇒ 00:40:42.860 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Okay.
297 00:40:42.860 ⇒ 00:40:45.289 Aater Suleman: Have Gpt write the epics just to review them once.
298 00:40:45.290 ⇒ 00:40:45.976 Uttam Kumaran: Sure. Okay.
299 00:40:46.320 ⇒ 00:40:49.540 Aater Suleman: And so people don’t have to worry about like Gpt being.
300 00:40:49.540 ⇒ 00:40:50.420 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
301 00:40:50.420 ⇒ 00:40:56.239 Aater Suleman: You’d worry about that, and and also make you better at the dump itself. Right? Cause you will see what Gpt understands better.
302 00:40:56.340 ⇒ 00:40:58.670 Uttam Kumaran: So I used to be a Pm, so I it’s.
303 00:40:58.670 ⇒ 00:41:12.920 Aater Suleman: So you know exactly what I mean by that. And then the Prs, I think at the back end. That’s kind of your 2 main things right like Pr’s, honestly, is a bit too low level for a product owner. In my opinion your end state should be maybe start with the Prs. But then peer prs and get out.
304 00:41:12.920 ⇒ 00:41:18.400 Uttam Kumaran: We’re actually just at the point where we’re. I’m by. Next week we will have at least 2 engineers per client
305 00:41:18.540 ⇒ 00:41:22.150 Uttam Kumaran: like we’re sometimes where we’re just it was just me. And then one other person. So.
306 00:41:22.150 ⇒ 00:41:27.690 Aater Suleman: That those are the worst. Actually, 2 engineers per client. They can do peer, peer, peer reviews on each other.
307 00:41:27.690 ⇒ 00:41:28.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
308 00:41:28.260 ⇒ 00:41:45.520 Aater Suleman: You can have automated reviews on top of that, maybe even use them in addition, and then kind of do a final sign off. In fact, you could also be so are you following? I mean, one agile principle that is very critical is is that everything has to be a demo, like a user story, cannot be marked until there’s a demo.
309 00:41:45.800 ⇒ 00:41:48.709 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, that is actually the the actual
310 00:41:48.710 ⇒ 00:41:55.270 Uttam Kumaran: we’ve been trying to get people to do is loom like anytime. You make a dashboard record a loom walking through what it is.
311 00:41:55.270 ⇒ 00:41:55.660 Uttam Kumaran: Sure
312 00:41:55.660 ⇒ 00:42:00.840 Uttam Kumaran: I honestly will. Probably I’ll probably get the engineers on Prs to be like record. A loom walking through the Pr.
313 00:42:01.100 ⇒ 00:42:02.329 Aater Suleman: Yep, that’s it.
314 00:42:02.620 ⇒ 00:42:20.020 Aater Suleman: Actually, the Ps is probably one level lower than where you want to be so sooner than later. Just get them to Pr get them to do it. You want them to think more about in terms of objectives. So like, basically a definition of done of a user story has to include some sort of a demo in your case, a loom that’s fine for us. It was a live demo.
315 00:42:20.455 ⇒ 00:42:38.350 Aater Suleman: So what that also did was that it did a couple of things. By the way, I I don’t know if alias shared this with you, but this was like one of the most genius things. My agile coach taught me to kind of mess with people’s head and get them to do the right thing. So basically, engineers are all hackers, right? We all like to do fine shortcuts.
316 00:42:38.560 ⇒ 00:42:45.000 Aater Suleman: So he said that we’re gonna measure the progress of an engineering scrum team by the number of user stories that they create
317 00:42:46.290 ⇒ 00:42:53.310 Aater Suleman: and added a definition of done that a user story cannot be marked, done unless there is a demonstrable demo.
318 00:42:54.100 ⇒ 00:42:59.750 Aater Suleman: And just leave the 2. Just let that settle in for a second. So engineering is gonna hack to try to make the user story small.
319 00:42:59.750 ⇒ 00:43:02.720 Uttam Kumaran: I actually was. So I just talked to Ted like.
320 00:43:02.980 ⇒ 00:43:04.570 Aater Suleman: You did talk to Ted, Man. I’ve talked.
321 00:43:04.570 ⇒ 00:43:07.879 Uttam Kumaran: The Ted an hour before this he told me the exact same story. Yeah.
322 00:43:08.100 ⇒ 00:43:11.350 Aater Suleman: Ted is. Ted is well. Ted came up with it. Ted is the inventor, so.
323 00:43:11.350 ⇒ 00:43:16.000 Uttam Kumaran: He literally because he was like he was like, they’re gonna hack the story. So do it, based on.
324 00:43:16.380 ⇒ 00:43:16.860 Aater Suleman: Yes.
325 00:43:16.860 ⇒ 00:43:17.859 Uttam Kumaran: I was like, oh, that’s genius!
326 00:43:17.860 ⇒ 00:43:22.290 Aater Suleman: Oh, man, you’ve talked to the you’ve talked to my Guru! I don’t know. Why am I wasting any time.
327 00:43:22.290 ⇒ 00:43:22.990 Uttam Kumaran: I sorry I didn’t.
328 00:43:22.990 ⇒ 00:43:28.589 Aater Suleman: No, I learned a lot from that guy. By the way, I’m not joking at all.
329 00:43:28.590 ⇒ 00:43:34.710 Uttam Kumaran: All we had was so important. I I mean the only reason I’m prepared to have this call with you.
330 00:43:35.010 ⇒ 00:43:52.069 Uttam Kumaran: and I know even the words just because I called him. I was like, Okay, give me actually the one thing he did tell me is he talked about building 2 things he said he did a lot on building the value maps, and he also said that you guys may still have access to the database of like predetermined epics or pre-built epics.
331 00:43:52.864 ⇒ 00:43:58.389 Aater Suleman: Yeah, if I if if I I’m gonna basically, that’s gonna be my like.
332 00:43:58.800 ⇒ 00:44:03.079 Uttam Kumaran: My job is like the head of Po is to start to build those.
333 00:44:03.080 ⇒ 00:44:11.650 Aater Suleman: I can. I can share 2 things with you, and I’ll probably request Vishnu to cause I don’t. I think she’s the one who’s maintained the clean copies we. I still might have proprietary stuff in my copies.
334 00:44:11.650 ⇒ 00:44:12.370 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
335 00:44:12.370 ⇒ 00:44:18.939 Aater Suleman: But we actually had a flux, 7 agile certification that that created that showed all of our value, maps and everything. In one place.
336 00:44:18.940 ⇒ 00:44:19.610 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
337 00:44:19.930 ⇒ 00:44:25.579 Aater Suleman: And the second thing I can share with you is our epic. dB, and we also had an sow run, I mean Ted taught me, by the way, literally.
338 00:44:25.886 ⇒ 00:44:37.520 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we’re literally like we cannot. We are on that track like you should see our Sigma is organized like in a very everything is like gonna run a same, there’s not gonna be a different playbook. Yeah.
339 00:44:37.670 ⇒ 00:44:48.524 Aater Suleman: So we had like an sow estimation playbook. So that’s how the estimation happened. We had an sow creation playbook. We had any. Our agile run book. That was a pretty lengthy document explaining how we do our
340 00:44:48.950 ⇒ 00:44:50.600 Aater Suleman: stand ups and how we do.
341 00:44:50.600 ⇒ 00:45:04.199 Uttam Kumaran: We? Just so we have, we have that we also are just starting on the basically the playbooks for the most common data issues. But I need to give. I need to know, like, okay. But because what I’m going to do for the Okrs for next quarter is going to be completing those
342 00:45:04.360 ⇒ 00:45:07.439 Uttam Kumaran: like like, that’s what we’re gonna do you know.
343 00:45:07.830 ⇒ 00:45:21.959 Aater Suleman: So I think you you I well, so big picture. Then I think from my perspective, I think you you’re absolutely thinking about everything the right way. Kind of see a lot of me and you in some ways, just we. And I’ve shared with you some of the things I mean
344 00:45:22.260 ⇒ 00:45:29.409 Aater Suleman: if you can, if you can get more time with Ted man, that guy is a genius. Actually, what about this stuff? Don’t think I could have.
345 00:45:29.410 ⇒ 00:45:32.019 Uttam Kumaran: I didn’t know he was in Leander cause. I was just talking to him, and.
346 00:45:32.020 ⇒ 00:45:33.120 Aater Suleman: Right here, actually.
347 00:45:33.120 ⇒ 00:45:36.539 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And I was like I told oh, actually, I told him you should come to Vixelcom.
348 00:45:37.237 ⇒ 00:45:40.160 Uttam Kumaran: I mentioned it to him. So.
349 00:45:40.160 ⇒ 00:45:46.939 Aater Suleman: Yeah. Ted’s also. By the way, Ted’s very, very. He practices what he preaches. So he’s very, very protective of his retirement time.
350 00:45:47.397 ⇒ 00:45:51.219 Uttam Kumaran: That’s why I don’t Co. Have the courage to invite him.
351 00:45:51.220 ⇒ 00:45:53.763 Uttam Kumaran: I already did that.
352 00:45:54.400 ⇒ 00:46:13.359 Aater Suleman: But probably with me he’s a lot more frank as well, so he would have shut me up right there and then, like I I kid you not. By the way, this is just a funny thing, but like my one on ones. With that I mean, I was the owner, CEO of the company, and I think there’s probably the 1 1 on one that I also used to look forward to the most, but also was dreading to go in.
353 00:46:13.360 ⇒ 00:46:14.389 Uttam Kumaran: It’s like, you’re getting.
354 00:46:14.390 ⇒ 00:46:20.530 Aater Suleman: Like. What the hell did you say at the company meeting? I’ll go shoot. What did I do wrong?
355 00:46:20.530 ⇒ 00:46:21.630 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
356 00:46:21.630 ⇒ 00:46:41.060 Aater Suleman: But I learned a lot from him. He’s like, I really look up to that. It’s not just a lip service or anything. I really look up to him. So point being so, yeah. So I think overall keep applying the engineering principles like you are doing small nuggets here and there that I threw out at you. Obviously write as much as you can.
357 00:46:42.270 ⇒ 00:46:43.260 Aater Suleman: Verbal
358 00:46:43.410 ⇒ 00:46:54.930 Aater Suleman: verbal instructions for some reason fall on deaf ears, so don’t expect to say something and expect people to know anything about it next time you ask them. So writing is what gets things going. I’ve seen that over and over again
359 00:46:55.030 ⇒ 00:47:10.079 Aater Suleman: and and it’s the small things that matter. So those small, small guided guidelines on variable names and decision making on when to do a function and when not to do a function kind of stupid stuff like it matters so, giving them some frameworks to think about, that.
360 00:47:10.090 ⇒ 00:47:26.489 Aater Suleman: I think, would be my just totality of I think Ted is probably given some of the very useful stuff already, but those would be a few things that I guess I did outside of what Ted taught me as well like being an engineer. The decision criteria spreadsheet. I was something I was very proud of, because I think I got my.
361 00:47:26.530 ⇒ 00:47:30.340 Aater Suleman: I think it actually helped my engineers go into better architects. Basically.
362 00:47:31.250 ⇒ 00:47:55.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think the only last thing is like, if it’s helpful, maybe I would, because I I’m trying to also find ways to pair, the people on our teams up with someone outside of me who’s like elite. For example, I’ve called some of my close friends that are running content or marketing teams. And I’m like you just spend 30 min with, like our content team and sort of just like be in here similar to operations. We have 2 great people, one of our former p, 1 of the guy who’s a Pm.
363 00:47:55.450 ⇒ 00:48:09.520 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve actually moved over, does he sort right at this level? I think we were trying to go after some people that run these sort of teams. He’s now an operation. We have 2 people in operations who are just taking over everything would love to try to just give them what a roadmap could look like. But this is where.
364 00:48:09.940 ⇒ 00:48:25.049 Uttam Kumaran: like I want them to know what running a 20 million dollar company from operation standpoint is. And I’m like, that’s that’s where we need to be. And then sort of let them build. It is Vishnu a good person to maybe just be like, Hey, would you mind spending 30 min? Okay.
365 00:48:25.210 ⇒ 00:48:30.130 Aater Suleman: Definitely talk to Vishnu. I mean operations. Wise Vishnu is a wizard. Actually, she knows how to do it all. So
366 00:48:30.970 ⇒ 00:48:31.350 Aater Suleman: I would.
367 00:48:31.350 ⇒ 00:48:37.420 Uttam Kumaran: I would just love for her to be like, can you spend 30 min with me and our team, and just basically set show us what running a 20 million dollar!
368 00:48:38.560 ⇒ 00:48:40.019 Uttam Kumaran: Think how many did! And we can.
369 00:48:40.020 ⇒ 00:48:52.690 Aater Suleman: What? What does operations of a 20 million dollar company look like? What are the kind of artifacts you have? What are the kind of dashboards. You need like something as simple as, in fact, one of the entrepreneurs I was talking to yesterday like there’s like 5 numbers that
370 00:48:52.800 ⇒ 00:48:59.469 Aater Suleman: even I had to kind of tabulate it in front of him, cause like, basically he was talking about how cash is running out in the bank.
371 00:48:59.670 ⇒ 00:49:19.190 Aater Suleman: And I’m like this is not making any sense. Everything is fine you’re doing, pipeline, but your cash is drying out. That doesn’t make any sense. Well, kind of know the usual suspects to look for within that process I kind of kept giving him like. All right. Well, you should be so. Finally, what we concluded was that there are 5 numbers you have to track on the financial side, like cash in the bank, looked at
372 00:49:19.610 ⇒ 00:49:23.609 Aater Suleman: in isolation, is like one of the worst metrics you can have, because all you see is just.
373 00:49:23.610 ⇒ 00:49:24.970 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yes, it’s balance.
374 00:49:24.970 ⇒ 00:49:45.329 Aater Suleman: Basically. But then you have to move back and you say, well, payments can get for so I have to look at the accrual numbers. But then accrual is kind of a latent picture, too. So you want to look at the backlog numbers. You want to look at the pipeline numbers. You want to look at your lead. Gen. Numbers so essentially leads coming in and cash in the bank, and everything in between is so my point in saying that was that, yeah. Vishnu could probably speak to that very well.
375 00:49:45.640 ⇒ 00:49:48.849 Aater Suleman: We learned on the job most of the things so.
376 00:49:48.850 ⇒ 00:50:00.759 Uttam Kumaran: No, they’re they’re on that path because anything that I don’t handle or like it’s outside of a scope of a team goes Ops. But I don’t want like. I would rather just get the cheat code of like where where they need to go.
377 00:50:00.760 ⇒ 00:50:25.659 Aater Suleman: Definitely we can give you like, I mean, you need a cash flow, projection sheet at all times like, so this in this particular entrepreneurs example, right? The problem was that you don’t have a cash flow projection. So like, I’m like, well, when are we running out of money? What’s going to happen, and that all of a sudden everything became approximate. It’s like, well, we think we’re gonna crash and burn in 6 months. I was like, there’s no way that’s possible. So let’s be realistic. Let’s talk about this, because today you’re feeling really bad. So it looks like you’re going to die in 6. But.
378 00:50:25.660 ⇒ 00:50:26.620 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
379 00:50:26.620 ⇒ 00:50:39.879 Aater Suleman: What’s the real number here? And lots of data was missing in terms of. So they’re just not having the right views and stuff is, I think Vishnu can probably walk you guys through like what? Whatever all the different dashboards that we used to have, even to understand operations.
380 00:50:40.060 ⇒ 00:50:46.590 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, amazing. Then I’ll reach out to her. This has been so helpful. By the way, and yeah, in case you you find that epic
381 00:50:47.040 ⇒ 00:50:48.310 Uttam Kumaran: sheet.
382 00:50:48.310 ⇒ 00:50:52.830 Aater Suleman: Oh, yeah, actually, just let’s pingish! No one’s like she, I know.
383 00:50:52.830 ⇒ 00:50:54.620 Uttam Kumaran: Is there? Is there a name for that.
384 00:50:54.960 ⇒ 00:51:03.859 Aater Suleman: Epic. dB, we used to call it epic. It was just a spreadsheet, so dB is a fancy name for it, but it was a spreadsheet with a bunch of javascript written behind it.
385 00:51:04.280 ⇒ 00:51:05.380 Uttam Kumaran: Nice. Okay.
386 00:51:05.911 ⇒ 00:51:08.859 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Great. Appreciate the time, as always.
387 00:51:09.188 ⇒ 00:51:10.830 Aater Suleman: My pleasure anytime you need.
388 00:51:10.830 ⇒ 00:51:12.140 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, thank you so much.