Meeting Title: PM Planning-Retro Date: 2025-04-07 Meeting participants: Aakash Tandel, Uttam Kumaran, Amber Lin, Alexander
WEBVTT
1 00:01:57.940 ⇒ 00:01:58.509 Alexander: Oh, yeah.
2 00:01:58.900 ⇒ 00:02:00.059 Uttam Kumaran: Good! How are you?
3 00:02:00.060 ⇒ 00:02:01.250 Alexander: Good good to see you.
4 00:02:01.920 ⇒ 00:02:02.770 Uttam Kumaran: Hey! Amber.
5 00:02:04.100 ⇒ 00:02:05.200 Amber Lin: Hi.
6 00:02:09.120 ⇒ 00:02:11.229 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Okay, whole gang is here.
7 00:02:12.254 ⇒ 00:02:18.630 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. I I wanted to. I mean for Alexander’s context. So we meet as a Pm team.
8 00:02:18.750 ⇒ 00:02:42.027 Uttam Kumaran: you know, most days, and usually on Monday. We’re sort of looking forward into the week, but I guess Amber and Akash, I wanted to introduce you. Introduce you to alexander Alexander got introduced to me. By Kyle. They they work together previously. And yeah, he’s currently working at Bridgewater, you know, and has a long background in in sort of Pm. And
9 00:02:42.650 ⇒ 00:03:06.350 Uttam Kumaran: you know everything sort of that. I’ve been learning around the the pro whole project management industry. Yeah, I guess I just wanted to invite him today to sort of just chat with us a little bit about. He knows a little bit of context about where we are as a as a crew. But sort of to observe. I have some questions, Alexander, that I’m sure we can have some good discussions about but also again, I think for us, as we’re building
10 00:03:06.490 ⇒ 00:03:12.260 Uttam Kumaran: this function for our company, we’re just trying to set like the best groundwork.
11 00:03:12.627 ⇒ 00:03:20.119 Uttam Kumaran: So it’s just really great to have you here. Maybe Amber and Akasha, you guys give like a brief Intro and feel free to ask any questions.
12 00:03:24.320 ⇒ 00:03:25.020 Aakash Tandel: Members.
13 00:03:25.880 ⇒ 00:03:26.789 Uttam Kumaran: Go show for it.
14 00:03:30.620 ⇒ 00:03:32.110 Uttam Kumaran: either. One of y’all.
15 00:03:32.110 ⇒ 00:03:57.039 Aakash Tandel: I’ll go. My name is, I am currently working at Brainforge as a project manager. I’m also I have another job where I’m a senior analytics architect, so kind of playing both roles in the data side of things. And then also the project management side of things. As I move kind of full time, brain Forge. It’ll be more of the project management stuff. So I’ve been in the agency space for about 10 years now. So about a decade
16 00:03:57.334 ⇒ 00:04:06.449 Aakash Tandel: agency experience working with clients stuff like that. So I have a fair amount of experience. Just never been the kind of lead project manager on a lot of these things.
17 00:04:07.760 ⇒ 00:04:09.410 Alexander: Good to meet you. Gosh! This is your time!
18 00:04:11.510 ⇒ 00:04:12.640 Aakash Tandel: Amber. Do you wanna go.
19 00:04:12.640 ⇒ 00:04:36.619 Amber Lin: Yeah. So Hi, Alexander, I stalked you on Linkedin. So I already I think you already got a brief idea who I am. I joined Brave Forge around actually, exactly a month ago. So I’m doing project management mostly leading the AI team and starting to take on more clients. So leading some client projects as well as our internal automation development.
20 00:04:38.460 ⇒ 00:04:38.900 Uttam Kumaran: Awesome.
21 00:04:38.900 ⇒ 00:04:42.630 Alexander: It’s great to connect on Linkedin Nice to meet you on Google Meets. Now.
22 00:04:43.890 ⇒ 00:05:09.779 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. And maybe as if I think every if we want to give a little bit of a brief intro but you know particularly. I think we email a little bit back and forth about for me across all of our teams. i, 1 of our principles, is like operating like giants right? And so for us, I look at where we need to go. And and what is the ideal sort of Pmo office that we wanna build and then sort of work backwards from where we are. Of course, like
23 00:05:10.180 ⇒ 00:05:35.399 Uttam Kumaran: we all wake up, and there’s day to day fires at the same time we are building. We are building the ship and foundations. This team will grow over time. We’re setting the foundational expectations across our relationship with sales with engineering, with leadership. And so just you know any context on that. And I have some questions prepared that we can go through. But I guess I’ll probably let you kick it off from there.
24 00:05:36.250 ⇒ 00:05:50.050 Alexander: Great good to meet you Amber and Akash I had some good conversations with Utam a couple of weeks ago. I’ve worked a lot in startups. And and now I’m working in finance and and technology working in research tech at Bridgewater.
25 00:05:50.333 ⇒ 00:06:10.149 Alexander: but the starts I’ve worked for. Spend a lot of time building up Pmos setting up those standardizations the right tracks for for Pm’s, where they’re going on. What certifications can set them level, set them and get them to the next level, where they identifying the gaps like you’re talking about. Maybe like some racies of you know what are the establishing the relationships of who’s responsible, accountable
26 00:06:10.557 ⇒ 00:06:36.270 Alexander: consulted and informed on different relationships with different groups. I worked mostly for external projects, working in like external facing project management, working with like in consulting space, in data, analytics, in data, science, and Fintech, and making sure that we hit our deliverables and expectations with our stakeholders and clients. So I’ve been working in combination that in the startup world. And now in in Research Tech, see how that
27 00:06:36.270 ⇒ 00:06:44.599 Alexander: my experience with that in like about the year, so that I’ve been there. I’ve just seen how that works in a larger scale to compare. You know what works in a startup, what doesn’t. And it’s been a really good experience so far.
28 00:06:44.919 ⇒ 00:06:55.129 Alexander: Just getting that new experience in that environment in a new industry and just building out some experience there what we can do and apply to different industries and different size companies.
29 00:06:55.230 ⇒ 00:06:59.029 Alexander: But sounds like you’re doing some great stuff. Here, look forward to continue to talk to you guys.
30 00:06:59.590 ⇒ 00:07:09.809 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess. Yeah, I guess Amber and Akash, like I have some questions prepared. Of course, like my purview on the business is a lot different than
31 00:07:09.940 ⇒ 00:07:15.599 Uttam Kumaran: every then all of us right? And so for me, I definitely want this to be a discussion. If you guys have any questions on like
32 00:07:16.470 ⇒ 00:07:17.809 Uttam Kumaran: how to run a great
33 00:07:18.010 ⇒ 00:07:26.499 Uttam Kumaran: Pm. Org, or anything like. I want us to have Alexander as as a resource but let me know if you want me to kick it off. Or if you guys have just anything that’s top of mind.
34 00:07:30.260 ⇒ 00:07:35.379 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I could go. Yeah, I guess. So to give you a sense like.
35 00:07:36.095 ⇒ 00:08:02.040 Uttam Kumaran: for for us, week to week, we are both setting up like, very, basically like, okay, what meeting structures do we have like, how do we set the agendas and sprints and everything? We’re also overall trying to sort of make sure that we have the best expectations set between what the engineering team needs to accomplish, what operations needs to accomplish what sales needs to set us up to success for?
36 00:08:02.352 ⇒ 00:08:09.840 Uttam Kumaran: I guess. Like, if you could just talk about. You know you, you’ve had a background across startups. And now some larger firms like.
37 00:08:10.220 ⇒ 00:08:19.899 Uttam Kumaran: was there one or 2 like really really transformational, like learning moments or experiences you had like, whether it was a project or a particular, like
38 00:08:20.100 ⇒ 00:08:32.010 Uttam Kumaran: a project failure, or like something that, like really triggered something, or that was a real like triggering point in your brain. For for some of the ways that you now think about sort of building a project management office.
39 00:08:32.970 ⇒ 00:09:01.649 Alexander: One thing I struggle with when I 1st started, was making assumptions. I would assume certain people knew things or different teams worked in a different in certain ways, and that that bit me in the ass early on. Because you can’t. What I’ve learned now is that you can’t make any assumptions, and how important is to document everything. Set the expectations communicate regularly, you know, just the typical project management stuff. But setting every for what I’ve been, when, how I manage projects, and how I have worked
40 00:09:01.890 ⇒ 00:09:20.230 Alexander: setting up like a project management plan is called management plan, a project chart, or whatever it is in the beginning of the project, and maintaining that documentation throughout, it is so valuable to have that single source of truth. And so you don’t make those assumptions, and and if you don’t know. And another thing I struggled with in the beginning was, you know, trying to be a project manager that like thought they knew everything.
41 00:09:20.390 ⇒ 00:09:22.650 Alexander: If you don’t, you don’t know what you don’t know.
42 00:09:22.780 ⇒ 00:09:31.860 Alexander: Ask those questions. There are no dumb questions. They might look at you, weird. But if it gets, everybody’s on the same page of getting you to the point where you know we need. We have these deliverables. We need to
43 00:09:32.330 ⇒ 00:09:55.709 Alexander: deliver them. We have these expectations and and hitting them. So if you don’t know, I struggle with the beginning of not asking those questions so, and document those questions, too. What are those questions? Who am I supposed to talk to? When does it make the most sense to talk to this person, you know, how does the some of those dependencies? So so what I do now is I create these plans. Put all on paper. And so we can. We can prod it
44 00:09:55.860 ⇒ 00:10:04.140 Alexander: if it’s like an engineer manager you’re working with, or or the client that you’re working with. Just making sure you’re aligned on your expectations and deliverables
45 00:10:04.540 ⇒ 00:10:07.409 Alexander: is invaluable, and something that I I do all the time. There.
46 00:10:08.730 ⇒ 00:10:20.129 Uttam Kumaran: Is there like in that? In one of the things that I think we have with a couple of clients now is, we’re? And I think this is a problem that we’re sort of trying to mitigate. Is
47 00:10:20.530 ⇒ 00:10:39.759 Uttam Kumaran: we? We start doing a lot of successful work. And then people start layering on more and more stuff. And so we have like a like a capacity problem that we’re we’re basically dealing with like in your experience, like, how have you guys handled that where it’s like cool, we’re signed up to just do this quantity of work. More is coming our way like, how do you make that transition and set the sales team up
48 00:10:39.810 ⇒ 00:10:58.974 Uttam Kumaran: to basically go do an upsell? Or how do you like sort of manage that in that sort of transition period. That’s probably something that’s like, probably really top of mind for us right now. And we want to have a playbook around. We’re expecting clients. We. Actually, this is something that it’s it’s like for me. I’m it’s very. It makes me really happy, because shows that people want more of our time right.
49 00:10:59.340 ⇒ 00:11:21.710 Uttam Kumaran: whether they’re happy to pay for it. That’s that’s that’s probably the. That’s probably the next question. But we’ve we’ve this is mainly been focused on customer acquisition. We now have a great Pm. Crew that can now focus on retention and and growth and expansion. And so like is that something that you’ve you’ve experienced, and you’ve had any like thoughts on on how to navigate.
50 00:11:22.680 ⇒ 00:11:52.219 Alexander: Of course you’re always good a lot of the time you’re gonna get scope, creep, or people or clients who to ask for more, or probably because you’re doing such a great job. You know, but everything comes with the cost. So what I’ve done is a lot of the times in the situations is put together. An impact analysis of the client makes the ask outside the scope of work. Okay, great. But how’s that could impact your project. There’s is it gonna be more time that’s needed? Is it? Gonna come with a cost? You do more resourcing to to hit it at the timeline that they you’ve agreed to. Nothing
51 00:11:52.350 ⇒ 00:12:03.940 Alexander: usually is free. Sometimes you could do a little bit of something to get over the edge, and if that’s the case fine. But most of the cases, it’s nothing’s free. So what is the impact you? You make this ask great. We have this agreed upon scope of work. We want to make a change.
52 00:12:04.010 ⇒ 00:12:25.700 Alexander: Let’s get that’s documented. Let’s get the sign off. But this is the this is the what’s gonna impact of that, and this is the cost of it. Will you accept that cost? Great? Then we can. We can, whatever that is. We can bundle that in. If you’re not able to accept that cost. Okay, that’s also not a problem, too. We’ll continue our scope of work. And then we can talk about the next increment of work. Once we complete it of the new, ask that you’re putting in. So it’s all about the expectations and and
53 00:12:26.200 ⇒ 00:12:31.070 Alexander: letting the client, or whomever understand that it comes with the new. Ask will come with the cost.
54 00:12:33.280 ⇒ 00:12:41.372 Uttam Kumaran: Akash any any like thoughts. There, I I think this is just interesting as we’re we’re dealing with this with 2 clients right now. That will probably have to do something like this exercise.
55 00:12:41.850 ⇒ 00:12:43.600 Uttam Kumaran: But curious what you’re thinking.
56 00:12:43.600 ⇒ 00:13:02.720 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, I think so. One of the things we’re bumping up against is, we are monthly billing this client. So we’re saying, Hey, we’re gonna give you 20 HA week of work for, like the, you know, for the 4 weeks or 5, 4 and a half weeks, whatever it is in the month. And these are the things that we’re getting
57 00:13:02.720 ⇒ 00:13:14.670 Aakash Tandel: we’re going to accomplish. We’re getting pushed back on saying, Hey, is this? Gonna take this long can we add in like a couple more things? So it’s a client, obviously always trying to get more out of the time that we have
58 00:13:14.670 ⇒ 00:13:28.121 Aakash Tandel: with them or doing work for them. So it’s that’s been interesting because it’s like, obviously they don’t know how long things take, but they feel like they should take shorter time than we are taking on these things. And that’s been an interesting
59 00:13:28.450 ⇒ 00:13:38.579 Aakash Tandel: challenge from like a how do we renew the contract in like a more defined way, so that we don’t get as much problems there. But also, how do we mitigate the situation? We’re currently in.
60 00:13:39.210 ⇒ 00:13:44.959 Alexander: So it didn’t define the timeline for the project. Is that what the issue is.
61 00:13:45.572 ⇒ 00:14:13.940 Aakash Tandel: It’s more like the. So we’re agreed to work with them on various data things. But the kind of the time bucket is a specific time bucket of 20 HA week, and it’s whatever we can get in that time. So it’s, you know, if it probably takes like 40 h. It’s gonna take us 2 weeks to do that project only but the client is saying, hey! Instead of taking 40 h, it should take 20 h. So next week you can work on this other thing that type of thing.
62 00:14:14.820 ⇒ 00:14:17.640 Alexander: Do you provide them estimates when they request new work.
63 00:14:18.650 ⇒ 00:14:28.300 Aakash Tandel: We have started to do that. Yeah, I think originally they were just like, you know, hey, do this thing. And then we’re kind of having anyone ad hoc answer those questions or do that work type of thing.
64 00:14:28.660 ⇒ 00:14:41.640 Alexander: Yeah, I mean, I get that makes sense from their end. If you’re doing it like that, they think it’s just like an endless bucket of of time, and they don’t know how much it, how long it takes. But yeah, I think it’s great if you’re starting to include estimates on it so that they know you know how much you’re tapping into that bucket
65 00:14:42.130 ⇒ 00:14:43.705 Alexander: so hopefully. Don’t bug you as much.
66 00:14:44.190 ⇒ 00:15:10.129 Aakash Tandel: Yeah, we’ve also started padding those estimates a little bit more, I think. In the beginning those were like, I was telling them like these, these are like a super solid engineer, will be able to have this project in like this amount of time, like more of them, like a like that’s like the maximum a really good engineer would do. But we need to pad those by like, hey? Where? The problem, someone new to the project. Someone less experience needs to have the time and resources to to solve that.
67 00:15:10.130 ⇒ 00:15:12.730 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So we shot we we sort of shot ourselves in the foot.
68 00:15:12.940 ⇒ 00:15:28.679 Uttam Kumaran: like, cause it was like me and Robert working on stuff originally. So I’m we’re just gonna bang everything out like as fast as possible. And we’re like, in the transition phase of like not slowing down. But we’re we’re gonna do things on a more predictable basis. Right?
69 00:15:30.150 ⇒ 00:15:33.410 Uttam Kumaran: I guess. Like on that note like it.
70 00:15:33.900 ⇒ 00:15:51.620 Uttam Kumaran: I guess. Zooming a little bit out. We meet now, almost probably every week, for a bit on like allocation resourcing. And then we’ll also start to do some measurements. We track all of our stuff in linear but I guess, like, you know, in in sort of running an org like this, there’s so much you can track
71 00:15:51.660 ⇒ 00:16:03.999 Uttam Kumaran: to sort of measure performance. Are there like one or 2 key Kpis, that when you like, try to measure the health of like a Pmo office or the org that you would, you would try to look at
72 00:16:04.150 ⇒ 00:16:09.640 Uttam Kumaran: that. Can that can be more like qualitative? That can also be more quantitative.
73 00:16:09.941 ⇒ 00:16:39.169 Uttam Kumaran: You know, you know, there’s everything from velocity to blah blah. But I guess in your experience, like, what are there a couple of things it comes down to? Because we are. We are in the business of like 80 20 on everything, meaning we can only look at a couple of things that matter, and we don’t have the. We can pivot fast, but we don’t have the resourcing to sort of go really broad. So for us, it’s important to know that if we were to wake up every day and look at one or 2 things to assess the health like. That’s what we should do. But if you have any thoughts
74 00:16:39.370 ⇒ 00:16:41.919 Uttam Kumaran: around that topic, that’d be great.
75 00:16:42.280 ⇒ 00:16:45.650 Alexander: Yeah, I think the philosophy is important. I think, you know.
76 00:16:46.100 ⇒ 00:17:09.960 Alexander: milestones that you have for the that you might set for the project, and how you’re tracking towards them. Saying that up in the beginning of the project that you know I have this milestone. I need to hit it by then, you know. Then sending your you know your tickets towards that. If you’re story pointing or doing some sort of estimations to help you get to that. So comparing it to there, seeing how you’re tracking to there? And it’s also, you know, how does the team feel, you know? Do they feel stressed? You know, if I’m allocating.
77 00:17:09.960 ⇒ 00:17:25.280 Alexander: you know all these tasks to them for this sprint, or how they think they can accomplish that. It’s also just like how they feel. You know you don’t want you. Part of it, of course, is just like making sure everybody’s feeling comfortable and happy, and wants to work here. And so if you’re over allocating them, they’re gonna get stressed out. And
78 00:17:25.630 ⇒ 00:17:38.159 Alexander: that’s not a good indicator. Also more of like a you know how things are going and feeling these days. But yeah, the velocity is big ones, and just like you know, sprint reports, and you know, and and keeping track of that like, okay, how did we do last sprint?
79 00:17:38.190 ⇒ 00:17:56.810 Alexander: You know, how many tickets do we close? We didn’t. Why do we close these tickets. Why do these have to roll over into the next sprint? How does that impact the the sprint after that? Is that gonna impact our overall milestone or goals, sprinkles or project goals that we have. So just like I, I analyze it a lot. We actually our sprints go from Monday to the following Friday. So we start a new sprint today.
80 00:17:57.027 ⇒ 00:18:13.352 Alexander: So we’re just going through that exercise this morning of just like, you know, we had some Rollover. Some tickets, then take into account. We have, like, you know, Good Friday off the end of the sprint. So how’s that gonna impact? The project was that incorporated into that. So we have less of a capacity for the team. What else? What else are the people working on? So you have that more holistic picture.
81 00:18:13.570 ⇒ 00:18:17.880 Alexander: so those are things I think about when trying to maximize the team and making sure we hit our deliverables.
82 00:18:19.500 ⇒ 00:18:22.469 Uttam Kumaran: Makes sense any questions.
83 00:18:23.140 ⇒ 00:18:24.020 Uttam Kumaran: There.
84 00:18:28.330 ⇒ 00:18:30.260 Aakash Tandel: Hammer. If you don’t have a question, I think I have.
85 00:18:30.350 ⇒ 00:18:41.519 Aakash Tandel: I have one so I think one thing that we’ve been that’s been difficult for us is to take over existing projects that have a lot of different random work streams
86 00:18:41.888 ⇒ 00:19:04.190 Aakash Tandel: from Witham and Robert, because they’ve been on these accounts for so long. They have so much institutional knowledge. And also, like linear, is new. So we were tracking things differently before. A lot of our team members are new to do you have any recommendations on how to successfully hand off projects, and then also take on an existing project or client, and that type of
87 00:19:05.010 ⇒ 00:19:05.990 Aakash Tandel: scenario.
88 00:19:07.745 ⇒ 00:19:14.789 Alexander: I would in initial thinking, is just to do as much of a brain dup as you can from the existing
89 00:19:14.980 ⇒ 00:19:17.019 Alexander: folks that were working on it.
90 00:19:17.460 ⇒ 00:19:35.850 Alexander: But what do we need to know? Do we have the scope of work, you know, who are the stakeholders that we’re dealing with externally. How do they like to communicate? How do they like to receive information? Are we sending like weekly or bi-weekly reports to them? Are they like a slack person. They just want it like a short message, like I think I think about it like the
91 00:19:36.090 ⇒ 00:20:05.675 Alexander: like stakeholder relations like what’s the best way to deal with them there. You know, when you’re inherit, it usually is messy to inherit a project from another project manager or somebody else. But like the social matching there to figuring out like what, how you communicate with them before, and and how it’s gonna work now, and them introducing you, which I’m sure they did. Just to make sure they establish that new relationship. You know, and also just like asking those questions a lot in the beginning from those stakeholders like, Okay, this is my understanding of the current state. Is that true? Or this is my understanding of like, how things are working when
92 00:20:06.130 ⇒ 00:20:15.710 Alexander: when I inherited this project, is that still the case? Or is anything changed? Or I have these meetings set up with you guys like, is that still work for you? And then also, just like getting
93 00:20:16.220 ⇒ 00:20:23.905 Alexander: and understanding where the project stands, what’s left to be delivered? How was the quality of the stuff that was delivered before. Do we meet their expectations?
94 00:20:24.360 ⇒ 00:20:48.760 Alexander: And you know what else needs to be done. And you know, and getting that feedback you could do kind of like a mini retro with the client at that point. It’s like, you know. This is how I understand. Like project management was run, or this, how everything was. Understand how everything was delivered up to this point. How was that for, you guys? Was that great? Is there anything I can change going into it as I’m taking ownership of this role. And you know this is this is how I work. This is my availability for things if you’re part time on on some of these things, so make sure they’re clear on that and you know, and
95 00:20:48.870 ⇒ 00:21:08.809 Alexander: you have all the information so you can document the big, I’m really big on documentation. So like getting that brain dump documenting it. If you have a project plan existing, if it’s that, if you have an external version that you want to share with the clients like, okay, this is how I’ve been tracking it, or a dashboard or something. However you communicate. This is how I you know I see everything so far. This is the current state of things.
96 00:21:08.810 ⇒ 00:21:22.589 Alexander: you know. Are you in sync with this, and this is where I see it going. This is like a 3 month project. I see it going for this, this these milestones next 3 months. I want to meet with you guys Bi weekly to make sure I wanna do like sprint reviews with you. Make sure that we’re every at the end of the increment. We’re
97 00:21:22.831 ⇒ 00:21:32.229 Alexander: we’re in sync on what we just delivered. So let’s a lot of confirmation. Wanna make sure that you have the documentation that you need, and that you have. You know, linear. Or however, it’s set up
98 00:21:32.530 ⇒ 00:21:39.509 Alexander: or however, you’re sharing stuff with the client that cadence is set up. So it’s as easy as a transition specifically for them.
99 00:21:39.863 ⇒ 00:21:52.520 Alexander: That’s not usually the most important thing is that make sure like it’s a seamless transition for for the client. And then, what is currently in place, so you can inherit it as your own. Every project manager works a little bit differently. So what what has somebody been working on
100 00:21:52.812 ⇒ 00:22:15.009 Alexander: to do to inherit it? And that’s also like where some of the Pmo practices come in where you have it, like the standards and the the processes documented for, like inheriting new projects or transferring projects. Or you know how do in your sdlc like? How are you managing things? Or like? You know, in every you have processes for every stage of the project. So if this project is an execution.
101 00:22:15.010 ⇒ 00:22:24.690 Alexander: what what does our execution look like? Our processes for the different ceremonies that we’re going to be running, how we deal with the clients, if that one, if that project has estimations already in
102 00:22:24.975 ⇒ 00:22:31.580 Alexander: or how they’re reporting on things. So when it makes so, it makes it easier for new project. Managers pick up the work.
103 00:22:33.010 ⇒ 00:22:47.569 Uttam Kumaran: In terms of documentation like, How do you guys? You know for us? I would say, all of us are probably spending our entire time like on execution, whether it’s in stand ups, whether it’s putting out fires or it’s updating tickets like, How
104 00:22:48.010 ⇒ 00:22:57.919 Uttam Kumaran: like, think about it when you were in a mode of like very, very crunch time like, how did you still carve out time to do documentation and like what? What sort of processes, or
105 00:22:58.160 ⇒ 00:23:02.397 Uttam Kumaran: like guard rails. Did you have to make sure that documentation still happens? I mean
106 00:23:03.100 ⇒ 00:23:14.139 Uttam Kumaran: to be frank, I think that’s like store. That’s really, really a core story of like where we are now, which is, all of us are executing a lot of my time now is more on thinking about process and documentation.
107 00:23:14.340 ⇒ 00:23:22.729 Uttam Kumaran: but part of it is, is really just like trying to find the time to to lock in on that but if you were to think about like how I don’t want it to just be like cool. Let’s
108 00:23:22.910 ⇒ 00:23:34.460 Uttam Kumaran: book out a day and do this. It needs to be something more sustainable, like a ceremony, almost just for that, like, how do you think about that? You know, when now? But also, maybe when when it was like really hectic.
109 00:23:36.158 ⇒ 00:23:51.270 Alexander: Well, I worked in service where we’d have done like, I’m gonna we work today like we get in or we work. We do a Pmo day or 2, and we do hash all the stuff out and just like, get it on paper. We’re all together in one room. Let’s just figure these things out. Let’s talk to these things, and how we want to do it on like a on a daily or
110 00:23:51.420 ⇒ 00:24:05.120 Alexander: a weekly basis or so I you know I I try to carve out time, and I still do it now like a private, an hour or so to to check what I’m working on, does it still make sense? Especially like we’re we’re doing quarterly stuff now. So like, we’re moving into different programs, working on different things
111 00:24:05.120 ⇒ 00:24:34.279 Alexander: as we’re just starting off. Q, 2. So just like, okay, this is things that I was working on before makes sense to this new program or this new team that I might be working on. If it’s not, how can we modify? I work a lot with, like our tech leads and our engineering managers to like to make sure that the processes that we have make sense. So for me, honestly, it has been carving out just like some time, like, yeah, we’re busy in execution mode. But like, can I spend my like 5 to 6 just like looking at this? Can I do it in the morning. Well, and and
112 00:24:34.580 ⇒ 00:24:38.830 Alexander: I sometimes do it like at the beginning of the sprint, like
113 00:24:39.460 ⇒ 00:24:44.889 Alexander: doing my check like, okay, we’re starting a sprint. We have our sprint plans where everybody’s in line, like
114 00:24:45.000 ⇒ 00:25:06.884 Alexander: taking some time there to do the documentation. But it is hard and it’s hard bound. Especially. You guys are deep in execution, or trying to get things out, making sure customers happy in new customers. So it is tough. But I’ve had success with that when in the busy times, just to like, carve out an hour. Carve out half an hour during maybe during lunch I’ll take a look at it and and build it up, and then you’ll get to a point where it’s it’s in good shape.
115 00:25:08.420 ⇒ 00:25:14.130 Uttam Kumaran: And then another question on, you know, you mentioned like working with tech leads. So right now, it’s it’s really been
116 00:25:14.575 ⇒ 00:25:44.300 Uttam Kumaran: just like, mainly me, or maybe, like one other person on the engineering side, that sort of can give. Act as like that tech lead. One of the things I’m working on, you know, on the engineering side is basically trying to push a few of our engineers into that role. Where it matters but I guess if you can talk about like how to run into that like that meeting? Where like? What are you looking to get from the engineering leader? And like, how do you like? What rituals do you have currently with that person? Of course, like we’re familiar with grooming and planning. But
117 00:25:44.701 ⇒ 00:26:03.019 Uttam Kumaran: like, how do you create a really good partnership with those folks? And for for amber Akash like this is really I’m thinking about moving up like Miguel demalade awaysh! My job is to turn them into what I do, which is like making sure tickets are full, making sure the people that can take them
118 00:26:03.040 ⇒ 00:26:17.570 Uttam Kumaran: have the skill set to take them set stepping in. If something is slow and and telling why, why it’s going being a 3rd opinion. But yeah, I don’t know if you have any thoughts on like basically how to build and maintain that great relationship. As we start to push a few more people into that spot.
119 00:26:19.446 ⇒ 00:26:43.340 Alexander: It’s a yeah. It’s a big partnership between your project manager and technic tech lead. To make sure you guys are in sync that you’re working well, you have a good working relationship with with each other. It is I. I have a weekly with my my tech leads. Make sure we’re in sync on on the work. At least I spend hour with them. I spend, you know, grooming like you talked about. We have a session before we currently have a session, for, like
120 00:26:43.450 ⇒ 00:27:07.942 Alexander: our tech leads go over and our project managers go over with our engineering managers of you know our plan for the next sprint, and well, how we’ve outlined, and we have to justify it. So we have. We prep that together. What I do a lot to like when I start a new project with a tech lead is I put together a project management plan, and I go through like a sprint schedule with them in the beginning. And it’s not gonna be perfect, and it’s not gonna be
121 00:27:08.800 ⇒ 00:27:29.410 Alexander: But I want a rough timeline of like what we’re going to be working on where we gonna work. If we if we have a project that we just committed to. That’s like 6 months, you know, you’re doing 2 week sprints. What are we doing on each of those sprints for the 6 months like roughly like what milestones we need to get to? Who’s we work on what? And so you’ve established that. So you do spend a lot of work on the front end to make it easier sprint by sprint
122 00:27:29.820 ⇒ 00:27:57.673 Alexander: to to do the planning and to do the work. So if you do a lot of the work upfront. Then it makes those conversations a little bit easier when you have your weeklies. It’s like, Okay, well, I’m starting to think about next sprint, and we had a goal of this is that still relevant? It’s like, Oh, no! But this changed, or we had this blocker coming up, or this dependency is is still, you know, still blocking us, or we’re actually ahead of schedule. We already did that one. We could change it so at least. And then you keep that up documentation up to date. Then it is also helpful if they haven’t be like on Pto or
123 00:27:57.900 ⇒ 00:28:01.680 Alexander: they’re out for whatever reason you you have that. And then you know.
124 00:28:01.820 ⇒ 00:28:06.049 Alexander: that just helps keep things moving and in the right direction. So those couple of like
125 00:28:06.620 ⇒ 00:28:08.590 Alexander: things have helped me just like.
126 00:28:08.760 ⇒ 00:28:12.644 Alexander: keep things moving. Form those relationship with Tls,
127 00:28:14.120 ⇒ 00:28:24.194 Alexander: yeah, do those normal ceremonies. But like, it’s but it’s about being like a thought part partner with them. It’s not just like, you know. I’ve seen project managers who are just like, you know, moving around tickets.
128 00:28:24.570 ⇒ 00:28:53.239 Alexander: being like more of an admin. It’s in high. I think of project managers need to be more of like a thought leader and a partner to your tech lead. And because they’re they’re thinking in a certain way in regards to the technology and and solving the problems, the technical problems. And you’re thinking of it. More of like a you know, more in business terms most of the time more in delivery mode, more in execution. You’re thinking probably a little bit more about like the capacity of the people that are on your teams. So if you bring those 2 perspectives together.
129 00:28:53.400 ⇒ 00:29:15.039 Alexander: they might have some ideas. Be like, well, you know, Kyle’s out this week, you know, is that gonna impact our ability to deliver this or well, we had this previous. What plan, you know is that gonna be changing because of that. Or you told me that this, the systems down is that gonna change things. So it’s just like becoming thought partners with each other. Gain that trust will really get you guys in good shape.
130 00:29:15.790 ⇒ 00:29:16.990 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, makes sense.
131 00:29:20.630 ⇒ 00:29:23.049 Uttam Kumaran: Any questions. Guys on that.
132 00:29:24.690 ⇒ 00:29:26.240 Aakash Tandel: No, that sounds
133 00:29:26.750 ⇒ 00:29:42.949 Aakash Tandel: yeah like that definitely confirm what we hope to to be doing, I guess in the future. I actually had to drop for another meeting. But it was really nice meeting you, Alexander, and it’s helpful to hear your thoughts. I know, Amber, you had some questions so hopefully. That leaves you plenty of time to to answer.
134 00:29:43.100 ⇒ 00:29:43.770 Aakash Tandel: But thanks.
135 00:29:43.770 ⇒ 00:29:44.570 Alexander: Great to meet you.
136 00:29:44.570 ⇒ 00:29:45.160 Aakash Tandel: Nice to meet you.
137 00:29:45.160 ⇒ 00:29:45.940 Uttam Kumaran: Thanks. Akash.
138 00:29:49.784 ⇒ 00:29:52.520 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, Amber, go ahead. If you have any questions.
139 00:29:54.480 ⇒ 00:30:02.479 Amber Lin: Oh, I’m just trying to process all that we did because I am starting out as a Pm. So I’m learning a lot of
140 00:30:02.982 ⇒ 00:30:21.359 Amber Lin: how we do things. What kind of documentations we do currently have a Cpm. Handoff, Doc, where we talk about all of the things that we have done in the previous project, and then we take that on. So that was the 1st part of our discussion here, and then also for the project planning part.
141 00:30:21.850 ⇒ 00:30:28.319 Amber Lin: I think it’s a great idea to continue to maintain that documentation. I just sometimes find it.
142 00:30:28.760 ⇒ 00:30:43.339 Amber Lin: I find it a little bit hard to have my tech lead also participate fully, because I I feel like, so I’m a little bit scattered right now, because there’s a lot of different ideas going on, I think. Do you agree that as a Pm. That
143 00:30:43.570 ⇒ 00:30:50.180 Amber Lin: you’re the one that’s keeping track of all the goals that you need to accomplish?
144 00:30:50.810 ⇒ 00:30:51.410 Amber Lin: Is that.
145 00:30:51.410 ⇒ 00:31:16.290 Alexander: It’s definitely part of it. Yeah. But also, like you need, you need what you need from your tech lead to be successful. I wouldn’t be afraid. I try. Try not to be afraid to ask for what you need, because they you know you both are shared interest in making sure this project is delivered. If you need time with your Tl. You need to tell your Tl. That you know any time to understand these deliverables or these milestones, or why this isn’t working so we’re so that’s more like the partnership thing
146 00:31:16.400 ⇒ 00:31:37.979 Alexander: that you’re supposed to be partners with them. You’re not. They’re not your function. It’s not like, maybe some of the other engineers. They’re not your functional manager. They’re your partner. So that part would. What I just heard I would say, like, you know, make them your partner. Get what you need, so you can all be successful, because if your Pm’s not working, then things are going to slip. People are going to complain about it. Timelines are going to slip.
147 00:31:37.980 ⇒ 00:31:50.520 Alexander: That’s gonna get people the wrong attention. So I would focus on getting what you need, because again, if they can’t make time for you, you know, talk to their manager, or or do what you need to do to get what you need, so we can all be successful.
148 00:31:51.230 ⇒ 00:32:17.120 Amber Lin: Sounds good. I think my other questions more of how the Pmo function is built, because currently we have me Akash, and here and there and Robert here and there. But I we do want to remove them from the Pmo function. So I do want some advice of how do we build a Pmo function for the company. Not just individual client projects, but how to build that function.
149 00:32:17.950 ⇒ 00:32:24.979 Alexander: Yeah, that’s the way to do it. It has to be more holistic than like a client by client basis. It’s it’s, how do projects work at Brainforge?
150 00:32:24.980 ⇒ 00:32:49.580 Alexander: How does projects initiate like? What is? What are the steps involved with that? What documentation is involved with that? What are the processes that need to be done. What information do you need to start building your plan? And as you move to each phase, you know, initiation, you know, move to execution or planning execution, monitoring control, and then closing the projects like what is what is involved with those things? What are the roles and responsibilities for each role. It sounds like you’re working on that, too. But what are the roles and responsibilities for each person?
151 00:32:49.886 ⇒ 00:33:13.663 Alexander: During each phase of the project? And what documentation is involved? What sign ups you need from the client? What ceremonies are you doing throughout each phase? Are you gonna do sprint reviews as client want that? What kind of reporting are you gonna need to do for the client, or for internal purposes, too? If you have internal Pm projects to keep track of your deliverables and and status of projects like all those things, need to be standardized
152 00:33:13.950 ⇒ 00:33:25.989 Alexander: thinking of it holistically. Not just on a project by project basis, so everybody can follow it, and everybody’s on the same. Now, everybody has their own tweaks of how they manage projects, but at least they have the same standards of how things are running or what to expect.
153 00:33:26.440 ⇒ 00:33:27.360 Alexander: So
154 00:33:27.460 ⇒ 00:33:42.900 Alexander: we are delivering, and that we can get issues. We can see issues clear now, because we know how people are supposed to be running. And so when things deviate from that, then we can say, Why is that going on. Is this a better way to do it? Or is this a problem? But that’s identified a lot quicker, too.
155 00:33:43.480 ⇒ 00:33:44.030 Amber Lin: Hmm.
156 00:33:45.390 ⇒ 00:33:48.040 Amber Lin: I see, I see. So it’s more of a
157 00:33:48.630 ⇒ 00:33:53.990 Amber Lin: we kind of do also need documentation. For to build a function is what you’re saying.
158 00:33:55.180 ⇒ 00:33:55.700 Alexander: Okay.
159 00:33:55.860 ⇒ 00:33:59.109 Amber Lin: Alright, I see. Well, Tom, do you have any other questions.
160 00:33:59.510 ⇒ 00:34:11.759 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess I want to spend a little bit of time. You know. I I spent a lot of time talking to some folks this weekend and later, that’s last week just about like how we can leverage AI as much as possible.
161 00:34:13.040 ⇒ 00:34:22.020 Uttam Kumaran: I wonder if you can just talk a little bit, you know, if you guys, if you could discuss anything that you guys are trying to do in terms of running a great Pmo office
162 00:34:22.070 ⇒ 00:34:47.969 Uttam Kumaran: leveraging AI, but also like, let’s say, if you were to put yourself in our position and like where we should consider leveraging AI to sort of. Take care of some of these things. I mean to be quite honest what the way our team is structured right now. So we have an internal AI team that basically goes and partners with our other internal teams and basically implements automations. But of course, like one of the things I am thinking about is like, how do we offload some of these
163 00:34:48.100 ⇒ 00:34:59.639 Uttam Kumaran: really tricky items like even like documentation and things to AI and have our team focus more on like executing those or implementing those if you just have any thoughts on, you know
164 00:34:59.810 ⇒ 00:35:04.549 Uttam Kumaran: what’s worked for you, what you’ve tried, or where you think there’s a lot of Alpha still left.
165 00:35:06.090 ⇒ 00:35:18.898 Alexander: Yeah, where I work now. They haven’t done a lot for a using AI for the Pmo. I think it’s a lot of compliance things and test. They’re doing a lot of testing for AI. But nothing is nothing on the Pmo side has been implemented yet.
166 00:35:19.490 ⇒ 00:35:34.759 Alexander: I can see a lot. I can see a lot of tasks that can be repeatable tasks like the project managers do that could be automated. I think of like meetings scheduling, I think, of documentations created, I think, about, you know.
167 00:35:35.198 ⇒ 00:35:45.661 Alexander: starting sprints, I think about just like a lot of those repeatable tasks that’d be great to alleviate from project managers from a sprint by sprint basis. So they can have that time to be those those thought leaders.
168 00:35:46.710 ⇒ 00:35:57.259 Alexander: yeah, I think, PI think Pmi has an AI bot that they’re using now, or that they created, that does some of those things. The Project Management Institute, so that might be something to look into.
169 00:35:58.970 ⇒ 00:36:06.120 Uttam Kumaran: Nice. Yeah, we’re we’re thinking of, like, basically every corner that we can apply it. I think, totally like.
170 00:36:06.610 ⇒ 00:36:17.469 Uttam Kumaran: if we can generate like a sprints, the sprint report based on the current tickets and flight, and understand, like what the statuses are meeting. Scheduling. Yeah, that’s a huge pain.
171 00:36:17.960 ⇒ 00:36:25.399 Uttam Kumaran: there’s pro there, there are some off the shelf solutions for that. But yeah, definitely, I think something that we can also prioritize.
172 00:36:28.230 ⇒ 00:36:40.029 Uttam Kumaran: yeah, I think that’s like, that’s most of the questions. I mean, really, what I what I hear is like one, I think between this crew, there’s definitely a lot of work we need to do on the Pm tech lead relationship.
173 00:36:40.519 ⇒ 00:36:48.069 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’s huge. I’m I’m filling in on a lot of that. And I want to start to push that off onto our most senior engineers.
174 00:36:48.240 ⇒ 00:36:50.820 Uttam Kumaran: I think totally your point in that.
175 00:36:51.140 ⇒ 00:36:54.230 Uttam Kumaran: I think in many orgs the Pm’s.
176 00:36:54.975 ⇒ 00:36:57.149 Uttam Kumaran: They sort of just like
177 00:36:57.470 ⇒ 00:37:10.399 Uttam Kumaran: the tech lead sort of are the ones who usually drop the ball on like thinking about how important these processes are. This is where, even for amber and for Akash, I’ve said, just push even harder, because ultimately, like their job is to provide this information.
178 00:37:10.688 ⇒ 00:37:29.099 Uttam Kumaran: They need to explain, like, how, who can take on tickets? What’s the what the risks are? And so that’s something that I’ll also continue to explain to each of those folks as well how important it is. Yeah. And I think something we need to do every week. That’s more on like documentation and like thinking about our Pmo office as a whole.
179 00:37:29.670 ⇒ 00:37:33.580 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe that is sort of separate than our like weekly.
180 00:37:33.980 ⇒ 00:37:38.839 Uttam Kumaran: just like day to day meetings where we’re talking about what clients are working on, but thinking about
181 00:37:39.000 ⇒ 00:37:43.430 Uttam Kumaran: what the low hanging fruit is for us to set documentation on processes and things like that.
182 00:37:45.260 ⇒ 00:37:51.919 Uttam Kumaran: but yeah, I mean for me. It’s it’s nice. Because we finally have, we actually have motion towards that that goal. And
183 00:37:52.210 ⇒ 00:37:54.980 Uttam Kumaran: I think again, as we’re we’re working on
184 00:37:55.500 ⇒ 00:38:08.719 Uttam Kumaran: what are our existing clients? What happens when clients come back into the fold? When we’re signing new ones, we will be bringing more. Pm’s more engineer people into these processes. And so we’re just trying to get as many right as possible upfront, you know. So.
185 00:38:10.500 ⇒ 00:38:16.179 Alexander: Yeah, sounds like you’re starting to get in into good shape, you know, trying things. See what works. It’s exciting times.
186 00:38:16.640 ⇒ 00:38:32.479 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think. And also I think, amber I may have mentioned, but as you gave me some resources before, about like pmp, and and sort of other things that each of us can do. I think that’s some of the stuff that we will try and see between us as a crew how we can take on and learn some of those like
187 00:38:32.640 ⇒ 00:38:39.249 Uttam Kumaran: canonical like. Pm, you know, education pieces, and and do what we can to sort of level up there, as well.
188 00:38:41.900 ⇒ 00:38:45.360 Alexander: Yeah, those are very valuable when I was coming up so highly recommend those.
189 00:38:45.360 ⇒ 00:38:50.369 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. I think that’s all the questions I had. I don’t know anything else. Amber.
190 00:38:52.200 ⇒ 00:38:53.070 Amber Lin: I’m good.
191 00:38:53.450 ⇒ 00:38:58.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. So maybe, Alexander, I’ll I’ll send you an email. I would love to see, like, you know, whether we can
192 00:38:58.310 ⇒ 00:39:17.009 Uttam Kumaran: just even have you available as a resource, you know, for stuff like this, I think for me, Amber and Akash, we again. We’re all at different angles, thinking about the problem for me, right as now we have Pm’s. I’m like, okay, if we get 10 more clients, what does our Pm function look like? Do we need more. Pm’s. How do I level everybody up?
193 00:39:17.140 ⇒ 00:39:19.260 Uttam Kumaran: I think Amber and Akash are like.
194 00:39:19.760 ⇒ 00:39:37.340 Uttam Kumaran: I have 5 clients right now, like, what what do I do for these right. And I think it’s great that we’re all having this conversation. So even just having you as a resource, one of the things I think about for Brainforge as a whole across all of our different divisions is basically having access to somebody or some resource that’s like 5 or 6 steps ahead of us
195 00:39:37.430 ⇒ 00:39:53.499 Uttam Kumaran: right, cause that’s where we’re going. If we talk to someone that’s just like one step ahead, then we’ll get there in like a few months, so to hear from your perspective about like what this really looks like at scale. But then, you understand, sort of where we are as like a really agile small team.
196 00:39:53.942 ⇒ 00:40:02.380 Uttam Kumaran: It’s helpful to be able to talk to you and see like, what are the real, like big, successful companies doing? How can we start to adopt what matters from that.
197 00:40:03.510 ⇒ 00:40:06.219 Alexander: Great. Yeah, let’s keep talking. This sounds like exciting stuff.
198 00:40:06.220 ⇒ 00:40:07.460 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect.
199 00:40:07.940 ⇒ 00:40:10.979 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, alright, thanks everyone. I appreciate the time.
200 00:40:11.460 ⇒ 00:40:13.169 Alexander: Yeah. Great to meet you. Amber, thanks. Guys.
201 00:40:13.480 ⇒ 00:40:14.090 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.
202 00:40:14.310 ⇒ 00:40:14.750 Alexander: I.