Meeting Title: Vinay Vittal Interview Debrief Date: 2025-08-01 Meeting participants: Vinay Vittal, Amber Lin, Alexander Lubka
WEBVTT
1 00:04:20.649 ⇒ 00:04:21.490 Vinay Vittal: Hello!
2 00:04:21.490 ⇒ 00:04:22.610 Amber Lin: Hi! There!
3 00:04:22.975 ⇒ 00:04:24.070 Vinay Vittal: How are you?
4 00:04:24.070 ⇒ 00:04:36.970 Amber Lin: I’m good. I just talked to Alex, and he will be also be joining this meeting. We’ll we’ll do the interview together. Alex will lead, and then I’ll take some notes, and I also have some questions that I want to ask.
5 00:04:37.260 ⇒ 00:04:39.039 Vinay Vittal: Sure, by all means.
6 00:04:39.820 ⇒ 00:04:43.319 Amber Lin: Let me make sure that Alex has access to this meeting.
7 00:04:43.630 ⇒ 00:04:44.320 Vinay Vittal: Sure.
8 00:04:50.460 ⇒ 00:04:51.739 Alexander Lubka: Renae, how are you?
9 00:04:52.160 ⇒ 00:04:54.920 Vinay Vittal: I’m doing. Excellent. How about you, Alex?
10 00:04:55.150 ⇒ 00:04:57.209 Vinay Vittal: Very, very good to see you long time.
11 00:04:57.210 ⇒ 00:05:00.840 Alexander Lubka: I know. How’s life? What have you been up to the last 4 years?
12 00:05:01.692 ⇒ 00:05:09.657 Vinay Vittal: You know what? Watching my daughter grow up right in front of my own eyes gaining traction in the Pm. World
13 00:05:10.880 ⇒ 00:05:15.710 Vinay Vittal: all good things. I mean not nothing negative that I could say. But yeah, progressing.
14 00:05:15.710 ⇒ 00:05:17.630 Alexander Lubka: That’s great. How old’s your daughter now?
15 00:05:17.870 ⇒ 00:05:18.959 Vinay Vittal: She’s 9.
16 00:05:18.960 ⇒ 00:05:19.740 Alexander Lubka: Oh, wow!
17 00:05:20.040 ⇒ 00:05:20.860 Amber Lin: Wow!
18 00:05:20.860 ⇒ 00:05:24.439 Alexander Lubka: What does she like to do? What’s her personality? Turning into.
19 00:05:25.120 ⇒ 00:05:27.946 Vinay Vittal: She likes to dance. She’s very independent.
20 00:05:28.620 ⇒ 00:05:32.970 Vinay Vittal: which is a blessing. She’s she’s a good girl. She loves to dance
21 00:05:33.650 ⇒ 00:05:47.299 Vinay Vittal: she likes soccer gymnastics. I’m learning everything because it’s a you know. Obviously I was a boy growing up so it’s like visualizing everything with a girl is like completely different, but all blessings.
22 00:05:47.300 ⇒ 00:05:53.220 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, that’s great. I’m so glad to hear that. That’s it’s a totally different perspective, totally different time. So sounds like she’s crushing it.
23 00:05:53.440 ⇒ 00:05:57.520 Vinay Vittal: She is, she is. She’s gonna amaze me throughout my life. So I’m looking forward to it.
24 00:05:57.520 ⇒ 00:06:00.350 Alexander Lubka: I’m sure. Oh, that’s awesome! And you’re still in Jersey.
25 00:06:00.350 ⇒ 00:06:01.680 Vinay Vittal: Still in New Jersey. Yep.
26 00:06:01.680 ⇒ 00:06:04.869 Alexander Lubka: Okay, very cool. Where? Where? I’m in the city.
27 00:06:05.030 ⇒ 00:06:06.079 Vinay Vittal: In the city. Okay.
28 00:06:06.080 ⇒ 00:06:06.630 Alexander Lubka: Yeah.
29 00:06:06.920 ⇒ 00:06:08.219 Vinay Vittal: You were in Connecticut before.
30 00:06:08.220 ⇒ 00:06:15.270 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, it was. I was in Connecticut. I moved to New York 2 little more than 2 years ago. Now it’s just something I always wanted to do, and finally
31 00:06:15.450 ⇒ 00:06:17.660 Alexander Lubka: had the opportunity to do it. So here I am.
32 00:06:18.400 ⇒ 00:06:21.539 Vinay Vittal: Oh, well, let me know. I we gotta have dinner one night.
33 00:06:21.540 ⇒ 00:06:26.730 Alexander Lubka: Oh, hell, yeah, yeah, I’ll we’ll figure something out where you cause you’re you’re Northern Jersey, not too far.
34 00:06:26.730 ⇒ 00:06:30.470 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, I’m like, 25 min to half an hour from the city.
35 00:06:30.470 ⇒ 00:06:32.269 Alexander Lubka: Oh, hell, yeah, yeah, we’ll definitely figure something out.
36 00:06:32.490 ⇒ 00:06:33.250 Vinay Vittal: Please.
37 00:06:34.240 ⇒ 00:06:43.950 Alexander Lubka: Cool. And then, so yeah, so you’re what were you doing? So I know you were doing like this. You work at a dental place when you were doing the course. Is that right?
38 00:06:44.880 ⇒ 00:06:53.879 Vinay Vittal: No, no, I was at future tech when I was doing the course. That was more of a consultancy firm that was specializing in pos.
39 00:06:53.880 ⇒ 00:06:59.649 Alexander Lubka: Oh, cool. Yeah, if you could walk me through, you know, since then, like, yeah, what besides? What have you been up to? Career? Wise.
40 00:07:00.050 ⇒ 00:07:06.700 Vinay Vittal: Sure. So I mean career. Wise I can touch base on what I did most recently for the past 2 years.
41 00:07:07.160 ⇒ 00:07:10.539 Vinay Vittal: I essentially was heading up the project management division.
42 00:07:11.580 ⇒ 00:07:37.330 Vinay Vittal: So what the company was is we create poss and controllers for car wash a niche industry and the company exploded quite a few years ago and picked up a very large client named Mister, which is A. They have about like 500 locations throughout America. They’re publicly traded commodity. So they’re a very large client which demanded a lot of resources being attributed to them.
43 00:07:37.430 ⇒ 00:07:47.976 Vinay Vittal: So they took me on as their sole project manager and I fulfilled all of their requirements which were never ending. But all positive things for our company.
44 00:07:48.510 ⇒ 00:07:54.750 Vinay Vittal: The infrastructure needed to be improved in the company, but we worked with whatever we had to the best of our ability.
45 00:07:56.380 ⇒ 00:08:03.040 Amber Lin: Did they hire you to create the processes, or do they hire you just to manage that one big client.
46 00:08:04.063 ⇒ 00:08:09.706 Vinay Vittal: So when, during my 1st year, the company really did not have a process in place, they were
47 00:08:11.500 ⇒ 00:08:18.539 Vinay Vittal: following a waterfall based mentality. Because the owner would make all the demands and requirements from top down.
48 00:08:18.940 ⇒ 00:08:31.810 Vinay Vittal: But as the company started getting bigger, and we started picking up larger and larger clients. Requirements started changing. The owner could not really handle everything, and it was really just creating more roadblocks for our company.
49 00:08:32.480 ⇒ 00:08:34.344 Vinay Vittal: So he decided that
50 00:08:35.150 ⇒ 00:08:41.500 Vinay Vittal: Let our project manager decide on what the best type of methodology our company could utilize.
51 00:08:41.570 ⇒ 00:08:47.424 Vinay Vittal: and ultimately I wanted agile as much as as badly as I could have it. But
52 00:08:47.800 ⇒ 00:09:13.390 Vinay Vittal: Our company adjusted and made more of like a hybrid between, you know, high, agile, and waterfall that that worked well. We started forming scrum teams and started creating some sort of positivity with our releases beforehand. The releases were going out. Kind of inconcise demands were not being met, so at least. Now, with this new formation of our
53 00:09:13.390 ⇒ 00:09:33.040 Vinay Vittal: wagile, we were able to fulfill those demands, and I formed like a critical support team which alleviated the stress load of our standard releases, and the critical support team was really more there to deal with financial critical bugs.
54 00:09:33.860 ⇒ 00:09:42.549 Vinay Vittal: operational bugs that would affect their finances, so that alleviated a huge stress level from the standard releases. We had.
55 00:09:43.240 ⇒ 00:09:43.790 Amber Lin: Hmm!
56 00:09:44.470 ⇒ 00:09:50.239 Amber Lin: I think on that side, from our last talk I I was curious about
57 00:09:50.520 ⇒ 00:09:59.590 Amber Lin: what the owner’s role was in the transition, because I know, he, from what you just said. He gave you guys to go ahead to make that and
58 00:10:00.530 ⇒ 00:10:11.459 Amber Lin: through the transition of the process, but eventually it and ended up being more hybrid. I wanted to know what the owner’s involvement in that was, and.
59 00:10:11.600 ⇒ 00:10:12.710 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, so.
60 00:10:12.710 ⇒ 00:10:17.139 Amber Lin: Hard to work with? Or how was was there like resistance? What was it.
61 00:10:17.140 ⇒ 00:10:20.315 Vinay Vittal: I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t say hard to work with. He was just
62 00:10:20.800 ⇒ 00:10:27.380 Vinay Vittal: He’s very demanding, and he’s the face of our company and basically our main sales.
63 00:10:28.108 ⇒ 00:10:36.060 Vinay Vittal: So he would basically go to locations, speak to clients and promise things before he would talk to our department and.
64 00:10:36.970 ⇒ 00:10:53.341 Vinay Vittal: We would be given a list of things that when I would talk to my internal team like, how long do you think this would take. Give me estimates for everything. They would look at me and say, this is not possible like, how can we accomplish that within this timeframe and
65 00:10:53.890 ⇒ 00:10:56.059 Vinay Vittal: that created a lot of issues and.
66 00:10:56.060 ⇒ 00:10:58.500 Amber Lin: Hmm! How did you guys deal with that.
67 00:10:58.700 ⇒ 00:11:15.229 Vinay Vittal: I I had to bite back a little bit. After a while. I had a meeting with the owner. I confronted him, and I said, You know we’re here to fulfill everything that you would like us to do. We’re ultimately here working for you. But there has to be some sort of fair trade off here because
68 00:11:15.850 ⇒ 00:11:26.989 Vinay Vittal: we can. We can continue down this rabbit hole of promising everything to everybody and not fulfilling promises. But on the other end. We’re gonna get hit with lawsuits and contract
69 00:11:27.210 ⇒ 00:11:37.520 Vinay Vittal: reneging on our our obligations. So he he saw that as a fair deal, but he still did not want me to curb his salesmanship, so
70 00:11:37.780 ⇒ 00:12:01.789 Vinay Vittal: when he would receive the new requirements or the new demands from the client, he would at least have a meeting with our Smes and me to discuss on how we could adjust to this, and what would be the timeframe? There was never a timeframe that he was happy with. But at least we were having this open discussion and preparing him that other resources might be needed to fulfill this.
71 00:12:01.790 ⇒ 00:12:11.079 Vinay Vittal: So as long as we were on Page and him understanding that these requirements are going to take time, it just cannot be. Snap your fingers and have it accomplished.
72 00:12:11.080 ⇒ 00:12:29.440 Vinay Vittal: He started to adopt that, and realized that I have put you guys in charge to adapt these customers to fulfill it. So I will allow this, and we formed an airtight process which allowed protection of our our people. And now we could scale the work according to what we had.
73 00:12:30.270 ⇒ 00:12:31.519 Amber Lin: Hmm! I see.
74 00:12:32.017 ⇒ 00:12:47.059 Amber Lin: I would love to hear more about how you scaled the work, or how this relates to processes. But that was my original question, and I got it answered. So thank you for that. I know Alex had a few questions listed, and we have a
75 00:12:47.730 ⇒ 00:12:52.710 Amber Lin: we’re very curious, and we have quite a few things we want to ask, so I’ll let Alex take over.
76 00:12:52.970 ⇒ 00:12:53.830 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, sure.
77 00:12:55.380 ⇒ 00:13:04.219 Alexander Lubka: So at the at the end of you, working there, there you were one project manager managing one account, or you had a bunch of projects you’re working on. How how is that set up.
78 00:13:05.623 ⇒ 00:13:17.609 Vinay Vittal: So I I represented our largest client, mister, right as an enterprise. Pm. For them, and I also helped with the daily ceremonies of our internal releases.
79 00:13:18.273 ⇒ 00:13:42.276 Vinay Vittal: So I and 2 product managers were brought on and between us 3 we were able to manage everything. I handled all the scrums within the internal teams. Our product managers were on board as well. They would kind of facilitate certain things take off the load whenever I was handling our enterprise client, which had a lot of meetings, a lot of
80 00:13:43.210 ⇒ 00:13:57.319 Vinay Vittal: obligations that we needed to fulfill. So there were certain times where I could not run the ceremonies and things of that nature. So I was kind of I had my, you know. I was doing both sides standard release and our enterprise client.
81 00:13:58.270 ⇒ 00:13:59.869 Alexander Lubka: What was your team composition.
82 00:14:00.250 ⇒ 00:14:01.800 Vinay Vittal: Besides the product managers.
83 00:14:02.464 ⇒ 00:14:13.749 Vinay Vittal: So we had, I mean, throughout the year we had 2 scrum masters. We had an Sme. We had 4 developers per scrum team
84 00:14:15.250 ⇒ 00:14:32.329 Vinay Vittal: But ultimately numbers started to affect our owner’s perspective on it, and we got rid of the scrum. Masters and I overtook everything, so it was a bit much trying to keep up with all of these different teams, but we made it work.
85 00:14:32.655 ⇒ 00:14:45.344 Vinay Vittal: I had really good communication with my product managers and my overseas developers. I would wake up a little bit earlier in the day. I’d conduct that call with my India team. And then that kind of you know,
86 00:14:46.330 ⇒ 00:14:53.613 Vinay Vittal: alleviated my stress level for the day because I was able to contribute it to the Enterprise client, which was quite
87 00:14:54.650 ⇒ 00:14:55.790 Vinay Vittal: demanding.
88 00:14:56.240 ⇒ 00:14:56.910 Alexander Lubka: Yeah.
89 00:14:57.240 ⇒ 00:15:05.460 Alexander Lubka: So at the peak, was it 2 scrum teams and 2? Yeah, what was the composition at the peak? Was it just like 2 scrum teams and
90 00:15:05.690 ⇒ 00:15:09.830 Alexander Lubka: a couple in 2 different products. Because we had 2 different product managers. Is that how it worked.
91 00:15:10.370 ⇒ 00:15:36.320 Vinay Vittal: So we have 2 2 firm product managers. One was for our kiosks, which is our main stable piece that was installed at every site. And then we had a product manager for the back end of our pos system, which was our brains of the system, the actual pos so we divided the teams into local and to cloud based teams. So that’s how we felt like the best way to split up the workload. And
92 00:15:36.780 ⇒ 00:15:49.419 Vinay Vittal: one of the best features we had is, we had a live testing feature in our building, so we were able to do, you know, peer, to peer, review and see the test results directly in our testing environment.
93 00:15:49.840 ⇒ 00:16:03.110 Vinay Vittal: which was quite cool, because from software perspective, always going through Qa and going through those motions, you get to see it only on a computer, but actually, physically seeing the way it it affects things was was quite cool.
94 00:16:03.290 ⇒ 00:16:04.210 Alexander Lubka: It’s very cool.
95 00:16:04.570 ⇒ 00:16:08.829 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, it actually sends these things in person, did you?
96 00:16:10.680 ⇒ 00:16:26.109 Alexander Lubka: So are your your projects. Was it like on a rolling? Did you have projects like where, you know, you get a scope of work, and that you’d work off of? Or was it kind of just like rolling whenever there’d be like an implementation of like a a new, like a location or something. How did that work.
97 00:16:26.390 ⇒ 00:16:46.589 Vinay Vittal: So that was divided, and they have other Pm’s that handle new locations. That was our account, managers that would facilitate the new accounts getting them up and running. I was more on the software side of making sure that whatever demands were agreed upon were were there when they opened up their locations. So.
98 00:16:47.510 ⇒ 00:17:04.389 Alexander Lubka: So a new location? Oh, just so. I like understand the workflow. A new location opens. There’s an account management team that like on boards them make sure they have everything they need, and then, if they have, like new feature requests, or any new software or new new features, or software, or whatever they come to your team. Is that how that works.
99 00:17:04.390 ⇒ 00:17:17.559 Vinay Vittal: The the owner would come to me and the 2 product managers, stating that these are the requirements. These are the features that are hard requests that need to be completed. How long is this gonna take? I would vet it out with my team.
100 00:17:17.560 ⇒ 00:17:35.299 Vinay Vittal: and ultimately we would have to start hiring 3rd party consultants to help us facilitate this new on request which alleviated a huge stress load from our internal team. Because that’s where the consistent roadblocks were occurring. We’re promising all these features and all these
101 00:17:35.430 ⇒ 00:17:47.660 Vinay Vittal: anything under the sun. And then we still have the same core of people trying to accomplish that. And it. It just was not possible. So ultimately we started picking up a lot of 3rd party consultants
102 00:17:48.330 ⇒ 00:18:01.330 Vinay Vittal: and one of our main problems. There was knowledge transfers, because a lot of the people within our internal team were hesitant about teaching people and more concerned about their own roles within the company.
103 00:18:01.400 ⇒ 00:18:29.759 Vinay Vittal: But after a while we we gain confidence within the units. I had my owner speak to our Smes and internal team to guarantee them that I’m not here to replace you on your job. But we need these 3rd party consultants to help our business grow. So if there’s no knowledge transfers, we’re gonna fail in immediately, so to help this company to progress to higher standards, please, you know, get these knowledge transfers at a hundred percent level. And
104 00:18:29.860 ⇒ 00:18:34.339 Vinay Vittal: at 1st it was dragging feet. But then we started to gain some traction, and
105 00:18:34.560 ⇒ 00:18:40.040 Vinay Vittal: our 3rd party team took off, and they were be able to be independently running.
106 00:18:40.990 ⇒ 00:18:47.410 Alexander Lubka: So, would you. So if you you got the request, you scope the project with your team, you go to the owner and be like, okay, I think this is like
107 00:18:47.660 ⇒ 00:18:52.644 Alexander Lubka: 4 months of work, whatever this many dev hours or something. And
108 00:18:53.670 ⇒ 00:18:57.480 Alexander Lubka: And then you confirm that with him, and usually would he be okay with that? Or.
109 00:18:57.480 ⇒ 00:19:13.570 Vinay Vittal: No, yeah, he would never be okay with it if if I were, and I had to create buffer time, because I know he’ll never accept it. So our developers would tell me 6 months, and I would tell him 9 months, because he would tell me 4 months get it done in 4, and
110 00:19:13.590 ⇒ 00:19:32.099 Vinay Vittal: ultimately I can’t say no to him. He’s he’s the owner, so I would say 4 months. Yes, I’m going to give it my 100% best effort and communicate every single step of the way. What we’re accomplishing. If I don’t hit a mark, I’m going to communicate it immediately to you so that you’re prepared, and you know how to handle it. From that point.
111 00:19:32.790 ⇒ 00:19:36.197 Alexander Lubka: Because it was so difficult with the owner. Did you ever have any?
112 00:19:36.610 ⇒ 00:19:39.509 Alexander Lubka: Did you ever not deliver on a agreed upon timeline.
113 00:19:40.822 ⇒ 00:19:51.109 Vinay Vittal: Yes, yes, even though we communicated it to our owner that it would take more time, he at the last minute. During Demos he would change things, and
114 00:19:51.700 ⇒ 00:20:00.649 Vinay Vittal: he would make new requirements that were never agreed upon, and due to that, the work obviously has to be affected, and it will be delayed.
115 00:20:01.351 ⇒ 00:20:21.370 Vinay Vittal: But I made him understand that if we were to go, the route of what was already agreed upon, the target date would have been accomplished, but due to your nuances and your new requirements, it’s going to drag it out. So he still did not like the answer, but he was more understanding of our scenario.
116 00:20:22.510 ⇒ 00:20:29.440 Alexander Lubka: So yeah, failure was kind of like acknowledged, and just keep going through.
117 00:20:29.790 ⇒ 00:20:30.290 Alexander Lubka: Sounds good.
118 00:20:30.290 ⇒ 00:20:34.989 Vinay Vittal: To me to me. I I didn’t view it as a failure, because
119 00:20:35.430 ⇒ 00:20:43.550 Vinay Vittal: I addressed to him that we’re going to accomplish what’s on paper and what has been agreed upon. I’ve got airtight estimates from our team.
120 00:20:44.380 ⇒ 00:20:47.640 Vinay Vittal: but you, if you give me new requirements.
121 00:20:48.070 ⇒ 00:21:08.629 Vinay Vittal: something has to, you know, give here, and that would mean more time, and if he would have alleviated me in any other area of the sprints or taken off anything of our workload, I could have definitely worked with what we had, but it was never that case. It was. Always add this, add that, add this and that definitely affected our trajectory.
122 00:21:08.630 ⇒ 00:21:18.880 Alexander Lubka: So he changed the requirements, and he he didn’t set clear priorities for you guys or no, nobody did. So you would just go off. How would you set priorities then? Whatever? He demanded.
123 00:21:20.150 ⇒ 00:21:20.820 Alexander Lubka: Time.
124 00:21:21.000 ⇒ 00:21:45.150 Vinay Vittal: Well, we already had our. So let’s say our sow project was agreed upon. Right? I have my priority list and task list already agreed upon. If he were to come upon and tell me these new requirements that were being set in stone, I would have him situated and sit with me and say, we’ve accomplished this many priorities with your new priorities. It’s going to affect our sprints in this manner. Which of your new priorities do you want to have
125 00:21:45.150 ⇒ 00:21:59.829 Vinay Vittal: accomplished as soon as possible, and he his answer honestly was, I want all of them, and I would have to work with him to tell him that. Yes, we want to do it all, but we can’t just keep saying everything. We gotta you know, with what we have. Plan it. Accordingly.
126 00:22:00.870 ⇒ 00:22:11.607 Alexander Lubka: So that that sounds like, I mean, just sounds like a tough environment to work in. Generally like, how did you deal with team members that were just going through that did we able to motivate them, or
127 00:22:12.220 ⇒ 00:22:14.285 Vinay Vittal: Many people were getting burnt out.
128 00:22:15.480 ⇒ 00:22:36.140 Vinay Vittal: I tried to keep a positive demeanor for everybody to say that, you know. Every day I would try to alleviate the workload by at least telling them that I have your back. I have other junior developers on other teams that could come over and contribute any way that I could take time off of their hands or reprioritize their work. I would do it, but
129 00:22:36.250 ⇒ 00:22:43.993 Vinay Vittal: yes, it had it ups and downs. It was a. It was a high stress level of trying to get things done by a very strict timeline and
130 00:22:45.380 ⇒ 00:22:50.180 Vinay Vittal: handling. It was. I basically put on my psychology cap every day.
131 00:22:50.180 ⇒ 00:22:50.540 Alexander Lubka: Sure.
132 00:22:50.540 ⇒ 00:23:18.059 Vinay Vittal: And I heard the problems I adjusted to them. I’d speak to my Smes to say, can you advise me on how we can accomplish this in a faster rate, this developers dragging his feet. Can you guide me on what we can do differently to make these projects go off more smoothly. So during retrospective, I had my Smes and the developers that would have the issues. We would talk about it in depth and document, where we were going wrong, what was happening, and
133 00:23:18.060 ⇒ 00:23:27.580 Vinay Vittal: it all kind of stemmed back to the additional requirements that were being added. But that’s never gonna end. That’s a definitive in the business, and
134 00:23:28.320 ⇒ 00:23:30.190 Vinay Vittal: you have to kind of roll with it.
135 00:23:30.780 ⇒ 00:23:40.369 Vinay Vittal: So the best of my ability, I I tried to soothe their their mindsets and reassure them that we’re on a positive working load. So.
136 00:23:40.850 ⇒ 00:23:43.704 Alexander Lubka: Did you leave? Just cause it sucked? It sounds terrible.
137 00:23:46.060 ⇒ 00:23:49.723 Vinay Vittal: You know what? I didn’t leave because it sucks
138 00:23:50.880 ⇒ 00:24:02.100 Vinay Vittal: I just started to value myself in a in a different way. And you know, after you start gaining some experience in different areas, you start to have a different level of respect for yourself and
139 00:24:02.260 ⇒ 00:24:27.100 Vinay Vittal: I. It came to that time where I have to respect myself and start to get things that are going to be better for my family, and my life growing in that company was not really possible. There was different egos and mentalities that were there, that kind of would not allow me to grow past what I was, and I was done being a pincushion right. I wanted to be a leader and have my voice heard so.
140 00:24:27.670 ⇒ 00:24:28.029 Alexander Lubka: Few minutes.
141 00:24:28.030 ⇒ 00:24:30.709 Vinay Vittal: It was purely my own choice. Yeah.
142 00:24:30.710 ⇒ 00:24:32.040 Alexander Lubka: Good for you. Yeah. Sounds like a.
143 00:24:32.040 ⇒ 00:24:32.410 Amber Lin: See.
144 00:24:32.410 ⇒ 00:24:35.550 Alexander Lubka: Doesn’t sound like a great environment. So good for doing what’s best for you and your family.
145 00:24:35.810 ⇒ 00:24:36.450 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, and that’s.
146 00:24:36.450 ⇒ 00:24:37.740 Amber Lin: Your boss feel.
147 00:24:38.100 ⇒ 00:24:38.793 Amber Lin: What’s that?
148 00:24:39.140 ⇒ 00:24:41.209 Amber Lin: How do your boss feel? You must, miss?
149 00:24:41.210 ⇒ 00:24:42.910 Amber Lin: Do you? Have have you already left, or.
150 00:24:42.910 ⇒ 00:24:43.440 Vinay Vittal: Yes.
151 00:24:43.440 ⇒ 00:24:45.010 Amber Lin: Didn’t give him notice. Oh, okay.
152 00:24:45.010 ⇒ 00:24:49.284 Vinay Vittal: I think he was more worried that I would join my my enterprise. Client.
153 00:24:49.590 ⇒ 00:24:50.020 Amber Lin: -
154 00:24:50.550 ⇒ 00:25:05.720 Vinay Vittal: I have ethics, and I’m I’m not really there to violate anybody. What I learned from them was irreplaceable. That experience that I got from there, you know. Ultimately it’s his company that created that confidence in me. So
155 00:25:06.280 ⇒ 00:25:23.169 Vinay Vittal: I did get offered a position from the client, and I actually had to say no, because ethically, it’s not something that I see myself doing, and I’d be rubbing the the wrong state of mind of our my previous owner. So no. Yeah.
156 00:25:23.170 ⇒ 00:25:36.420 Amber Lin: I see. But how? What do you think he would rate you like if we are going to talk to your previous boss, what would you? What would you say? That he would rate you from, I think, which one probably already asked this question like, what will he say.
157 00:25:36.780 ⇒ 00:25:37.520 Vinay Vittal: Your strength.
158 00:25:37.520 ⇒ 00:25:38.830 Amber Lin: And weaknesses.
159 00:25:38.830 ⇒ 00:25:40.789 Vinay Vittal: Well, he wasn’t happy that I left
160 00:25:41.070 ⇒ 00:25:41.470 Amber Lin: Okay.
161 00:25:41.470 ⇒ 00:25:59.796 Vinay Vittal: Because he’s a small company, and if he gets wind that somebody wants to leave, he would actually fire the person immediately. That was the type of mentality he had. So I planned my descent, and I when I told him when I told him the 2 weeks
162 00:26:00.280 ⇒ 00:26:07.019 Vinay Vittal: he he instilled that Hr. To come up to my office and said you could leave today. Oh, yeah.
163 00:26:07.020 ⇒ 00:26:08.290 Amber Lin: Wow!
164 00:26:08.290 ⇒ 00:26:15.140 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, cause he doesn’t wanna ever be viewed that somebody’s leaving his company on their own will. It’s in his, in his books. It’s like.
165 00:26:15.150 ⇒ 00:26:15.990 Amber Lin: Wow!
166 00:26:15.990 ⇒ 00:26:16.979 Vinay Vittal: Get rid of them.
167 00:26:17.690 ⇒ 00:26:19.389 Amber Lin: Wow! That’s tough.
168 00:26:19.810 ⇒ 00:26:29.289 Vinay Vittal: No, it was yeah, cause he had the Hr. Come up to my room and walk me out, and every developer. Qa. They’re all looking at me like what has happened.
169 00:26:29.530 ⇒ 00:26:29.930 Amber Lin: Yeah.
170 00:26:30.195 ⇒ 00:26:36.830 Vinay Vittal: I I didn’t create a deal. I I knew I was content in my heart with what I’ve done and what direction I’m going into.
171 00:26:37.270 ⇒ 00:26:41.920 Vinay Vittal: I made good friends and good connections in that company, and I said goodbye.
172 00:26:42.280 ⇒ 00:26:42.850 Amber Lin: Hmm!
173 00:26:43.150 ⇒ 00:26:55.869 Amber Lin: I see. I think I was curious about what cause he probably still appreciates things that you’ve done. I think, apart from his ego. What would you say? He thinks your strengths and weaknesses are.
174 00:26:56.990 ⇒ 00:27:01.226 Vinay Vittal: So I would say, he would say, my strengths is my communication.
175 00:27:03.030 ⇒ 00:27:06.630 Vinay Vittal: He would say. My weakness was my empathy. Because
176 00:27:07.680 ⇒ 00:27:10.619 Vinay Vittal: he was saying, you’re feeling too much for your team.
177 00:27:10.780 ⇒ 00:27:14.079 Vinay Vittal: and you’re a project manager. You just gotta get it done.
178 00:27:15.000 ⇒ 00:27:25.750 Vinay Vittal: But I’m not a slave. I also have to understand that I’m a project manager working with an incredible group of people that come into the office every day, giving their life for it. So
179 00:27:26.360 ⇒ 00:27:40.120 Vinay Vittal: for me, just to agree to everything he said, and say yes, and get everything done that really is not what I consider a project manager. You have to kind of bite back. You have to explain your perception of what you can do and what cannot be done.
180 00:27:40.980 ⇒ 00:27:50.549 Vinay Vittal: So if if I were to say yeah, my empathy would probably be my my negative tangent, because he would, he would come in my scrum calls every once in a while, and
181 00:27:51.250 ⇒ 00:28:15.250 Vinay Vittal: he would listen. And if if a developer said, Yeah, I’m still behind, I’ll get it done by the end of the day? Vinay, you have to double down on him. You can’t let that answer happen, and I was like, if I put that for us on in the middle of a call with all of our team there, that morale is going to be completely stripped, and I won’t have any power to authorize people to work upon. They’re always going to view me as
182 00:28:15.870 ⇒ 00:28:17.649 Vinay Vittal: as this person. Right? So.
183 00:28:20.602 ⇒ 00:28:26.750 Amber Lin: See, yeah, I understand, yeah, back to Alex, sorry for disrupting. You.
184 00:28:26.750 ⇒ 00:28:27.560 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, no. No.
185 00:28:28.170 ⇒ 00:28:29.199 Amber Lin: Very curious.
186 00:28:29.200 ⇒ 00:28:36.584 Alexander Lubka: Yeah. One thing I just wanted to. From your experience, it sound like there might have been some like context switching between, like the
187 00:28:37.300 ⇒ 00:28:44.630 Alexander Lubka: software side at the in person side. Is that something you dealt with and like? If you did, how did you deal with the different.
188 00:28:44.630 ⇒ 00:28:47.440 Vinay Vittal: Sorry, can you? I didn’t get the questions. Can you repeat it?
189 00:28:47.440 ⇒ 00:28:53.640 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, did you have to deal with any like context switching between like the software side and the I think it’s a kiosk side.
190 00:28:54.380 ⇒ 00:29:07.748 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, I, those are 2 different teams. Right? So the the hardware seen that domain. I I control that in one scrum team because it didn’t make sense to have them involved with our cloud operating developers.
191 00:29:08.210 ⇒ 00:29:33.950 Vinay Vittal: but it would for me it was awesome because I got to see the way, our hardware is affecting our software directly. Right? So having that scrum call with my team in India, the hardware local based teams and then having my it gained traction. I had a lot more understanding when I was speaking to my cloud team, saying, like, Yeah, your your ticket just got affected this way. But do you know that the kiosk utilizes it in this way? Right? So
192 00:29:33.950 ⇒ 00:29:42.950 Vinay Vittal: it it gave me more domain knowledge and more confidence. Speaking to my cloud team, which really was where majority of the bugs, and
193 00:29:43.520 ⇒ 00:29:46.960 Vinay Vittal: I would say improvement needed to come from so.
194 00:29:46.960 ⇒ 00:29:53.877 Alexander Lubka: Hmm, okay, yeah, did you?
195 00:29:54.710 ⇒ 00:29:59.867 Alexander Lubka: How would you? Besides, of like, how did you measure success? Did you have any like
196 00:30:01.060 ⇒ 00:30:06.410 Alexander Lubka: metrics that you followed, or was it based off the scope of work? How do we doing that?
197 00:30:07.170 ⇒ 00:30:13.372 Vinay Vittal: So we had jellyfish. Jellyfish is a AI platform that actually
198 00:30:13.950 ⇒ 00:30:30.266 Vinay Vittal: embeds into Jira, and it directly tells you your burn down rate sprint velocity to a t like when I say to a t like to a T, and that some people consider micromanagement
199 00:30:30.830 ⇒ 00:30:35.300 Vinay Vittal: but that’s ultimately the way our owner operated. And
200 00:30:35.380 ⇒ 00:30:47.960 Vinay Vittal: it was for him. And I had to kind of learn this new software and create a dashboard for him to view the whole sprint and cause he was obsessed with developers times
201 00:30:47.970 ⇒ 00:31:01.720 Vinay Vittal: like he. He didn’t realize that they have to eat lunch, and I told they they need an hour off to eat right? So he was like, no, if they’re in India, they have to work 8 h days, and things of that nature. And I was like, listen.
202 00:31:01.720 ⇒ 00:31:22.739 Vinay Vittal: ultimately, we’re going to get accomplished what you want. But jellyfish will report purely what you want. But you have to understand they’re humans, they’re not robots. And they have lunch. They’re out sick once in a while. There are functions that they’ll cancel and call out of work. So with all of that in mind. Jellyfish can tell you everything. Yes.
203 00:31:22.740 ⇒ 00:31:34.580 Vinay Vittal: but it really can tell you the human side of where our projects are and how we’re getting these things accomplished. So that was how we measured all our metrics. Sure, I used to give him Jira dashboards, and
204 00:31:34.670 ⇒ 00:31:38.140 Vinay Vittal: I would have to decipher between jellyfish and jira, and tell them
205 00:31:38.400 ⇒ 00:32:04.999 Vinay Vittal: the reason that this was, you know, prolonged was he was out for 2 weeks, or he was tied up with because he would call our developers one on one and tell them, can you get this completed without telling me? And now our developer won’t tell me, because he’s scared that the owner has told him he has to accomplish something, and I’m asking him, why don’t you have this done like you already promised me by Thursday by Friday, and it’s still not here. So
206 00:32:05.080 ⇒ 00:32:22.729 Vinay Vittal: that was another issue that I had to keep trying to work around, like, you know, obviously realizing it’s the owner who’s putting in the requirements. But it started affecting my scope, and it started affecting all of our sprints, and sooner or later, as I got to about year 2 I started
207 00:32:22.890 ⇒ 00:32:42.562 Vinay Vittal: having the confidence to tell the owner like this can’t happen. Please don’t do this because you’re affecting my whole projection, and I can’t keep yelling at our team and getting on them. If it’s not even their own fault, it’s they’re given work behind the scenes that is not even being tracked, and
208 00:32:43.710 ⇒ 00:32:46.179 Vinay Vittal: It won’t work in any atmosphere.
209 00:32:48.830 ⇒ 00:32:50.910 Alexander Lubka: amber. Have you used jellyfish before.
210 00:32:51.340 ⇒ 00:32:54.970 Amber Lin: No, I haven’t. I do believe linear has very similar.
211 00:32:55.100 ⇒ 00:32:59.879 Amber Lin: Burn down charts and allocations and
212 00:33:00.561 ⇒ 00:33:06.429 Amber Lin: checking on that. So we do have these metrics, but we are not using them
213 00:33:07.252 ⇒ 00:33:09.259 Amber Lin: to their full extent.
214 00:33:09.620 ⇒ 00:33:12.229 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, that sounds like, would you use jellyfish again? Vinay.
215 00:33:16.570 ⇒ 00:33:19.230 Alexander Lubka: To like cold.
216 00:33:19.470 ⇒ 00:33:25.270 Vinay Vittal: In a in a well groomed company software company. I think jellyfish would be phenomenal.
217 00:33:26.119 ⇒ 00:33:46.760 Vinay Vittal: When I say, like a well groomed company, something like Apple Samsung Microsoft, that has a very well robust group of people that are working under their titles. But for smaller based companies, such as micrologic or small. I don’t think jellyfish really gives the pure translation of work that’s being accomplished.
218 00:33:47.240 ⇒ 00:33:47.970 Alexander Lubka: Got it.
219 00:33:50.447 ⇒ 00:33:56.359 Alexander Lubka: do you? So here they use like linear and notion. And what other tools you use? Amber.
220 00:33:57.048 ⇒ 00:33:58.000 Vinay Vittal: One that I love.
221 00:33:58.000 ⇒ 00:33:58.810 Amber Lin: Linear.
222 00:33:59.140 ⇒ 00:33:59.850 Alexander Lubka: Linda.
223 00:34:00.260 ⇒ 00:34:01.180 Vinay Vittal: Miro.
224 00:34:01.640 ⇒ 00:34:03.580 Alexander Lubka: A Miro school. Do you use miro amber.
225 00:34:03.580 ⇒ 00:34:12.969 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, I brought it. I I brought it to the company, and now they’re loving it. Because the whiteboard feature, the templates that the endless amount of templates.
226 00:34:12.980 ⇒ 00:34:41.779 Vinay Vittal: See, I was setting up essentially like a Pmo office there. So a lot of these templates were already embedded into Miro. So it kind of facilitated that whole process a little bit for me. Obviously we tailored the templates to what we needed, but they just integrated with Cheddar, which is another great AI based company that’s working with Pm. Tools. So I could not speak highly enough more about Miro. It’s phenomenal.
227 00:34:42.230 ⇒ 00:34:43.259 Alexander Lubka: Yeah. Miro’s great.
228 00:34:44.670 ⇒ 00:34:49.480 Amber Lin: What do you use for your retros? Amber? What’s that board they use? Oh.
229 00:34:49.489 ⇒ 00:34:53.369 Amber Lin: we use either fig jam, or we use zoom whiteboard.
230 00:34:53.370 ⇒ 00:34:53.769 Alexander Lubka: Oh, okay.
231 00:34:54.364 ⇒ 00:34:58.410 Amber Lin: Because it’s we have. We can use whatever
232 00:34:58.670 ⇒ 00:35:05.229 Amber Lin: it’s mostly about that people can look at. Look at the same board. It doesn’t really matter to me what tool we use.
233 00:35:05.230 ⇒ 00:35:10.130 Vinay Vittal: So do do they get access to the to the board when the meeting is not in place.
234 00:35:13.410 ⇒ 00:35:13.920 Alexander Lubka: Like before.
235 00:35:15.060 ⇒ 00:35:32.369 Vinay Vittal: So let’s say, like, let’s say a developer wants to go to the board and update something to say that I accomplished this task. I need have some questions about something. Where was he able to go back to the board and write that question and tag a developer or anybody that.
236 00:35:33.910 ⇒ 00:35:41.050 Amber Lin: What do you use for task tracking? Because that’s what we would use linear. And you’re a 4.
237 00:35:41.050 ⇒ 00:35:48.810 Vinay Vittal: Well, Jira, directly for our task tracking. I would use a Kanban board to essentially to see which tasks are accomplished, but.
238 00:35:48.810 ⇒ 00:35:53.829 Amber Lin: Need to go back to a mirror board to update a task. Then.
239 00:35:54.490 ⇒ 00:35:57.449 Vinay Vittal: No, not to update a task to ask questions. They.
240 00:35:57.450 ⇒ 00:35:57.929 Amber Lin: No problem.
241 00:35:57.930 ⇒ 00:36:13.190 Vinay Vittal: Could put like a sticky note they could, they could refer a document saying, I saw this Pdf, on this. Would this be relevant and that kind of nipped the communication issue, because now the questions are right there on the board, they’ve tagged the person.
242 00:36:13.440 ⇒ 00:36:18.220 Vinay Vittal: Now it’s up to the person to to provide like prompt responses.
243 00:36:18.620 ⇒ 00:36:20.530 Amber Lin: It’s, I think it’s pretty similar to fig jam.
244 00:36:21.560 ⇒ 00:36:35.590 Amber Lin: Yeah, I see, because we usually use that during the meeting and any other communication we handle it in slack. My concern mostly is just that if we have too many channels of communication, like people get very lost and things get dropped.
245 00:36:35.710 ⇒ 00:36:39.149 Amber Lin: So that was mostly why I was very curious.
246 00:36:39.150 ⇒ 00:36:56.039 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, so slack I kept for my enterprise client which was fine. But Muro for me, discussing with 4 different teams like internationally right. It was much easier to operate off one universal platform right? One whiteboard per team.
247 00:36:56.220 ⇒ 00:37:04.010 Vinay Vittal: Anything that is updated. I would get an immediate alert, so it it gave me more control of of each team per se.
248 00:37:05.460 ⇒ 00:37:06.580 Vinay Vittal: Okay, yeah.
249 00:37:06.580 ⇒ 00:37:30.920 Vinay Vittal: And then developing roadmaps. Everything is kind of facilitated by the features of Miro. So that way I was able to present to our enterprise clients that, like a product roadmap for each requirement or enhancement that they had requested, I, every meeting had started off with the roadmap to show them. This is what has been accomplished. This is where we’re at, and just to kind of buy in confidence from the team.
250 00:37:31.850 ⇒ 00:37:33.419 Amber Lin: Okay. Yeah. Sounds good.
251 00:37:34.931 ⇒ 00:37:43.719 Alexander Lubka: Great last question before I pass it back to Amber. I always find this question kind of interesting. You ever hired or fired anybody.
252 00:37:45.750 ⇒ 00:37:46.580 Vinay Vittal: So.
253 00:37:47.340 ⇒ 00:37:48.220 Vinay Vittal: Yes,
254 00:37:49.220 ⇒ 00:37:51.186 Vinay Vittal: Did I like it? No.
255 00:37:51.580 ⇒ 00:37:52.486 Alexander Lubka: Which one.
256 00:37:53.330 ⇒ 00:37:58.789 Vinay Vittal: I I had to. I had to fire one of our developers because
257 00:37:59.540 ⇒ 00:38:04.145 Vinay Vittal: He was based out of India. I gave him many chances, though it
258 00:38:05.050 ⇒ 00:38:12.049 Vinay Vittal: He wouldn’t show up to the to the stand up. Sometime he would just message me things that were just.
259 00:38:13.760 ⇒ 00:38:34.619 Vinay Vittal: I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just I don’t feel like he was getting it. I I gave him all the documentation, all the Kts that I could and he still was just not present. He I felt like he was maybe doing one or 2 jobs at the same time, and it just it set such a bad tone for our group.
260 00:38:34.720 ⇒ 00:38:51.700 Vinay Vittal: and he spoke a little bit rudely to one of the female developers. And I was like, this can’t happen. I was like in this day and age. If you have that mentality, and I’ve tried working with you and given every opportunity to you, and you’re still disrespecting people. Then
261 00:38:52.000 ⇒ 00:38:58.849 Vinay Vittal: I’m I’m creating a burden for my team if I allow you to stay here. So ultimately we had to let him go.
262 00:39:00.550 ⇒ 00:39:01.530 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, that’s tough.
263 00:39:01.980 ⇒ 00:39:12.920 Vinay Vittal: It’s tough. Yeah, because I know how it affects. You know, a family’s income and how you you know you get through things. But at the same time I could not affect my whole team, and have all of us fired so.
264 00:39:12.920 ⇒ 00:39:17.000 Amber Lin: Oh, were you in charge of any hiring initiatives.
265 00:39:17.480 ⇒ 00:39:33.902 Vinay Vittal: No, the I had a director and my owner who? They would bring me in for interviews. I would talk to the candidate. But ultimately decision making was made from the owner. As I said, he, he controls every facet of the business.
266 00:39:34.680 ⇒ 00:39:40.370 Vinay Vittal: So I would give him my notes. He would ask for notes on every candidate. Scorecards
267 00:39:40.779 ⇒ 00:39:48.300 Vinay Vittal: so I I facilitated all of that. I would give him my scorecard, and he would review it with me, and he would make his decision.
268 00:39:50.870 ⇒ 00:39:51.849 Amber Lin: I see.
269 00:39:52.480 ⇒ 00:39:55.510 Alexander Lubka: Anything else, Alex, floor is yours.
270 00:39:56.450 ⇒ 00:40:06.209 Amber Lin: Okay. So we had, we were preparing a case study. These are situations we are dealing with, or have dealt with with our clients. So the 1st one
271 00:40:06.420 ⇒ 00:40:12.889 Amber Lin: I want I will introduce the background and feel free to ask any probing questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them.
272 00:40:13.580 ⇒ 00:40:18.229 Amber Lin: So this client there, you’re stepping in
273 00:40:19.120 ⇒ 00:40:25.129 Amber Lin: mid project. So the project has been running already. The current project
274 00:40:25.280 ⇒ 00:40:35.609 Amber Lin: owner asks, acts also as a project manager, but he wants to reduce his time on that project. So he wants someone to help
275 00:40:35.790 ⇒ 00:40:46.210 Amber Lin: Project manage. And he wants to also transfer the project lead position to someone else. However, it’s still a bit stuck. This team has
276 00:40:46.540 ⇒ 00:40:53.479 Amber Lin: a lot of ad hoc requests a lot of different people making these requests.
277 00:40:53.740 ⇒ 00:41:01.019 Amber Lin: Clients sometimes joins of stand ups and interrupts and ask questions, and brings up different issues.
278 00:41:01.590 ⇒ 00:41:10.849 Amber Lin: and also for the internal team. The team members don’t really take full ownership of deliverables. Sometimes they stay on
279 00:41:11.070 ⇒ 00:41:17.700 Amber Lin: the the tickets, stay on for a long time, and there’s a lot of last minute fire drills.
280 00:41:17.910 ⇒ 00:41:33.449 Amber Lin: and sometimes the owner has to step in to do the task himself, because tickets have just been taking a long time, or people don’t understand, and the quality is not
281 00:41:33.660 ⇒ 00:41:37.729 Amber Lin: the greatest, so he has to step in. So what would you do in that situation?
282 00:41:38.640 ⇒ 00:41:48.250 Vinay Vittal: Well, I’m kind of perplexed with that, because if if you’re having like daily stand ups and you’re you’re going through the ceremonies every day.
283 00:41:48.800 ⇒ 00:42:03.449 Vinay Vittal: you would have more control and traction of the way the project was progressing right, and if things are not getting accomplished, you would know 50% of the way like, Hey, my developer has not gotten to this milestone. What is the reasoning
284 00:42:04.160 ⇒ 00:42:15.289 Vinay Vittal: and interject at that point, instead of waiting till the end, saying he has not accomplished something and trying to step in at that point. I think then, it’s kind of like too late. And you’re now
285 00:42:15.930 ⇒ 00:42:28.750 Vinay Vittal: struggling to find out a solution to it which I’ve encountered before as well, and you have to work to the best of your ability to accomplish it. But I think that’s the main reason of having these daily stand up. Calls
286 00:42:29.789 ⇒ 00:42:37.430 Vinay Vittal: is to have a day-to-day track of what traction is being made and what’s not being accomplished.
287 00:42:39.216 ⇒ 00:42:46.409 Amber Lin: We do have daily stand up. Calls. And we do look at these tickets, what would you say, might be the root cause of that.
288 00:42:48.056 ⇒ 00:42:51.353 Vinay Vittal: Well, without knowing the team, it seems like it’s
289 00:42:52.110 ⇒ 00:42:53.850 Vinay Vittal: I don’t think the tickets.
290 00:42:53.880 ⇒ 00:43:02.249 Vinay Vittal: or maybe the tickets are not properly documented for a level of success like, do they clearly understand the definition of done
291 00:43:02.630 ⇒ 00:43:27.619 Vinay Vittal: And if that’s not being constantly reinforced throughout the standups and the meetings, or if they’re not triggering questions of that nature, then it falls back on the developer that if you are unclear within a request or a task that has been given to you, and you’re coming to our standups every day, and you’re not revealing any of that doubt. Then the the blame will fully fall onto the developer.
292 00:43:27.640 ⇒ 00:43:32.880 Vinay Vittal: The reason we have these calls is to gain clarity and to gain momentum, but
293 00:43:33.530 ⇒ 00:43:49.820 Vinay Vittal: it it, if it’s if it’s on the other end, and the the requirements are not airtight, then it would fall on me and that I failed you as a project manager, not giving you the proper requirements, or at least user stories that would accomplish what we needed.
294 00:43:50.768 ⇒ 00:44:08.780 Amber Lin: I see, what would you? So there was, there’s a lot of ad hoc requests coming in and you also don’t, have that much context on this project and a lot of the understanding is is in the owner’s head, and
295 00:44:09.450 ⇒ 00:44:22.170 Amber Lin: you don’t have that much knowledge to create those tickets, and the owner oftentimes he doesn’t have much time to give you the context, and he sometimes just ends up doing it himself.
296 00:44:22.310 ⇒ 00:44:41.040 Amber Lin: Can you tell me about processes and structural changes you would do to this project, such as rituals, how people should handle different situations. How would you structurally change this? So these things wouldn’t happen in the future.
297 00:44:42.130 ⇒ 00:44:52.549 Vinay Vittal: Well, 1st thing is, if if the owner is, has to step in to facilitate everything that means, the requirements are not properly documented to a level of handoff.
298 00:44:52.710 ⇒ 00:45:01.450 Vinay Vittal: If the if the owner is constantly interjecting to say, this is how it has to be done, and ad hoc requests are coming in from him. Then
299 00:45:01.580 ⇒ 00:45:23.809 Vinay Vittal: then we have not properly documented the workload, and I think the the 1st Level is, have a meeting with the owner or Smes to discuss what is the intent of our work, and to gauge it off there, maybe dividing it into different phases getting our priority list airtight and accomplishing it, based off that.
300 00:45:24.340 ⇒ 00:45:26.309 Amber Lin: Okay, we have. So
301 00:45:26.940 ⇒ 00:45:41.090 Amber Lin: we serve essentially as their internal data team. There are multiple departments making requests. There’s multiple stakeholders that’s very important. And each have their own items they want to accomplish.
302 00:45:41.300 ⇒ 00:45:49.930 Amber Lin: And how would you deal with that? And what? And based on what you’ve heard so far?
303 00:45:50.270 ⇒ 00:45:54.830 Amber Lin: How would you make changes to the way we manage this project? Essentially.
304 00:45:54.830 ⇒ 00:46:11.260 Vinay Vittal: Prior prioritize. Right? We 1st off is we have to get which priorities mean the most. And what needs to get accomplished if we get that by. If we get that that word from the decision maker saying the owner then we could tackle it based on our priority level.
305 00:46:14.310 ⇒ 00:46:27.399 Vinay Vittal: Right. If if different teams, marketing and different areas of your company start reaching out to you, saying, this is a priority, you have to accomplish this. Everybody under the sun is gonna tell you their priority is number one.
306 00:46:27.430 ⇒ 00:46:49.219 Vinay Vittal: But there has to be one decision maker that I can sit with to say. I have this many priorities. What is number one? And how can we structure this based off his word? I can then move to planning and organizing to get the work done. But if there’s no clear path of priorities, it’s you’re just working on organized.
307 00:46:52.320 ⇒ 00:46:56.069 Amber Lin: What would you do with the team members? I I guess.
308 00:46:57.410 ⇒ 00:46:58.300 Amber Lin: Here
309 00:46:59.620 ⇒ 00:47:07.040 Amber Lin: there was a few. There was a few requests. I I told you there was a few situations. This is a complex project going on.
310 00:47:07.360 ⇒ 00:47:12.820 Amber Lin: Could you identify the main problems here and just give me it like a quick, summary overview
311 00:47:13.130 ⇒ 00:47:17.569 Amber Lin: of how this project is and what your recommendations are.
312 00:47:19.850 ⇒ 00:47:33.210 Vinay Vittal: I would say the the there’s really the. The main problem is, the ad hoc requests are not getting filtered before being presented to the team. I think that has to be vetted out more of a clear path.
313 00:47:33.637 ⇒ 00:47:52.550 Vinay Vittal: And bringing those ad hoc requests live to the team before they’ve even had a chance to look at. Documentation is unfair. It’s kind of like you’re putting them on the spot and saying, Get this done, get this done. There has to be some sort of barrier there, and separate those ad hoc requests.
314 00:47:52.550 ⇒ 00:48:03.620 Vinay Vittal: Have them airtight agreed upon by our ownership, and then prioritized and tackled. But if you’re if you’re now face to face with the team and trying to accomplish those things, it’s
315 00:48:03.750 ⇒ 00:48:05.709 Vinay Vittal: it’s not ethical.
316 00:48:09.630 ⇒ 00:48:11.119 Amber Lin: I hear you on that.
317 00:48:13.380 ⇒ 00:48:14.590 Amber Lin: Let’s see.
318 00:48:14.590 ⇒ 00:48:16.250 Vinay Vittal: It’s tough. Yeah.
319 00:48:17.620 ⇒ 00:48:29.339 Amber Lin: There’s another case. Study that one wanted to ask you. So this is from a past client we had. So the client is a startup. So
320 00:48:29.630 ⇒ 00:48:42.460 Amber Lin: what happened is that their requirements kept changing because they also didn’t know what was going on. They were also very rarely present at any meetings and
321 00:48:43.460 ⇒ 00:48:46.830 Amber Lin: doesn’t prefer to
322 00:48:47.313 ⇒ 00:48:55.089 Amber Lin: it’s very hard to get them to meet or give requirements, so they’re very unresponsive. What would you do in that situation?
323 00:48:56.570 ⇒ 00:49:16.079 Vinay Vittal: So any changes, a change, request, form would have to be agreed upon, signed, and documented to alert my staff. That this request has been made as of such date. If it signed off on both sides, I would have to then regroup, talk to the Sme, talk to our owner, and say, these are the new change requests.
324 00:49:16.190 ⇒ 00:49:20.810 Vinay Vittal: If if you give us the go ahead, I would then start acting upon that.
325 00:49:21.200 ⇒ 00:49:37.309 Vinay Vittal: But, if there, you can’t force a client or a customer to be at those meetings. If they’re not responsive, they’ll have to view the change, request forms and sign that documentation because there’s nothing else that’s backing our company to complete these nuances right.
326 00:49:37.310 ⇒ 00:49:37.950 Amber Lin: Right.
327 00:49:38.220 ⇒ 00:49:38.860 Vinay Vittal: Yeah.
328 00:49:39.240 ⇒ 00:49:42.199 Amber Lin: What if they say this is too slow?
329 00:49:42.470 ⇒ 00:49:44.421 Amber Lin: And then they say,
330 00:49:45.120 ⇒ 00:49:49.849 Amber Lin: you have too many processes. You’re not doing the work I ask. I’m gonna end this contract.
331 00:49:55.630 ⇒ 00:49:59.539 Vinay Vittal: Okay, well, I’d have to dial it back and say.
332 00:49:59.650 ⇒ 00:50:08.090 Vinay Vittal: according to what we have been working upon, where did we miss the mark what has affected your confidence within our company?
333 00:50:08.640 ⇒ 00:50:17.480 Vinay Vittal: Give me some time to speak to my internal team, my owner, and say that the client is very upset about our progress, based off this
334 00:50:17.720 ⇒ 00:50:26.420 Vinay Vittal: behind the scenes. I would have to take a look at my project and make sure that whatever I have guaranteed and agreed upon? Are we accomplishing it? And
335 00:50:26.650 ⇒ 00:50:49.690 Vinay Vittal: if if it is the case that we are accomplishing everything that’s been agreed upon, I’m gonna be straight and honest with the owner, and say what has been projected and planned is on schedule the nuances that come out. I can’t give a confirmed date, because those are all change requests right? So those are things that will a hundred percent affect my my trajectory. So
336 00:50:50.147 ⇒ 00:50:58.210 Vinay Vittal: as long as the owner and me are on the same page that we understand that, hey? It’s not on us. We are accomplishing what was agreed upon.
337 00:50:58.340 ⇒ 00:51:17.139 Vinay Vittal: Then the new Change request has to it can’t just be done overnight. It has to be planned, vetted and organized to a level of success. We’re not here flipping burgers. We’re doing software right? So things take time and to be planned and orchestrated in the right way. That has to be done in such a fashion.
338 00:51:17.660 ⇒ 00:51:18.250 Amber Lin: Okay.
339 00:51:18.610 ⇒ 00:51:27.039 Amber Lin: yeah, thank you for your answer. I think that’s the 2 tough situations that I wanted to see how you would deal with, and I I appreciate your answer.
340 00:51:27.180 ⇒ 00:51:42.730 Vinay Vittal: Oh, thank you, thank you. And unfortunately, that’s something I’ve seen many times in in my own company clients would come back, and I’ll be honest with you. The change request form helped in in a big way, because
341 00:51:43.650 ⇒ 00:51:58.409 Vinay Vittal: if there’s no documentation there’s no proof of anything. It’s just words that are occurring during meetings, and you could record meetings and everything. But if there isn’t any clear structure of documentation, the project falls apart.
342 00:52:00.610 ⇒ 00:52:08.410 Amber Lin: yeah, sounds good. Alex, I’ll I’ll give the floor back to you, I know, we had some remaining final questions.
343 00:52:08.830 ⇒ 00:52:37.209 Alexander Lubka: Yeah. Well, no, Vinay, it’s like quarter to 7 on a Friday. I appreciate you taking some time with us. Do. You’ve been through a couple of interviews you talked, Tom. Talk to Amber a couple of times. I’ve been with the company. I think I mentioned to you a little bit for since May, I’ve been consulting with them a few hours a week to help them build out this Pmo. And to, you know you know. Advise Amber and the team on just Pm. Practices and build that department out.
344 00:52:37.530 ⇒ 00:52:43.295 Alexander Lubka: Do you have any questions for us? Do you have any questions about the company or what we’ve been up to.
345 00:52:44.100 ⇒ 00:52:46.100 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, so
346 00:52:46.880 ⇒ 00:52:59.369 Vinay Vittal: I guess this would be more for both of you. But like, how would you explain the culture there? Because, as I’ve told you I’m in a state now where I want to have my voice heard. I want to be working with
347 00:52:59.960 ⇒ 00:53:06.180 Vinay Vittal: the same state of mind type. People like, what is the culture like in an honest review.
348 00:53:07.830 ⇒ 00:53:17.593 Alexander Lubka: I I can start, and then I can go for amber. So my experience is a little bit more limited, just because I don’t. I’m not full time, and I’ve worked here less than Amber has. But
349 00:53:18.080 ⇒ 00:53:24.040 Alexander Lubka: They I’ve worked a lot with Utam worked out with amber. Robert, who’s also
350 00:53:24.710 ⇒ 00:53:27.930 Alexander Lubka: president of co-president of the company, or lead in leadership.
351 00:53:28.030 ⇒ 00:53:55.570 Alexander Lubka: and they’ve always been. They hire you, or they hired me, and they and they would hire somebody in this role because they, you know, they’re looking for somebody to level the level set to bring or to elevate, they’re looking for. And so if they hire you for this role, they’re going to look at you as an Sme in your field in your area. They’re going to give you a lot of autonomy in that, because the company is small, and it’s a lot of you know, some people that are in the Us. Some offshore people.
352 00:53:55.590 ⇒ 00:54:01.199 Alexander Lubka: so they? They don’t have time. From what I’ve seen, they don’t have time to just like
353 00:54:01.587 ⇒ 00:54:05.450 Alexander Lubka: you know, work in your area. They hire you for a specific reason because they
354 00:54:05.550 ⇒ 00:54:31.070 Alexander Lubka: have talked to you. They think you have the ability to do it. And they put that trust in you to build out what you’re looking to do. And and they give you a lot of autonomy in that. If you want to build out something from what I’ve seen, build it out. Talk about it. Show the value of it. If you think it’s going to add value to what you’re working on. Great, do it. It’s just like they’re they’re small, but they’re scrappy, but and they’re innovative. And I like working with them because they enable all that.
355 00:54:31.150 ⇒ 00:54:36.232 Alexander Lubka: Unfortunately, I can’t work with them. You know as much as I’d like to. But
356 00:54:36.760 ⇒ 00:54:52.669 Alexander Lubka: I wish I could, because it’s a good group, and they they really want to build a company that is ethical, that makes sense, and that means well for everybody that works here and for their clients. They want to do what’s from what I’ve seen, they really want to do what’s best for their clients.
357 00:54:52.670 ⇒ 00:54:56.500 Vinay Vittal: So from like a consultant lens is the
358 00:54:56.990 ⇒ 00:55:05.209 Vinay Vittal: is the transformation that they brought you on board. Is that transformation happening the way you projected.
359 00:55:06.560 ⇒ 00:55:21.009 Alexander Lubka: Maybe Amber can speak that better, but I think so. I’ve I put in a plan to create a Pmo. I went over what I wanted to accomplish, and amber, and I’ve been working pretty closely to implement that, and I’m very happy with the progress so far. But Amber could probably speak more to that.
360 00:55:23.447 ⇒ 00:55:25.059 Amber Lin: So I think
361 00:55:25.240 ⇒ 00:55:31.879 Amber Lin: your concern is, can I make a difference in this company? Right? Can I? Can? I
362 00:55:32.210 ⇒ 00:55:36.500 Amber Lin: can my decisions and my expertise and my be valued in this.
363 00:55:36.500 ⇒ 00:55:51.979 Vinay Vittal: Also are are we set up for a level of success? Because I’m confident in my skills. But are you backed properly by leadership and ownership that we’re not just gonna put you in an island and expect you to accomplish everything.
364 00:55:52.660 ⇒ 00:55:55.139 Vinay Vittal: Is there any type of support that
365 00:55:55.990 ⇒ 00:56:12.920 Vinay Vittal: gives you the authority. I know they want everybody. They’re busy, and they’re you’re working autonomous me autonomously. But are you? Are they giving you the confidence? The time to make this work, or are you just a coupon in the.
366 00:56:14.270 ⇒ 00:56:20.799 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think that’s something I can speak to. So I joined about 4 months ago. I had 0
367 00:56:20.890 ⇒ 00:56:48.739 Amber Lin: hands-on experience in project management. So you can imagine. I took on projects had to learn on the fly. Utam was a product manager who also learned on his own. So there was no formal training, and so they gave me space to fail. That meant that I was managing our internal AI team, and that just meant that for a month. We really didn’t accomplish anything, and that was the cost that we had to pay, and we learned eventually they
368 00:56:48.820 ⇒ 00:57:06.369 Amber Lin: they work with me, and I work with Utam very closely. Up until Alex joined and back. Then we had. I took a I took on a lot of projects, and then we learned to shave a few off focus on the main ones. So
369 00:57:06.920 ⇒ 00:57:13.260 Amber Lin: number one, they are very open and they give space for me to
370 00:57:13.560 ⇒ 00:57:16.259 Amber Lin: learn, grow, and implement what I want.
371 00:57:16.560 ⇒ 00:57:25.329 Amber Lin: So that’s the 1st thing. And then the second thing, when it comes to, can can we build something we want right? And that’s
372 00:57:25.360 ⇒ 00:57:48.319 Amber Lin: we’re in our case is building the Pmo, and also how the Pmo interacts with all the other departments in the company, because we are really, we have to interact with sales. We have to give marketing the information. We have to manage the marketing team in terms of project management and work with the Ops team. So we’re really working with everybody. And
373 00:57:49.230 ⇒ 00:57:51.160 Amber Lin: I think Utam is someone that
374 00:57:51.290 ⇒ 00:57:58.929 Amber Lin: would like to give autonomy. When I 1st started working with him he told me this framework about
375 00:57:59.160 ⇒ 00:58:18.619 Amber Lin: how to essentially find someone else to replace you. So you start off with, I do. You watch, and then it’s we do it together, and then it’s you, do. I watch, and then you go train someone else. So from the get go, even when I was very inexperienced, their hopes for me is so that I can
376 00:58:19.940 ⇒ 00:58:34.469 Amber Lin: do this, get someone else to do this, and then lead this whole function, and for the whole time being all they wanted was that they can be stress free from these client projects. So they gave. They want to
377 00:58:34.900 ⇒ 00:58:51.999 Amber Lin: us to have full autonomy, and of course they support me when needed. The client that I told you about the client that was very, very irresponsive. That was a client that I had before, and I had a very, very tough client meeting. It was the 1st client meeting that the client was angry and threatening to go.
378 00:58:52.250 ⇒ 00:59:03.339 Amber Lin: and then I was calling Robert, afterwards calling Utam afterwards, so they give all the support and transparency that they can. So I think they’re really great people to work with.
379 00:59:03.730 ⇒ 00:59:04.950 Vinay Vittal: And are you.
380 00:59:04.950 ⇒ 00:59:05.625 Amber Lin: Oh,
381 00:59:06.300 ⇒ 00:59:15.070 Vinay Vittal: Are you provided the adequate resources to accomplish? What the ad hoc request, or how do you adjust to ad hoc requests like, I.
382 00:59:15.070 ⇒ 00:59:15.490 Amber Lin: Go ahead!
383 00:59:15.490 ⇒ 00:59:23.110 Vinay Vittal: At 1 point are you? Are you provided with the resources that you would need to succeed.
384 00:59:23.400 ⇒ 00:59:28.009 Amber Lin: Yeah, in that case they listen to what we want, and
385 00:59:28.180 ⇒ 00:59:35.699 Amber Lin: Pmo also owns time allocations. So we would advise, Hey, this is what the amount of time we’re taking.
386 00:59:36.535 ⇒ 00:59:38.600 Amber Lin: I go to Utam and say, Hey.
387 00:59:39.170 ⇒ 00:59:44.110 Amber Lin: we’re going over time. This is something that we need to
388 00:59:44.270 ⇒ 00:59:47.180 Amber Lin: take down, and then we work on that. I don’t think
389 00:59:48.050 ⇒ 01:00:03.969 Amber Lin: right now. I think we’re less robust in limiting the resources spend. They usually give us what we need, because our primary goal is to do well for the client. So that’s also something that we would like to work on is to
390 01:00:04.280 ⇒ 01:00:07.590 Amber Lin: limit the resource if that makes sense. So.
391 01:00:07.810 ⇒ 01:00:13.160 Amber Lin: in short, that means I get all the resource I need, and I get the support that I need.
392 01:00:14.970 ⇒ 01:00:15.800 Vinay Vittal: Okay.
393 01:00:17.260 ⇒ 01:00:18.800 Alexander Lubka: That answer your question. I’m not sure if it.
394 01:00:18.800 ⇒ 01:00:23.800 Amber Lin: No, I don’t know if that answered your question. Can you repeat it in a different angle, just in case.
395 01:00:24.598 ⇒ 01:00:43.029 Vinay Vittal: So I mean, see, I understand. Like it’s a it’s a transformation. It’s a it’s a work in progress. But are you? Do you have adequate resources, meaning developers, team members, Sme, meaning everything documentation
396 01:00:43.330 ⇒ 01:00:56.169 Vinay Vittal: set in stone that you have, that you can work with, or at least have confidence that you can accomplish what’s given upon you, because I’ll explain it like this. My owner would tell me. I want this this this.
397 01:00:56.370 ⇒ 01:01:03.970 Vinay Vittal: and I’d be looking at my him like. I only have 8 people here, and the amount of work that you have given me is
398 01:01:04.160 ⇒ 01:01:07.220 Vinay Vittal: is like 9 months with 3 different teams.
399 01:01:08.160 ⇒ 01:01:17.229 Vinay Vittal: and I had to have that uncomfortable conversation with him, saying, We’re we’re not built for this. We need support. We need people to get this accomplished, and
400 01:01:17.730 ⇒ 01:01:27.679 Vinay Vittal: you know he was closed minded to it for a while, and then finally, when releases started stagnating, and things were not going off on as promised. He had to
401 01:01:28.220 ⇒ 01:01:39.469 Vinay Vittal: take my advice and start picking up 3rd party consultants. That would help us, you know. So my main question is, are, do you have the resources that you can accomplish everything like.
402 01:01:39.770 ⇒ 01:01:48.380 Vinay Vittal: because you’re saying there’s ad hoc requests that come in. But I I’m not familiar with our client coming to the stand ups. That’s something that
403 01:01:48.750 ⇒ 01:02:00.209 Vinay Vittal: is new to me. I’ve never had that type of experience where, if you’re working with your team, you’re discussing your work. If if any client were to come into that meeting.
404 01:02:00.420 ⇒ 01:02:07.140 Vinay Vittal: of course they’re gonna say, I want this, I want that. And I. This is too too slow and too fast, but
405 01:02:07.800 ⇒ 01:02:28.189 Vinay Vittal: to me they should not be given that opportunity to speak directly to my team. That should be a conversation that’s held with the correct personnel, right at least for it to go down the proper channel organized and then given to my team. My team needs to stay steady on working on what’s agreed upon, and what is a definitive right.
406 01:02:29.900 ⇒ 01:02:44.209 Alexander Lubka: I? Yeah, I’ve seen both. I’ve seen both where it’s closed and open. I’ve I’ve seen like more consultancy kind of things where standups are include some stakeholders. I think if I can answer one of your questions. Look, it is a startup. So it’s small.
407 01:02:44.510 ⇒ 01:03:07.660 Alexander Lubka: But I think you’re working with a way more receptive ownership and stake and leadership stakeholders. And you’ve experienced if you you’re probably not going to have everything you need when you 1st start. You’re not going to have every piece of documentation, but we can create it, or you’re not going to have every resource you may need. But that’s when we get a new con. I think it’s a different kind of environment.
408 01:03:08.060 ⇒ 01:03:08.920 Alexander Lubka: Then
409 01:03:09.060 ⇒ 01:03:33.180 Alexander Lubka: you may have experienced last time in the sense that it’s more consulting. So they hire for the teams for the projects that they get. So this role is open because they’ve got a bunch of new contracts. They need another project manager. So when you get when they but they’re going to take on contracts because they’re a growing company, and they’re going to take a lot of things on to build the company, to build the cash flow, to establish themselves, to get name recognition.
410 01:03:33.180 ⇒ 01:03:46.320 Alexander Lubka: And that’s okay. Like, if you get a contract. You don’t resource. That’s okay. They’re going to be receptive to. That’s why we’re doing this. We’re hiring a bunch of other people because they got new contracts. So you’re you might not. When they sign a contract you might be like Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! You know I don’t have all the resources for this
411 01:03:46.320 ⇒ 01:04:07.980 Alexander Lubka: then. But you’re working with people that are receptive to that. Be like, okay, well, let’s get you what you need. What do you need? And they’re going to hire what you need, whether it’s contractors or full time people or whatever. That’s the difference. And I think that’s the. And like the stand up thing like you’re going to be the probably project manager, so you could determine. If you think it’s inappropriate for that. You can have a discussion with your stakeholders and be like, I don’t think it’s appropriate for this.
412 01:04:07.980 ⇒ 01:04:24.139 Alexander Lubka: You’re gonna you’re you’re an autonomous project manager. This role is autonomous project manager. So you’d be able to determine the person that’s going to take this role is going to come in and be like, Okay, well, I’m hoping the person comes in. Be like, you know, this is working. This isn’t working.
413 01:04:24.386 ⇒ 01:04:37.539 Alexander Lubka: I want to explain to you why that’s not working, or I want. I have an improvement, or the Pmo. Or I want you. This piece of software has been really helpful for me, and I think you guys should consider it so. I guess ultimately the answer your question. You probably won’t have everything you need. But
414 01:04:38.060 ⇒ 01:04:42.720 Alexander Lubka: speak what you need, and they’re very receptive to getting you what you need, or finding a solution for you.
415 01:04:43.380 ⇒ 01:05:03.790 Vinay Vittal: Okay. So then, what is the morale like from the team that’s actually accomplishing the work, doing the coding on the boots on the ground like, what is their morale like? Because I know the business is starting to spider out and grow but what is their current state of mind? Are they content? Are they happy with what they’re doing? Or do they feel overworked or overburdened?
416 01:05:06.000 ⇒ 01:05:08.909 Amber Lin: Oh, each team, each team can be a bit different.
417 01:05:09.528 ⇒ 01:05:19.501 Amber Lin: The teams themselves are not affected by the growth. We are also as we grow, we’re always hiring for
418 01:05:20.120 ⇒ 01:05:24.589 Amber Lin: talent. That’s more suited for this environment because we are very.
419 01:05:24.590 ⇒ 01:05:32.879 Vinay Vittal: Can I pause you for a second? So you said that you were hiring new members and adjusting to the request. Right?
420 01:05:33.020 ⇒ 01:05:39.079 Vinay Vittal: What is a standard timeline on onboarding. When you pick up a new member or a new team.
421 01:05:41.420 ⇒ 01:05:54.469 Amber Lin: So you mean the opera logistics of from when they sign the contract and when they start working, or do you mean up until they’re fully incorporated. They’re comfortable with the project, and all.
422 01:05:54.470 ⇒ 01:05:57.479 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, ready to work and and have
423 01:05:57.700 ⇒ 01:06:02.840 Vinay Vittal: actionable items completed work like not just shadowing or watching, actually.
424 01:06:02.840 ⇒ 01:06:16.290 Amber Lin: Oh, I see we don’t really have time to shadow. So we’re we’re a consultancy. So our timeline is usually not very long. When we hire someone. Our our method is that we have a
425 01:06:16.290 ⇒ 01:06:38.210 Amber Lin: trial period, especially for engineers. The goal is that they can take on a few tickets, and we see how they do. Our owner, both of them started as developers or data. Their data. People say that they also know what it’s like to work on a project. And usually that’s how we assess for the engineering talent, how they would do so
426 01:06:38.610 ⇒ 01:06:55.509 Amber Lin: in terms of your question. How long does it take to onboard. They will start immediately. After they get access to everything, and then it might take some time for them to fully get incorporated, and we consider that when we estimate points and set due dates, but they will start immediately.
427 01:06:56.120 ⇒ 01:07:05.890 Vinay Vittal: Okay? So then the user stories are they done through? Does the Pm do that, or does? Who’s creating the the user stories for the the tasks.
428 01:07:09.230 ⇒ 01:07:10.240 Amber Lin: So
429 01:07:10.500 ⇒ 01:07:30.550 Amber Lin: when we start off a project, when we sign a contract, Pm works with sales to make sure. Okay, this is the roadmap we want to do, and from that we create the initial set of tickets and it gets adjusted, and we add new ones, as ad hoc. Request comes up. So that will be the responsibility of the Pm.
430 01:07:30.880 ⇒ 01:07:38.160 Amber Lin: And working with the tech lead to make sure that the tickets are in place. Do you usually ask your engineers to do the user stories.
431 01:07:38.720 ⇒ 01:07:52.199 Vinay Vittal: No, we. We had a business analyst that would would formulate the user stories. I would then sit the users. I would sit with him to understand it from my perspective, agree with the product managers that this is doable. And this is
432 01:07:52.830 ⇒ 01:07:57.590 Vinay Vittal: what we need. But the user stories would go through a couple of rounds of
433 01:07:58.850 ⇒ 01:08:09.570 Vinay Vittal: business analyst, 1st drawing up the requirements from the client getting those user stories, then our Smes would step in to divide the ticket into multiple tickets or to an epic.
434 01:08:10.040 ⇒ 01:08:10.680 Amber Lin: Sue.
435 01:08:11.520 ⇒ 01:08:32.469 Amber Lin: I see a lot of times. So apart from the set tickets in the roadmap, because we’re a consultancy, and our ultimate person. Purpose is to serve the client, and so, when they have ad hoc requests, we help them with those requests, for those turnaround time sometimes gets very fast, and you might not even have time to create
436 01:08:32.890 ⇒ 01:08:40.289 Amber Lin: to create very polished tickets or user stories. What would you do in that case?
437 01:08:43.239 ⇒ 01:08:45.029 Vinay Vittal: For the ad hoc requests.
438 01:08:45.250 ⇒ 01:08:45.960 Amber Lin: Yeah.
439 01:08:47.369 ⇒ 01:09:09.709 Vinay Vittal: Right? So if ad hoc requests are coming in, there has to be a an internal discussion on how we can accomplish that right. That’s why I kind of was perplexed about having clients in that call, because obviously, during the call, we’re all gonna say, yes, we’ll get it done. We’re gonna get it done. But is it planned according to what we have the resources that we have
440 01:09:09.890 ⇒ 01:09:31.670 Vinay Vittal: and have that filtered out and planned according to what like, you know, are these tickets being T-shirt size? I mean, user stories are one thing. But then we need to have somebody size them up, prioritize them and then get it accomplished. But that’s why, like I was concerned. Like, if they’re in the meeting saying things are going too slow. How did you respond to that. How did you?
441 01:09:31.819 ⇒ 01:09:44.799 Vinay Vittal: How did you sue the client to tell them that? No, whatever you’re witnessing or feeling, I would like to remove that thought, I will accomplish this like. So how did you respond to that?
442 01:09:45.890 ⇒ 01:09:48.989 Amber Lin: I mean a client in one of our meetings.
443 01:09:48.990 ⇒ 01:09:57.340 Vinay Vittal: Yes. Well, you mentioned that one of your clients was wanted to just terminate the project, and he was not happy with the progress that was being made
444 01:09:57.894 ⇒ 01:10:07.880 Vinay Vittal: like? Was it a fact that you were you were behind the ball, or was it due to the new requirements that were brought on that affected your trajectory.
445 01:10:08.310 ⇒ 01:10:20.739 Amber Lin: I see. I think I I hear 2 questions. I’ll answer the last 1 first.st So back, then that project we were behind because we weren’t very in touch with the client.
446 01:10:20.880 ⇒ 01:10:33.790 Amber Lin: and their requirements changed. So we were on track of what we were doing, but because we didn’t have documentation. As you said, we didn’t have documentations or change requests. We were shocked when
447 01:10:33.900 ⇒ 01:10:49.110 Amber Lin: or we weren’t able to defend our progress, because there it wasn’t very fairly documented because we started off the project very fast, and from then we’ve as Alex sharks joined. We have implemented more
448 01:10:49.250 ⇒ 01:11:06.539 Amber Lin: more documentation and more processes to make sure that changes are documented and that we have those requirements before we start a project. But in that meeting to answer your question we weren’t able to. We weren’t able to concretely tell them, Hey.
449 01:11:06.650 ⇒ 01:11:13.340 Amber Lin: your requests are done because we only did the previous request, and not the new one. So if that answers your
450 01:11:13.620 ⇒ 01:11:39.559 Amber Lin: last question. I know that you had another question on the client joining stand up and adding new requests. So right now, this is something that I’m dealing with because I’m taking over that project from the owner. I I personally, I agree with you. I don’t like this clients in our stand ups. So my suggestion to the owner is that I want to have special
451 01:11:39.700 ⇒ 01:11:57.340 Amber Lin: set out sections just for the clients to join right now. How it’s dealt with is that Robert? Because he has the most context? He answers those questions of the client because they usually clients join because they’re frustrated, and they’re
452 01:11:57.480 ⇒ 01:12:12.840 Amber Lin: they’re scared, or they feel they don’t have enough information. So ultimately our role. One is a complete work, but a big part of what we do is client service because we, we are a consulting firm. And that’s 1 of our
453 01:12:13.030 ⇒ 01:12:18.920 Amber Lin: core focuses that we not only need to get the work done, but the client needs to be happy.
454 01:12:19.040 ⇒ 01:12:21.220 Amber Lin: And so I think
455 01:12:21.820 ⇒ 01:12:28.329 Amber Lin: I hope I answer your question about how we’re dealing with right now. But I have a question of how are you going to
456 01:12:29.040 ⇒ 01:12:31.499 Amber Lin: define the success of
457 01:12:31.600 ⇒ 01:12:42.119 Amber Lin: our Pmo. Especially given that you have very different experiences, and how the company works, and I think we have a very different company than what you worked at before.
458 01:12:43.670 ⇒ 01:13:07.140 Vinay Vittal: Well, I I think the 1st step is like is like creating a strong documentation process here. I think that’s kind of where the biggest area that I feel from what I’ve spoken with you, and there’s no standard that has been set in place. So we’re kind of just playing the tune of accommodate to every customer, and that only works for a short period of time when ad hoc requests start becoming endless
459 01:13:07.190 ⇒ 01:13:21.339 Vinay Vittal: like it did for me and my last client. We couldn’t just keep handling it in such a unorganized, chaotic manner. We actually had to have airtight contracts, structurized documents that are going out, signed upon
460 01:13:21.460 ⇒ 01:13:24.449 Vinay Vittal: to create confidence because
461 01:13:25.310 ⇒ 01:13:39.645 Vinay Vittal: it it’s it’s natural for a client just to say, I want this. I want that and get away with it. But when you’re asking for things and changing things, there’s time, there’s money, and all those things need to be agreed upon before you can progress.
462 01:13:41.040 ⇒ 01:13:58.329 Vinay Vittal: my main thing that I would differentiate is just to create a a separate meeting with the client and to show them maybe Demo, or go through our success rates of what has been accomplished. If they bring up all these new ad hoc requests, I would have to say, allow me to check our change, request and
463 01:13:58.570 ⇒ 01:14:08.669 Vinay Vittal: revert back to my internal team to say, these ad hoc requests were agreed upon by this date. Where are we with those requests, and have those answers before I come to the meeting.
464 01:14:08.980 ⇒ 01:14:12.220 Amber Lin: Yeah, amber, that’s similar to like our change control process
465 01:14:12.590 ⇒ 01:14:31.129 Amber Lin: yeah, I, see I think my question was more, I know things got mixed up so like my fault on that. I think I want really wanted to see how you would measure success for your projects, or for even for the Pmo. Like, what means success
466 01:14:31.270 ⇒ 01:14:34.289 Amber Lin: based on what you’ve heard so far about our company.
467 01:14:35.030 ⇒ 01:14:42.163 Vinay Vittal: What measures success or well, 1st off, it’s everything is based off the clients or review, or their
468 01:14:42.650 ⇒ 01:14:51.029 Vinay Vittal: perception of what they asked for was it accomplished? That’s where really all the everything kind of stems. From that point
469 01:14:51.110 ⇒ 01:15:18.879 Vinay Vittal: I could say, oh, we completed it awesome! And our project is amazing, but that’s my opinion. I have to base my opinion off. Is my client completely happy with what they have given us. Keep in mind if there’s ad hoc requests that have never been verbalized or documented or discussed, I can’t, you know, take away or add to my success rate right? But what I can tell you is whatever I’ve agreed upon my project that was scoped out.
470 01:15:19.370 ⇒ 01:15:24.830 Vinay Vittal: and if my client is happy with that work, that would be the way I could gauge my success rate.
471 01:15:25.390 ⇒ 01:15:30.490 Amber Lin: Oh, okay, Alex, do you have anything?
472 01:15:31.076 ⇒ 01:15:46.479 Alexander Lubka: No, I think we were a little bit over. So I appreciate your extra time today. I know it’s late. Is this any? Do you have any final questions for us like? Is this something you’re interested in doing? Should we like move you on to like the final or consideration for this role. Just curious, like how you’re feeling.
473 01:15:46.750 ⇒ 01:15:49.729 Vinay Vittal: If I get to work with you, Alex, any day.
474 01:15:49.730 ⇒ 01:15:51.050 Alexander Lubka: Oh, this guy!
475 01:15:51.813 ⇒ 01:16:05.170 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, no. I’m interested in in just. I had a great conversation with with them. We’ve had a lot of same similarities of our 1st of all our upbringings, our our job experiences. So
476 01:16:05.820 ⇒ 01:16:15.989 Vinay Vittal: as from what I’ve heard from you is they have your back. They’re in your corner. They’re they’re aware of things. I think it seems like a much more mature based ownership than what I’ve
477 01:16:16.210 ⇒ 01:16:21.710 Vinay Vittal: experienced before, so that would be a blessing to me, and
478 01:16:21.920 ⇒ 01:16:42.989 Vinay Vittal: I’d like the opportunity to to make a structure within an organization and to know that you know, as a project manager, I helped create organization help create progress. Ultimately, that means a lot to me, right if I can. If I can remove the chaos and make it look into structurized work. That’s a success for me.
479 01:16:44.500 ⇒ 01:16:45.270 Alexander Lubka: Awesome.
480 01:16:45.830 ⇒ 01:16:48.879 Alexander Lubka: Well, we really appreciate your time. Anything else. Before we close out.
481 01:16:48.920 ⇒ 01:16:57.630 Vinay Vittal: Do you have any idea of when the decision is gonna be made, or your next steps? Do you have any anticipated timeline on that.
482 01:16:58.190 ⇒ 01:17:00.329 Amber Lin: Last I heard, I think, end of next week.
483 01:17:00.600 ⇒ 01:17:01.970 Vinay Vittal: End of next week. Okay.
484 01:17:01.970 ⇒ 01:17:02.620 Alexander Lubka: Amber.
485 01:17:02.920 ⇒ 01:17:03.460 Amber Lin: Yeah.
486 01:17:03.800 ⇒ 01:17:09.804 Vinay Vittal: And another thing is, I, we haven’t gone over finances at all, as far as like what the role would be
487 01:17:10.250 ⇒ 01:17:11.970 Vinay Vittal: paying or whatnot so.
488 01:17:12.420 ⇒ 01:17:14.290 Vinay Vittal: You guys had any insight on that.
489 01:17:15.082 ⇒ 01:17:22.147 Amber Lin: For that. It’s best if you discuss with Utam, because he handles the finance finances for the company.
490 01:17:22.540 ⇒ 01:17:24.509 Alexander Lubka: You can email him. Do you have his email?
491 01:17:24.510 ⇒ 01:17:25.559 Vinay Vittal: Yes, yes.
492 01:17:25.560 ⇒ 01:17:36.410 Alexander Lubka: Okay, you can. If that’s still an outstanding question, we can answer any like project management questions or like company questions. But for yeah, he’s a finance guy. So you could definitely, if you, if that’s an outstanding question for you, you could definitely email him.
493 01:17:36.710 ⇒ 01:17:37.460 Vinay Vittal: Sure.
494 01:17:38.030 ⇒ 01:17:47.690 Vinay Vittal: sure. And what’s your feedback of me so far after? I’m sure you guys have met many candidates. But what is your overall review or feedback of what? I’ve.
495 01:17:53.180 ⇒ 01:17:54.130 Amber Lin: Yeah. Go ahead.
496 01:17:54.693 ⇒ 01:18:08.376 Alexander Lubka: Well, I don’t know. I work at my main job. I work at a company called Bridgewater Vinay, and so it’s a that’s a very Bridgewatery question. So I I appreciate that. I I think. I think you’d be
497 01:18:08.940 ⇒ 01:18:19.567 Alexander Lubka: You’ve got a tremendous value to the company. I think you would help them elevate to then get them to the next level of Pmo Project management. Help us build out this Pmo.
498 01:18:20.130 ⇒ 01:18:29.879 Alexander Lubka: I I don’t. I’m consider. The only thing I’m concerned about is like the size I don’t know in the in the industry. If that, if it’ll be a good fit for that.
499 01:18:31.750 ⇒ 01:18:50.609 Alexander Lubka: based off just like you have to be very scrappy. You have to be very agile, and we have put things in place. We have put documentation in place since I’ve been here. And Amber had some stuff, too, but we’ve like professionalized the org a bit, and I think you could guess the next level. But I just want to set the expectation that if you were to come in it’s not going to be perfect.
500 01:18:50.610 ⇒ 01:19:06.389 Alexander Lubka: It’s not going to be, you know. There’s there’s things that are still missing. But, you’re going to have a receptive team like I said before, and you can you have a lot of ownership in that? So I just want to make sure, like, you know, you’re comfortable coming into a startup environment like that. That’s my only concern.
501 01:19:07.400 ⇒ 01:19:08.480 Alexander Lubka: and you’re on mute.
502 01:19:11.810 ⇒ 01:19:12.610 Vinay Vittal: Sorry.
503 01:19:14.150 ⇒ 01:19:34.420 Vinay Vittal: I’m 100% on taking on a challenge, but I also have to know that the owner has our back, and he’s he’s willing to make the changes that I would visualize throughout after seeing a company seeing things the way they’re working. If he agrees with my mentality that things need to change and or improve in a certain fashion. Then anything is.
504 01:19:34.610 ⇒ 01:19:40.699 Vinay Vittal: you know, can be accomplished. But if I’m just working on an island, that’s a very tough position to be in.
505 01:19:41.260 ⇒ 01:19:54.879 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, I don’t think that’d be the case. But yeah, I just want to set the expectation like, you’ll have a very receptive. I mean, you met Utam. So you know. You have a very receptive guy in your corner, but it’s gonna be. It’ll be scrappy.
506 01:19:55.200 ⇒ 01:20:04.644 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, well, I’m I’m scrappy, that’s all. My my experience level has kind of geared me for that. I’ve seen big. I’ve seen small. So I’m prepared for it.
507 01:20:05.290 ⇒ 01:20:09.470 Vinay Vittal: I. As long as I’m working with the right mindset of people, I think anything is doable.
508 01:20:09.730 ⇒ 01:20:11.440 Alexander Lubka: Cool amber.
509 01:20:11.700 ⇒ 01:20:15.812 Amber Lin: Yeah, that sounds great. I think that that was also my main concern is just because
510 01:20:16.900 ⇒ 01:20:35.049 Amber Lin: I I heard you mentioning we had. You had business analysts making the requirements. You had product managers, and we don’t have those, and I don’t think we’ll ever at least for at least for a while. I’m not gonna say, ever I take it back. We’re not gonna have them for a long time. It’s gonna be very scrappy.
511 01:20:35.150 ⇒ 01:20:58.159 Amber Lin: and it’s gonna be a very small team. And it’s gonna be small projects, small teams, lots of that. And we’re and then not only that, then it’s gonna change and grows, and then it has to change again. Me and Alex put in processes for the Pmo. And then we had to change that 2 weeks later, because things happen, and it didn’t fit after we implemented it. So
512 01:20:59.360 ⇒ 01:21:02.270 Amber Lin: I I have no doubt that
513 01:21:02.880 ⇒ 01:21:14.310 Amber Lin: you would implement new processes, and you would judge the situation. As it is, it’s just my concern that it’s a very different environment, and some knowledge might not apply.
514 01:21:15.580 ⇒ 01:21:17.989 Vinay Vittal: Sure I get that.
515 01:21:17.990 ⇒ 01:21:24.010 Amber Lin: Yeah. And that’s not something, whatever happened, and whatever where you worked at has already happened.
516 01:21:24.280 ⇒ 01:21:46.040 Vinay Vittal: Yeah, and sometimes too many chefs in the kitchen. You know, it kind of messes up the the way things are accomplished. And you know, working with a smaller knit team. Yes, it can be a little bit stressful at times, but you kind of master your domain, and you understand the business at a much better level. So when you’re geared to growing, you’re ready for that transformation.
517 01:21:49.690 ⇒ 01:21:51.760 Alexander Lubka: There won’t be too many chefs in the kitchen. Don’t worry.
518 01:21:52.720 ⇒ 01:21:57.679 Alexander Lubka: There you go. My voice will be heard. That’s that’s something that means a lot to me. So yeah.
519 01:21:57.680 ⇒ 01:22:00.500 Alexander Lubka: absolutely anything else. Team.
520 01:22:01.330 ⇒ 01:22:09.460 Amber Lin: No, not for me, Alex. I would love to stay over a little bit, have a few other positions and candidates. I want to talk to you about.
521 01:22:09.940 ⇒ 01:22:12.779 Alexander Lubka: Sure it was great to see you. Thanks for taking some time.
522 01:22:12.780 ⇒ 01:22:14.339 Vinay Vittal: Thanks. So much. Guys appreciate your time.
523 01:22:14.340 ⇒ 01:22:15.090 Amber Lin: Yeah, thank you. Vanessa.
524 01:22:15.090 ⇒ 01:22:15.920 Alexander Lubka: Next week.
525 01:22:15.920 ⇒ 01:22:16.800 Vinay Vittal: Take care!
526 01:22:17.110 ⇒ 01:22:17.810 Amber Lin: Bye.
527 01:22:22.090 ⇒ 01:22:23.410 Amber Lin: how would you feel.
528 01:22:24.359 ⇒ 01:22:32.179 Alexander Lubka: I feel like I. As I said, I think he’d be a a level setting, or I don’t know why I keep saying level setting up level
529 01:22:32.490 ⇒ 01:22:33.720 Alexander Lubka: person. I think you would.
530 01:22:34.290 ⇒ 01:22:36.550 Alexander Lubka: I think he would poke a lot and
531 01:22:36.750 ⇒ 01:22:39.810 Alexander Lubka: be vocal about things that he sees that aren’t working and help
532 01:22:40.280 ⇒ 01:22:42.540 Alexander Lubka: really good with the clients facing stuff.
533 01:22:43.135 ⇒ 01:22:52.599 Alexander Lubka: I just don’t know if this is you know, he answered that question, but you know I could only concern him. I am with with the size and the industry.
534 01:22:53.390 ⇒ 01:22:54.310 Amber Lin: Yeah.
535 01:22:54.940 ⇒ 01:23:00.490 Amber Lin: I don’t know why. Some part I mean just very skeptical. I don’t know why, maybe because he’s a man.
536 01:23:04.330 ⇒ 01:23:06.563 Amber Lin: I can’t help you there
537 01:23:07.210 ⇒ 01:23:25.179 Amber Lin: like I there’s this skepticism that I don’t know where where it’s coming from, and I feel like I’m a bit biased. So I want to ask for more opinions, which I’m positive you’re positive. Maybe also, I’m scared. He’s going to take my job, so I don’t know where it’s coming from. I have this
538 01:23:25.700 ⇒ 01:23:39.519 Amber Lin: skepticism that he’s not gonna manage it as the same way we do or whatever. But I can’t be convinced otherwise, because I do see that he’s going to that. He’s vocal. And we do need someone with
539 01:23:39.930 ⇒ 01:23:49.970 Amber Lin: opinions as someone that wants to change it. Because we just need someone to own this department essentially. So, he’s gonna good. Be a good fit for that.
540 01:23:50.090 ⇒ 01:24:02.450 Amber Lin: I don’t know how we are. If we are going to work together, I think I will have to be convinced or accustomed to working with him.
541 01:24:03.100 ⇒ 01:24:05.930 Amber Lin: I think he will work on that, though.
542 01:24:06.900 ⇒ 01:24:10.140 Alexander Lubka: Because what makes you say that.
543 01:24:10.170 ⇒ 01:24:13.750 Amber Lin: I I don’t know.
544 01:24:13.970 ⇒ 01:24:15.580 Amber Lin: That’s more of a
545 01:24:15.930 ⇒ 01:24:23.189 Amber Lin: I feel like vibes are crashing. If you really have me grill me on that, which is why I feel it’s unbased.
546 01:24:24.150 ⇒ 01:24:30.080 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, I it’s gonna be a change. I mean, you’re you’re you’re experiencing a change with
547 01:24:30.270 ⇒ 01:24:32.130 Alexander Lubka: a change in role. And I think.
548 01:24:32.130 ⇒ 01:24:32.810 Amber Lin: Hmm.
549 01:24:33.620 ⇒ 01:24:37.660 Alexander Lubka: What I’m hearing is, I think it’s a part of a lot of or some of it is uncertainty.
550 01:24:37.850 ⇒ 01:24:42.670 Alexander Lubka: I it sounds like they gave you a title. Great, but you don’t know what that entails yet. Right.
551 01:24:42.670 ⇒ 01:24:43.350 Amber Lin: -
552 01:24:43.350 ⇒ 01:24:50.800 Alexander Lubka: So yeah, that could be scary. Because you’re going into a new role where you haven’t had as much experience with. That’s undefined.
553 01:24:51.970 ⇒ 01:24:57.899 Alexander Lubka: You have a pretty defined role now. And you see, I mean, this is person. This is somebody is to take your job. That’s what this is designed for.
554 01:24:57.900 ⇒ 01:25:11.409 Amber Lin: Yeah. Yeah. And then it’s like, Oh, can he? Can he really do well of like, are, are he? Is he just saying things? Or was it really like
555 01:25:11.860 ⇒ 01:25:15.589 Amber Lin: what? What he said? And is he going to do this job?
556 01:25:15.890 ⇒ 01:25:23.200 Amber Lin: Well, and like lots of skepticism? Because this is a big hire that we’re making.
557 01:25:23.200 ⇒ 01:25:30.200 Alexander Lubka: That’s healthy, that’s it’s fair to be skeptical. I I don’t know how we could reassure you on any candidate of those things, though.
558 01:25:30.200 ⇒ 01:25:34.789 Amber Lin: That’s true, that’s true. And also because we don’t really have a
559 01:25:35.510 ⇒ 01:25:45.210 Amber Lin: comparison. I like definitely, if I’m going to compare it with some of him. It’s definitely gonna be him like, if we want someone to lead, I think he can lead.
560 01:25:45.625 ⇒ 01:25:48.119 Alexander Lubka: His name’s Usam. What’s his name?
561 01:25:48.120 ⇒ 01:25:48.900 Amber Lin: Tusama.
562 01:25:48.900 ⇒ 01:25:49.380 Alexander Lubka: Osama.
563 01:25:49.380 ⇒ 01:25:53.990 Amber Lin: That I talked to you about that I interviewed the I think Tuesday.
564 01:25:54.810 ⇒ 01:25:58.020 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, I I do. You want me to meet him, too?
565 01:25:58.210 ⇒ 01:25:59.340 Amber Lin: No, it’s okay.
566 01:25:59.630 ⇒ 01:26:07.400 Alexander Lubka: Are you? You think this, you think, is better a better candidate than it was anybody else in our pipeline for this role.
567 01:26:08.204 ⇒ 01:26:19.819 Amber Lin: I know there’s Felipe, and then there’s another person called Lester that I’m meeting on Monday, but I think Utam’s less excited about those 2.
568 01:26:20.360 ⇒ 01:26:25.760 Amber Lin: I think we really want to lock down Vin. I I really think part of it is my
569 01:26:26.440 ⇒ 01:26:39.749 Amber Lin: animosity, because he’s gonna take my job and I don’t have a certain out and then it’s also skeptic. Sometimes he’s different than other people in the company.
570 01:26:40.540 ⇒ 01:26:42.220 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, but that’s okay.
571 01:26:42.220 ⇒ 01:26:45.060 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think so.
572 01:26:45.060 ⇒ 01:26:46.910 Alexander Lubka: The fact that he’s different is.
573 01:26:46.910 ⇒ 01:26:47.590 Amber Lin: It’s good.
574 01:26:47.590 ⇒ 01:26:51.140 Alexander Lubka: Should be embrace. Yeah, it should be embraced. He’s got to bring a new perspective.
575 01:26:51.670 ⇒ 01:26:52.080 Amber Lin: Yeah.
576 01:26:52.080 ⇒ 01:26:59.450 Alexander Lubka: He’s a he’s a good. He’s a more seasoned project manager. He’s seen more things. I think some of it discard him, though I think he has.
577 01:26:59.450 ⇒ 01:27:04.900 Amber Lin: I do think so. He has been quite scarred by his previous boss. He said a lot of sad things.
578 01:27:04.900 ⇒ 01:27:10.229 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, that place, like I think Utam said that, too. That place did sound like a shithole.
579 01:27:10.490 ⇒ 01:27:19.179 Alexander Lubka: So I think he has trauma from that? Because when he’s when he was asking, he was very particular about you know, how much space do I give? Do I get the resources that I need. That’s what.
580 01:27:19.490 ⇒ 01:27:20.659 Alexander Lubka: That’s what pardon me, is like.
581 01:27:20.660 ⇒ 01:27:21.393 Amber Lin: Poor man!
582 01:27:21.760 ⇒ 01:27:23.429 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, like you’ve been. You’ve seen something.
583 01:27:24.420 ⇒ 01:27:25.310 Amber Lin: Yeah.
584 01:27:25.310 ⇒ 01:27:34.789 Alexander Lubka: That’s why I wanted level sentiments like you’re not. You’re not gonna have everything you need. It’s a startup like you’re. But but these guys will get you what you need, or they’ll figure out a solution for you.
585 01:27:35.520 ⇒ 01:27:39.519 Alexander Lubka: But you’re not gonna have everything you need. That’s the whole point of a startup is, you build what you need.
586 01:27:39.880 ⇒ 01:27:40.670 Amber Lin: Yeah.
587 01:27:41.220 ⇒ 01:27:44.540 Alexander Lubka: So that was concerning to me, but I.
588 01:27:44.540 ⇒ 01:27:58.309 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think it’s a good thing, because Utah can quickly convince them. Otherwise like that. That’s just let’s just trust issues. If you get a new cat. You gotta convince. You gotta convince it that this is a safe place. I think that’s okay.
589 01:27:58.540 ⇒ 01:27:59.850 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, I think.
590 01:27:59.850 ⇒ 01:28:00.430 Amber Lin: Oh!
591 01:28:00.550 ⇒ 01:28:01.310 Alexander Lubka: I think.
592 01:28:01.310 ⇒ 01:28:05.909 Alexander Lubka: Well, in the role, I think he’d be different. He’d be a different perspective. But I don’t think that’s a bad.
593 01:28:06.740 ⇒ 01:28:11.230 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think so. I’m I.
594 01:28:14.160 ⇒ 01:28:16.890 Amber Lin: Yeah, I do think he will do this role. Well.
595 01:28:17.170 ⇒ 01:28:19.750 Alexander Lubka: Yeah. I also don’t know the money. So sorry.
596 01:28:19.750 ⇒ 01:28:22.260 Amber Lin: Yeah, he might. I don’t know. Like.
597 01:28:22.260 ⇒ 01:28:22.969 Alexander Lubka: It’s a.
598 01:28:22.970 ⇒ 01:28:23.790 Amber Lin: I know that part.
599 01:28:23.790 ⇒ 01:28:26.319 Alexander Lubka: Down. It was on it before he took it down.
600 01:28:26.320 ⇒ 01:28:29.660 Amber Lin: Yeah, probably because Uton wants to negotiate.
601 01:28:30.570 ⇒ 01:28:33.459 Amber Lin: Yeah, we’ll we’ll let Utam worry about that.
602 01:28:33.610 ⇒ 01:28:34.950 Alexander Lubka: Yeah. That’s who it comes from.
603 01:28:35.090 ⇒ 01:28:39.769 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think it will work. I think it will work.
604 01:28:39.770 ⇒ 01:28:41.270 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, I’m gonna recommend him.
605 01:28:41.550 ⇒ 01:28:42.240 Amber Lin: Okay.
606 01:28:42.580 ⇒ 01:28:56.260 Amber Lin: And I oh, that’s what I was thinking about. I also don’t know how to hire someone more senior than me like I don’t know what I should be thinking what my role is in this evaluation. So like, I am also a bit
607 01:28:56.510 ⇒ 01:28:57.640 Amber Lin: lost.
608 01:28:59.988 ⇒ 01:29:02.330 Alexander Lubka: I don’t think that matters.
609 01:29:02.630 ⇒ 01:29:03.280 Amber Lin: Yeah.
610 01:29:03.610 ⇒ 01:29:04.980 Alexander Lubka: It’s your perspective.
611 01:29:06.200 ⇒ 01:29:10.840 Alexander Lubka: It’s if you think you mean it’s pretty, it’s it’s your job now.
612 01:29:11.690 ⇒ 01:29:12.740 Alexander Lubka: So if you.
613 01:29:13.360 ⇒ 01:29:17.290 Alexander Lubka: Things that you’re doing. Now then, yeah, at plus some.
614 01:29:17.780 ⇒ 01:29:21.860 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think again, he can totally handle what I’m already doing
615 01:29:22.030 ⇒ 01:29:26.119 Amber Lin: like, and it sounds like he will be able to do more than what I’m doing.
616 01:29:26.290 ⇒ 01:29:38.110 Amber Lin: So, apart from personal feelings which I don’t even know where they came from, like I think he’s a capable candidate, especially if he’s seen tougher clients which we would love, someone who knows how to deal with tough clients.
617 01:29:38.440 ⇒ 01:29:41.599 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, I think he can. He’s just tough luck.
618 01:29:41.600 ⇒ 01:29:44.019 Amber Lin: No poor guy.
619 01:29:44.020 ⇒ 01:29:54.019 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, but no, I wouldn’t. I mean, don’t worry about that. I mean they wouldn’t be. They’re not hiring to get rid of you. They’re hiring to replace you for a new role.
620 01:29:56.020 ⇒ 01:29:56.760 Amber Lin: Yeah.
621 01:29:56.760 ⇒ 01:30:06.780 Alexander Lubka: And if it, if the Chief of Staff stuff doesn’t work out for whatever reason, then you could go back to project management. They, I mean, they clearly admire you if they want to elevate you to a different role.
622 01:30:09.630 ⇒ 01:30:13.509 Amber Lin: Okay, my worries has been calmed. Let’s go. Recommend him.
623 01:30:13.510 ⇒ 01:30:15.369 Alexander Lubka: You started in March or April.
624 01:30:15.370 ⇒ 01:30:17.090 Amber Lin: I started, March 6, th yeah.
625 01:30:17.766 ⇒ 01:30:19.119 Alexander Lubka: Who’s counting?
626 01:30:20.317 ⇒ 01:30:22.939 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, for for them to do all this
627 01:30:23.190 ⇒ 01:30:28.450 Alexander Lubka: since March. What? 5, 6 months? Yeah, that’s a very impressive.
628 01:30:29.820 ⇒ 01:30:35.709 Amber Lin: Yeah, we’re also like, we also move very fast. And there’s not much hierarchy.
629 01:30:36.020 ⇒ 01:30:38.529 Amber Lin: So very flat. But that’s a startup. So
630 01:30:38.530 ⇒ 01:30:46.482 Amber Lin: yeah, I like that. Okay, it’s very late for you. Thank you for your additional emotional consulting afterwards.
631 01:30:47.320 ⇒ 01:30:48.990 Amber Lin: I feel like much better.
632 01:30:48.990 ⇒ 01:30:50.829 Alexander Lubka: What’s going on with the Coordinator role.
633 01:30:50.940 ⇒ 01:31:15.639 Amber Lin: Oh, I really think Giselle would work. She has. So she started in customer service, and then, 8 years ago, started project management, and I can see the influence on on that and her at her last role where she was at there for I think, 3 or 4 years they had a robust pmo, and it was also agency environment. So client work and she has. They have a very similar
634 01:31:16.560 ⇒ 01:31:31.347 Amber Lin: project, faces, phases as we do and she interfaces with sales, and then at project closing. It’s either maybe upsell or you close a project. It’s very similar to what you just set up for us, so she would fit in
635 01:31:32.700 ⇒ 01:31:46.210 Amber Lin: Probably the data and marketing stuff might take sorry data. AI stuff might take her a while to catch up on, but as a coordinator you don’t need to know that much. And she has experience.
636 01:31:46.620 ⇒ 01:31:48.930 Amber Lin: So she was a.
637 01:31:49.420 ⇒ 01:32:06.179 Amber Lin: The projects were web development, and then design, etcetera. So there is some technical technical elements about that. What I really like is that she’s communicated has attention to detail. Ha! Has contributed to making sop like
638 01:32:06.360 ⇒ 01:32:12.879 Amber Lin: establishing processes. She wants to teach others on how how to
639 01:32:13.880 ⇒ 01:32:20.489 Amber Lin: avoid the failures she had. She has had before. Her previous Pmo sounds like a pretty
640 01:32:20.930 ⇒ 01:32:45.599 Amber Lin: tight knit play. So every Friday they do a team review, and they listen to the client calls together. And I do think she’s very oriented in terms of client satisfaction how to communicate. So I do like that part about her. And for a coordinator role, I think she’s very much, very sufficient for a coordinator role, and I think she can very fast level up to just
641 01:32:45.930 ⇒ 01:32:47.540 Amber Lin: to be a Pm.
642 01:32:48.410 ⇒ 01:32:49.710 Amber Lin: That’s my take.
643 01:32:49.710 ⇒ 01:32:57.589 Alexander Lubka: That’s great, and the role is more coordinator roles, more of like setting up meetings and like documentation. What what do they? What is it supposed to be.
644 01:32:57.590 ⇒ 01:33:24.389 Amber Lin: Coordinator is so essentially to support a project manager is for the smaller projects, so say, oh, we gotta have keep track of these tasks and make sure the client knows what you’re doing. Set up this beating between teams, make sure progress gets communicated. So it’s a simpler, essentially simpler version of project management. That’s my understanding. It could include other things.
645 01:33:25.940 ⇒ 01:33:26.630 Alexander Lubka: Okay.
646 01:33:27.140 ⇒ 01:33:27.610 Amber Lin: Yeah.
647 01:33:27.610 ⇒ 01:33:31.979 Alexander Lubka: Good. I’m glad you you found a client you like, or a candidate you like so far.
648 01:33:32.130 ⇒ 01:33:32.780 Amber Lin: Yeah.
649 01:33:33.160 ⇒ 01:33:35.630 Alexander Lubka: And you have a couple more lined up for next week, too.
650 01:33:36.404 ⇒ 01:33:38.890 Amber Lin: I do. I have one. On
651 01:33:39.290 ⇒ 01:33:47.440 Amber Lin: Wednesday. I’m talking to Usama next Friday. I don’t cause I he booked today. I didn’t want to talk today it was too much
652 01:33:48.024 ⇒ 01:34:02.570 Amber Lin: but like I’ve already seen 2 that I think I, Utam, also wants to move forward with these 2. So the other ones, he says, like, Oh, we should talk to them. But we wanna get talk to these 2 1.st
653 01:34:02.870 ⇒ 01:34:03.530 Alexander Lubka: Cool.
654 01:34:03.670 ⇒ 01:34:07.150 Amber Lin: Yeah, so hopefully, we’ll be at the end of this hiring.
655 01:34:07.350 ⇒ 01:34:08.339 Alexander Lubka: Very exciting. I’m glad.
656 01:34:08.340 ⇒ 01:34:09.120 Amber Lin: Yes.
657 01:34:12.389 ⇒ 01:34:16.299 Alexander Lubka: Great? Well, I’m gonna give my feedback and then, okay, be done.
658 01:34:16.300 ⇒ 01:34:26.150 Amber Lin: Yeah. When you do feedback, can you also include how we conducted this interview just like a quick reflection or recommendations on how we can improve it.
659 01:34:26.150 ⇒ 01:34:26.890 Alexander Lubka: Sure.
660 01:34:26.890 ⇒ 01:34:28.180 Amber Lin: Yeah, thank, you.
661 01:34:28.550 ⇒ 01:34:29.330 Alexander Lubka: Okay.
662 01:34:29.330 ⇒ 01:34:31.659 Amber Lin: Doesn’t have to be today. You can also tell me Monday.
663 01:34:31.930 ⇒ 01:34:33.289 Alexander Lubka: Yeah, I’ll see how I feel.
664 01:34:33.540 ⇒ 01:34:36.040 Amber Lin: Okay. Sounds good. Have a good weekend.
665 01:34:36.040 ⇒ 01:34:37.220 Alexander Lubka: See you talk to you Monday.
666 01:34:37.220 ⇒ 01:34:38.950 Amber Lin: Yeah, bye, bye.