Meeting Title: PM Sync - Planning Date: 2025-10-03 Meeting participants: Justin Breshears, Justin’s Notetaker (Otter.ai), Uttam Kumaran, Rico Rejoso, Amber Lin
WEBVTT
1 00:01:10.940 ⇒ 00:01:12.809 Uttam Kumaran: Guys, can you hear me?
2 00:01:13.270 ⇒ 00:01:13.950 Justin Breshears: Hey.
3 00:01:14.640 ⇒ 00:01:15.450 Uttam Kumaran: Ayy.
4 00:01:18.850 ⇒ 00:01:20.289 Uttam Kumaran: How’s the day going?
5 00:01:21.060 ⇒ 00:01:21.760 Justin Breshears: Good!
6 00:01:22.820 ⇒ 00:01:24.110 Rico Rejoso: How about yours?
7 00:01:24.750 ⇒ 00:01:30.149 Uttam Kumaran: Just feeling down a little bit, but I’ll get better this weekend.
8 00:01:30.150 ⇒ 00:01:31.750 Justin Breshears: Yeah, you can get some rest.
9 00:01:31.750 ⇒ 00:01:38.569 Uttam Kumaran: after the, like, we had demos and a couple meetings, and then I was like, oh, I feel so…
10 00:01:38.810 ⇒ 00:01:45.369 Uttam Kumaran: tired, I’m like, okay, I’m just gonna take a nap for a sec so I can be ready for this, and… yeah.
11 00:01:45.620 ⇒ 00:01:51.309 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m good, this has been a really, really solid week, so I was actually just looking at my…
12 00:01:51.780 ⇒ 00:01:56.300 Uttam Kumaran: My next week, and I’m excited, I have a lot of…
13 00:01:56.600 ⇒ 00:02:02.619 Uttam Kumaran: seemingly a lot of free time, so I get to use that to mock out a bunch of big things, like…
14 00:02:02.740 ⇒ 00:02:06.780 Uttam Kumaran: I wanna really… I wanna really make a dent on all of our measurement stuff.
15 00:02:07.310 ⇒ 00:02:09.759 Uttam Kumaran: So I’ll spend a little bit of time on that.
16 00:02:10.380 ⇒ 00:02:12.250 Uttam Kumaran: The rest of today, and then…
17 00:02:13.600 ⇒ 00:02:20.390 Uttam Kumaran: couple days next week, and we should have a V1 of, like, core… Delivery and core,
18 00:02:20.490 ⇒ 00:02:23.120 Uttam Kumaran: Finance Dashboard out by next week.
19 00:02:23.470 ⇒ 00:02:30.870 Uttam Kumaran: And then the last one I want to work on is the AI team, sort of, like, impact dashboard, but yeah.
20 00:02:33.070 ⇒ 00:02:34.660 Justin Breshears: Heck yeah, that’s awesome.
21 00:02:35.450 ⇒ 00:02:41.640 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and I think even, you know, even batteries, I think, will be able to develop
22 00:02:42.310 ⇒ 00:02:49.179 Uttam Kumaran: Probably dashboards that you can just select your clients, or we can develop one for, you know, the…
23 00:02:49.850 ⇒ 00:03:00.119 Uttam Kumaran: the three of y’all, and you could have your own, basically, where you select your clients, you can have a deeper view on it as well, so that could be something that we could work on, too, once I have the basics down.
24 00:03:00.600 ⇒ 00:03:03.339 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I think that’ll be the natural next step.
25 00:03:03.710 ⇒ 00:03:04.390 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
26 00:03:07.660 ⇒ 00:03:14.750 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. Well, I kind of… maybe I can drive this conversation. I just wanted to…
27 00:03:14.900 ⇒ 00:03:16.550 Uttam Kumaran: Meat, just to, like.
28 00:03:17.050 ⇒ 00:03:24.860 Uttam Kumaran: maybe do a little bit of a mini-retro on how this week went. I want to talk through…
29 00:03:25.100 ⇒ 00:03:27.219 Uttam Kumaran: And wrap up, sort of, the…
30 00:03:27.600 ⇒ 00:03:31.480 Uttam Kumaran: kind of, like, how I finished up allocations, and we can… I want to look through…
31 00:03:31.770 ⇒ 00:03:35.870 Uttam Kumaran: I didn’t look through the person-by-person yet, so we could do that together as well.
32 00:03:36.230 ⇒ 00:03:42.620 Uttam Kumaran: And then we have some small things, like I want to talk about the Remo adjustment.
33 00:03:43.000 ⇒ 00:03:45.860 Uttam Kumaran: I wanna talk about…
34 00:03:46.120 ⇒ 00:03:50.190 Uttam Kumaran: I know, like, README is starting back up again, so I just want to chat about
35 00:03:50.360 ⇒ 00:03:54.149 Uttam Kumaran: A couple of things so we can come into Monday’s meeting prepared.
36 00:03:54.450 ⇒ 00:03:58.409 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, so… I don’t know, I guess, like.
37 00:03:59.580 ⇒ 00:04:04.210 Uttam Kumaran: My, sort of, question for y’all this week is,
38 00:04:05.150 ⇒ 00:04:12.570 Uttam Kumaran: you know, the goal of this week, I think we… we had a much different delivery meeting on Monday, and… and I think that was really, really…
39 00:04:12.770 ⇒ 00:04:19.160 Uttam Kumaran: more effective, and I think this next Monday, too, will be great. I think we,
40 00:04:19.720 ⇒ 00:04:28.440 Uttam Kumaran: you know, Justin, I think you’re kind of now on board on several clients, including HIP, Interlude, default.
41 00:04:29.750 ⇒ 00:04:39.350 Uttam Kumaran: So I guess my question is to kind of just hear from each of y’all, maybe, like, just a few sentences on, like, if you were to describe the theme of the week.
42 00:04:39.610 ⇒ 00:04:41.120 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what went well?
43 00:04:41.580 ⇒ 00:04:45.529 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of, like, roadbuzz… what do they say, Rosebud Thorn?
44 00:04:45.680 ⇒ 00:04:49.680 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, tell me, like, what went well.
45 00:04:49.830 ⇒ 00:04:53.399 Uttam Kumaran: What didn’t go well, and then what are you looking forward to next week?
46 00:04:55.370 ⇒ 00:05:15.279 Amber Lin: Yeah, let’s go alphabetical, so Amber… Okay, I can start. I think what went well is that I was able to focus a lot more on my clients this week, which means that less things get dropped, and I can answer their concerns better, which is really nice.
47 00:05:15.560 ⇒ 00:05:21.669 Amber Lin: And then… think what needs improvement is, I still think…
48 00:05:22.160 ⇒ 00:05:35.719 Amber Lin: my time allocations and keeping people to their allocated time is not the greatest, so that relates to, like, grooming and then how we plan, so I’m gonna see what I can…
49 00:05:35.720 ⇒ 00:05:42.699 Amber Lin: After I send the update, so close out what I have for this week, I’m gonna go think about that and how I can do that better for next week.
50 00:05:42.950 ⇒ 00:05:46.919 Amber Lin: And I think also…
51 00:05:47.990 ⇒ 00:05:58.919 Amber Lin: Remo was both, like, what went well and what didn’t. What didn’t was that it took until now, but it was really fast when I actually kicked it off, so it made me realize it can get
52 00:05:58.930 ⇒ 00:06:08.160 Amber Lin: can get done really fast. Once we start talking specifically about Remo, I just had to kick off a client, so I have some updates.
53 00:06:08.160 ⇒ 00:06:08.660 Uttam Kumaran: Nice.
54 00:06:08.660 ⇒ 00:06:12.779 Amber Lin: So they’re very wishy-washy, so I’ll.
55 00:06:12.780 ⇒ 00:06:13.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
56 00:06:13.110 ⇒ 00:06:14.289 Amber Lin: That’s really snow.
57 00:06:14.290 ⇒ 00:06:15.230 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
58 00:06:17.530 ⇒ 00:06:22.070 Uttam Kumaran: Great. That’s great. What do you,
59 00:06:22.190 ⇒ 00:06:24.890 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, tell me what you’re, like, looking forward to next week.
60 00:06:25.970 ⇒ 00:06:35.880 Amber Lin: So for next week, because I’ll be out of office starting Wednesday for a week, my main focus is just to make sure that everything’s planned,
61 00:06:36.010 ⇒ 00:06:52.540 Amber Lin: for the remainder of that week, and also for the upcoming week, so that making sure we have sprints and people know how to do to, so the project team can help function, and also letting clients know that, hey, I’ll be out, who they can go ask for help.
62 00:06:53.180 ⇒ 00:06:58.319 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so maybe let’s… we can just talk about that. Do you need me to sub in, or I guess…
63 00:06:58.890 ⇒ 00:07:00.249 Uttam Kumaran: What do you think,
64 00:07:00.590 ⇒ 00:07:07.650 Uttam Kumaran: And I’m hoping, Justin, like, I don’t even know how we… how you’ve handled previously, like, PM out of office, but let me know what you think.
65 00:07:07.800 ⇒ 00:07:21.730 Amber Lin: I think on Eden, they can… they can handle that. I think on Eden, we’re… we’re a very small and close team, and they have really good relationships with Henry as well, so I’m not worried about Eden.
66 00:07:22.340 ⇒ 00:07:26.760 Uttam Kumaran: Like, should we just nominate someone per client to just run PM?
67 00:07:28.070 ⇒ 00:07:30.750 Amber Lin: sure, yeah.
68 00:07:30.750 ⇒ 00:07:32.860 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I guess that’s a question, yeah, I don’t know.
69 00:07:33.700 ⇒ 00:07:50.870 Amber Lin: Yes, on Eden, Awash and Demolade… Awash and Henry, support each other mostly. I think Henry helps run, but Awash can’t support. On Urban Stems, I’ll let Demilade help run. I’ll just give him all the tickets and what he needs to do.
70 00:07:50.870 ⇒ 00:08:00.859 Amber Lin: Because he’s the closest with the client. And then, on ABC, I’ll most likely ask Sam to step in, but…
71 00:08:00.950 ⇒ 00:08:17.979 Amber Lin: it’s mostly triage issues that I need someone to help me handle, which I will… I will sync with the team and help let… make sure they help me on that. And then on the Remo side, Awash is there. There’s not really ritual, so it’s mostly…
72 00:08:18.140 ⇒ 00:08:22.660 Amber Lin: Just nailing down that engagement, which hopefully…
73 00:08:23.060 ⇒ 00:08:29.459 Amber Lin: There’s some flux over there. And on Ellie, it’s just,
74 00:08:29.790 ⇒ 00:08:33.620 Amber Lin: Zoran, so Zoran’s the only person, he’s working directly with the client.
75 00:08:35.510 ⇒ 00:08:38.970 Amber Lin: So that’s my plans. I think they should be fine.
76 00:08:40.169 ⇒ 00:08:45.129 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, yeah, Justin, what do you think, from your perspective, like, how should we typically handle PM?
77 00:08:45.130 ⇒ 00:09:04.220 Justin Breshears: Yeah, so I’ve done this a couple of different ways in the past, because this is always a tough one, right? I have found that, like, when PMs are out, it’s not, like, the current work that’s planned that becomes the issue, it’s, communications that, like, get dropped, I think. So, like.
78 00:09:04.460 ⇒ 00:09:08.240 Justin Breshears: Amber, who’s gonna do, like, the weekly update for them?
79 00:09:08.640 ⇒ 00:09:10.639 Amber Lin: Right now…
80 00:09:10.930 ⇒ 00:09:17.990 Amber Lin: in every Friday meeting, at least for bigger clients, such as Eden, I asked all the team to
81 00:09:18.210 ⇒ 00:09:30.739 Amber Lin: put in their updates, and we talk about it there. And then I do the final polishing. So, the client will get the content, and then, in terms of formatting,
82 00:09:31.750 ⇒ 00:09:39.439 Amber Lin: I’m… I’ll… I think I’ll sync with Henry to see how he can do that. And for the other clients,
83 00:09:40.600 ⇒ 00:09:42.780 Amber Lin: Good point.
84 00:09:42.780 ⇒ 00:10:00.590 Justin Breshears: Yeah, so this is where, like, I’ve found it is helpful to have a, like, point person, like, identified for projects when… when a PM is out. And, like, when I’ve had, like, a coverage PM, quote-unquote, in the past, it’s not necessarily that…
85 00:10:00.870 ⇒ 00:10:13.089 Justin Breshears: they take over all the duties of the PM that was on there regularly. It’s more just, like, they’re there in case anything goes wrong, client has questions, they’re being responsive, like, all the stuff, because, like.
86 00:10:13.870 ⇒ 00:10:19.079 Justin Breshears: you know, let’s take an example on the external channels with the clients in Slack, like.
87 00:10:19.220 ⇒ 00:10:28.780 Justin Breshears: our heads-down engineers aren’t really looking at that stuff and, like, you know, maintaining standards on communication with the plant, right? So, having somebody identified that’s, like.
88 00:10:28.930 ⇒ 00:10:44.899 Justin Breshears: hey, client, I’m out Wednesday through Friday, this is the person that, like, you should tag during that time, or that you can go to, or whatever. That’s a big thing to have, just identified, any responsibilities that, like, weekly updates or communications to a client.
89 00:10:45.330 ⇒ 00:10:47.200 Justin Breshears: Things need to be identified.
90 00:10:47.500 ⇒ 00:10:55.190 Justin Breshears: So… I think it’s better, almost, to, like, have somebody to step in just for, like, that limited
91 00:10:55.690 ⇒ 00:10:57.420 Justin Breshears: Like, they don’t necessarily have to, like.
92 00:10:58.190 ⇒ 00:11:06.889 Justin Breshears: You know, run stand-ups and, like, do everything if it’s just a couple of days, but having somebody that has eyes on the project is… is helpful.
93 00:11:06.990 ⇒ 00:11:15.160 Justin Breshears: Now, if it’s… my rule of thumb in the past was always, if it’s over 3 days, like, you’re out for an entire week, then you need, like.
94 00:11:15.370 ⇒ 00:11:18.810 Justin Breshears: more solidified coverage, but if it’s, like, under a week.
95 00:11:19.020 ⇒ 00:11:23.720 Justin Breshears: You know, you can kind of get by with just, like, eyeballs on and, like, a point person identified.
96 00:11:23.980 ⇒ 00:11:37.840 Amber Lin: Yeah, sounds good, that’s a good rec. I will… so, I’ll get a point person each for them, I’ll sync with them, and then I’ll also list out a checklist of what they need to do, and templates if they need.
97 00:11:38.340 ⇒ 00:11:49.330 Justin Breshears: Yeah. And, like, I… I can probably create this for Brainforge, but in the past, I created an out-of-office template for, like, knowledge transfer on, like, the state of the project, so…
98 00:11:49.420 ⇒ 00:11:59.329 Justin Breshears: I might, in the future, come up with something similar, where it’s like, here’s the current action items, here’s the current things we’re tracking, here’s the current blockers, like, you know, stuff like that.
99 00:11:59.640 ⇒ 00:12:02.939 Justin Breshears: Just kind of have, like, PMs fill that stuff out for when they’re out.
100 00:12:03.090 ⇒ 00:12:16.910 Justin Breshears: They were like, here’s the schedule, you know, because, like, we don’t always know when all the rituals are happening, and, like, stuff like that, so… I just had, like, a one-pager that I would have everybody fill out for each project when they went out of office that just had all the relevant information on it.
101 00:12:17.230 ⇒ 00:12:17.960 Amber Lin: Okay.
102 00:12:18.440 ⇒ 00:12:22.319 Justin Breshears: I don’t have that right now, but that might be something useful in the future.
103 00:12:22.490 ⇒ 00:12:34.030 Amber Lin: Yeah, sounds good. I’m… it’s okay if we don’t have it this time, I’ll… I can run my checklist by you, and I’ll sync with the responsible persons for each project.
104 00:12:34.030 ⇒ 00:12:40.340 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I think… yeah, I think probably my… my other recommendation is just to nominate one person per client.
105 00:12:40.380 ⇒ 00:12:42.360 Uttam Kumaran: Like…
106 00:12:42.540 ⇒ 00:12:49.849 Uttam Kumaran: it’s just, like, when you assign two people to a bunch of things, like, it’s gonna sort of become the Spider-Man meme, so I just wanna make sure that…
107 00:12:50.000 ⇒ 00:12:56.330 Uttam Kumaran: For every client, there is one person that’s going to cover, and they’re… and they’re very clear on what aspects
108 00:12:56.560 ⇒ 00:13:02.710 Uttam Kumaran: to cover, which is, like, running stand-up, sending the Friday meeting, and then…
109 00:13:03.060 ⇒ 00:13:06.269 Uttam Kumaran: I can also, if… on clients where
110 00:13:06.660 ⇒ 00:13:14.770 Uttam Kumaran: you need my help for grooming and things like that, I can join those meetings, so I’m happy to… to do that, and then… or at least…
111 00:13:15.220 ⇒ 00:13:20.850 Uttam Kumaran: have a scheduled check-in with those people. Really, what I… what I would want to avoid here is that
112 00:13:20.970 ⇒ 00:13:27.780 Uttam Kumaran: we sort of, like, get to Friday next week, and then there’s, like, no movement on any of those clients.
113 00:13:27.900 ⇒ 00:13:30.890 Uttam Kumaran: So I kind of want to have a couple of fail-safes in place.
114 00:13:30.890 ⇒ 00:13:31.790 Amber Lin: Yeah. Yeah.
115 00:13:31.790 ⇒ 00:13:32.480 Uttam Kumaran: Sounds good, that’s it.
116 00:13:32.480 ⇒ 00:13:34.400 Amber Lin: Good point.
117 00:13:35.210 ⇒ 00:13:47.380 Justin Breshears: You definitely want to think about, like, what’s highest priority, like, client calls, like, weekly check-ins, like, those are highest priority. I would pull in somebody like Tom on that, or something, and not just rely on, like, the… the engineers and stuff.
118 00:13:47.630 ⇒ 00:13:54.589 Justin Breshears: Because Awashia’s great, but, like, I don’t know if I would want him running, like, a weekly check-in without me, you know, so…
119 00:13:56.140 ⇒ 00:14:01.040 Justin Breshears: stuff like that, like, thinking about… I just… I would say, like, take ownership of the project and be like.
120 00:14:01.350 ⇒ 00:14:12.140 Justin Breshears: hey, like, what would be needed to be successful in my absence here? And yeah, I agree with Utam saying one person, like, this is my point person, and I tell the client, I’m out, this is the person you can go to.
121 00:14:12.790 ⇒ 00:14:13.520 Justin Breshears: like that.
122 00:14:14.140 ⇒ 00:14:16.839 Amber Lin: Sounds good. Yeah, I’ll circle back on that.
123 00:14:18.560 ⇒ 00:14:19.800 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great.
124 00:14:19.800 ⇒ 00:14:22.340 Justin Breshears: I’m also happy to help if you need me to…
125 00:14:22.340 ⇒ 00:14:28.140 Amber Lin: Yeah, I will put it in the… in our project management channel. I would appreciate multiple eyes.
126 00:14:28.440 ⇒ 00:14:31.399 Uttam Kumaran: So you’re gonna be out, Amber, after Tuesday, right?
127 00:14:31.400 ⇒ 00:14:32.210 Amber Lin: Yeah.
128 00:14:32.210 ⇒ 00:14:39.299 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so then I’m just gonna… I’ll put a… I’ll put a meeting on for Tuesday afternoon, where we can all just meet and just confirm.
129 00:14:39.790 ⇒ 00:14:42.319 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what the plan is,
130 00:14:42.950 ⇒ 00:14:50.539 Uttam Kumaran: And then, let’s also… on the delivery meeting on Monday, you’re gonna have everybody in the room. I’ll also make sure…
131 00:14:52.040 ⇒ 00:15:01.939 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so in the delivery meeting, we can cover that as a topic, and just make sure that all those folks are aware. And then, yeah, like, I would say toss me into the… into any of the…
132 00:15:02.240 ⇒ 00:15:15.210 Uttam Kumaran: meetings that I need to kind of help to cover. I will expect, like, on Eden, for example, I think that team can run, but I just want one person to sort of be that, so I… I’m pretty sure, like, Henry can probably do that.
133 00:15:15.400 ⇒ 00:15:21.089 Uttam Kumaran: Or Awash, similar for ABC, Sam can do that. And then…
134 00:15:21.210 ⇒ 00:15:31.790 Uttam Kumaran: I think I just wanna… and then for Remo, yeah, if you need me to help, since that client’s new, like, I can push things along, so we just want to make a decision per client on who that go-to person is.
135 00:15:33.070 ⇒ 00:15:34.130 Amber Lin: Yeah, sounds.
136 00:15:34.130 ⇒ 00:15:43.439 Justin Breshears: It’s a good point on the Monday meeting. We should always have, like, an out-of-office check in that meeting, and just see who’s… if anybody’s out, and then, you know, have a plan.
137 00:15:43.640 ⇒ 00:15:51.169 Amber Lin: Yeah, also, I know that… I’m looking at the calendar. Columbus Day is coming up on…
138 00:15:51.330 ⇒ 00:15:55.659 Amber Lin: October 13th. Is that a public holiday?
139 00:15:56.340 ⇒ 00:15:58.099 Amber Lin: Is our… are we stole?
140 00:15:58.870 ⇒ 00:16:00.879 Amber Lin: Is everyone still working on that day?
141 00:16:01.660 ⇒ 00:16:06.510 Uttam Kumaran: Usually, we take off all national holidays, so I don’t know, is that a national holiday?
142 00:16:06.510 ⇒ 00:16:10.859 Amber Lin: on the calendar, I don’t know if it’s a national holiday, because I… From here.
143 00:16:10.860 ⇒ 00:16:13.450 Justin Breshears: Let’s look up federal holidays.
144 00:16:14.310 ⇒ 00:16:17.190 Uttam Kumaran: It is, yeah, federal holidays, October 14th.
145 00:16:18.320 ⇒ 00:16:19.490 Amber Lin: 14.
146 00:16:19.490 ⇒ 00:16:22.120 Uttam Kumaran: Oh. It says 13. Oh, never mind, now we’re 13, 13.
147 00:16:22.120 ⇒ 00:16:22.940 Amber Lin: Oh, okay.
148 00:16:23.080 ⇒ 00:16:25.630 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, then it’ll be… it’ll be off, so…
149 00:16:25.630 ⇒ 00:16:26.070 Amber Lin: Okay.
150 00:16:26.070 ⇒ 00:16:26.570 Uttam Kumaran: If that makes sense.
151 00:16:26.570 ⇒ 00:16:32.539 Amber Lin: So that’s a bit better, so that means that I will be out for a less portion of that week.
152 00:16:33.620 ⇒ 00:16:34.360 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
153 00:16:37.780 ⇒ 00:16:40.159 Justin Breshears: Wait, so you’re out next week, or that week?
154 00:16:40.440 ⇒ 00:16:44.979 Amber Lin: I’m out for a week, because my parents are here until the 16th, so I’m just gonna be out.
155 00:16:44.980 ⇒ 00:16:45.700 Justin Breshears: Oh, gotcha.
156 00:16:45.700 ⇒ 00:16:49.310 Uttam Kumaran: So, 8 until… 8 a.m. till 15, or 8 to 15, yeah.
157 00:16:49.310 ⇒ 00:16:51.460 Amber Lin: So, 5 working days.
158 00:16:51.500 ⇒ 00:16:58.290 Justin Breshears: Yeah, if you’re out the whole week, then yeah, we need to have, like, legit coverage under projects. I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t leave…
159 00:16:58.870 ⇒ 00:17:01.669 Justin Breshears: Projects rudderless for a week.
160 00:17:02.540 ⇒ 00:17:03.120 Amber Lin: Yeah.
161 00:17:04.670 ⇒ 00:17:05.260 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
162 00:17:05.260 ⇒ 00:17:08.570 Amber Lin: That’s on my end, and I’ll talk about Remo in a bit.
163 00:17:08.819 ⇒ 00:17:15.059 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. Yeah, Justin, do you want to go? So, like, this week, what went well, what went wrong, and then… yeah.
164 00:17:15.060 ⇒ 00:17:30.540 Justin Breshears: Yeah, so I think, this week was a lot better because I had more time to devote to Rain Forge, so, I feel like I finally was able to get my feet under me in a lot of ways, and just getting more familiar with, like, what we do, how we do it.
165 00:17:30.690 ⇒ 00:17:35.209 Justin Breshears: Where the current gaps are, where the strengths are, all that stuff.
166 00:17:35.530 ⇒ 00:17:43.770 Justin Breshears: So I feel like that was really beneficial, just diving in more, the longer I’m with Brainforce, the more comfortable I think I’ll be.
167 00:17:44.040 ⇒ 00:17:50.670 Justin Breshears: Something that did not go so well, I…
168 00:17:51.050 ⇒ 00:18:01.540 Justin Breshears: was, like, really busy and missed, a communication from Insomnia yesterday in the morning and didn’t get back to them until later in the afternoon, so it’s a mess on my part, just…
169 00:18:01.690 ⇒ 00:18:08.239 Justin Breshears: letting, like, a simple question sit in our channel, so… and not like that I did that.
170 00:18:08.970 ⇒ 00:18:14.529 Justin Breshears: And, yeah, I just feel like I want to dive more into…
171 00:18:15.010 ⇒ 00:18:19.650 Justin Breshears: Kind of, like, what we deliver, and get more comfortable with that, so that…
172 00:18:19.890 ⇒ 00:18:29.079 Justin Breshears: I am more useful on client calls than just having to punt to… to my tech people all the time, so that’ll come with time, but…
173 00:18:29.350 ⇒ 00:18:35.109 Justin Breshears: I noticed that, this week on Hype was less effective than I would like to be.
174 00:18:36.970 ⇒ 00:18:37.590 Uttam Kumaran: Makes sense.
175 00:18:37.590 ⇒ 00:18:38.710 Justin Breshears: And, yeah.
176 00:18:38.950 ⇒ 00:18:44.650 Uttam Kumaran: And then, yeah, I do think that there’s probably something to the…
177 00:18:44.870 ⇒ 00:18:52.600 Uttam Kumaran: you know, given multiple clients, and given everything that happens in Slack, how do you kind of triage? Yeah. Like, how are you thinking about that? I mean.
178 00:18:52.750 ⇒ 00:18:53.600 Uttam Kumaran: I think…
179 00:18:53.920 ⇒ 00:19:00.819 Uttam Kumaran: you know, right now, I think it is a pretty fair scramble across, like, every client. Like, how do you think about,
180 00:19:01.190 ⇒ 00:19:06.059 Uttam Kumaran: Triaging inbound requests, like, given that you may have, like, 4 or 5 clients.
181 00:19:06.450 ⇒ 00:19:11.910 Justin Breshears: Yeah, that’s the hard part, because, like, and then sometimes, you know, things will be…
182 00:19:12.290 ⇒ 00:19:17.340 Justin Breshears: you know, get, like, updated in threads, and I won’t necessarily get, like, a notification for it, right?
183 00:19:18.120 ⇒ 00:19:21.100 Justin Breshears: Sue, that’s a good question. I think…
184 00:19:21.440 ⇒ 00:19:29.370 Justin Breshears: I need to just build in checkpoints throughout my day where I just, like, look through my client channels and see if there’s any new messages.
185 00:19:29.650 ⇒ 00:19:36.250 Justin Breshears: I think a little bit is just, like, getting more in a rhythm, too, because I feel like
186 00:19:37.140 ⇒ 00:19:37.990 Justin Breshears: As prom.
187 00:19:38.280 ⇒ 00:19:42.219 Justin Breshears: I don’t have necessarily, like, the weekly rhythm that…
188 00:19:42.370 ⇒ 00:19:45.100 Justin Breshears: I had at my old job. Yeah.
189 00:19:45.220 ⇒ 00:19:54.859 Justin Breshears: So I think, like, understanding kind of how things go. For example, insomnia, lots of activity will happen on Mondays, because they have a…
190 00:19:54.930 ⇒ 00:20:05.119 Justin Breshears: internal meeting with, like, their CMO and stuff like that. So, like, a lot of requests and issues will come out of that, and so I’ll probably have rhythms where, like, I really need to check Monday afternoons.
191 00:20:05.170 ⇒ 00:20:24.939 Justin Breshears: Yeah. And stuff like that. You know, just, like, kind of knowing those things, and then, like, getting in the rhythm of, like, here’s when I need to do my weekly updates, because, you know, it takes a certain amount of time for people to, like, give their input, or whatever. So, I’m just getting those things down, and so I think that missing that is just a function of, like, being a little more scattered than I’m used to.
192 00:20:25.270 ⇒ 00:20:25.850 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
193 00:20:26.310 ⇒ 00:20:27.750 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, makes sense.
194 00:20:28.560 ⇒ 00:20:30.700 Justin Breshears: I don’t necessarily think there’s any kind of, like.
195 00:20:31.350 ⇒ 00:20:37.049 Justin Breshears: tool or thing that I could use to do better, because, like, Slack notifies me when there’s a new message, I just need to…
196 00:20:37.340 ⇒ 00:20:37.990 Justin Breshears: Need to have.
197 00:20:37.990 ⇒ 00:20:46.559 Uttam Kumaran: No, and that’s also, I think, like, you know, one thing for all of our PM team is you guys will live and die by, like, your calendar, and so…
198 00:20:46.780 ⇒ 00:20:55.859 Uttam Kumaran: Really tell me if, like… there are too many internal meetings. Now that I’m able to, like.
199 00:20:56.070 ⇒ 00:20:58.899 Uttam Kumaran: Skip a lot of, like, the client meetings.
200 00:20:59.120 ⇒ 00:21:02.960 Uttam Kumaran: I can start to move around, like, our internal stuff.
201 00:21:03.160 ⇒ 00:21:08.660 Uttam Kumaran: My number one job is to make sure that you guys feel on the ball for all of your clients first.
202 00:21:08.790 ⇒ 00:21:24.999 Uttam Kumaran: But that’s why even, like, this week, I know we have… we have both a lot of, like, high-level delivery strategy we’re doing, and client-client work. I would say take a week and try to focus all effort on just executing on clients. It’s gonna be really hard to do both, and…
203 00:21:25.070 ⇒ 00:21:31.179 Uttam Kumaran: one matters more than the other, like, the strategy stuff matters a lot, but I know it can also… it’s competing
204 00:21:31.300 ⇒ 00:21:44.879 Uttam Kumaran: directly with that time. So, I think this is where I’ll help you… I’ll help you make the clear decision that I’m not wor… if you don’t get to any of the strategy stuff next week, don’t worry about it. I want you to just make sure that you can hit all of your clients, and you kind of get a sense of…
205 00:21:45.020 ⇒ 00:21:47.159 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, what is it gonna take to just…
206 00:21:47.530 ⇒ 00:21:53.030 Uttam Kumaran: nail stuff for the clients I have, and then we can start to see, okay, like, what time is available for
207 00:21:53.420 ⇒ 00:21:57.150 Uttam Kumaran: Larger strategy, or how can we batch that work, you know?
208 00:21:57.300 ⇒ 00:22:06.860 Uttam Kumaran: Instead of, like, discussing it every day and having disparate tasks, maybe you just sit on a Friday for an hour or two, and then knock a bunch of stuff out. Like, there are options for that.
209 00:22:07.130 ⇒ 00:22:09.840 Uttam Kumaran: So, I just want to make sure that you guys have
210 00:22:10.180 ⇒ 00:22:13.559 Uttam Kumaran: Similarly for engineers, I try to see how they can have
211 00:22:13.690 ⇒ 00:22:25.419 Uttam Kumaran: 6 hours a day of uninterrupted work to develop stuff, I want to make sure that I’m not laying on more and more internal meetings, and the reason for the internal meetings before
212 00:22:25.550 ⇒ 00:22:30.569 Uttam Kumaran: You know, as many as there are, was mainly because everybody was working on clients, and then
213 00:22:30.670 ⇒ 00:22:40.929 Uttam Kumaran: we were, like, kind of committee-based approach on leadership decisions and strategy. Now, I can sort of take some of that on and spare some people a couple more meetings, so…
214 00:22:41.120 ⇒ 00:22:43.100 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe even…
215 00:22:43.880 ⇒ 00:22:50.279 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, like, maybe on this topic, I guess, like, maybe I’ll pause there, like, what do you think about that?
216 00:22:50.890 ⇒ 00:22:57.500 Justin Breshears: Yeah, no, I think that’s a good plan to, like, kind of figure out, okay, just like we do on projects, like, what are our allocations?
217 00:22:57.700 ⇒ 00:22:58.530 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
218 00:22:58.530 ⇒ 00:23:06.080 Justin Breshears: Like, what allocations can we dedicate, even if it’s on a weekly basis right now, or maybe a monthly, what allocations can we dedicate to, like.
219 00:23:06.520 ⇒ 00:23:11.870 Justin Breshears: That sort of thing, like… I don’t know, Brain Forge improvement, or leadership, or, like.
220 00:23:11.870 ⇒ 00:23:12.300 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
221 00:23:12.300 ⇒ 00:23:13.459 Justin Breshears: to call it, right?
222 00:23:13.810 ⇒ 00:23:21.829 Justin Breshears: Yeah, so it may change, like, certain weeks may be more client-heavy, and certain may be less, so…
223 00:23:22.210 ⇒ 00:23:24.510 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I like that approach.
224 00:23:24.510 ⇒ 00:23:28.500 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t want to ask for both, and then say, not kill both, like, it’s gonna…
225 00:23:28.500 ⇒ 00:23:28.980 Justin Breshears: Right, right.
226 00:23:28.980 ⇒ 00:23:33.679 Uttam Kumaran: It’s gonna jam you, and so I really want to be careful. I have a tendency to…
227 00:23:33.900 ⇒ 00:23:40.780 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t do that intentionally, but they’re both on my mind, so I’ll… I just try to push what I can forward, but I also…
228 00:23:40.950 ⇒ 00:23:47.470 Uttam Kumaran: I’m very aware of how competing priorities and context switching can impact, especially
229 00:23:47.630 ⇒ 00:23:55.370 Uttam Kumaran: for y’all who are in a world of context switching, so I want to limit what I add to that pain as much as possible.
230 00:23:55.370 ⇒ 00:24:06.200 Justin Breshears: Yeah, and I think for me right now, it’s just getting up to speed, right? Like, I mean, I’ve been here not quite a month with Brainforge, and most of that has been part-time, so, like, I have not…
231 00:24:06.740 ⇒ 00:24:13.880 Justin Breshears: I don’t feel like I’ve gotten, like, fully up to speed on, like, all things Rain Forge, and I’ve been trying to, like, kind of tackle a lot at once, so…
232 00:24:14.110 ⇒ 00:24:28.759 Justin Breshears: a little bit is that, just like, hey, it’s a new environment, there’s a lot going on, it’s fast-paced, like, I’m still getting my feet under me. And so that… a lot of it will come, and I’ll be able to be more efficient with my time, just from being more, you know, comfortable with everything, right?
233 00:24:28.760 ⇒ 00:24:29.330 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
234 00:24:30.350 ⇒ 00:24:36.660 Justin Breshears: So, yeah, there’s a little bit of that, but… Okay. I do feel like… Like, I’ve gotten…
235 00:24:37.020 ⇒ 00:24:44.040 Justin Breshears: kind of the rhythms on the projects themselves better, like, I feel like I got a good handle on, like, default, and interlude, and…
236 00:24:44.150 ⇒ 00:24:49.669 Justin Breshears: Right. You know, we’ll get insomnia back, but I’ll say there’s a big risk on insomnia, and that’s…
237 00:24:49.810 ⇒ 00:24:58.409 Justin Breshears: Robert’s a time, just, he doesn’t have a lot of time. Yeah. And so, yeah, I understand, like, we were struggling with Shreya, but…
238 00:24:59.170 ⇒ 00:24:59.660 Justin Breshears: Robert.
239 00:24:59.660 ⇒ 00:25:00.010 Uttam Kumaran: at least.
240 00:25:00.010 ⇒ 00:25:04.340 Justin Breshears: do the work at a high level, but, like, he doesn’t have a lot of time to do it, so…
241 00:25:05.330 ⇒ 00:25:09.540 Justin Breshears: we, I’ll call out, I think we need to, like, really consider
242 00:25:10.000 ⇒ 00:25:12.010 Justin Breshears: Maybe getting somebody else in there, or…
243 00:25:12.010 ⇒ 00:25:12.440 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
244 00:25:12.440 ⇒ 00:25:15.320 Justin Breshears: figuring out how to unblock Robert’s time.
245 00:25:16.880 ⇒ 00:25:25.439 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, perfect. Yeah, let’s… as soon as we get to the allocation sheet today, we can note that down, and then we can bring that up in the Monday meeting for delivery.
246 00:25:25.440 ⇒ 00:25:26.030 Justin Breshears: like…
247 00:25:26.520 ⇒ 00:25:34.880 Justin Breshears: like, today, like, on stand-up, it’s literally me and Casey, and Casey’s job is, like, 30 minutes a day updating the scorecards, like, it’s really nothing. So, like…
248 00:25:34.880 ⇒ 00:25:36.270 Uttam Kumaran: Robert’s stuff.
249 00:25:36.270 ⇒ 00:25:41.629 Justin Breshears: Everything else is hinging on Robert right now, and yeah, that’s a big, big red flag.
250 00:25:44.580 ⇒ 00:25:47.150 Justin Breshears: Nothing against, like, Robert, that’s not the red flag.
251 00:25:47.150 ⇒ 00:25:48.060 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no.
252 00:25:48.920 ⇒ 00:25:55.210 Justin Breshears: Because I know he can do really good work. It’s just… and the other thing is, like, the client is very attached to Robert, so…
253 00:25:55.780 ⇒ 00:26:07.810 Uttam Kumaran: We have some more inter… like, I think we have a… we have a little bit more… we can get a little bit more time from Henry and… and folks like that, so we’ll look today, and then on Monday, I want to make… I want us… our team, to make a proposal on, like, who can we switch.
254 00:26:07.930 ⇒ 00:26:12.159 Justin Breshears: Yeah, we’ve gotta… we’ve gotta figure out how to get some of that going without Robert.
255 00:26:12.160 ⇒ 00:26:18.390 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Okay, perfect. And then if I’m just looking at, like, internal meetings, Next week?
256 00:26:18.660 ⇒ 00:26:25.570 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t feel like there’s really, like, much. Like, I think the… probably the only thing is…
257 00:26:27.960 ⇒ 00:26:30.090 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, we have the PMO…
258 00:26:31.230 ⇒ 00:26:35.450 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it looks like we have, like, a PMO sync at the end of the day.
259 00:26:35.900 ⇒ 00:26:37.230 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know if we…
260 00:26:37.880 ⇒ 00:26:42.809 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so that we have one there, and then we have the delivery meeting in the middle of the day.
261 00:26:42.920 ⇒ 00:26:49.130 Uttam Kumaran: And then everybody has their stand-ups. During the middle of the week, I’m not really in anything that’s, like, company-wide.
262 00:26:49.450 ⇒ 00:26:53.030 Uttam Kumaran: Like, do you guys feel good about… The time you got?
263 00:26:53.030 ⇒ 00:26:55.339 Justin Breshears: Next week. Next week looks way better.
264 00:26:55.430 ⇒ 00:27:01.869 Amber Lin: Yeah. Also, question on the PMO sync, what’s your decision on Alex’s time? Should we go.
265 00:27:01.870 ⇒ 00:27:02.210 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
266 00:27:02.210 ⇒ 00:27:09.300 Amber Lin: PMO sync, if we are, as a team, already syncing multiple times a week, it feels redundant.
267 00:27:09.300 ⇒ 00:27:27.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I’m gonna probably… so I… I think we should… if… yeah, so I can do two things. I talked to them yesterday. I told him from… from my perspective, I think a lot of that now can get handled by Justin and myself, so I would… I wanted him to, one, just be available.
268 00:27:27.810 ⇒ 00:27:36.710 Uttam Kumaran: for… for me and you, Justin, in case we have even, like, higher level questions, or to help with drafting documents or reviewing stuff, I think he’s a good eye on that.
269 00:27:36.710 ⇒ 00:27:40.679 Justin Breshears: Second, I’m having him help me a little bit to develop our new.
270 00:27:40.690 ⇒ 00:27:44.530 Uttam Kumaran: like, case… Style recruiting interview.
271 00:27:44.640 ⇒ 00:27:51.260 Uttam Kumaran: So I think we should go ahead and cancel… cancel anything standing you have, unless,
272 00:27:51.450 ⇒ 00:27:52.630 Uttam Kumaran: And, like, I think…
273 00:27:52.740 ⇒ 00:27:58.549 Uttam Kumaran: if you want, I just want to make sure he’s available, so if anyone here wants time with him.
274 00:27:58.660 ⇒ 00:28:06.570 Uttam Kumaran: I would do that. We can also leverage him in other ways, like, again, Dustin, if you feel like, hey, I don’t… I’m not gonna have time to do…
275 00:28:06.860 ⇒ 00:28:16.679 Uttam Kumaran: structured coaching, or think there’s something essential that we should be doing, we could have him come in and do that, but if… if not, then I just want to remove all
276 00:28:16.980 ⇒ 00:28:22.850 Uttam Kumaran: Kind of distractions for the next few weeks, so that we can just ramp up everything on clients and hit the standards.
277 00:28:23.790 ⇒ 00:28:38.800 Justin Breshears: I like that. I told him yesterday when we met, I was like, I could use your help with, like, the docs and stuff like that, drafting the docs and whatnot, because, like, if I can focus my time on, like, client stuff and all that, and then, you know, kind of lean on him on…
278 00:28:39.110 ⇒ 00:28:41.479 Justin Breshears: You know, reviewing and drafting documents, then…
279 00:28:41.750 ⇒ 00:28:43.430 Justin Breshears: That’d be a good use of his time.
280 00:28:43.620 ⇒ 00:28:44.250 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
281 00:28:45.910 ⇒ 00:29:02.579 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. So then, I think as long as we can… me, you, and Alex can stay in sync on what he’s working on, then I can drive that forward. I wouldn’t worry about that. So yeah, let’s go ahead and cancel the thing for Monday. I’ll send a note… I talked to him yesterday, so… but I’ll just send a note so everybody’s on the same page, and then…
282 00:29:02.580 ⇒ 00:29:12.429 Amber Lin: Yeah. And then for our Friday PMO meetings, do you want to keep it at this time, or should we do it just between, us three?
283 00:29:12.700 ⇒ 00:29:18.010 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I… I guess I’m not in any Friday PMO? Is there somebody else?
284 00:29:18.010 ⇒ 00:29:19.930 Justin Breshears: Right now, we just have it as three.
285 00:29:20.290 ⇒ 00:29:28.069 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay. Yeah, I don’t… I don’t care either way. I guess, like, maybe let’s… I have that on my agenda to talk about, like, how…
286 00:29:28.660 ⇒ 00:29:35.769 Uttam Kumaran: the PM crew and the broader delivery crew is meeting, so let’s just punt that for another, like, 10 minutes.
287 00:29:36.220 ⇒ 00:29:37.220 Amber Lin: Okay.
288 00:29:37.860 ⇒ 00:29:38.690 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
289 00:29:40.290 ⇒ 00:29:49.859 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, don’t be afraid to just tell me if, like, hey, there’s internal meetings are building up, or whatever, like, we can kick stuff out. I’m pretty… I’m a big, like.
290 00:29:50.090 ⇒ 00:29:55.150 Uttam Kumaran: delete the meeting if things are not priority, so… Okay.
291 00:29:55.310 ⇒ 00:29:59.130 Uttam Kumaran: Cool, and then, like, Rico, do you want to go? So, like, how was this week?
292 00:29:59.500 ⇒ 00:30:00.550 Uttam Kumaran: anything.
293 00:30:00.730 ⇒ 00:30:03.610 Uttam Kumaran: Good or bad, and then how you feeling for next week?
294 00:30:04.720 ⇒ 00:30:09.479 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, this week, had been a big learning process.
295 00:30:10.250 ⇒ 00:30:12.869 Rico Rejoso: me as well as the PM, and…
296 00:30:13.610 ⇒ 00:30:22.039 Rico Rejoso: we were able to… I mean, by Tuesday, we, we discussed regarding the allocation for the AA team and the marketing team.
297 00:30:23.250 ⇒ 00:30:32.009 Rico Rejoso: we come in, I mean, everyone agreed with all the hours, and we want to make sure that the points are also aligned with the hours that we have for internal stuff.
298 00:30:32.090 ⇒ 00:30:50.150 Rico Rejoso: Especially on the AI team, although I did mention that some of the tasks were paused, and we’re just finalizing everything, but moving, into the next sprint, we’re looking to just maintain within that one and still make sure that we have, like, extra points for any ad hoc requests from you, our stakeholder.
299 00:30:51.030 ⇒ 00:31:07.270 Rico Rejoso: I think what needs improvement, as we discussed late, I mean, earlier with the AI team, was to make sure that all tickets are groomed. I’m currently working on it, and have it… we’ll have it also reviewed, by Sam come next week, once, he’s back from…
300 00:31:07.910 ⇒ 00:31:16.519 Rico Rejoso: She’s back, and moving forward also to do the same thing on all internal tickets that we have for AI and marketing.
301 00:31:16.640 ⇒ 00:31:19.269 Rico Rejoso: So that’s what I’m currently working on,
302 00:31:19.560 ⇒ 00:31:21.670 Rico Rejoso: I can say, like, around 40% done.
303 00:31:21.960 ⇒ 00:31:25.949 Rico Rejoso: From, I mean, across all the internal teams that I’m handling.
304 00:31:27.850 ⇒ 00:31:28.460 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
305 00:31:28.580 ⇒ 00:31:31.189 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think the biggest thing, you know, is…
306 00:31:31.420 ⇒ 00:31:39.059 Uttam Kumaran: you can’t groom tickets without client… without understanding, like, what the client goals are. So, the biggest thing I want to really highlight is, like.
307 00:31:39.370 ⇒ 00:31:55.980 Uttam Kumaran: grooming a ticket is making sure that it has all the requirements needed, but that is something that you… that you have to first start with, like, what is the client even asking for? So that’s something I noticed today on the AI and on the marketing side, is we have all these tickets, yes, they were created at some point.
308 00:31:56.070 ⇒ 00:32:14.589 Uttam Kumaran: But I was… I’ve never… I’m not being asked, as the client on these projects, what is our goals, right? I’m not being presented to, like, what are the outputs. And so, I think, you know, in this meeting, too, we can make sure that all of the, you know, standards that we’re gonna hit for all the clients we’re also doing on the AI and marketing side.
309 00:32:16.050 ⇒ 00:32:33.180 Uttam Kumaran: And how you should… you can take my contacts as a client, and then go work with your… basically your… your technical counterpart. So, on the AI side, that would be Sam. So, you and Sam would work to look at all the things I asked for, groom all those tickets, and then on the marketing side, it’d be you and Hannah.
310 00:32:33.270 ⇒ 00:32:42.039 Uttam Kumaran: And then that way, on Monday, it’s really clear what’s gonna happen. On Thursday, or on Thursday or Friday, the client, me, gets a great
311 00:32:42.190 ⇒ 00:32:53.000 Uttam Kumaran: the project review meeting, and then I can… I will totally give you the next things to work on, and then that’s the sort of process. So, that’s what I want to make sure happens.
312 00:32:53.340 ⇒ 00:32:55.090 Uttam Kumaran: But, okay, makes sense.
313 00:32:55.380 ⇒ 00:33:03.620 Uttam Kumaran: Cool. I guess, like, let me… let me talk through a couple of, pieces. So, I’m just gonna pull up… I just wanna pull up,
314 00:33:04.010 ⇒ 00:33:07.470 Uttam Kumaran: The document that we worked on yesterday…
315 00:33:13.150 ⇒ 00:33:14.990 Uttam Kumaran: My Notion will load…
316 00:33:38.670 ⇒ 00:33:45.020 Uttam Kumaran: Justin, what was the document that you were working on yesterday?
317 00:33:45.020 ⇒ 00:33:46.280 Justin Breshears: The standard stock?
318 00:33:46.550 ⇒ 00:33:47.510 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
319 00:33:47.880 ⇒ 00:33:51.390 Justin Breshears: Yes, I have it, and I’ll resend it.
320 00:33:52.570 ⇒ 00:33:58.460 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay, it’s okay, the Brainforge project management standards, right?
321 00:33:58.460 ⇒ 00:33:59.080 Justin Breshears: Yes.
322 00:33:59.080 ⇒ 00:34:00.349 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, I have it open.
323 00:34:01.790 ⇒ 00:34:06.069 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool, so I think mainly today, I just wanted to,
324 00:34:07.460 ⇒ 00:34:20.460 Uttam Kumaran: I’m taking notes on my side, but I think it’s fine. I guess I wanted to make sure for all clients, we are doing all of our standards. And so, the standards, again, are stand-ups, planning.
325 00:34:20.739 ⇒ 00:34:22.110 Uttam Kumaran: print reviews.
326 00:34:22.570 ⇒ 00:34:31.679 Uttam Kumaran: the retro, and then the monthly project reviews. So, maybe, Amber, we can go through your clients first. Like, do you have all of those
327 00:34:32.139 ⇒ 00:34:34.420 Uttam Kumaran: Booked for every client.
328 00:34:34.780 ⇒ 00:34:41.020 Uttam Kumaran: And then if not, like, can we get those booked? So maybe let’s go one by one. So we… you have eaten.
329 00:34:41.389 ⇒ 00:34:43.239 Uttam Kumaran: ABC Remote, right?
330 00:34:43.929 ⇒ 00:34:48.669 Amber Lin: And Ellie, but Ellie’s normally PM work.
331 00:34:49.100 ⇒ 00:34:53.839 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. So, let’s talk through Eden. So, Eden, all the stand-ups are…
332 00:34:54.460 ⇒ 00:34:58.040 Amber Lin: For Eden, so we have…
333 00:34:58.040 ⇒ 00:35:15.749 Amber Lin: by meetings, we want… run on weekly sprints, same for ABC. So, our Monday is essentially planning, and then Friday’s retro, or sprint review. Actually, sprint reviews with the client, so… and then Robert has a sprint review with the client.
334 00:35:16.580 ⇒ 00:35:19.360 Uttam Kumaran: So, all that is booked on Eden.
335 00:35:19.360 ⇒ 00:35:22.999 Amber Lin: We need to book monthly project reviews.
336 00:35:23.230 ⇒ 00:35:26.470 Amber Lin: Currently we have bi-weekly, so we have, like.
337 00:35:26.750 ⇒ 00:35:40.539 Amber Lin: half a month project reviews for the client. So it could stay that way, or we could change it to monthly. I think we’d rather have it bi-weekly. So that’s for Eden. On ABC, we have…
338 00:35:41.960 ⇒ 00:35:43.650 Amber Lin: Let’s see…
339 00:35:44.710 ⇒ 00:36:03.769 Amber Lin: We have the above, we’re not really doing retro, so I need to book that. I’ll just do it on our Fridays, similarly to Eden, and then we don’t have recurring monthly reviews. We have… we did it once, I’ll need to book, the recurring ones.
340 00:36:03.910 ⇒ 00:36:13.030 Amber Lin: And then for urban stems, I think same thing, we… oh, actually, Urban Stems, we need…
341 00:36:13.300 ⇒ 00:36:20.989 Amber Lin: more sprint reviews, we need the monthly project review, and then we should do the retro on the Friday…
342 00:36:21.210 ⇒ 00:36:29.169 Amber Lin: It’s booked, but we don’t do it. We use it as a stand-up, so I’m gonna remember to do that. So that’s the main three projects.
343 00:36:29.380 ⇒ 00:36:33.450 Amber Lin: And on Remo, we’re doing… weekly syncs.
344 00:36:34.760 ⇒ 00:36:36.979 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, go for Remo…
345 00:36:40.780 ⇒ 00:36:42.969 Uttam Kumaran: So for Remo, there are no stand-ups.
346 00:36:43.390 ⇒ 00:36:44.030 Amber Lin: No.
347 00:36:44.500 ⇒ 00:36:48.499 Uttam Kumaran: what do you… what do you think about that? Because I think one of the things that we’re…
348 00:36:48.670 ⇒ 00:36:52.760 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, deciding on is that every client needs.
349 00:36:53.310 ⇒ 00:36:55.990 Uttam Kumaran: Daily stand-ups, even if it’s 15 minutes.
350 00:36:57.220 ⇒ 00:37:05.679 Amber Lin: It depends on surf’s availability, because, especially for the starting phase,
351 00:37:05.840 ⇒ 00:37:13.529 Amber Lin: Awish is not even that much involved, so it’s very similar to Ellie’s situation of surface incident main consultant.
352 00:37:13.650 ⇒ 00:37:23.179 Amber Lin: And… He would be available to meet, I would just eat into his project hours.
353 00:37:23.940 ⇒ 00:37:26.520 Uttam Kumaran: But it’s 15 minutes a day, so it’s like…
354 00:37:27.070 ⇒ 00:37:29.179 Uttam Kumaran: Throughout the week, it’s just an hour.
355 00:37:31.700 ⇒ 00:37:49.210 Uttam Kumaran: And so, throughout the client… throughout the entire project, that’s probably 8 hours. So I’m not… I would say my pushback on Remo and Ellie is that we… as a team, we’re… we’re not gonna compromise on any of these rituals. So for every client, no matter what.
356 00:37:49.340 ⇒ 00:37:55.889 Uttam Kumaran: the scope, we have to do stand-ups, planning, sprint reviews, retro, and monthly project reviews.
357 00:37:56.400 ⇒ 00:37:57.560 Uttam Kumaran: So…
358 00:37:57.770 ⇒ 00:38:06.970 Uttam Kumaran: I think in the past, we sort of were deciding on some clients we have and some clients do not. I think at this point, we’ve decided that for every client, we’re gonna do
359 00:38:07.630 ⇒ 00:38:10.070 Uttam Kumaran: All 4 of these, or all 5 of these.
360 00:38:10.070 ⇒ 00:38:18.469 Amber Lin: I see. Okay, if that’s a decision, I can totally implement that, and then once we do, we’ll come back with more feedback, because I can’t have a say on that right now.
361 00:38:18.470 ⇒ 00:38:19.020 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
362 00:38:19.780 ⇒ 00:38:28.840 Justin Breshears: on stand-ups, like, especially on those type of projects, like, I know it sounds kind of silly, where it’s like, okay, well, am I gonna pull out the one resource
363 00:38:29.030 ⇒ 00:38:40.399 Justin Breshears: You know, every day, just for a few minutes, like, chat with them. But I think, honestly, I’ve found that those are the projects that you really need that regular checkpoint on there.
364 00:38:40.450 ⇒ 00:38:53.470 Justin Breshears: Because you get a Zoron or a… sorry, this is his name? Surf? Surf. Surf, okay. You get them, like, on a solo client without any kind of, like, check-ins or guard
365 00:38:53.470 ⇒ 00:39:07.419 Justin Breshears: They’re gonna burn you. Yeah, you’re gonna find that 3 weeks into it, they’re way off track, or way behind, or something is not going well, right? And so, a lot of that is a daily tether back to…
366 00:39:07.540 ⇒ 00:39:24.769 Justin Breshears: what, like, you can provide, which is guidance back to, like, client objectives, or just ensuring that velocity’s on track, things like that. It’s… it’s for you as well, because, like, you’re gonna have a better handle on, like, how you’re tracking day over day. It’s for them to, like, stay grounded in what, you know, they need to be.
367 00:39:24.770 ⇒ 00:39:27.930 Justin Breshears: and not get off the rails, like, there’s a ton of benefits to that. So, like.
368 00:39:28.180 ⇒ 00:39:31.930 Justin Breshears: You can look at it like, oh, there’s only one resource in there, the main consultant or whatever, but, like.
369 00:39:32.390 ⇒ 00:39:38.560 Justin Breshears: I find so much benefit in that, in having that chat, and most of the time, those take 5 minutes, where it’s just…
370 00:39:38.650 ⇒ 00:39:53.259 Justin Breshears: hey, like, what are you working on? How’s it going? What blockers do you have? Any concerns? Okay, bye. And so 5 minutes a day is, like, not hard to spare, and there’s a ton of benefit in that. So I just… that’s my perspective. I find that they’re very.
371 00:39:53.260 ⇒ 00:40:08.819 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think we should do it. I think we should… what you’re gonna find is that, and it’s what we all have seen as PMs, is that the more leash we give, the higher the odds of someone choking themselves with it. So I want to make sure that on every project.
372 00:40:09.140 ⇒ 00:40:10.480 Uttam Kumaran: Now that we have…
373 00:40:11.130 ⇒ 00:40:20.090 Uttam Kumaran: you know, the folks for, we should just meet with everything every day. I don’t think… I think we just have to keep the heartbeats on these projects every single day.
374 00:40:20.260 ⇒ 00:40:25.739 Uttam Kumaran: you’re gonna know, like, if we didn’t have stand-ups, 3 days can go by with nothing happening, but if you had stand-ups.
375 00:40:26.260 ⇒ 00:40:31.749 Uttam Kumaran: There’s easy guardrails for that, so that’s what I would… I would vote for. Sure. Yeah.
376 00:40:31.750 ⇒ 00:40:51.520 Justin Breshears: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had an engineer tell me, like, oh, by the way, on a stand-up, I’m blocked on this thing, and I’m like, were you gonna say anything? Like, why did you wait this long? Like, you know, and so it’s almost like those stand-ups, like, unlock, like, oh, yeah, by the way, I need this from you, and it’s, like, a very crucial thing, and I’m like.
377 00:40:51.590 ⇒ 00:40:54.330 Justin Breshears: Without this stand-up, they never would have said anything.
378 00:40:54.570 ⇒ 00:40:55.260 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
379 00:40:57.900 ⇒ 00:41:01.490 Justin Breshears: Yeah. Super helpful stuff. I mean, you can always…
380 00:41:01.730 ⇒ 00:41:06.740 Justin Breshears: report back on how they’re going, but I would be willing to bet good money that they’re gonna be beneficial.
381 00:41:06.740 ⇒ 00:41:16.160 Amber Lin: Yeah, I will book those, and then once it happens for, like, a week for it, but I’m out next week, but I’ll come back with feedback.
382 00:41:16.510 ⇒ 00:41:30.759 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so for the… for Remo, again, if you… if you need to step in on stand-up while you’re gone, I can do that. I think I just would like if you could… if you can book those, that way it’s in your name. So, I think for Remo.
383 00:41:31.220 ⇒ 00:41:35.769 Uttam Kumaran: We don’t have… we have any of the rituals booked yet, so…
384 00:41:35.770 ⇒ 00:41:39.869 Amber Lin: I have a Thursday weekly recurring with the client.
385 00:41:39.870 ⇒ 00:41:44.880 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so Sprint Review is booked Thursdays…
386 00:41:45.260 ⇒ 00:41:48.940 Uttam Kumaran: But we don’t have… okay, we don’t have sprint planning, retro, or the monthly project review.
387 00:41:48.940 ⇒ 00:41:53.579 Amber Lin: It will be, I think planning and retro will just be part of the…
388 00:41:53.790 ⇒ 00:42:00.070 Amber Lin: stand-up time that I book, I’ll just squeeze it in. I need to book the monthly.
389 00:42:00.070 ⇒ 00:42:05.619 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I guess this is, again, my question is, like, why… why squeeze those in? Like, should… shouldn’t this… these be…
390 00:42:05.750 ⇒ 00:42:09.779 Uttam Kumaran: Like, and then I guess my question across all of these, we didn’t talk much about
391 00:42:10.100 ⇒ 00:42:12.610 Uttam Kumaran: Retro is one thing I can…
392 00:42:13.520 ⇒ 00:42:17.840 Uttam Kumaran: is one thing, but sprint planning on Mondays… Justin, are you planning on just, like.
393 00:42:18.240 ⇒ 00:42:22.589 Uttam Kumaran: Doing sprint planning plus stand-ups every Monday for all your clients?
394 00:42:23.200 ⇒ 00:42:41.160 Justin Breshears: Yeah, so sprint planning is non-negotiable, it needs to be done every sprint, but, like, when you do it is, I think, flexible, depending on complexity of projects. So, like, I’ve found a lot of projects that are low complexity, we can do sprint planning within the first stand-up of the week.
395 00:42:41.290 ⇒ 00:42:50.660 Justin Breshears: But sometimes that first stand-up needs to expand to, like, 30 minutes, because the stand-up, you know, the first stand-up of the week is not really, like.
396 00:42:50.860 ⇒ 00:43:08.799 Justin Breshears: hey, what’d you work on yesterday and today? Because it’s kind of, like, starting the week. So, I like to take it and be like, okay, what work do you have in front of you for the week? Or even the Friday before that stand up, and talk about the next week. So, whichever one, like, you need to use it as, I’m good with, like, expanding
397 00:43:09.020 ⇒ 00:43:19.649 Justin Breshears: the stand-up to… to plan. It just has to happen, like, that… that planning conversation, like, we have to have a goal for the sprint, what are we trying to accomplish?
398 00:43:19.880 ⇒ 00:43:35.420 Justin Breshears: and measure against that goal throughout the week. So I’m all for, like, if you have a stand-up, don’t just, like, schedule a separate planning session just because it make everybody, like, stop what they’re doing twice in the day. Like, you can combine them, but…
399 00:43:35.720 ⇒ 00:43:37.990 Justin Breshears: That has to happen, like, every week.
400 00:43:38.690 ⇒ 00:43:39.270 Amber Lin: Yep.
401 00:43:40.610 ⇒ 00:43:43.670 Uttam Kumaran: So, I would like to see Remo…
402 00:43:43.940 ⇒ 00:43:51.639 Uttam Kumaran: I would like to see sprint planning happen for… for all of these clients on Monday. So I think that’s one thing I don’t… I have, is that I think we just…
403 00:43:52.690 ⇒ 00:43:59.349 Uttam Kumaran: we… we have stand-ups booked on Monday, but I don’t know if we have… if it’s explicit that, like, that’s sprint planning.
404 00:43:59.580 ⇒ 00:44:06.649 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay. So, for Remo, certainly we need… we need that. And again, like, I know Remo…
405 00:44:07.200 ⇒ 00:44:13.109 Uttam Kumaran: We can… we’ll talk about it after, about, like, time and everything, but, like, these are all non-negotiable. We can’t run a project.
406 00:44:13.220 ⇒ 00:44:18.040 Uttam Kumaran: without… these rituals anymore, so we’ve sort of set the standards now.
407 00:44:18.230 ⇒ 00:44:27.780 Uttam Kumaran: And so, similarly for Ellie, I think I want… I… we should… we have to add all the rituals. Like, again, it’s kind of similar to Remo, it’s just… it’s one resource, but…
408 00:44:27.900 ⇒ 00:44:36.430 Uttam Kumaran: like, I’m telling you, no matter how much you trust the resource, like, there’s a good chance you get burned, not for anyone’s fault, it’s just what happens.
409 00:44:36.680 ⇒ 00:44:49.929 Uttam Kumaran: And so we… these are all fail-safes for us. Additionally, like, you’re sparing that person from having to own all the communication. Like, Zoron is not gonna be able to do monthly project reviews, written reviews, and so you have to insert yourself there.
410 00:44:49.930 ⇒ 00:44:51.460 Amber Lin: There’s redundancy.
411 00:44:52.530 ⇒ 00:44:53.779 Amber Lin: Yeah, makes sense.
412 00:44:54.780 ⇒ 00:44:58.300 Uttam Kumaran: So, is a good expectation that, like, like…
413 00:44:58.680 ⇒ 00:45:03.110 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know if you could maybe take an hour at the end of today to just book everything?
414 00:45:03.230 ⇒ 00:45:13.690 Uttam Kumaran: I would really appreciate that, and then on Monday’s meeting, we can just confirm with everybody that, hey, these are the new standards, we’re gonna run these with all of our clients.
415 00:45:16.670 ⇒ 00:45:18.120 Uttam Kumaran: Are you good for that?
416 00:45:18.920 ⇒ 00:45:20.229 Amber Lin: Yeah. Amber, okay.
417 00:45:22.360 ⇒ 00:45:23.150 Justin Breshears: Yep, yup.
418 00:45:23.340 ⇒ 00:45:35.509 Justin Breshears: And, I mean, I don’t know, like, how you feel, Utsom, strongly about, like, Monday to Friday cadence for that, because, like, sometimes you have a weekly review with a client on Thursdays, right? I think is the…
419 00:45:35.700 ⇒ 00:45:38.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. That’s the case with Remo, right? So…
420 00:45:38.470 ⇒ 00:45:46.990 Justin Breshears: I would almost make, like, Friday the sprint planning for the following week, you know? Because you just met with them on Thursday, and then Friday you can be like, okay.
421 00:45:47.330 ⇒ 00:45:50.649 Justin Breshears: let’s plan out next week, so… Yeah, I find sometimes…
422 00:45:50.650 ⇒ 00:45:51.200 Uttam Kumaran: point.
423 00:45:51.200 ⇒ 00:45:58.350 Justin Breshears: Yeah, sometimes that’s helpful, like, structuring it around the client meetings, too, because you’re not always going to have client meetings on Mondays and Fridays.
424 00:45:58.350 ⇒ 00:45:59.829 Amber Lin: That makes sense, actually.
425 00:46:00.130 ⇒ 00:46:02.540 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think Fridays kind of go underused.
426 00:46:02.760 ⇒ 00:46:18.390 Uttam Kumaran: So maybe that is a good point, Amber, because otherwise, Monday, you may get jammed. So for, like, for Ellie, or for Remo, maybe you do the sprint plan, and that way, Monday, you just keep a stand-up, and then for two of your other clients, you do the sprint plan on Monday.
427 00:46:18.500 ⇒ 00:46:35.540 Uttam Kumaran: The reason I voted for Thursday is just sometimes… before, when I was running client, you know, project reviews, sometimes, like, Friday just felt, like, really hectic, but it’s up to… it’s totally up to you. So that’s a great point.
428 00:46:35.730 ⇒ 00:46:37.949 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t… I don’t… I’m not opposed to that either way.
429 00:46:37.950 ⇒ 00:46:38.990 Amber Lin: Yeah, me neither.
430 00:46:38.990 ⇒ 00:46:48.719 Justin Breshears: I prefer running my client calls Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. That’s usually when I schedule client calls, and then leave Mondays and Fridays for, like, planning and wrapping up.
431 00:46:49.000 ⇒ 00:46:51.040 Justin Breshears: That’s, like, how I like to do it.
432 00:46:53.370 ⇒ 00:46:54.279 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
433 00:46:58.560 ⇒ 00:47:15.589 Justin Breshears: Cool. So yeah, I mean, doesn’t matter if it’s combined with your current state-up time or whatever, but yeah, the planning needs to happen at some point. The retro is the one where, like, I am more flexible on, because I don’t think for a lot of projects, you need a weekly retro.
434 00:47:16.310 ⇒ 00:47:28.499 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, can we make a decision on that? Like, should we just allow for every two weeks? And this is where, like, I would love… for me, I would love to be, you know, put as optional on…
435 00:47:29.200 ⇒ 00:47:34.780 Uttam Kumaran: on retros, and then on planning, because those are the meetings where I think I can have the highest
436 00:47:34.940 ⇒ 00:47:37.790 Uttam Kumaran: Leverage and steering, if needed.
437 00:47:37.990 ⇒ 00:47:42.680 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so maybe we can talk through that.
438 00:47:43.180 ⇒ 00:47:46.809 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I like an every-other-week retro schedule.
439 00:47:50.060 ⇒ 00:47:59.229 Justin Breshears: But then that also changes depending on, like, hey, if this client is really… this project’s complex, we’re delivering a lot each week, then a weekly makes sense.
440 00:47:59.290 ⇒ 00:48:00.290 Uttam Kumaran: But…
441 00:48:00.290 ⇒ 00:48:03.149 Justin Breshears: for a Remo, it may not…
442 00:48:03.370 ⇒ 00:48:06.249 Justin Breshears: There may not be a lot of benefit in doing a weekly retro.
443 00:48:06.710 ⇒ 00:48:07.450 Amber Lin: Huh.
444 00:48:07.660 ⇒ 00:48:11.349 Justin Breshears: And the retros can be more around, like, what’s working well.
445 00:48:11.660 ⇒ 00:48:16.090 Justin Breshears: What’s not, so that you can course-correct before you go way off the rails.
446 00:48:16.420 ⇒ 00:48:17.010 Amber Lin: Yeah.
447 00:48:18.110 ⇒ 00:48:19.090 Amber Lin: Makes sense.
448 00:48:19.300 ⇒ 00:48:25.240 Uttam Kumaran: And then, like, the one thing we didn’t talk about much is, like, is…
449 00:48:25.590 ⇒ 00:48:29.910 Uttam Kumaran: grooming schedule. So, like, I know on our…
450 00:48:30.010 ⇒ 00:48:40.350 Uttam Kumaran: on our ceremonies, we don’t have, like, a specific grooming schedule. Like, how do you… what do you… what do you think, Justin? Like, how do we bake that in? Because on several clients, I think.
451 00:48:40.790 ⇒ 00:48:45.099 Uttam Kumaran: we have built up a little bit of a backlog, but I know certainly that
452 00:48:45.540 ⇒ 00:48:58.160 Uttam Kumaran: again, we’re having a struggle with well-group tickets, so I want to make sure that we have that time baked in. That’s time for the PM to do, it’s also time for the PM to work with their technical counterpart.
453 00:48:58.490 ⇒ 00:49:10.510 Justin Breshears: Yeah, and get a better handle of, like, where you’re headed in the project, too. My thoughts on grooming is it should always be happening live in stand-ups and things, so, like, as you’re pulling up tickets and you notice
454 00:49:10.750 ⇒ 00:49:22.020 Justin Breshears: things missing or information needed, you should be doing it at all times. If you are in a project where you have, like, defined deliverables where you can get ahead.
455 00:49:22.060 ⇒ 00:49:31.479 Justin Breshears: on, like, some backlog creation, then you need a separate dedicated grooming session to do that. Otherwise, like, you’re never gonna do it.
456 00:49:32.050 ⇒ 00:49:40.430 Justin Breshears: The projects where it is more consultative and, like, ad hoc, For example, like, what is it, hype?
457 00:49:40.740 ⇒ 00:49:46.360 Justin Breshears: Like, we can’t. We literally cannot create a backlog on hype, because the client is literally, like.
458 00:49:46.570 ⇒ 00:49:49.910 Justin Breshears: Telling us weekly, kind of, where to go, right?
459 00:49:49.970 ⇒ 00:50:07.910 Justin Breshears: Or maybe a better example is, like, Insomnia, because, like, the client doesn’t even know what they want half the time. So there’s some projects where, like, a separate grooming session won’t make sense, because you’re not necessarily going to be able to get ahead in the backlog, but, like, Remo’s a perfect example of, like, that backlog can be built out.
460 00:50:08.220 ⇒ 00:50:11.709 Justin Breshears: fairly far in advance, from what I’ve seen in the sow.
461 00:50:13.360 ⇒ 00:50:13.990 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
462 00:50:14.260 ⇒ 00:50:20.109 Justin Breshears: So I think that one could use a grooming session. But maybe it’s, again, a bi-weekly thing.
463 00:50:21.360 ⇒ 00:50:25.869 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I guess, like, what do you think, Amber, Rico, like, do you guys want to do…
464 00:50:26.270 ⇒ 00:50:30.580 Uttam Kumaran: Do you guys want to do weekly groomings for your clients that’s booked?
465 00:50:31.230 ⇒ 00:50:37.180 Uttam Kumaran: Like, for example, for… urban stems, this would probably have to include
466 00:50:37.480 ⇒ 00:50:42.719 Uttam Kumaran: me… it would just be, like, kind of the whole squad, probably minus Emily.
467 00:50:43.080 ⇒ 00:50:47.800 Uttam Kumaran: But I want to make sure that you guys have that time booked.
468 00:50:47.980 ⇒ 00:50:52.879 Uttam Kumaran: like, for the AI team, this is just… you, Rico, and Sam.
469 00:50:53.180 ⇒ 00:50:59.720 Uttam Kumaran: But what do you guys think? You guys have opinions? If not, I’ll probably vote for…
470 00:51:00.390 ⇒ 00:51:03.860 Uttam Kumaran: Do weekly groomings until you build up backlog.
471 00:51:04.480 ⇒ 00:51:05.300 Uttam Kumaran: Like…
472 00:51:05.300 ⇒ 00:51:16.209 Amber Lin: Yeah, right now, I… I prefer to do it similarly as, like, planning. I group it with the stand-up, so that people don’t get distracted for two times.
473 00:51:16.530 ⇒ 00:51:23.139 Amber Lin: But I prefer weekly, just because the meetings are more regular.
474 00:51:25.370 ⇒ 00:51:35.130 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think my vote is because I think a lot of our tickets could use a lot more help on grooming, I want you guys to have dedicated time booked for that.
475 00:51:36.070 ⇒ 00:51:51.520 Uttam Kumaran: And not everyone has to be there. Just, like, whoever on the… on the project that can… whoever on the project is just at the technical point where they can help with estimation. So, for Urban Stems, that’s Devilate, it’s just Sam on the AI stuff.
476 00:51:51.850 ⇒ 00:51:55.770 Uttam Kumaran: It could be just Henry, or just away, Sean Eden.
477 00:51:55.990 ⇒ 00:52:05.969 Uttam Kumaran: But my… my view and my lens is gonna now start to… the next few weeks is gonna really focus on grooming and getting their ticket quality up.
478 00:52:06.130 ⇒ 00:52:06.750 Uttam Kumaran: So…
479 00:52:06.750 ⇒ 00:52:21.079 Justin Breshears: This is where we lean on the tech leads a lot. I think the tech leads should be the ones with a lot more input on planning out backlogs and grooming tickets. I think we can leave the hands-on keyboard folks
480 00:52:22.050 ⇒ 00:52:25.259 Justin Breshears: Like, to… we don’t have to necessarily pull them into that.
481 00:52:25.460 ⇒ 00:52:31.840 Justin Breshears: But, like, salmon, in a way, should be… grooming backlogs relatively… A lot.
482 00:52:36.100 ⇒ 00:52:42.529 Uttam Kumaran: So what do you guys think? Should we… you guys want to just do a weekly grooming per client this month, and then see how it goes?
483 00:52:44.860 ⇒ 00:52:46.280 Rico Rejoso: or the theme, yes.
484 00:52:48.740 ⇒ 00:52:49.430 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
485 00:52:49.660 ⇒ 00:52:56.700 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think, Amber, for you, it’d be… I think that’d be a great thing to do before you’re out, because that would give the team enough tickets.
486 00:52:56.820 ⇒ 00:52:59.520 Uttam Kumaran: And basically, you could do a good handoff.
487 00:52:59.640 ⇒ 00:53:04.650 Uttam Kumaran: So… again, I know it’s… it’s…
488 00:53:06.040 ⇒ 00:53:09.120 Uttam Kumaran: it’s 5 clients, but for example, for Remo.
489 00:53:09.250 ⇒ 00:53:20.730 Uttam Kumaran: I think you’ve done a lot of, like, grooming already for… so, for me, it’s like, it’s gonna feel like a lot of work up front, and then ideally, by the end of the month, you can move towards something that’s
490 00:53:20.800 ⇒ 00:53:33.579 Uttam Kumaran: Bi-weekly. But I certainly want to see us do more frequent grooming, and, like, be our average ticket quality go up, so… I think that’s something that I can… I can check in on on Monday as well, to see if that’s been booked.
491 00:53:33.910 ⇒ 00:53:39.499 Justin Breshears: I mean, at 5 clients taking 30 minutes weekly, that’s 2 and a half hours.
492 00:53:39.940 ⇒ 00:53:45.650 Justin Breshears: Per week spent on learning, with a huge return on that time, so I think that’s worth it.
493 00:53:46.690 ⇒ 00:53:47.300 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
494 00:53:47.630 ⇒ 00:53:48.380 Uttam Kumaran: Cool.
495 00:53:48.750 ⇒ 00:53:54.359 Uttam Kumaran: So, for Justin, how do you feel about your clients and, you know, all the different,
496 00:53:54.360 ⇒ 00:53:56.540 Justin Breshears: Yeah, so I’ll call out that, like.
497 00:53:56.680 ⇒ 00:54:00.619 Justin Breshears: Insomnia, not gonna be possible right now, just because…
498 00:54:01.790 ⇒ 00:54:13.199 Justin Breshears: I can’t get, like, that much of Robert’s time right now, in case… Casey is the only other piece of that, and his… there’s just maintenance on that scorecard, 30 minutes a day, like, so…
499 00:54:13.290 ⇒ 00:54:22.610 Justin Breshears: Like, insomnia, like, a lot of these rituals won’t make sense at the moment. When we… if we can identify or get in a different analyst in there, then… then I will, and I’ll kick them in at that point.
500 00:54:22.610 ⇒ 00:54:26.069 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. So what is booked currently for Insomnia?
501 00:54:26.750 ⇒ 00:54:37.290 Justin Breshears: Insomnia has stand-ups, and Insomnia has a weekly call with the client that only Robert is invited to, and then it has a planning on Wednesdays.
502 00:54:37.590 ⇒ 00:54:38.170 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
503 00:54:39.740 ⇒ 00:54:40.680 Justin Breshears: Nope. Okay.
504 00:54:40.820 ⇒ 00:54:45.510 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, I think this would be a big topic for Monday, is…
505 00:54:45.860 ⇒ 00:54:50.419 Uttam Kumaran: who from our team subs in? As soon as you get one person, you’ll… you’ll have it nailed.
506 00:54:50.590 ⇒ 00:54:59.939 Uttam Kumaran: I think I have a good bet on who it’s gonna be, but that’ll be something that I won’t let our team… I won’t let Monday go by until we have a decision on that, so…
507 00:55:00.390 ⇒ 00:55:00.990 Justin Breshears: Cool.
508 00:55:01.180 ⇒ 00:55:05.150 Justin Breshears: And yeah, a lot of that’s just, like, we’ve done with you and your time, trying to…
509 00:55:05.270 ⇒ 00:55:07.209 Justin Breshears: Yeah, same thing. Yeah, same thing.
510 00:55:07.210 ⇒ 00:55:07.779 Uttam Kumaran: We’re like, we’re trying.
511 00:55:07.780 ⇒ 00:55:13.570 Justin Breshears: do the same thing with Robert, is get him out of some of this responsibility, because that’s a huge suck on his time.
512 00:55:14.340 ⇒ 00:55:18.270 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. But yeah, we just don’t have grooming on that one, simply because, like.
513 00:55:18.470 ⇒ 00:55:19.400 Justin Breshears: There’s just…
514 00:55:19.620 ⇒ 00:55:24.199 Justin Breshears: Nothing right now that we can do on that, but we will, once we get somebody in there. Okay.
515 00:55:24.300 ⇒ 00:55:30.830 Justin Breshears: And then… Interlude… And… default…
516 00:55:31.030 ⇒ 00:55:45.689 Justin Breshears: have stand-ups, they have, weekly client meetings, but the risk there on AirLood, we’ve already talked about today that Matthew’s time is hard to get a hold of, so we may expand trying to meet with, like, Micah and Sylvia on those.
517 00:55:47.490 ⇒ 00:55:54.190 Justin Breshears: And as far as, like, planning, I’ve been doing them in the stand-ups, because it doesn’t take a ton of time for us to plan out the weeks for those.
518 00:55:55.430 ⇒ 00:55:56.600 Justin Breshears: And…
519 00:55:57.200 ⇒ 00:56:04.789 Justin Breshears: grooming is done along the way. Again, like, there’s, like, one ticket being worked on throughout the week, so it doesn’t take a lot of time.
520 00:56:05.160 ⇒ 00:56:05.750 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
521 00:56:06.320 ⇒ 00:56:19.580 Uttam Kumaran: So, I’m going to… So, that’s fine. I think similarly, can we get a… Monthly project review books.
522 00:56:19.700 ⇒ 00:56:20.910 Uttam Kumaran: for default.
523 00:56:21.360 ⇒ 00:56:26.309 Uttam Kumaran: like, recurring monthly for the next, so October, November, December.
524 00:56:26.940 ⇒ 00:56:33.239 Justin Breshears: Yeah, do we want to just, like, morph one of the weeklies into that more, or, like, who… is it… does that need to be
525 00:56:34.120 ⇒ 00:56:34.929 Justin Breshears: than Kaitlyn.
526 00:56:34.930 ⇒ 00:56:39.190 Uttam Kumaran: No, it’s just gonna be Caitlin. So yeah, you can morph, I just wanna make sure that…
527 00:56:39.370 ⇒ 00:56:44.290 Uttam Kumaran: We know the date at which that’s gonna happen, and so we prepare accordingly.
528 00:56:44.420 ⇒ 00:56:52.649 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what you can even do is, since you own that meeting, you can change the name of the one, just that meeting at that one date to the… yeah.
529 00:56:52.650 ⇒ 00:56:54.619 Justin Breshears: Exactly. That’s what I was gonna think.
530 00:56:54.620 ⇒ 00:56:55.509 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect, okay, great.
531 00:56:55.510 ⇒ 00:57:07.409 Justin Breshears: I always think, like, if I can just use existing client time instead of asking them for more, like, sometimes it’s better. So, I’m gonna do that. I’ll change… let’s be strategic about which one. So, like, I know the 15th is…
532 00:57:07.580 ⇒ 00:57:12.050 Justin Breshears: When we’re delivering, like, our recommenda- or the deadline to deliver the recommendation.
533 00:57:13.070 ⇒ 00:57:14.439 Uttam Kumaran: Maybe the week after?
534 00:57:14.860 ⇒ 00:57:20.150 Justin Breshears: That’s what I’m thinking, Thursday the 16th might be the time to, like, sit back and review, like, how did that go?
535 00:57:22.040 ⇒ 00:57:26.589 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. I feel… I just feel like we may get follow-on, like.
536 00:57:28.080 ⇒ 00:57:30.660 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess that’s maybe the best.
537 00:57:31.780 ⇒ 00:57:33.970 Justin Breshears: Wait, or we can wait till the week after.
538 00:57:33.970 ⇒ 00:57:36.879 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m kind of, like, maybe voting for the week after.
539 00:57:36.880 ⇒ 00:57:37.870 Justin Breshears: 23rd.
540 00:57:37.870 ⇒ 00:57:38.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
541 00:57:39.030 ⇒ 00:57:40.550 Justin Breshears: Alright, I’ll go ahead and change it now.
542 00:57:40.730 ⇒ 00:57:41.310 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
543 00:57:42.120 ⇒ 00:57:42.940 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect.
544 00:57:45.190 ⇒ 00:57:56.129 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so that’s booked for… 23rd… Okay, cool. And then… And, stop.
545 00:57:56.130 ⇒ 00:58:00.370 Justin Breshears: Interlude, we don’t… We can, again, like, convert.
546 00:58:00.370 ⇒ 00:58:00.870 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
547 00:58:01.560 ⇒ 00:58:05.899 Justin Breshears: I think Interlude, again, like, we… it’s… we just have the end of, like.
548 00:58:05.950 ⇒ 00:58:10.689 Uttam Kumaran: basically as soon as our contract is up is the end, so I think we should plan on having a meeting
549 00:58:11.320 ⇒ 00:58:12.699 Uttam Kumaran: Like, right before that.
550 00:58:13.490 ⇒ 00:58:14.080 Justin Breshears: Okay.
551 00:58:15.090 ⇒ 00:58:23.710 Justin Breshears: What is that? That’s another thing, is I think, do we have a place where, like, all the end dates of the contracts live? Because, like, I don’t know when our contracts.
552 00:58:23.710 ⇒ 00:58:28.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so this should be all in that project overview in Notion.
553 00:58:28.470 ⇒ 00:58:28.970 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
554 00:58:28.970 ⇒ 00:58:32.140 Justin Breshears: Cool. Yep, so I see it here, you should see the dates.
555 00:58:33.120 ⇒ 00:58:34.050 Justin Breshears: Perfect.
556 00:58:34.580 ⇒ 00:58:35.330 Justin Breshears: That’s good.
557 00:58:37.480 ⇒ 00:58:41.569 Uttam Kumaran: And yeah, this will get cleaner as I start to poke at it, but yeah, all the end dates are here.
558 00:58:41.570 ⇒ 00:58:50.810 Justin Breshears: Okay, so Interlude ends on… Am I looking at a different thing? You don’t see dates.
559 00:58:51.440 ⇒ 00:58:55.129 Uttam Kumaran: Are you in… I’m in the delivery meeting running notes.
560 00:58:55.360 ⇒ 00:58:55.939 Justin Breshears: Oh, I was.
561 00:58:55.940 ⇒ 00:58:56.559 Uttam Kumaran: and project management.
562 00:58:56.560 ⇒ 00:58:59.220 Justin Breshears: Management, there’s a project overview.
563 00:58:59.220 ⇒ 00:59:00.440 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I will…
564 00:59:00.930 ⇒ 00:59:04.709 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, yeah, it’s the same, but I don’t think the columns are in there, so let me…
565 00:59:04.880 ⇒ 00:59:06.359 Justin Breshears: Yeah, there’s no dates.
566 00:59:06.360 ⇒ 00:59:09.510 Uttam Kumaran: And the contract end date, start date, I just added it there, so it’s at the end now.
567 00:59:09.890 ⇒ 00:59:13.420 Justin Breshears: Beautiful. Okay.
568 00:59:15.190 ⇒ 00:59:17.400 Justin Breshears: It says… oh, that’s starting.
569 00:59:17.770 ⇒ 00:59:20.020 Justin Breshears: Why start dated after end date?
570 00:59:20.620 ⇒ 00:59:24.360 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay. I think, Rico, we need to update these.
571 00:59:24.610 ⇒ 00:59:25.260 Justin Breshears: Okay.
572 00:59:26.750 ⇒ 00:59:29.840 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so, yeah, we’ll up… we can update.
573 00:59:29.840 ⇒ 00:59:32.840 Justin Breshears: Interlude says December 31st.
574 00:59:34.750 ⇒ 00:59:38.719 Uttam Kumaran: No, I think it’s… I don’t think that’s… yeah, I don’t think that’s correct.
575 00:59:40.230 ⇒ 00:59:43.769 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, let me just… I’ll… we’ll delete it, and then we’ll come back to this.
576 00:59:43.770 ⇒ 00:59:44.460 Justin Breshears: Okay.
577 00:59:44.660 ⇒ 00:59:47.939 Justin Breshears: But anyway, do you know off the top of your head when that one ends?
578 00:59:47.950 ⇒ 00:59:49.530 Uttam Kumaran: I do not. Let me.
579 00:59:49.530 ⇒ 00:59:50.180 Justin Breshears: Let me look it up.
580 00:59:50.180 ⇒ 00:59:50.970 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
581 00:59:50.970 ⇒ 00:59:52.200 Rico Rejoso: For interlude?
582 00:59:52.870 ⇒ 00:59:53.830 Justin Breshears: for Interlude.
583 00:59:53.830 ⇒ 00:59:58.299 Rico Rejoso: That’s up until October 15.
584 00:59:58.900 ⇒ 01:00:01.410 Justin Breshears: October 15th. Aw, dang.
585 01:00:02.030 ⇒ 01:00:05.700 Justin Breshears: Because Matthew’s not available next week, so…
586 01:00:06.080 ⇒ 01:00:10.690 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I would say we would have… we should try to book it on for the… probably the 13th.
587 01:00:12.730 ⇒ 01:00:13.680 Justin Breshears: Day off.
588 01:00:14.020 ⇒ 01:00:15.349 Justin Breshears: It’s Columbus State.
589 01:00:15.350 ⇒ 01:00:18.389 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay, then the 14th, 14th finish.
590 01:00:18.780 ⇒ 01:00:20.899 Justin Breshears: 14 today is…
591 01:00:21.500 ⇒ 01:00:28.100 Justin Breshears: Okay. We just want to call that, like, a project review and, like, contract renewal sales or something?
592 01:00:28.100 ⇒ 01:00:29.410 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah.
593 01:00:31.680 ⇒ 01:00:41.569 Justin Breshears: Yeah, ideally, the… the goal, Amber and Rico, if we haven’t shared, like, what these monthly product reviews is, but we’re doing them regularly so that by the time we get to contract renewal.
594 01:00:42.000 ⇒ 01:00:45.940 Justin Breshears: It’s not like, that’s when you find out there was an issue kind of a thing, so…
595 01:00:46.640 ⇒ 01:00:51.010 Justin Breshears: This is not ideal, doing it right before contract renewal, but we’ll get to the point where we’re done.
596 01:00:51.010 ⇒ 01:00:51.910 Uttam Kumaran: Yes.
597 01:00:52.060 ⇒ 01:00:53.140 Uttam Kumaran: I agree.
598 01:00:53.520 ⇒ 01:00:54.120 Amber Lin: Hmm.
599 01:00:55.360 ⇒ 01:00:58.520 Justin Breshears: Okay, it’s on my list to schedule one.
600 01:01:00.300 ⇒ 01:01:04.160 Justin Breshears: The one… the other ones, I wanted to talk about hype.
601 01:01:04.160 ⇒ 01:01:04.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
602 01:01:04.890 ⇒ 01:01:15.919 Justin Breshears: So I don’t have, like, a plan of, like, who’s delivering on Hype, because we had that, like, meeting with them, and we talked about going through the SOPs and everything, but, like, is Awash delivering that? Like, who’s actually doing that?
603 01:01:15.920 ⇒ 01:01:19.009 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah… Awashi’s goal… Well…
604 01:01:20.110 ⇒ 01:01:28.630 Uttam Kumaran: this is like… well, this is where I just stood in on that client. I… it has to be a wish, and Robert is gonna be this… your strategist on that client.
605 01:01:29.350 ⇒ 01:01:35.519 Uttam Kumaran: So… That’s a… yeah, he needs to step in there.
606 01:01:36.210 ⇒ 01:01:36.850 Justin Breshears: Okay.
607 01:01:37.780 ⇒ 01:01:43.520 Justin Breshears: I’m just gonna say again, that’s a risk, because Robert’s time is hard to get a hold of.
608 01:01:43.750 ⇒ 01:01:53.220 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so that’s… these are all… again, we should just note this down, and I’ll… I’ll make it very, like, I’ll… well, it’ll be very clear after Monday, I’ll bring all these things up, so as long as I know
609 01:01:53.370 ⇒ 01:01:58.850 Uttam Kumaran: what these risks are, then I can step in and we can get answers. Because, yeah, I’m not on that client at all, so…
610 01:01:58.850 ⇒ 01:01:59.550 Justin Breshears: Yeah.
611 01:01:59.550 ⇒ 01:02:01.070 Uttam Kumaran: I just was there to…
612 01:02:01.510 ⇒ 01:02:02.180 Justin Breshears: Right.
613 01:02:02.180 ⇒ 01:02:02.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
614 01:02:02.740 ⇒ 01:02:06.009 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I knew it wasn’t gonna be you. I didn’t… I wasn’t asking for you.
615 01:02:06.010 ⇒ 01:02:06.600 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, it’s true.
616 01:02:07.070 ⇒ 01:02:11.909 Justin Breshears: Yeah, like, I have zero idea of, like, who’s supposed to actually be delivering that stuff.
617 01:02:12.360 ⇒ 01:02:17.999 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. So default, hype, insomnia interlude, right? Insomnia interlude, default hype.
618 01:02:18.240 ⇒ 01:02:22.620 Uttam Kumaran: So for… for… for Hype, there’s no stand-ups right now?
619 01:02:22.970 ⇒ 01:02:30.080 Justin Breshears: Not right now. I need to schedule all that, have on my notes to schedule, because they confirmed the weeklies on Thursdays, so we’ll schedule…
620 01:02:30.270 ⇒ 01:02:35.579 Justin Breshears: And then… yeah, I’ll get stand-ups spun up for that, but again, I don’t…
621 01:02:35.690 ⇒ 01:02:38.519 Justin Breshears: Right now, it’s just me and Awash, and I guess Robert, so…
622 01:02:38.520 ⇒ 01:02:54.629 Uttam Kumaran: Perfect, and actually, you know, today… today, I’ll… I’ll call Robert after we… after this meeting, and give him, like, a bunch of download on what to expect next week. So I’ll see how many answers I can get you, even before today ends. Perfect. But that’s why it’s just helpful for me to… to hear all that, so, okay, cool.
623 01:02:54.630 ⇒ 01:02:57.849 Justin Breshears: That’s why I’m calling them out. I just call out the wrists so we can tackle them.
624 01:02:57.850 ⇒ 01:03:01.820 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and then, Rico, you wanna go?
625 01:03:03.230 ⇒ 01:03:04.470 Rico Rejoso: Yep,
626 01:03:08.310 ⇒ 01:03:15.659 Rico Rejoso: Alright, so for, marketing team, basically we have marketing, content, and sales. They have the same, cake.
627 01:03:15.850 ⇒ 01:03:18.930 Rico Rejoso: Scheduled for the riddle.
628 01:03:24.200 ⇒ 01:03:32.650 Rico Rejoso: It is… planning is on Monday, stand up with you Wednesday, Friday, and for grooming every two-week Thursday.
629 01:03:34.360 ⇒ 01:03:38.949 Uttam Kumaran: So, for these teams, they need to be daily stand-ups.
630 01:03:40.040 ⇒ 01:03:40.540 Rico Rejoso: Yes.
631 01:03:40.540 ⇒ 01:03:43.069 Uttam Kumaran: Like, how do you feel about that?
632 01:03:43.640 ⇒ 01:03:50.659 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, we came up from a daily stand-up, it’s just we transitioned to, 3 times a week, recently, like.
633 01:03:50.900 ⇒ 01:03:56.609 Rico Rejoso: Two weeks ago, but yeah, we can transition back to a daily stand-up afterwards. I can set it up.
634 01:03:56.610 ⇒ 01:04:02.240 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess because they’re… yeah, I don’t know, I just feel like it could be good to just have that as a standard.
635 01:04:02.750 ⇒ 01:04:07.510 Uttam Kumaran: And… sort of not compromise, unless… It’s only 15 minutes.
636 01:04:07.770 ⇒ 01:04:15.270 Uttam Kumaran: So… I would say you can always book it, and then… Move a couple async, but…
637 01:04:15.380 ⇒ 01:04:17.160 Uttam Kumaran: It’s going to be hard, like…
638 01:04:18.170 ⇒ 01:04:29.459 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that would be my vote. So I would say move both of them to daily, and then it’s up to you to decide if it’s going to be worthwhile, if you want to move some of them async or cancel at that point.
639 01:04:30.970 ⇒ 01:04:40.219 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, I think, it would be, like, around 30 minutes for… I mean, to cover all for marketing content and sales, because
640 01:04:41.040 ⇒ 01:04:47.299 Rico Rejoso: Before we do 15 minutes for both marketing and content, since we’re adding sales and some of the updates.
641 01:04:47.390 ⇒ 01:05:06.269 Rico Rejoso: From them, we’re very technical, so we… we did extend it to 30 minutes, but lessen it to 3 times a week. But, yeah, we can have it for daily, I guess, but we need to, still go for 30 minutes to cover all the tickets for, those three teams.
642 01:05:07.530 ⇒ 01:05:12.230 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, yeah, I would do 30 minutes daily for marketing and sales, and then, since it’s just…
643 01:05:12.470 ⇒ 01:05:17.639 Uttam Kumaran: those teams are pretty similar, and then I would just do the 15 minutes daily for the AI team.
644 01:05:18.770 ⇒ 01:05:20.729 Uttam Kumaran: Or, or whatever it is.
645 01:05:20.730 ⇒ 01:05:35.050 Rico Rejoso: For the A team, typically the stand-up, the setup is that Sam goes for the first 15 minutes, and I do 15, the rest of the 15 minutes, so it’s 13 minutes in total. I didn’t change that since they…
646 01:05:35.380 ⇒ 01:05:40.400 Rico Rejoso: Go over all the updates of the tickets, not just on internally, but client works as well.
647 01:05:40.570 ⇒ 01:05:43.210 Rico Rejoso: Would that process works with Athen?
648 01:05:43.650 ⇒ 01:05:55.090 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I would probably, I would probably s- flip it, like… Start with yours.
649 01:05:55.400 ⇒ 01:06:01.540 Uttam Kumaran: And then Sam can talk about, like… because Sam is also just reviewing their work across all their clients.
650 01:06:01.540 ⇒ 01:06:01.939 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, so…
651 01:06:01.940 ⇒ 01:06:08.160 Uttam Kumaran: But I want to make… but I would say start with… start with… you’re just gonna probably have, like, at least… you’re just gonna have 3 or 4 tickets up to update.
652 01:06:08.360 ⇒ 01:06:12.509 Uttam Kumaran: So, I would just start there, knock out your part, and then hand it off.
653 01:06:12.950 ⇒ 01:06:16.800 Rico Rejoso: Okay, I’ll also inform him so we can get everything set up by Monday.
654 01:06:17.030 ⇒ 01:06:23.420 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, and then, so let’s talk about AI teams. So, there’s no Sprint review currently booked, because I don’t have one.
655 01:06:23.590 ⇒ 01:06:25.080 Uttam Kumaran: But that needs booking.
656 01:06:26.950 ⇒ 01:06:32.250 Uttam Kumaran: Similarly, for marketing and sales, we need to have a… Print review booked.
657 01:06:34.070 ⇒ 01:06:34.650 Rico Rejoso: Okay.
658 01:06:38.760 ⇒ 01:06:45.990 Rico Rejoso: I mean, that’s the same with the retro, right? So, you can invite you on it, because our retro is, like.
659 01:06:46.320 ⇒ 01:06:51.930 Rico Rejoso: for, twice… or, I mean, every after two weeks for, both teams.
660 01:06:52.770 ⇒ 01:06:56.909 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I don’t need to be on the retro, necessarily.
661 01:06:57.090 ⇒ 01:06:57.780 Rico Rejoso: Wow.
662 01:06:57.780 ⇒ 01:07:03.799 Uttam Kumaran: I guess you can include… you can… you can include me as optional, but… I definitely want to be…
663 01:07:03.960 ⇒ 01:07:11.760 Uttam Kumaran: In a sprint review, and in a weekly grooming for… for all three internal… for all these inter… for the both internal
664 01:07:13.310 ⇒ 01:07:14.200 Uttam Kumaran: Teams.
665 01:07:15.570 ⇒ 01:07:22.829 Rico Rejoso: Got it. I’ll include… I’ll create one for a weekly sprint review for both teams, and invite you out.
666 01:07:23.070 ⇒ 01:07:31.180 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, and then, for grooming, I think we should have… you should meet with damn.
667 01:07:31.540 ⇒ 01:07:35.229 Uttam Kumaran: Basically, at least once a week for… to groom, probably for…
668 01:07:36.180 ⇒ 01:07:38.179 Uttam Kumaran: You can just do 30 minutes to an hour.
669 01:07:39.680 ⇒ 01:07:44.770 Uttam Kumaran: those tickets, it’s easy to get ahead on the backlog, so… that’s what I would meet with him with.
670 01:07:45.720 ⇒ 01:07:46.600 Rico Rejoso: Okay,
671 01:07:47.440 ⇒ 01:07:52.229 Rico Rejoso: Should I also include you on the AI grooming, since we need some context on other tickets that…
672 01:07:52.900 ⇒ 01:07:54.690 Rico Rejoso: On other tickets that we have there.
673 01:07:56.010 ⇒ 01:07:58.739 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I guess it depends on, like.
674 01:07:59.020 ⇒ 01:08:05.950 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know, Justin, like, how did you guys do… like, for example, are you… for grooming.
675 01:08:07.530 ⇒ 01:08:11.130 Uttam Kumaran: Like, on our clients, we’re sort of collecting more requirements during
676 01:08:11.450 ⇒ 01:08:16.269 Uttam Kumaran: the week async, and then also on project reviews, right? We’re not having clients in
677 01:08:16.890 ⇒ 01:08:18.930 Uttam Kumaran: our grooming sessions, is that, like, fair?
678 01:08:18.930 ⇒ 01:08:24.930 Justin Breshears: Oh, yeah, no, I would never have clients in there, because you want to… you want to have that as just an internal discussion.
679 01:08:25.629 ⇒ 01:08:35.579 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I would probably vote, Rico, to just have it be you and your tech lead. So, for AI, it’s you and Sam. For marketing and sales, it’s you and Hannah.
680 01:08:35.629 ⇒ 01:08:49.939 Uttam Kumaran: And then, I’m gonna stream in requests throughout the week, and in our project review. So, I wanna give you guys, and this will kind of force you also to understand what both those two teams are shipping.
681 01:08:50.009 ⇒ 01:08:54.109 Uttam Kumaran: And I think you… I would… I would kind of push to have you and the…
682 01:08:54.799 ⇒ 01:08:56.679 Uttam Kumaran: Tech lead on both of these projects.
683 01:08:57.119 ⇒ 01:08:59.549 Uttam Kumaran: Sort of meet and make sure all the tickets are groomed.
684 01:09:00.069 ⇒ 01:09:13.029 Rico Rejoso: Yes, actually, that’s what I’m doing. I’m also requesting SOP for all of their process, so I can catch up on… and also have a quick idea of how they do stuff, and, you know, how the flow goes before they send it out.
685 01:09:13.359 ⇒ 01:09:18.359 Rico Rejoso: Everything. So we’re still in the process of creating the SOP and finalizing everything.
686 01:09:19.170 ⇒ 01:09:28.440 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so can you book… can you make sure to book some, like, a weekly grooming for those clients? For… for AI and for marketing and sales? Weekly?
687 01:09:29.120 ⇒ 01:09:30.419 Rico Rejoso: I have it.
688 01:09:30.420 ⇒ 01:09:31.040 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
689 01:09:31.410 ⇒ 01:09:36.229 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, great. So, again, my hope is that, really, by the end of Friday.
690 01:09:36.380 ⇒ 01:09:44.659 Uttam Kumaran: we would have made a dent on, you know, tickets and flight that are… that are all groomed, so I really want to see that we do these rituals.
691 01:09:46.120 ⇒ 01:10:01.159 Uttam Kumaran: And then the last team to call out is… is ops. It’s just me and you. I don’t… I don’t… we just meet once a week. I don’t want to overcomplicate this one. I think, like, I want to make sure that you nail the AI and the marketing. I think I…
692 01:10:01.700 ⇒ 01:10:06.910 Uttam Kumaran: Like, let’s just do that for… for this week, and then we can… we can keep… keep that as is.
693 01:10:07.400 ⇒ 01:10:10.890 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. So…
694 01:10:11.060 ⇒ 01:10:18.999 Uttam Kumaran: I know we’re… is everyone good for just a little bit longer? I just… maybe I can… I just want to share… I want to walk through allocations.
695 01:10:21.120 ⇒ 01:10:26.560 Uttam Kumaran: And then talk about, like, how we want to meet weekly, and then we have a couple of short action items.
696 01:10:27.970 ⇒ 01:10:34.809 Justin Breshears: Okay, I am actually planning on going to eat with my family. Okay, okay, okay, okay.
697 01:10:35.280 ⇒ 01:10:39.239 Justin Breshears: Yeah, I hate… I want to get to that stuff, so.
698 01:10:41.100 ⇒ 01:10:46.949 Uttam Kumaran: like, even… I guess if you have even, like, 2 minutes, I just want to have something I can recommend to…
699 01:10:47.130 ⇒ 01:10:55.979 Uttam Kumaran: Robert on the open clients, so let me just share this, and let’s just… and we can just knock this out right now, let’s just take a.
700 01:10:55.980 ⇒ 01:10:58.109 Justin Breshears: Sure. Yeah, I got a couple minutes.
701 01:10:58.110 ⇒ 01:11:03.999 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so if we look at, the timeline, let me get this out of the way…
702 01:11:05.450 ⇒ 01:11:08.480 Uttam Kumaran: So I went through and made sure that,
703 01:11:09.450 ⇒ 01:11:14.929 Uttam Kumaran: all external clients, have, you know, allocations for them.
704 01:11:15.040 ⇒ 01:11:21.720 Uttam Kumaran: So, let’s go through and just, look at, client…
705 01:11:21.980 ⇒ 01:11:24.980 Uttam Kumaran: Or… yeah, so let’s look at…
706 01:11:27.470 ⇒ 01:11:29.940 Uttam Kumaran: Well, okay, let’s… this is fine.
707 01:11:33.960 ⇒ 01:11:41.199 Uttam Kumaran: So, starting October 1st, right now.
708 01:11:41.740 ⇒ 01:11:47.390 Uttam Kumaran: So let’s just talk about, your clients, Justin. So, run your clients.
709 01:11:47.850 ⇒ 01:11:51.279 Uttam Kumaran: Mainly you’re, you’re looking at,
710 01:11:51.940 ⇒ 01:11:57.470 Uttam Kumaran: Casey has availability, Mustafa has availability,
711 01:12:00.950 ⇒ 01:12:07.319 Uttam Kumaran: I think probably what I would vote for for insomnia and HIP,
712 01:12:07.880 ⇒ 01:12:11.170 Uttam Kumaran: is that it’s… looks like Henry…
713 01:12:13.100 ⇒ 01:12:20.330 Uttam Kumaran: I guess, Amber, is this fair? Like, Henry is just on Eden with… 75% of his time?
714 01:12:22.230 ⇒ 01:12:23.459 Amber Lin: Yep.
715 01:12:24.600 ⇒ 01:12:29.250 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so one is we’re signing a new contract with Henry 40 hours a week.
716 01:12:31.260 ⇒ 01:12:34.429 Uttam Kumaran: So, he has time to dedicate to another client.
717 01:12:34.430 ⇒ 01:12:36.010 Amber Lin: Yeah, about 10 hours.
718 01:12:36.330 ⇒ 01:12:40.480 Uttam Kumaran: So, should I… are we good to propose him to come on to Insomnia?
719 01:12:42.520 ⇒ 01:12:43.730 Justin Breshears: I think that’d be great.
720 01:12:44.120 ⇒ 01:12:45.590 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so…
721 01:12:46.220 ⇒ 01:12:51.709 Justin Breshears: I mean, it shouldn’t take 10 hours. He should be able to do what he needs to under that.
722 01:12:52.010 ⇒ 01:13:05.300 Uttam Kumaran: I agree. So, I’m gonna do this… And then I’m gonna add… October 1st… 40 hours…
723 01:13:09.310 ⇒ 01:13:14.070 Uttam Kumaran: And then I’m going to add, Insomnia…
724 01:13:14.220 ⇒ 01:13:17.399 Uttam Kumaran: So how many, how many, how much time do you… does he need
725 01:13:17.500 ⇒ 01:13:21.899 Uttam Kumaran: Or do you need insomnia? And this is for the data analyst position.
726 01:13:21.900 ⇒ 01:13:34.170 Justin Breshears: Right. Strea was slated for 10 hours a week, but in talking with, like, Robert and the stuff, I don’t think that the actual work will take 10 hours a week, but it’s very ad hoc, too, so…
727 01:13:34.170 ⇒ 01:13:38.150 Uttam Kumaran: I would say Robert… think of Robert and me as, like.
728 01:13:39.270 ⇒ 01:13:42.289 Uttam Kumaran: We’re just, like, pro athletes, so…
729 01:13:42.290 ⇒ 01:13:43.460 Justin Breshears: Yeah, we’re totally…
730 01:13:43.460 ⇒ 01:13:43.960 Uttam Kumaran: Totally underserved.
731 01:13:43.960 ⇒ 01:13:44.820 Justin Breshears: faster.
732 01:13:44.820 ⇒ 01:13:47.230 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I don’t… I don’t… I wanna take…
733 01:13:47.870 ⇒ 01:13:52.160 Uttam Kumaran: what we say about how long things should take. Not, like, with a grain of salt, but…
734 01:13:52.340 ⇒ 01:13:59.560 Uttam Kumaran: the expectation’s gonna be high. I would say, from what I’m seeing on the client, in, like, responding to slacks, and…
735 01:14:00.150 ⇒ 01:14:06.029 Uttam Kumaran: getting onboarded, I think, 10 hours. I think I just want to make sure that it’s within your budget.
736 01:14:06.520 ⇒ 01:14:11.049 Justin Breshears: Allocate the 10 hours, because he’ll need some, like, ramp-up time, too.
737 01:14:11.050 ⇒ 01:14:13.950 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. So allocate the 10 hours, we can always pare it down.
738 01:14:13.950 ⇒ 01:14:18.669 Justin Breshears: If we find that it’s not… But 10 hours should be…
739 01:14:20.010 ⇒ 01:14:23.530 Justin Breshears: I’ll have to do the margin calculations on it, but it should be good.
740 01:14:23.530 ⇒ 01:14:24.650 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
741 01:14:24.880 ⇒ 01:14:26.160 Uttam Kumaran: So…
742 01:14:26.160 ⇒ 01:14:31.520 Justin Breshears: We have pared down Casey’s involvement, so yeah, we should be good with 10 hours, though.
743 01:14:37.060 ⇒ 01:14:42.900 Uttam Kumaran: So… So, seems like I’ve given you a decent plan on…
744 01:14:43.200 ⇒ 01:14:46.939 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, like that. Insomnia. You need a plan for hip.
745 01:14:46.940 ⇒ 01:14:48.750 Justin Breshears: For a hype. Yeah.
746 01:14:48.750 ⇒ 01:14:52.360 Uttam Kumaran: So, yeah, I’m sorry, I’m just gonna keep messing that up.
747 01:14:52.360 ⇒ 01:14:54.279 Justin Breshears: I don’t know, I think they said hi.
748 01:14:54.280 ⇒ 01:14:59.139 Uttam Kumaran: I think we said hip first, and then I… or Robert said hip first, and then it was hype, okay, whatever, I’ll just…
749 01:14:59.140 ⇒ 01:15:04.260 Justin Breshears: Well, and I pronounced Andrea’s name wrong on the call, too. I said Andrea, so…
750 01:15:04.660 ⇒ 01:15:07.199 Justin Breshears: We’re all over the place. I didn’t know it was…
751 01:15:07.200 ⇒ 01:15:09.690 Uttam Kumaran: That’s a fair… that’s, you know.
752 01:15:09.690 ⇒ 01:15:12.290 Justin Breshears: Yeah. You don’t… you never know on that stuff.
753 01:15:12.700 ⇒ 01:15:22.579 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so… Alright, so… yeah, let me just… sorry, I’ll let you go. So, on your project.
754 01:15:23.220 ⇒ 01:15:29.250 Uttam Kumaran: Looks like… and so one thing… I don’t have this set up yet, but we will set up roles.
755 01:15:29.410 ⇒ 01:15:39.089 Uttam Kumaran: like, capabilities, so easily you can say, hey, who on the team has this capability? We need it, and it’ll show who’s available. I’ve not done that, but it will… it’ll be there.
756 01:15:39.570 ⇒ 01:15:42.250 Justin Breshears: That’s huge, having, like, a skill tracker in here.
757 01:15:42.250 ⇒ 01:15:46.699 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, versus, like, looking at people, it’ll say who has the ability to do data analysis.
758 01:15:46.890 ⇒ 01:15:48.870 Justin Breshears: Love that. With time available, yeah.
759 01:15:49.300 ⇒ 01:15:56.620 Uttam Kumaran: So… Right now, if you look at Robert, he…
760 01:15:58.650 ⇒ 01:16:06.670 Uttam Kumaran: So, this is October 1st, so he’s 5% on HIP, 25% insomnia… This is…
761 01:16:07.450 ⇒ 01:16:10.819 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so he’s playing both data, and I’m having him play both.
762 01:16:11.000 ⇒ 01:16:15.670 Uttam Kumaran: Data analyst and strategist, so this one of these will get resolved.
763 01:16:16.200 ⇒ 01:16:24.280 Uttam Kumaran: So for hip, right now we have Awash, not on hip.
764 01:16:24.660 ⇒ 01:16:29.370 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think… Robert should still play strategist.
765 01:16:29.690 ⇒ 01:16:33.570 Uttam Kumaran: I think this is where we need to have a conversation about like…
766 01:16:34.170 ⇒ 01:16:41.099 Uttam Kumaran: I guess Awash is gonna play basically a solutions architect on HIP, which is kind of, like, what I have him for…
767 01:16:41.660 ⇒ 01:16:46.469 Uttam Kumaran: here, like, the backend architect. I have him here at… 10 hours a week.
768 01:16:47.320 ⇒ 01:16:54.950 Uttam Kumaran: We don’t have… I don’t… we don’t have another, sort of, like, strategist…
769 01:16:55.240 ⇒ 01:17:03.079 Uttam Kumaran: person right now. So, what you’re seeing Robert allocated on HIP for is the strategist role.
770 01:17:03.440 ⇒ 01:17:05.460 Uttam Kumaran: I think this is where…
771 01:17:05.810 ⇒ 01:17:12.429 Uttam Kumaran: You just need to confirm with him that he’s able to do that, and that you, Awash, and him can knock out whatever they need.
772 01:17:13.500 ⇒ 01:17:14.110 Justin Breshears: Okay.
773 01:17:15.190 ⇒ 01:17:18.280 Uttam Kumaran: My… I guess my request for you is to find out
774 01:17:18.550 ⇒ 01:17:20.880 Uttam Kumaran: If that’s… if that’s a yes, if that’s a no.
775 01:17:21.170 ⇒ 01:17:28.620 Uttam Kumaran: what are the capabilities you need? And I feel like… I mean… Yeah.
776 01:17:29.170 ⇒ 01:17:30.789 Uttam Kumaran: At that point, you let me know.
777 01:17:32.550 ⇒ 01:17:34.549 Justin Breshears: Will do. Write that down.
778 01:17:34.850 ⇒ 01:17:35.440 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
779 01:17:35.790 ⇒ 01:17:43.170 Uttam Kumaran: And then for Ellie, it’s… yeah, so I… okay, so that’s fine, and…
780 01:17:43.760 ⇒ 01:17:45.930 Uttam Kumaran: Is Zoron helping on Insomnia?
781 01:17:46.590 ⇒ 01:17:50.919 Justin Breshears: He did, like, one task for Insomnia, but it’s an ongoing thing.
782 01:17:51.730 ⇒ 01:17:56.310 Uttam Kumaran: So I have them allocated as… at 6 hours for insomnia. Like, what do you.
783 01:17:56.310 ⇒ 01:17:58.979 Justin Breshears: That for one week, yeah, that’s what he did.
784 01:17:59.920 ⇒ 01:18:02.510 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, so he’s not gonna be allocated that for the whole month?
785 01:18:02.510 ⇒ 01:18:09.679 Justin Breshears: No, I don’t know why it says the whole month, sorry. I couldn’t figure out how to do, like, a one… I thought I had it just in the one week.
786 01:18:10.000 ⇒ 01:18:16.530 Uttam Kumaran: So, I guess this is also my point, is that you… we have availability like, Zoran has availability.
787 01:18:16.820 ⇒ 01:18:24.160 Uttam Kumaran: Yes. So… You can see he’s… 55%.
788 01:18:24.320 ⇒ 01:18:25.150 Uttam Kumaran: Bucked.
789 01:18:25.550 ⇒ 01:18:29.110 Uttam Kumaran: So I want to make sure that either…
790 01:18:29.880 ⇒ 01:18:33.730 Uttam Kumaran: for example, like, I assume that we… we’re asking
791 01:18:36.700 ⇒ 01:18:40.100 Uttam Kumaran: And he’s not on… oh, wait, this is… oh, hold on, where did I…
792 01:18:41.390 ⇒ 01:18:45.980 Uttam Kumaran: What did I just do? Let me just refresh.
793 01:18:47.370 ⇒ 01:18:52.529 Uttam Kumaran: For Zoran… yeah, so he’s just on Eden, Ellie, and Insomnia.
794 01:18:53.350 ⇒ 01:19:00.279 Uttam Kumaran: And… this is where, for Ellie, I guess, what is his allocation?
795 01:19:00.900 ⇒ 01:19:02.090 Uttam Kumaran: Do you know Amber?
796 01:19:02.840 ⇒ 01:19:10.110 Amber Lin: Average about 15 hours. Next week might be a little more, because he didn’t do much this week, he had other stuff.
797 01:19:10.630 ⇒ 01:19:13.360 Amber Lin: So… I was 15.
798 01:19:20.560 ⇒ 01:19:25.609 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so he’s… he’s… he has a little bit of time, so I think…
799 01:19:25.880 ⇒ 01:19:36.050 Uttam Kumaran: For… to give you the… the skinny… I just wanna sort by… Lose.
800 01:19:36.170 ⇒ 01:19:38.490 Uttam Kumaran: Booked next 30 days.
801 01:19:54.710 ⇒ 01:19:58.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think your guy’s gonna be Henry for Insomnia.
802 01:19:58.170 ⇒ 01:20:05.930 Uttam Kumaran: And then, potentially, If we need Doron for any other tasks, we have him too.
803 01:20:06.340 ⇒ 01:20:14.000 Uttam Kumaran: The alternative, too, is I believe we have some additional time from Casey and Mustafa, so…
804 01:20:14.380 ⇒ 01:20:20.499 Uttam Kumaran: I think also you may be able to get Casey to do some other work on insomnia as well.
805 01:20:20.630 ⇒ 01:20:25.080 Uttam Kumaran: But… I think Henry’s gonna be your guy for that client.
806 01:20:25.540 ⇒ 01:20:26.190 Justin Breshears: Yeah.
807 01:20:26.960 ⇒ 01:20:27.570 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
808 01:20:27.790 ⇒ 01:20:28.380 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
809 01:20:28.380 ⇒ 01:20:29.200 Justin Breshears: I agree.
810 01:20:30.230 ⇒ 01:20:39.539 Uttam Kumaran: Alright, we’ll let you go. I’m gonna… I think Amber and Rico, if you forget to stay on a bit, I just want to finish up the allocations for the rest of the client, so we can kind of consider this done.
811 01:20:39.830 ⇒ 01:20:41.740 Uttam Kumaran: I just need to have a couple of questions.
812 01:20:41.740 ⇒ 01:20:46.360 Amber Lin: Yeah, okay. And then I do want to tell you what happened on, Remo.
813 01:20:46.360 ⇒ 01:20:47.429 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, cool.
814 01:20:47.790 ⇒ 01:20:51.880 Justin Breshears: Oh yeah, I’m curious about that too, like, how that’s gonna shake out.
815 01:20:52.710 ⇒ 01:20:54.640 Justin Breshears: But, you can fill me in later.
816 01:20:54.640 ⇒ 01:20:55.470 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
817 01:20:56.100 ⇒ 01:20:56.750 Justin Breshears: Thanks, y’all.
818 01:20:56.750 ⇒ 01:20:58.160 Uttam Kumaran: Thank you, dude. Talk to you soon.
819 01:20:58.160 ⇒ 01:20:59.300 Justin Breshears: I…
820 01:21:01.920 ⇒ 01:21:09.070 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so let’s talk about, projects…
821 01:21:10.710 ⇒ 01:21:21.450 Uttam Kumaran: So, to give you a sense of what I did, so… ABC is Amber… Casey, Mustafa, Sam…
822 01:21:21.950 ⇒ 01:21:24.969 Uttam Kumaran: Is there any time from away from this client?
823 01:21:25.850 ⇒ 01:21:32.510 Amber Lin: Very little, because the database stuff is done, essentially. So, Sam’s the tech lead.
824 01:21:32.760 ⇒ 01:21:33.460 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
825 01:21:33.810 ⇒ 01:21:38.160 Uttam Kumaran: And then AI automation… okay, this is a… this isn’t applying to me.
826 01:21:39.490 ⇒ 01:21:41.190 Uttam Kumaran: Filter project…
827 01:21:45.620 ⇒ 01:21:49.590 Amber Lin: How did you make it so that you saw allocations by week?
828 01:21:49.830 ⇒ 01:21:54.499 Amber Lin: Mine still says, like, hours per day when I try to…
829 01:21:55.770 ⇒ 01:21:57.679 Uttam Kumaran: Add in allocations.
830 01:21:58.760 ⇒ 01:22:00.410 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not sure…
831 01:22:00.410 ⇒ 01:22:02.249 Amber Lin: Hmm, I’ll go, I’ll go see.
832 01:22:02.250 ⇒ 01:22:02.820 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
833 01:22:02.820 ⇒ 01:22:04.509 Amber Lin: Oh, nevermind, I found it.
834 01:22:05.190 ⇒ 01:22:05.910 Amber Lin: Okay.
835 01:22:12.760 ⇒ 01:22:20.940 Amber Lin: Confirmed on ABC… Confirmed on Eden.
836 01:22:21.120 ⇒ 01:22:25.410 Amber Lin: And then Urban Stems… let me see…
837 01:22:25.610 ⇒ 01:22:37.500 Uttam Kumaran: Well, I wanna sort this by… Newest first… I guess… Or…
838 01:22:54.070 ⇒ 01:22:55.880 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, I don’t know, this is not…
839 01:22:56.060 ⇒ 01:22:59.790 Uttam Kumaran: exactly what I want, but… Alright, so for Eden…
840 01:23:00.910 ⇒ 01:23:04.350 Uttam Kumaran: 25% of Amber, 25% of Awash.
841 01:23:04.930 ⇒ 01:23:14.579 Uttam Kumaran: 45% of demolade 75% of Henry
842 01:23:17.620 ⇒ 01:23:23.299 Uttam Kumaran: 5%, like, 12.5% from Robert, and then another 15 hours from Zoran. Is this accurate?
843 01:23:23.970 ⇒ 01:23:31.519 Amber Lin: On Robert’s side, he’s not spending too much time, I would say, like, 3 hours per week, so far, for the past few weeks.
844 01:23:32.470 ⇒ 01:23:39.590 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. I mean, I would say more of my question is around Demolade and Henry and Zoran, like, that’s quite a bit of time.
845 01:23:39.770 ⇒ 01:23:43.270 Amber Lin: I think… some…
846 01:23:43.540 ⇒ 01:23:48.590 Amber Lin: done a lot of spends. I’m editing it right now, I’m gonna say 15 per week.
847 01:23:48.590 ⇒ 01:23:51.690 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, I don’t want… I don’t want to edit it, like, willy-nilly.
848 01:23:52.150 ⇒ 01:23:58.250 Uttam Kumaran: the goal of the allocation is not to get a picture that we like, to get a picture of accuracy. So…
849 01:23:58.250 ⇒ 01:23:58.910 Amber Lin: No.
850 01:23:58.930 ⇒ 01:24:03.970 Uttam Kumaran: Do you, like, right now it says he’s spending 18 hours a week. Like, what…
851 01:24:03.970 ⇒ 01:24:07.279 Amber Lin: spending about, like, fifth… I would say 15.
852 01:24:09.590 ⇒ 01:24:11.369 Uttam Kumaran: And has that been consistent?
853 01:24:11.680 ⇒ 01:24:12.270 Amber Lin: Yeah.
854 01:24:13.200 ⇒ 01:24:13.810 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
855 01:24:17.580 ⇒ 01:24:18.699 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
856 01:24:20.400 ⇒ 01:24:24.259 Uttam Kumaran: So… and then how about Oasia at 10 hours?
857 01:24:25.920 ⇒ 01:24:29.629 Amber Lin: A wage fluctuates between 10 and 15.
858 01:24:30.910 ⇒ 01:24:33.109 Uttam Kumaran: then I’m gonna go on the high end.
859 01:24:33.110 ⇒ 01:24:33.810 Amber Lin: Okay.
860 01:24:34.720 ⇒ 01:24:38.779 Uttam Kumaran: And then, how about, zoran is at 15.
861 01:24:40.430 ⇒ 01:24:43.970 Uttam Kumaran: And then… How about Henry’s at 30?
862 01:24:45.660 ⇒ 01:24:46.849 Uttam Kumaran: on Just Eden.
863 01:24:47.470 ⇒ 01:24:51.749 Amber Lin: Yes, because he’s doing his work, and originally what Annie’s doing.
864 01:24:51.980 ⇒ 01:24:54.690 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. 30 min- 30 hours, actually.
865 01:24:56.100 ⇒ 01:25:01.920 Uttam Kumaran: So… How do I look at, like…
866 01:25:07.260 ⇒ 01:25:07.940 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm.
867 01:25:08.860 ⇒ 01:25:12.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’m gonna… I have to work on how to get the budgets properly, but…
868 01:25:13.470 ⇒ 01:25:17.920 Uttam Kumaran: How do I… can I see, like, what the total amount of hours this is?
869 01:25:27.670 ⇒ 01:25:28.510 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm…
870 01:25:41.010 ⇒ 01:25:46.970 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, well, let’s just do some quick math, so… Just pull up my calculator…
871 01:25:56.930 ⇒ 01:26:00.700 Uttam Kumaran: 10… 15… 15…
872 01:26:04.360 ⇒ 01:26:11.309 Amber Lin: You can go in, I just checked, you can go into the three lines on the upper right corner.
873 01:26:11.780 ⇒ 01:26:12.210 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
874 01:26:12.210 ⇒ 01:26:15.960 Amber Lin: And then, click on that.
875 01:26:16.200 ⇒ 01:26:16.840 Uttam Kumaran: This one?
876 01:26:17.160 ⇒ 01:26:18.410 Amber Lin: Yeah, in settings.
877 01:26:19.180 ⇒ 01:26:24.019 Amber Lin: Yeah, and then scroll down to… to see…
878 01:26:24.150 ⇒ 01:26:28.980 Amber Lin: The drop-down percentage person capacity.
879 01:26:30.140 ⇒ 01:26:30.830 Amber Lin: And then…
880 01:26:30.830 ⇒ 01:26:31.720 Uttam Kumaran: Oh.
881 01:26:34.810 ⇒ 01:26:36.119 Uttam Kumaran: Which one did you do?
882 01:26:36.120 ⇒ 01:26:37.310 Amber Lin: Oh, sure. Oh, out.
883 01:26:37.570 ⇒ 01:26:38.290 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
884 01:26:38.420 ⇒ 01:26:39.979 Amber Lin: Yeah, that should help.
885 01:26:47.250 ⇒ 01:26:48.710 Uttam Kumaran: I see. Perfect.
886 01:26:49.630 ⇒ 01:26:51.189 Uttam Kumaran: So this is 90.
887 01:26:51.880 ⇒ 01:26:53.850 Uttam Kumaran: So, 90 hours per week.
888 01:26:54.350 ⇒ 01:26:55.590 Amber Lin: Though…
889 01:26:56.130 ⇒ 01:27:01.749 Uttam Kumaran: That’s… so let’s do 90 times 4.3, so 387.
890 01:27:05.870 ⇒ 01:27:07.459 Uttam Kumaran: Donut at the…
891 01:27:08.600 ⇒ 01:27:14.830 Amber Lin: It’s not. That’s why, Robert’s trying to make a case for Juan’s hours, and…
892 01:27:15.000 ⇒ 01:27:18.339 Amber Lin: Also, why I wanted to capital wishes hours at 10.
893 01:27:20.550 ⇒ 01:27:26.749 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so I’m gonna put a note here in, like, in terms of, like… oh, actually, I’m not gonna put it here, I’m gonna put it… let me just put it in Notion.
894 01:27:27.390 ⇒ 01:27:30.960 Uttam Kumaran: So… for Eden…
895 01:27:34.510 ⇒ 01:27:48.710 Uttam Kumaran: So, proposed changes, right? So… We need… so we are basically planning to do… Let’s say 390…
896 01:27:50.000 ⇒ 01:27:51.900 Uttam Kumaran: Hours planned.
897 01:27:52.450 ⇒ 01:27:54.780 Uttam Kumaran: Which is roughly a 78.
898 01:27:54.780 ⇒ 01:27:56.080 Amber Lin: Per hour.
899 01:27:57.200 ⇒ 01:28:06.070 Uttam Kumaran: So the changes that we’re proposing are… Bill for Zoran’s time.
900 01:28:06.170 ⇒ 01:28:12.790 Uttam Kumaran: Second is limit OH to… 10 hours from 5.
901 01:28:14.270 ⇒ 01:28:16.530 Uttam Kumaran: Doesn’t make a huge impact, though.
902 01:28:16.530 ⇒ 01:28:17.420 Amber Lin: -
903 01:28:17.990 ⇒ 01:28:21.879 Uttam Kumaran: So, what you probably want to do is…
904 01:28:22.550 ⇒ 01:28:28.370 Uttam Kumaran: Like, for example, if I was to look at, so…
905 01:28:33.210 ⇒ 01:28:36.370 Uttam Kumaran: You need to somehow cut 180 hours.
906 01:28:36.710 ⇒ 01:28:37.760 Uttam Kumaran: per month.
907 01:28:42.920 ⇒ 01:28:44.340 Amber Lin: is missing.
908 01:28:46.960 ⇒ 01:28:48.090 Uttam Kumaran: So, 180…
909 01:28:48.090 ⇒ 01:28:48.910 Amber Lin: There’s 40 hours.
910 01:28:48.910 ⇒ 01:28:52.689 Uttam Kumaran: Divided by 4.3, yeah, so you need to find 40.
911 01:28:52.690 ⇒ 01:28:53.999 Amber Lin: That’s almost half.
912 01:28:55.260 ⇒ 01:28:57.650 Uttam Kumaran: So, so my goal is start by finding 20.
913 01:28:59.490 ⇒ 01:29:02.330 Uttam Kumaran: Anything is better than… than what it is now.
914 01:29:02.900 ⇒ 01:29:05.490 Uttam Kumaran: So… I think…
915 01:29:05.800 ⇒ 01:29:13.060 Uttam Kumaran: So, I’m gonna put roughly, like, the goal is to cut 180 hours per week, so I’m gonna say…
916 01:29:14.140 ⇒ 01:29:21.389 Uttam Kumaran: If no budget change, We have to cut 180 hours.
917 01:29:22.130 ⇒ 01:29:32.890 Uttam Kumaran: So, we’re gonna start by… Start by finding… 20 hours a week additional.
918 01:29:33.300 ⇒ 01:29:35.740 Uttam Kumaran: So the first proposal there is…
919 01:29:36.480 ⇒ 01:29:41.979 Uttam Kumaran: you can cut 5… well, you can cut… yeah, cut 5 from a WASH,
920 01:29:43.400 ⇒ 01:29:47.720 Uttam Kumaran: you should probably find… yeah, so I think this is… I’ll bring this topic up on Monday, up at that.
921 01:29:47.720 ⇒ 01:29:49.170 Amber Lin: Okay.
922 01:29:49.400 ⇒ 01:29:51.729 Uttam Kumaran: So think about it that way, don’t think about the 40.
923 01:29:52.070 ⇒ 01:29:53.520 Uttam Kumaran: Think about the…
924 01:29:54.450 ⇒ 01:30:12.149 Uttam Kumaran: the, think about the 21st, but okay, great. Wow, so look, I want to just pause for a moment. We have all the data here, and finally we can, like, look at the plan, look at what we’re doing, how we have a goal, and then we have, like, okay, what are the changes? So I’m very, very happy to see that.
925 01:30:13.870 ⇒ 01:30:20.780 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. So… This is what it is. Well, we can talk again on Monday.
926 01:30:22.840 ⇒ 01:30:25.480 Amber Lin: And you’re at 10 hours, is that fair?
927 01:30:26.310 ⇒ 01:30:27.190 Amber Lin: Yum.
928 01:30:27.380 ⇒ 01:30:32.960 Amber Lin: So I’ve been not doing the most on Eden, and there’s more and more meetings coming up,
929 01:30:33.300 ⇒ 01:30:36.030 Amber Lin: thing, I hover around 8 to 10.
930 01:30:37.410 ⇒ 01:30:38.100 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so…
931 01:30:38.100 ⇒ 01:30:40.019 Amber Lin: I can… I can do 8.
932 01:30:42.180 ⇒ 01:30:46.630 Uttam Kumaran: So, is this… so this is… but this is not correct, right? Because you have…
933 01:30:46.730 ⇒ 01:30:49.490 Amber Lin: Remo 5… what am I missing on this?
934 01:30:49.670 ⇒ 01:30:53.369 Uttam Kumaran: ABC, Eden, Ellie, Remo, Urban Stems, right?
935 01:30:55.980 ⇒ 01:31:00.510 Uttam Kumaran: But this is only adding to, like, 27. Are these accurate?
936 01:31:01.410 ⇒ 01:31:06.380 Amber Lin: I feel like ABC’s closer to 10. Alright. Every week, I try to do 5 answers.
937 01:31:06.380 ⇒ 01:31:10.909 Uttam Kumaran: No, okay, so that’s what I want to hear. I… let’s, again, go for accurate, don’t optimize at this point.
938 01:31:10.910 ⇒ 01:31:11.240 Amber Lin: I see.
939 01:31:11.240 ⇒ 01:31:14.970 Uttam Kumaran: Meaning, like, this… Ideally, at the end of the month.
940 01:31:15.100 ⇒ 01:31:19.179 Uttam Kumaran: This should be within 10% of what Clockify says.
941 01:31:19.180 ⇒ 01:31:21.949 Amber Lin: Okay, I’ll edit ABC to be time.
942 01:31:21.950 ⇒ 01:31:26.259 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I want to make sure that… that… so that’s fine, so that’s a 10.
943 01:31:27.130 ⇒ 01:31:28.939 Amber Lin: So I’m at 32.
944 01:31:28.940 ⇒ 01:31:29.500 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
945 01:31:29.550 ⇒ 01:31:30.770 Amber Lin: And then…
946 01:31:30.770 ⇒ 01:31:31.860 Uttam Kumaran: Ellie…
947 01:31:31.860 ⇒ 01:31:37.519 Amber Lin: Ellie, if we do daily, probably end at, like, 2 or 3.
948 01:31:37.650 ⇒ 01:31:40.399 Amber Lin: I mean, it’s still decently accurate.
949 01:31:41.520 ⇒ 01:31:43.960 Amber Lin: Like, 2 or 3 hours per week is okay.
950 01:31:44.890 ⇒ 01:31:50.489 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s see, this is where, like, how are we doing on, like, are we doing the project reviews with them?
951 01:31:51.380 ⇒ 01:31:53.530 Amber Lin: No.
952 01:31:53.530 ⇒ 01:31:57.269 Uttam Kumaran: That’s the thing, like, we have to do the project reviews, the monthly project review.
953 01:31:57.740 ⇒ 01:31:58.140 Amber Lin: Huh.
954 01:31:58.140 ⇒ 01:32:00.760 Uttam Kumaran: So, I wanna put 5 here.
955 01:32:00.760 ⇒ 01:32:01.520 Amber Lin: Okay.
956 01:32:01.900 ⇒ 01:32:02.770 Amber Lin: And then…
957 01:32:02.770 ⇒ 01:32:04.869 Uttam Kumaran: to take all that time to do that.
958 01:32:04.870 ⇒ 01:32:17.489 Amber Lin: Then… let me think… Remo, probably be a little bit more than 5… I’ll see. I’ll come back and adjust, because I don’t know what the meetings would look like.
959 01:32:17.710 ⇒ 01:32:20.959 Amber Lin: Today, it went over.
960 01:32:21.750 ⇒ 01:32:26.499 Amber Lin: So, Leah stays at 5, I’ll come back and address these if I need.
961 01:32:28.890 ⇒ 01:32:31.650 Amber Lin: 5 on Ellie.
962 01:32:33.400 ⇒ 01:32:34.250 Amber Lin: Okay.
963 01:32:34.550 ⇒ 01:32:40.929 Uttam Kumaran: So, again, if our goal is around 90% allocation, you’re basically at that.
964 01:32:42.180 ⇒ 01:32:45.389 Uttam Kumaran: But again, I want to make sure…
965 01:32:45.560 ⇒ 01:32:51.909 Uttam Kumaran: it’s accurate. So, like, you feel, like, 5 hours on Urban Stems, Remo, And this is accurate.
966 01:32:53.030 ⇒ 01:32:55.050 Amber Lin: I think so. Okay.
967 01:32:56.540 ⇒ 01:32:59.170 Uttam Kumaran: And then, do you feel sufficiently like you’re not…
968 01:33:00.050 ⇒ 01:33:03.430 Uttam Kumaran: I’ve been able to move you out of, like, a lot of the internal stuff.
969 01:33:04.680 ⇒ 01:33:20.319 Amber Lin: Yeah, I think next week, it makes it a lot clearer, because if I PM, it’s still… even if it’s different projects, it’s still similar things. I feel like the amount of projects might be a lot, and my mind doesn’t…
970 01:33:20.420 ⇒ 01:33:20.910 Amber Lin: No.
971 01:33:20.910 ⇒ 01:33:26.350 Uttam Kumaran: 5 projects is a lot. Like, ideally, we want to be closer to… to…
972 01:33:26.980 ⇒ 01:33:37.989 Uttam Kumaran: So 3 or 4. But the problem is, some of these are small, some of these are small, so I’m also not, like, such a big fan. This is where I want you guys to…
973 01:33:38.070 ⇒ 01:33:48.789 Uttam Kumaran: like, even if you’re at… even if you’re like, well, I’m lying, because I have to work 50 hours, and I’m actually doing… I actually want to just get the accurate picture, because I’m gonna work on the AI stuff in the next month.
974 01:33:49.000 ⇒ 01:33:51.550 Uttam Kumaran: And ideally, coming in November.
975 01:33:51.550 ⇒ 01:33:54.570 Amber Lin: we should say, like, hey, given that I have these AI tools.
976 01:33:55.190 ⇒ 01:33:56.960 Uttam Kumaran: It’s now less of my time.
977 01:33:57.980 ⇒ 01:34:01.389 Uttam Kumaran: So I guess I also want you guys to be honest with the amount of time you’re working.
978 01:34:01.500 ⇒ 01:34:05.400 Uttam Kumaran: If you feel like you’re working 50 hours, I want that to be reflected here.
979 01:34:05.500 ⇒ 01:34:07.550 Uttam Kumaran: And then I want that to be…
980 01:34:07.840 ⇒ 01:34:10.410 Uttam Kumaran: I want us to put the true allocation.
981 01:34:10.930 ⇒ 01:34:11.610 Amber Lin: Yeah.
982 01:34:11.770 ⇒ 01:34:16.129 Uttam Kumaran: You know? So, like, if I was… so that’s, like, that’s kind of, like, what I’m… what I’m pushing for.
983 01:34:16.130 ⇒ 01:34:17.179 Amber Lin: Yeah, I hear you.
984 01:34:17.680 ⇒ 01:34:21.910 Amber Lin: Sounds good.
985 01:34:22.420 ⇒ 01:34:27.880 Amber Lin: That should be pretty accurate of my time, now that the internal’s not there, because before, that was taking time.
986 01:34:27.880 ⇒ 01:34:35.100 Uttam Kumaran: So yeah, and just, Nick’s, if you’re at any internal meetings you’re in, you could just get out of, you know, basically.
987 01:34:35.100 ⇒ 01:34:36.250 Amber Lin: That would be great.
988 01:34:36.400 ⇒ 01:34:37.730 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool.
989 01:34:37.730 ⇒ 01:34:40.449 Amber Lin: I think the last thing on the projects, I will add…
990 01:34:40.640 ⇒ 01:34:50.309 Amber Lin: I still need to confirm on Remo, so I’m not gonna add surf time. I’m assuming it’s gonna be 10 or 15, depending on what we end up with.
991 01:34:50.800 ⇒ 01:34:53.060 Amber Lin: And then Oasis’ time is gonna be, like…
992 01:34:53.660 ⇒ 01:35:02.249 Amber Lin: 2 to 3 per week until we get to the later phase where we need to integrate, because right now it’s a lot of consulting, so away should only be in meetings.
993 01:35:02.720 ⇒ 01:35:06.419 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so let’s actually do… maybe while it’s on that topic, let’s do the…
994 01:35:06.980 ⇒ 01:35:12.160 Amber Lin: Oasis at, like, 3-
995 01:35:13.200 ⇒ 01:35:21.510 Amber Lin: Go for it higher, and I’ll go 3, and then put surf, I’m gonna put surf at 15, 4…
996 01:35:22.240 ⇒ 01:35:33.860 Amber Lin: Tell me, tell me, yeah, tell me how that conversation went. Yeah, so today, when we went there, the first thing Cameron was, their Remo’s tech lead, said, we’re not doing multi-tenant, we’re doing single-tenant.
997 01:35:34.090 ⇒ 01:35:35.209 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. So…
998 01:35:35.210 ⇒ 01:35:37.900 Amber Lin: That means that we need to shift some stuff.
999 01:35:37.910 ⇒ 01:35:55.439 Amber Lin: We did get all the access, main, main access items today. So, because it’s a scope change, and we’re consulting, one of the concerns that we stay behind to talk about is that for Remo’s best interest is that we just go with whatever they say, and just…
1000 01:35:55.780 ⇒ 01:36:05.880 Amber Lin: just not change anything, but we’re consulting for Eden on Remo. So, if it’s for Eden’s best interest, we need to confirm the scope change.
1001 01:36:05.920 ⇒ 01:36:18.440 Amber Lin: give them the technical implications of doing single-tenant, or… or down the road, of the choices that Remo has made for such a big company like Eden. So…
1002 01:36:18.970 ⇒ 01:36:21.980 Amber Lin: We didn’t propose, like, our…
1003 01:36:22.130 ⇒ 01:36:38.419 Amber Lin: timeline expansion, because they… they brought up such a big change. What we’re going to do is we’re… we’re going to prepare a scope change document, with the implications and our questions, and we want sign-off, earlier next week.
1004 01:36:38.660 ⇒ 01:36:49.869 Amber Lin: from Eden and someone more technical on their team, because Ryan’s not that technical, and then Thursday, we’re meeting again with Remo. But Surface’s going to start investigating, but…
1005 01:36:50.430 ⇒ 01:37:01.139 Amber Lin: especially since this is not set in stone, and because Remo’s making changes in scope, it might not be best to start working immediate.
1006 01:37:01.260 ⇒ 01:37:03.190 Amber Lin: Lee, but…
1007 01:37:03.190 ⇒ 01:37:05.350 Uttam Kumaran: But you’re still gonna run all the rituals for this.
1008 01:37:05.350 ⇒ 01:37:09.269 Amber Lin: Yeah, I will. Okay. I need to… I need to book them,
1009 01:37:09.640 ⇒ 01:37:11.999 Amber Lin: And I need to book the meeting with the client.
1010 01:37:12.000 ⇒ 01:37:19.160 Uttam Kumaran: So I guess last time, like, in the middle of the week, what you found was, okay, given our scope, it’s, like, way too many hours.
1011 01:37:19.160 ⇒ 01:37:19.480 Amber Lin: Yeah.
1012 01:37:19.480 ⇒ 01:37:24.179 Uttam Kumaran: So what’s your feeling now? You’re feeling like the scope is gonna decrease, or what do you think?
1013 01:37:24.180 ⇒ 01:37:25.020 Amber Lin: Boom.
1014 01:37:25.350 ⇒ 01:37:30.970 Amber Lin: It… I… I think it will decrease slightly, because there’s work…
1015 01:37:31.350 ⇒ 01:37:37.300 Amber Lin: Related to going multi-tenant to single-tenant, it’s a little bit simpler.
1016 01:37:37.740 ⇒ 01:37:46.139 Amber Lin: But the work of verifying their work, checking their code, and then helping them integrate with Eden, that’s still the same.
1017 01:37:49.500 ⇒ 01:37:55.119 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Yeah. So, I think the biggest thing is to confirm the scope, and then
1018 01:37:55.430 ⇒ 01:37:57.480 Uttam Kumaran: You need to basically get…
1019 01:37:58.070 ⇒ 01:37:58.540 Amber Lin: Sign up.
1020 01:37:58.540 ⇒ 01:38:01.220 Uttam Kumaran: Sign… yeah, sign off, but then also…
1021 01:38:02.850 ⇒ 01:38:15.849 Uttam Kumaran: I think it’s a question that you need to have with Robert, is… is our goal, like, is there chance of renewal really high that we shouldn’t worry too much about hitting the timeline? Or is the timeline really important because
1022 01:38:16.550 ⇒ 01:38:21.899 Uttam Kumaran: we… we… we basically… you should tell them, like, hey, you only… we only got 10K to do this.
1023 01:38:22.470 ⇒ 01:38:22.870 Amber Lin: Hmm.
1024 01:38:22.870 ⇒ 01:38:23.940 Uttam Kumaran: Pick way more.
1025 01:38:24.220 ⇒ 01:38:25.040 Amber Lin: What?
1026 01:38:25.080 ⇒ 01:38:29.360 Uttam Kumaran: plan. So, if you want, I can have that conversation on Monday, if you feel prepared to have that.
1027 01:38:29.610 ⇒ 01:38:36.390 Amber Lin: Yeah, yeah, because Surf is gonna prepare the scope based on what he sees this weekend.
1028 01:38:36.670 ⇒ 01:38:37.190 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1029 01:38:37.190 ⇒ 01:38:39.860 Amber Lin: I can be more prepared on Monday.
1030 01:38:45.640 ⇒ 01:38:47.280 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay, great. Perfect.
1031 01:38:47.410 ⇒ 01:38:47.960 Amber Lin: Yeah.
1032 01:38:49.090 ⇒ 01:38:58.339 Uttam Kumaran: Awesome. Okay, great. And then let’s talk about, Ellie. So, Ellie is 5 hours from you, 5 hours from Robert as a strategist.
1033 01:38:58.640 ⇒ 01:39:03.959 Uttam Kumaran: And then I have, zoran at 15 hours a week.
1034 01:39:05.730 ⇒ 01:39:07.549 Amber Lin: Ellie…
1035 01:39:07.900 ⇒ 01:39:10.240 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s 20 hours a week.
1036 01:39:10.460 ⇒ 01:39:14.159 Amber Lin: It’s less from Robert, most likely.
1037 01:39:15.930 ⇒ 01:39:17.400 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, okay, you think it’s gonna be less?
1038 01:39:17.830 ⇒ 01:39:22.209 Amber Lin: Yeah, because Zoran’s leading it, mostly. Robert’s just…
1039 01:39:22.700 ⇒ 01:39:28.749 Amber Lin: the relationship with Robert is there, but… Zoran’s doing all the work.
1040 01:39:29.520 ⇒ 01:39:33.859 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so it’s still roughly 22 hours a week. Do we hit our margin?
1041 01:39:35.080 ⇒ 01:39:37.890 Amber Lin: Let’s see…
1042 01:39:44.090 ⇒ 01:39:45.779 Uttam Kumaran: That’s 94…
1043 01:39:46.650 ⇒ 01:39:51.090 Amber Lin: What’s the billable… what’s the actual billable with that hour? I’m gonna go check tomorrow.
1044 01:39:51.090 ⇒ 01:39:53.030 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, we hit about 106.
1045 01:39:54.250 ⇒ 01:39:56.040 Uttam Kumaran: So, it’s 10K a month.
1046 01:39:56.970 ⇒ 01:39:57.930 Amber Lin: Okay.
1047 01:39:58.420 ⇒ 01:40:01.059 Uttam Kumaran: Is Zoran really doing 15 hours a week?
1048 01:40:02.410 ⇒ 01:40:10.260 Amber Lin: It sounds… well, what he just sent is that it’s 15 hours a week for about 2 weeks.
1049 01:40:10.670 ⇒ 01:40:16.509 Amber Lin: ish. Two to three weeks max, and then he’s done. Like, that engagement’s done.
1050 01:40:19.740 ⇒ 01:40:23.969 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so one thing I want to talk… maybe… oh, so… what happens after the two weeks, though?
1051 01:40:24.410 ⇒ 01:40:32.889 Amber Lin: Renew, extend, new work coming in, but I would… I think budgeting 15, it’s safer.
1052 01:40:33.860 ⇒ 01:40:35.120 Uttam Kumaran: But see, we have…
1053 01:40:35.570 ⇒ 01:40:41.479 Uttam Kumaran: But we have 2 additional weeks after that, right? We have this week, next week, and then there’s another 3 weeks with them.
1054 01:40:42.290 ⇒ 01:40:46.909 Amber Lin: I… that’s a good point, I need to go get the scope after that.
1055 01:40:47.050 ⇒ 01:40:52.829 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so let’s also… I’ll bring it up on Monday, but it would be really great to understand, yeah, what is it? What’s next?
1056 01:40:53.470 ⇒ 01:40:54.270 Amber Lin: Yeah.
1057 01:40:54.540 ⇒ 01:41:03.590 Amber Lin: Let’s see. If Zoran spends… I just did the weekly cost. If Zoran spends 15 and I spend $5, that’s a total of…
1058 01:41:04.050 ⇒ 01:41:12.460 Amber Lin: 1400, and Ellie, we have… okay, Ellie, we have 10K at least. So 10K means.
1059 01:41:12.850 ⇒ 01:41:18.529 Uttam Kumaran: Well, basically, you need to find out if Zoran is truly just going to work 2 weeks at 15, and then be off.
1060 01:41:19.000 ⇒ 01:41:26.279 Uttam Kumaran: And then you and Robert just rip it at that point, then, yeah, you’ll hit it. But at this point.
1061 01:41:27.350 ⇒ 01:41:31.380 Uttam Kumaran: We don’t have a clear answer on if Zoran is just 15 for 2 weeks.
1062 01:41:32.200 ⇒ 01:41:35.359 Uttam Kumaran: Or the whole contract, right?
1063 01:41:35.520 ⇒ 01:41:44.299 Amber Lin: Yeah, yeah, makes sense. If, Zoran’s at 15, then if it goes on for 4 weeks, our margins are at about 40%.
1064 01:41:44.870 ⇒ 01:41:45.480 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
1065 01:41:48.160 ⇒ 01:41:48.910 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1066 01:41:49.450 ⇒ 01:41:50.230 Amber Lin: Yeah.
1067 01:41:50.530 ⇒ 01:41:55.179 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I think we hit the margin, but we don’t hit the, billable.
1068 01:41:56.040 ⇒ 01:41:57.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah. Okay.
1069 01:41:57.310 ⇒ 01:41:59.320 Amber Lin: Range…
1070 01:41:59.550 ⇒ 01:42:01.469 Uttam Kumaran: Like, we hit about, like, 106.
1071 01:42:01.950 ⇒ 01:42:02.650 Amber Lin: Yeah.
1072 01:42:03.650 ⇒ 01:42:04.810 Uttam Kumaran: But that’s okay.
1073 01:42:08.230 ⇒ 01:42:13.520 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, and then… On Earth Stems, are you…
1074 01:42:13.520 ⇒ 01:42:17.039 Amber Lin: Should I put your hours on zero? Or maybe at, say, like…
1075 01:42:17.040 ⇒ 01:42:18.989 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna stay on as strategist.
1076 01:42:18.990 ⇒ 01:42:20.070 Amber Lin: Okay.
1077 01:42:20.070 ⇒ 01:42:24.230 Uttam Kumaran: So… I don’t know, I don’t know, I didn’t make this…
1078 01:42:24.590 ⇒ 01:42:27.720 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t think I shared this broadly, but we’re basically…
1079 01:42:28.130 ⇒ 01:42:36.199 Uttam Kumaran: looking at all of our projects and considering, okay, like, what is the role that me and Robert are playing? And we really put ourselves in this… basically, the job description is, like, strategist.
1080 01:42:36.550 ⇒ 01:42:56.209 Uttam Kumaran: It’s, like, kind of a link between the commercial side, the technical side, but also more on the, like, okay, what’s next for this client? So I’ve put us down as strategists on the clients that we are doing that for. And what is strategist? Okay, we’re involved in coming to the project reviews, right? So I’ll be at… I’ll be at,
1081 01:42:57.230 ⇒ 01:43:05.549 Uttam Kumaran: each of the project reviews. But I know for Urban Stems, we don’t do a… we’re not doing a weekly project review yet, right? Or sprint review?
1082 01:43:06.660 ⇒ 01:43:14.270 Uttam Kumaran: So, the strategist should be at all of the client-facing meetings, so the monthly project review, the weekly sprint review.
1083 01:43:16.830 ⇒ 01:43:23.440 Uttam Kumaran: And so, that’s gonna be our role on all these clients, and then that’s gonna be the next person I’m looking to see how we can…
1084 01:43:23.880 ⇒ 01:43:24.550 Uttam Kumaran: gone.
1085 01:43:24.970 ⇒ 01:43:27.830 Uttam Kumaran: So, you’ll see me as still as strategist.
1086 01:43:28.000 ⇒ 01:43:30.080 Uttam Kumaran: On all of our…
1087 01:43:30.750 ⇒ 01:43:35.350 Uttam Kumaran: On all of our clients, like, for example, I should add myself here. I don’t think I did.
1088 01:43:40.620 ⇒ 01:43:48.439 Uttam Kumaran: But, like, I’m… but again, it just depends on how much time I’m spending. So on this, on ABC, for example, I’m probably spending 2 hours of…
1089 01:43:48.580 ⇒ 01:43:49.609 Uttam Kumaran: a week.
1090 01:43:49.730 ⇒ 01:43:52.770 Uttam Kumaran: So I’m just gonna put that down.
1091 01:44:02.970 ⇒ 01:44:12.940 Uttam Kumaran: So if you look at me as a strategist, you’ll see I have 2 hours on ABC, 2 hours on default, 2 hours on Interlude, 2 hours on Urban Stumps.
1092 01:44:19.960 ⇒ 01:44:23.520 Uttam Kumaran: And then it’ll be… what we’re also gonna add is the,
1093 01:44:23.660 ⇒ 01:44:25.690 Uttam Kumaran: Stuffer internal, but does that make sense?
1094 01:44:25.690 ⇒ 01:44:26.860 Amber Lin: Yep.
1095 01:44:26.860 ⇒ 01:44:34.560 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so for ABC, you have 10 hours from Amber, 10 hours from KC…
1096 01:44:35.350 ⇒ 01:44:39.629 Uttam Kumaran: 2 hours from Mustafa, just… I don’t… is this right? 2 hours from Sam?
1097 01:44:39.630 ⇒ 01:44:41.240 Amber Lin: no,
1098 01:44:41.410 ⇒ 01:44:48.200 Amber Lin: I’m gonna… I’m gonna update this. I want Sam at 2 hours, not that he is spending 2.
1099 01:44:50.360 ⇒ 01:44:51.480 Uttam Kumaran: I see.
1100 01:44:51.840 ⇒ 01:44:52.320 Amber Lin: Yeah.
1101 01:44:52.320 ⇒ 01:44:55.460 Uttam Kumaran: Is that possible to accomplish the goal with him at 2?
1102 01:44:55.460 ⇒ 01:45:00.869 Amber Lin: I… would just not have him work on anything, he would just consult at meetings.
1103 01:45:01.110 ⇒ 01:45:06.649 Amber Lin: Or if Casey Mustafa has, like, problems they can’t solve, because he is so expensive.
1104 01:45:06.890 ⇒ 01:45:10.649 Amber Lin: The ABC’s budget cannot handle Sam’s rates.
1105 01:45:11.140 ⇒ 01:45:12.740 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1106 01:45:14.260 ⇒ 01:45:17.939 Amber Lin: Like, I’d rather increase the time than Mustafo or Casey has on it.
1107 01:45:19.700 ⇒ 01:45:21.269 Amber Lin: I’d rather have that.
1108 01:45:21.270 ⇒ 01:45:21.940 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1109 01:45:24.490 ⇒ 01:45:27.079 Amber Lin: I think that that’s a worthwhile…
1110 01:45:27.520 ⇒ 01:45:29.000 Uttam Kumaran: Thing to aim for.
1111 01:45:32.790 ⇒ 01:45:35.790 Uttam Kumaran: Do you think we’ll unlock the 10K?
1112 01:45:35.990 ⇒ 01:45:41.339 Amber Lin: For September, we’re 12 off. Oh, I’m so sad.
1113 01:45:41.630 ⇒ 01:45:42.430 Amber Lin: We’re told…
1114 01:45:42.430 ⇒ 01:45:42.810 Uttam Kumaran: Really?
1115 01:45:42.810 ⇒ 01:45:48.989 Amber Lin: Yes, I sent, I sent you that. We’re 12 off, so, I do think so.
1116 01:45:48.990 ⇒ 01:45:49.540 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1117 01:45:51.120 ⇒ 01:45:51.920 Uttam Kumaran: Okay?
1118 01:45:53.400 ⇒ 01:46:01.119 Uttam Kumaran: I mean, I think, yeah, okay. So let me also… let’s… so if I look at Sam’s time…
1119 01:46:02.260 ⇒ 01:46:12.889 Amber Lin: Sam has a lot of availability, I think. Yeah… can he do stuff on default? Or, like, interlude?
1120 01:46:13.140 ⇒ 01:46:13.700 Amber Lin: Seriously.
1121 01:46:13.700 ⇒ 01:46:15.450 Uttam Kumaran: He is helping on Interlude.
1122 01:46:15.570 ⇒ 01:46:16.260 Amber Lin: I see.
1123 01:46:16.260 ⇒ 01:46:21.400 Uttam Kumaran: See, I also… this is where I don’t think this is accurate either. This is, I should have went through this with Justin, but…
1124 01:46:22.180 ⇒ 01:46:25.220 Uttam Kumaran: I think he’s spending closer to 5 hours on Interlude.
1125 01:46:26.030 ⇒ 01:46:26.730 Amber Lin: Huh.
1126 01:46:28.630 ⇒ 01:46:36.579 Uttam Kumaran: And then, what is his budget for, the AI team.
1127 01:46:37.160 ⇒ 01:46:38.479 Rico Rejoso: Oh, 5 hours.
1128 01:46:49.430 ⇒ 01:46:51.879 Uttam Kumaran: So what else is he spending time on?
1129 01:46:54.070 ⇒ 01:46:58.809 Amber Lin: Man… being managers to Casey and Mustafa?
1130 01:46:58.810 ⇒ 01:47:00.630 Uttam Kumaran: Oh yeah, there is sort of, like…
1131 01:47:01.900 ⇒ 01:47:07.810 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, there… he is working on some, like, random internal, I should make it another inter…
1132 01:47:08.250 ⇒ 01:47:10.570 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I’ll make another internal, but that’s still not…
1133 01:47:11.710 ⇒ 01:47:16.710 Amber Lin: He does, I just… I do think he has… extra available time.
1134 01:47:18.230 ⇒ 01:47:21.240 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, do you know what he’s been reporting?
1135 01:47:21.750 ⇒ 01:47:27.569 Amber Lin: Well, let me go grab it. Before, he was working on transfer stub, right?
1136 01:47:27.970 ⇒ 01:47:30.020 Amber Lin: It’s not what he’s actually spent.
1137 01:47:30.400 ⇒ 01:47:31.770 Amber Lin: in September.
1138 01:47:34.860 ⇒ 01:47:37.870 Uttam Kumaran: But I’m seeing him bill almost 9 hours a day.
1139 01:47:39.290 ⇒ 01:47:40.100 Amber Lin: Huh.
1140 01:47:40.440 ⇒ 01:47:41.450 Amber Lin: Let’s see.
1141 01:47:59.820 ⇒ 01:48:05.110 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I mean, this is where, like, you build all this time to brain forge, I don’t know what that time is.
1142 01:48:09.130 ⇒ 01:48:10.380 Uttam Kumaran: But he built… he built…
1143 01:48:10.380 ⇒ 01:48:15.970 Amber Lin: Brain Forge is 32, ABC12, Interlude is 2 hours.
1144 01:48:15.970 ⇒ 01:48:20.039 Uttam Kumaran: But see, ABC12, there’s no way, but your thing is not right, then.
1145 01:48:23.310 ⇒ 01:48:25.250 Uttam Kumaran: 2 hours a week is not accurate.
1146 01:48:25.900 ⇒ 01:48:26.850 Amber Lin: A home.
1147 01:48:26.960 ⇒ 01:48:35.439 Amber Lin: He was actually working on the transcripts. Mine’s not accurate, mine’s my aspiration, because I cannot have 12 hours from Sam.
1148 01:48:35.790 ⇒ 01:48:36.380 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1149 01:48:36.380 ⇒ 01:48:37.510 Amber Lin: on ABC.
1150 01:48:37.990 ⇒ 01:48:38.600 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1151 01:48:40.000 ⇒ 01:48:43.749 Uttam Kumaran: So this is a note for me, is I’m gonna go find out, like, where that, like.
1152 01:48:44.790 ⇒ 01:48:47.530 Uttam Kumaran: What all that time is… where that time is going to.
1153 01:49:01.140 ⇒ 01:49:07.170 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, cause I don’t think this is… seems like… Accurate.
1154 01:49:09.740 ⇒ 01:49:13.880 Uttam Kumaran: Like, 7 hours on Brainforge, like, I don’t know what that means.
1155 01:49:16.190 ⇒ 01:49:20.789 Amber Lin: And then this week, I don’t know if he has failed yet, but I know he’s also…
1156 01:49:21.100 ⇒ 01:49:23.329 Amber Lin: Out of office for a few days.
1157 01:49:23.490 ⇒ 01:49:26.159 Amber Lin: He has 20 on Brainforge.
1158 01:49:26.950 ⇒ 01:49:32.170 Amber Lin: Why don’t insomnia, why not interlude 15 minutes on default, and then 15 minutes on ABC?
1159 01:49:33.560 ⇒ 01:49:34.689 Amber Lin: For this week.
1160 01:49:35.870 ⇒ 01:49:36.770 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1161 01:49:45.750 ⇒ 01:49:46.520 Uttam Kumaran: Hmm.
1162 01:49:52.760 ⇒ 01:49:55.399 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, this is where I think Rico…
1163 01:49:56.210 ⇒ 01:50:06.680 Uttam Kumaran: his internal thing is not accurate at all. Like, I think you… I don’t know, I don’t… have you been… have you… did you… have you told him, like, what his allocation is for internal work?
1164 01:50:07.000 ⇒ 01:50:08.090 Rico Rejoso: Yeah,
1165 01:50:08.320 ⇒ 01:50:15.730 Rico Rejoso: this Tuesday, we discussed that we will be having, like, 5 hours for him. And I also noticed that Monday.
1166 01:50:17.270 ⇒ 01:50:24.640 Rico Rejoso: 7 hours of internal stuff. I checked it, yesterday, I wasn’t able to message him up regarding it yet.
1167 01:50:26.590 ⇒ 01:50:31.100 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, because at this point, he has… like…
1168 01:50:32.230 ⇒ 01:50:36.469 Uttam Kumaran: Based on what I’m seeing, he has quite a bit of time available.
1169 01:50:38.430 ⇒ 01:50:43.179 Uttam Kumaran: But… He’s billing, like.
1170 01:50:43.180 ⇒ 01:50:44.020 Amber Lin: Yeah. Basically.
1171 01:50:44.850 ⇒ 01:50:46.779 Uttam Kumaran: Pretty full-time. I saw his…
1172 01:50:47.110 ⇒ 01:50:51.299 Amber Lin: Built… his time billed last week, it was…
1173 01:50:51.700 ⇒ 01:50:57.660 Amber Lin: 8-hour, no description chunks on AI automation, so I really don’t know.
1174 01:50:58.900 ⇒ 01:51:03.119 Uttam Kumaran: But this is where, like, this is where I just, guys, I tried to get out of this, like…
1175 01:51:03.120 ⇒ 01:51:03.760 Amber Lin: Hmm.
1176 01:51:03.760 ⇒ 01:51:09.610 Uttam Kumaran: I really tried to say, Rico, a couple weeks ago, like, you need to put caps Internal.
1177 01:51:10.280 ⇒ 01:51:18.629 Uttam Kumaran: So I’ve… really, this week, please, I don’t want to see people billing where we didn’t approve. And so I’m gonna send a message.
1178 01:51:19.060 ⇒ 01:51:27.420 Uttam Kumaran: basically, like, I see his hours on Clockify has built a lot to Brainforge. I’m gonna understand if that is truly all AI team.
1179 01:51:27.720 ⇒ 01:51:30.329 Uttam Kumaran: But we really need to cut.
1180 01:51:30.760 ⇒ 01:51:37.640 Uttam Kumaran: So… I don’t… either, like, he’s not listening to you, or he’s just… you guys are, like…
1181 01:51:38.110 ⇒ 01:51:40.609 Uttam Kumaran: Chips in the night, like, it… it didn’t match.
1182 01:51:40.770 ⇒ 01:51:49.130 Uttam Kumaran: Because even today, if you… you said… if you put the cap on, he still billed 7 hours to brainforge this week. I don’t know what that…
1183 01:51:49.690 ⇒ 01:51:51.910 Uttam Kumaran: What that time is.
1184 01:51:52.120 ⇒ 01:51:58.710 Uttam Kumaran: So, that’s just something I really, really want to make sure that you can nail, Rico, because our number one job is to reduce that.
1185 01:51:59.370 ⇒ 01:52:00.170 Rico Rejoso: Yes.
1186 01:52:01.130 ⇒ 01:52:09.019 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so one thing I’m gonna do here is I’m gonna go ahead and create another project…
1187 01:52:09.500 ⇒ 01:52:14.150 Uttam Kumaran: Gonna be for the all-company intern… one-on-ones internal.
1188 01:52:14.780 ⇒ 01:52:19.660 Uttam Kumaran: So, this is gonna be for Brain Forge, this is gonna be all company.
1189 01:52:21.070 ⇒ 01:52:31.720 Uttam Kumaran: One on ones… Internal… Q4 2025, this is gonna be confirmed.
1190 01:52:32.990 ⇒ 01:52:35.570 Uttam Kumaran: This is gonna be non-billable.
1191 01:52:36.480 ⇒ 01:52:41.459 Uttam Kumaran: And… I’m gonna add,
1192 01:52:45.450 ⇒ 01:52:46.920 Uttam Kumaran: Damn, here…
1193 01:52:50.090 ⇒ 01:52:53.159 Uttam Kumaran: Multiple working hours during this allocation.
1194 01:52:57.630 ⇒ 01:52:58.400 Uttam Kumaran: Love it.
1195 01:52:58.780 ⇒ 01:52:59.480 Uttam Kumaran: Oh.
1196 01:53:24.770 ⇒ 01:53:30.650 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so this is… this is gonna be his internal allocation. It’s gonna be just 10 hours on…
1197 01:53:31.250 ⇒ 01:53:35.399 Uttam Kumaran: Like, company meetings, meeting with me, one-on-ones, management, stuff like that.
1198 01:53:36.210 ⇒ 01:53:42.270 Uttam Kumaran: Similarly… I’m gonna put,
1199 01:53:47.860 ⇒ 01:53:52.520 Uttam Kumaran: a way sheer… as…
1200 01:54:15.600 ⇒ 01:54:19.589 Uttam Kumaran: This is what we’re gonna have to do, check to see what the impact is.
1201 01:54:25.710 ⇒ 01:54:30.520 Uttam Kumaran: So I’ll add everybody here, but let’s look at now… What it’s looking like, so…
1202 01:54:48.450 ⇒ 01:54:51.510 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. Still, he’s at 24 hours.
1203 01:54:51.690 ⇒ 01:54:58.380 Uttam Kumaran: So… Guys, what do you think is the best thing? Should I just send a DM to, like.
1204 01:55:00.610 ⇒ 01:55:06.120 Uttam Kumaran: Me, you, him… With this screenshot, I’d be like, is this roughly accurate?
1205 01:55:07.270 ⇒ 01:55:08.860 Uttam Kumaran: And then we can hash it out.
1206 01:55:12.480 ⇒ 01:55:17.770 Rico Rejoso: Yes, and if he can, like, add description on the work done per day?
1207 01:55:18.220 ⇒ 01:55:18.770 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1208 01:55:18.770 ⇒ 01:55:23.069 Amber Lin: Yeah, and also, I just don’t think he has enough work to do.
1209 01:55:23.070 ⇒ 01:55:25.849 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, that’s what we’re seeing, but then this is where, like.
1210 01:55:26.540 ⇒ 01:55:29.810 Uttam Kumaran: It’s billing 40, but it’s not in our plan, so…
1211 01:55:30.330 ⇒ 01:55:36.659 Uttam Kumaran: I can find other clients for him to go work on. Like, he sh… for example, he should go work on insomnia stuff.
1212 01:55:37.320 ⇒ 01:55:39.139 Uttam Kumaran: Right? Or work on hip stuff.
1213 01:55:40.950 ⇒ 01:55:45.589 Uttam Kumaran: So, I just want to know that this is accurate, so that I can then propose him for other clients.
1214 01:55:55.380 ⇒ 01:55:56.100 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1215 01:55:58.320 ⇒ 01:56:00.950 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, understood.
1216 01:56:09.850 ⇒ 01:56:15.960 Uttam Kumaran: I’m gonna add an additional… so then, yeah, so I think Demolade probably, again, is also…
1217 01:56:22.430 ⇒ 01:56:26.700 Uttam Kumaran: Probably doing roughly… Like, 3 hours a week.
1218 01:56:26.890 ⇒ 01:56:29.439 Uttam Kumaran: on… Internal stuff.
1219 01:56:51.740 ⇒ 01:57:03.540 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, and then let’s… so that’s fine, and then let’s talk about… This content team, partnerships…
1220 01:57:04.480 ⇒ 01:57:07.050 Uttam Kumaran: This is Q1 through Q3.
1221 01:57:07.750 ⇒ 01:57:10.209 Uttam Kumaran: This is Allie…
1222 01:57:17.720 ⇒ 01:57:18.500 Uttam Kumaran: Oh.
1223 01:57:20.990 ⇒ 01:57:23.540 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, shoot, this is not correct.
1224 01:57:25.310 ⇒ 01:57:29.610 Uttam Kumaran: I can’t move this pretty easily.
1225 01:57:30.900 ⇒ 01:57:38.140 Uttam Kumaran: It’s okay, whatever, it’s fine. To partnerships,
1226 01:57:40.070 ⇒ 01:57:43.270 Uttam Kumaran: So, this is for sales, Rico.
1227 01:57:43.800 ⇒ 01:57:49.070 Uttam Kumaran: Right now, I have… Right now, let’s talk about… so let’s talk about Hannah’s time.
1228 01:57:49.270 ⇒ 01:57:52.440 Amber Lin: Do you mind if I jump? I need to send updates for all of my.
1229 01:57:52.440 ⇒ 01:57:54.179 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s fine, that’s fine.
1230 01:57:54.480 ⇒ 01:58:03.899 Amber Lin: Awesome. Thank you. Oh, do you mind if I send the reminder email to Matt and Steven, just so they know what to talk about? I sent the… I sent a draft from the ABC channel.
1231 01:58:03.900 ⇒ 01:58:04.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, that’s fine.
1232 01:58:04.830 ⇒ 01:58:06.899 Amber Lin: Okay. Okay, sounds good. Thanks.
1233 01:58:25.660 ⇒ 01:58:27.710 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so,
1234 01:58:31.830 ⇒ 01:58:33.520 Uttam Kumaran: Rico, let’s,
1235 01:58:39.230 ⇒ 01:58:42.810 Uttam Kumaran: Let’s look at, all the non-billable folks.
1236 01:58:51.550 ⇒ 01:58:59.989 Uttam Kumaran: So Hannah, she has… so let’s talk about, for your teams. So let’s… maybe let’s talk about sales teams. So what is our budget for that?
1237 01:59:03.260 ⇒ 01:59:04.890 Rico Rejoso: For sales, we have…
1238 01:59:08.670 ⇒ 01:59:14.300 Rico Rejoso: We have, 3,000 is split between marketing and sales, so perhaps
1239 01:59:15.130 ⇒ 01:59:18.769 Rico Rejoso: 3,000 for both marketing and sales, and 1.5 for sales only.
1240 01:59:21.920 ⇒ 01:59:23.340 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so…
1241 01:59:30.360 ⇒ 01:59:34.450 Uttam Kumaran: So right now, I have Hannah at 9… at 9 hours.
1242 01:59:36.040 ⇒ 01:59:37.250 Uttam Kumaran: That’s accurate?
1243 01:59:37.450 ⇒ 01:59:45.790 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, we discussed that one yesterday, during our grooming session as well. I think it’s gonna… we’re gonna shift some of the hours from partnership to
1244 01:59:45.810 ⇒ 02:00:01.080 Rico Rejoso: sales, since, there’s, Ryan and Hannah is putting on some work when it comes to, outbound, outbound works for manual outreach for some campaigns. So I think we’re gonna increase the lead CRM sales hours to around…
1245 02:00:01.450 ⇒ 02:00:02.700 Rico Rejoso: 13 hours?
1246 02:00:04.080 ⇒ 02:00:04.690 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1247 02:00:05.770 ⇒ 02:00:08.739 Rico Rejoso: Okay, and that will give partnership around only 4 hours.
1248 02:00:09.270 ⇒ 02:00:10.050 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1249 02:00:10.220 ⇒ 02:00:13.889 Uttam Kumaran: I don’t know if this…
1250 02:00:21.090 ⇒ 02:00:21.670 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1251 02:00:21.670 ⇒ 02:00:24.599 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, that’s the time of order PO request.
1252 02:00:24.600 ⇒ 02:00:26.789 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so this is accurate, you think?
1253 02:00:27.150 ⇒ 02:00:29.470 Rico Rejoso: Yep, I just did it yesterday as well.
1254 02:00:30.090 ⇒ 02:00:32.899 Rico Rejoso: Okay. I haven’t a big DE sales partnership.
1255 02:00:33.320 ⇒ 02:00:35.840 Uttam Kumaran: And then for, for Ryan.
1256 02:00:37.380 ⇒ 02:00:38.550 Rico Rejoso: Right.
1257 02:00:38.660 ⇒ 02:00:42.610 Rico Rejoso: Yep, 15 hours for, marketing slash content, and…
1258 02:00:43.650 ⇒ 02:00:46.260 Rico Rejoso: Where sales are on 20 hours.
1259 02:00:48.210 ⇒ 02:00:50.600 Rico Rejoso: That’s starting next week, since,
1260 02:00:51.110 ⇒ 02:00:53.400 Rico Rejoso: We’ll be taking over some of the Salesforce stuff.
1261 02:01:02.280 ⇒ 02:01:09.260 Uttam Kumaran: So, I think the biggest thing is, it looks like Ryan is billing over 40 hours a week.
1262 02:01:09.800 ⇒ 02:01:10.750 Uttam Kumaran: I think.
1263 02:01:12.260 ⇒ 02:01:14.799 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, I haven’t checked for this week yet.
1264 02:01:15.150 ⇒ 02:01:18.980 Rico Rejoso: But I already mentioned to them that what if…
1265 02:01:19.110 ⇒ 02:01:23.400 Rico Rejoso: We allocate these hours, because it’s going to reflect on linear, right? The points that they have.
1266 02:01:23.760 ⇒ 02:01:37.969 Rico Rejoso: And, if we see that the linear points are not matched with their clockified hours, we may have, like, a discussion on what happens if it’s under-allocated, or if they book more time than they’re supposed to based on their allocation.
1267 02:01:38.320 ⇒ 02:01:39.900 Uttam Kumaran: Okay. So I can begin that.
1268 02:01:39.900 ⇒ 02:01:41.030 Rico Rejoso: As well.
1269 02:01:42.000 ⇒ 02:01:45.740 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, I just want… and then, I just wanna al- yeah, also call out…
1270 02:01:45.940 ⇒ 02:01:50.480 Uttam Kumaran: that Ryan had billed under 98 hours, the brain f- or…
1271 02:01:52.190 ⇒ 02:01:56.130 Uttam Kumaran: The, let’s see. Okay, to content. So he’s spending roughly…
1272 02:01:57.280 ⇒ 02:01:59.210 Uttam Kumaran: So let’s just say last week.
1273 02:02:01.790 ⇒ 02:02:08.120 Uttam Kumaran: Looks like he’s spending 26 hours on content and 17 hours on… on CRM sales.
1274 02:02:09.000 ⇒ 02:02:10.190 Uttam Kumaran: So…
1275 02:02:14.320 ⇒ 02:02:19.859 Rico Rejoso: I guess for, since we just implemented this week, I just informed them about the allocation this week.
1276 02:02:19.860 ⇒ 02:02:20.190 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1277 02:02:20.190 ⇒ 02:02:21.510 Rico Rejoso: Created this one this week.
1278 02:02:21.880 ⇒ 02:02:22.410 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, okay.
1279 02:02:22.410 ⇒ 02:02:24.100 Rico Rejoso: I think we’ll follow it for next year.
1280 02:02:25.690 ⇒ 02:02:29.519 Uttam Kumaran: And Raymond… This is accurate.
1281 02:02:30.080 ⇒ 02:02:36.620 Rico Rejoso: Yep, at least 18 hours, so he’s around, 80… between 85% to 90% of utilization.
1282 02:02:37.130 ⇒ 02:02:39.020 Uttam Kumaran: But it looks like last week…
1283 02:02:45.440 ⇒ 02:02:47.669 Uttam Kumaran: But it looks like he’s billing 30 hours a week.
1284 02:02:51.370 ⇒ 02:02:52.460 Rico Rejoso: For last week.
1285 02:02:53.060 ⇒ 02:02:53.830 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
1286 02:02:57.690 ⇒ 02:02:59.980 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, I can look into that since…
1287 02:03:00.150 ⇒ 02:03:01.950 Uttam Kumaran: Like, what is, like, what is this work?
1288 02:03:03.200 ⇒ 02:03:05.069 Uttam Kumaran: What is 30 hours, you know?
1289 02:03:07.180 ⇒ 02:03:15.199 Rico Rejoso: I can cross-check it with their linear points for last week as well, but supposedly that’s 20 hours, right? 20 hours max.
1290 02:03:15.200 ⇒ 02:03:17.549 Uttam Kumaran: But 20 hours for video editing?
1291 02:03:18.960 ⇒ 02:03:26.929 Uttam Kumaran: Like, I don’t even know we’re doing, like, I guess I know we’re doing videos, but 30 hours a week for that? I didn’t even know we were approving that.
1292 02:03:30.560 ⇒ 02:03:33.140 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, I can look into it.
1293 02:03:33.260 ⇒ 02:03:36.939 Rico Rejoso: And cross-match it for linear for now. Sorry, I don’t have the information yet.
1294 02:03:36.940 ⇒ 02:03:40.689 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, it’s okay, okay, so… We’ll make sure to…
1295 02:03:40.690 ⇒ 02:03:46.100 Rico Rejoso: keep them within their points and… I mean, allocated points and hours within the coming week.
1296 02:03:47.920 ⇒ 02:03:50.330 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, so I wanna make sure that for…
1297 02:03:56.080 ⇒ 02:03:59.990 Uttam Kumaran: For delivery, so this is for the 8th.
1298 02:04:00.150 ⇒ 02:04:09.340 Uttam Kumaran: Marketing and sales, so… Notes are… Less than 20… Or, Ray.
1299 02:04:11.310 ⇒ 02:04:12.140 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1300 02:04:12.870 ⇒ 02:04:15.080 Rico Rejoso: And then Ann, is that 15?
1301 02:04:15.080 ⇒ 02:04:16.059 Uttam Kumaran: Or 18?
1302 02:04:16.520 ⇒ 02:04:23.660 Rico Rejoso: Yes, contract is 20 hours as part-time, 18 hours, for 85 to 90 utilization.
1303 02:04:24.100 ⇒ 02:04:24.620 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1304 02:04:24.620 ⇒ 02:04:26.129 Rico Rejoso: Sorry for the background noise.
1305 02:04:26.130 ⇒ 02:04:27.180 Uttam Kumaran: No, no, no, no problem.
1306 02:04:31.540 ⇒ 02:04:34.279 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, looks like, similarly, Ann is doing…
1307 02:04:35.540 ⇒ 02:04:37.399 Uttam Kumaran: Close to 30 hours a week.
1308 02:04:42.570 ⇒ 02:04:44.409 Uttam Kumaran: So this is another one where…
1309 02:04:45.260 ⇒ 02:04:49.900 Uttam Kumaran: You have to just, like, it looks like people are just billing over quite a bit.
1310 02:04:50.230 ⇒ 02:04:58.699 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, and also one problem with Anne is that we… I think it’s the communication. We also… I mean, me and Anna talk about it.
1311 02:04:59.730 ⇒ 02:05:10.039 Rico Rejoso: So, there’s tendency that works are, you know, sent late and updates because of the time that she’s spending working on brain force. She’s doing Asian hours, right?
1312 02:05:10.480 ⇒ 02:05:30.060 Rico Rejoso: So, that’s one thing. At the same time, I wasn’t able to really fully inform her about the transition, I mean, regarding the process that we have right now when it comes to allocating hours. But on linear, we make sure that he’s… I mean, she stays within 18 to 20 points, and we also converse on linear about the hours, depending on those tickets.
1313 02:05:30.270 ⇒ 02:05:30.880 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1314 02:05:34.080 ⇒ 02:05:41.470 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, fair. And then how is your time looking? You… I… you’re on…
1315 02:05:42.560 ⇒ 02:05:45.080 Uttam Kumaran: Oh, but these are just your… this is your,
1316 02:05:45.320 ⇒ 02:05:51.270 Uttam Kumaran: Hey, this is all your… your project management on these clients, so… I’m gonna make sure…
1317 02:05:51.270 ⇒ 02:05:52.030 Rico Rejoso: I hate that.
1318 02:05:52.600 ⇒ 02:05:53.310 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah.
1319 02:05:54.150 ⇒ 02:05:54.860 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1320 02:05:55.350 ⇒ 02:05:57.640 Uttam Kumaran: I’m not worried about you, that’s… that’s life.
1321 02:05:58.900 ⇒ 02:06:00.120 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1322 02:06:01.650 ⇒ 02:06:05.610 Uttam Kumaran: So what did we miss? We… we missed probably looking at the internal AI team, right?
1323 02:06:05.790 ⇒ 02:06:10.130 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, that’s what… I’m also checking it a while ago.
1324 02:06:10.980 ⇒ 02:06:11.600 Uttam Kumaran: So…
1325 02:06:11.600 ⇒ 02:06:12.480 Rico Rejoso: most good.
1326 02:06:13.080 ⇒ 02:06:13.870 Rico Rejoso: I’ll see…
1327 02:06:15.080 ⇒ 02:06:17.219 Uttam Kumaran: What… yeah, so what, what are your budgets?
1328 02:06:18.090 ⇒ 02:06:30.960 Rico Rejoso: Oh yeah, for AI team, our budget is around $1,000 for a UV. So currently, if we stay within the allocated hours of 10 hours for each for Cassie and Mustafa, and 5 hours for Sam.
1329 02:06:31.110 ⇒ 02:06:33.900 Rico Rejoso: We’ll be going around 7.40.
1330 02:06:34.350 ⇒ 02:06:34.840 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1331 02:06:35.360 ⇒ 02:06:46.130 Rico Rejoso: we do have, like, some budget for ad hoc stuff, like, around 5 hours, but if then I’m gonna utilize, either Cassie or Mustafen, and just have Sam as an advisor for them.
1332 02:06:46.810 ⇒ 02:06:47.390 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1333 02:06:49.810 ⇒ 02:06:51.200 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, fair.
1334 02:06:54.410 ⇒ 02:07:01.090 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, so I think clearly, I think you probably have… you and Amber have quite a bit of adjustments to make.
1335 02:07:01.090 ⇒ 02:07:01.850 Rico Rejoso: Whoops.
1336 02:07:02.200 ⇒ 02:07:05.070 Uttam Kumaran: So, I will send a note…
1337 02:07:08.220 ⇒ 02:07:10.490 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll also s-
1338 02:07:13.880 ⇒ 02:07:22.580 Uttam Kumaran: I’ll also send a note to… Do you want me to send a note to…
1339 02:07:23.210 ⇒ 02:07:24.679 Uttam Kumaran: Ray and Ann?
1340 02:07:26.370 ⇒ 02:07:34.360 Rico Rejoso: I can first, send a note for them, but I think it’s best for you to send it on Brave before stream, generally for everyone.
1341 02:07:34.880 ⇒ 02:07:35.720 Rico Rejoso: That’s fine.
1342 02:07:36.370 ⇒ 02:07:43.890 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, and then I’m also gonna… I’ll work with people from last month to just make sure that they’ve allocated their hours, but I’ll send a direct message to Sam.
1343 02:07:49.010 ⇒ 02:07:54.330 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, cool. Yeah, I just have a feeling that… Have the caps before, so…
1344 02:07:54.670 ⇒ 02:07:57.289 Uttam Kumaran: What we’ll do is, at the end of next week.
1345 02:07:57.690 ⇒ 02:07:59.099 Rico Rejoso: We’re gonna look at…
1346 02:07:59.550 ⇒ 02:08:07.480 Uttam Kumaran: the trends. So, for example, we want to look at, did the changes for Ann, Ray, Sam actually work?
1347 02:08:10.110 ⇒ 02:08:13.179 Uttam Kumaran: So that’s gonna be our… That’s gonna be what we check.
1348 02:08:15.510 ⇒ 02:08:19.610 Rico Rejoso: This, yeah, I think they’re the only one I have a problem with.
1349 02:08:21.220 ⇒ 02:08:22.410 Rico Rejoso: Especially.
1350 02:08:24.350 ⇒ 02:08:25.289 Uttam Kumaran: Yeah, okay.
1351 02:08:28.420 ⇒ 02:08:29.260 Uttam Kumaran: Okay.
1352 02:08:31.570 ⇒ 02:08:39.019 Uttam Kumaran: I think that’s probably good for now, I know it’s getting late, so… yeah, that’s fine for now. Anything else you wanted to discuss?
1353 02:08:39.840 ⇒ 02:08:47.630 Rico Rejoso: Yeah, you’ll be on the planning meeting for both AI and, marketing for Monday?
1354 02:08:47.740 ⇒ 02:08:49.899 Uttam Kumaran: Just wanna confirm that one. Yes.
1355 02:08:49.900 ⇒ 02:08:52.160 Rico Rejoso: I need the primary piece for the tickets. I’ll be there.
1356 02:08:52.160 ⇒ 02:08:53.130 Uttam Kumaran: I will be there.
1357 02:08:53.380 ⇒ 02:08:55.990 Rico Rejoso: Thank you so much. Apologies for…
1358 02:08:56.480 ⇒ 02:08:57.939 Rico Rejoso: Let me mess up some, some of the…
1359 02:08:57.940 ⇒ 02:09:02.339 Uttam Kumaran: No, you’re good, I just… I’m gonna push you guys, so you’re fine. Just.
1360 02:09:02.530 ⇒ 02:09:03.120 Rico Rejoso: Any bet?
1361 02:09:03.120 ⇒ 02:09:08.369 Uttam Kumaran: I think now that I’m getting more involved at this level, it’ll be helpful. You’ll get there, so no worries.
1362 02:09:09.490 ⇒ 02:09:10.699 Rico Rejoso: Thank you so much.
1363 02:09:10.960 ⇒ 02:09:13.520 Uttam Kumaran: Okay, thank you, dude. Hope you have a nice weekend.
1364 02:09:13.540 ⇒ 02:09:15.770 Rico Rejoso: Art, have a good one. Okay, thank you.
1365 02:09:15.770 ⇒ 02:09:16.380 Uttam Kumaran: Bye.