Meeting Title: SL Leads Weekly Planning Date: 2026-02-23 Meeting participants: Samuel Roberts, Clarence Stone, Awaish Kumar
WEBVTT
1 00:00:34.720 ⇒ 00:00:35.830 Samuel Roberts: Hey, Clarence.
2 00:00:38.510 ⇒ 00:00:42.679 Clarence Stone: What’s up? Sorry, I’m gonna be multitasking for this whole thing, because of the Lilo stuff.
3 00:00:42.980 ⇒ 00:00:48.200 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, no worries, I figured there’d be, work there. I just saw the spreadsheet and stuff that I posted, so…
4 00:00:48.200 ⇒ 00:00:48.850 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
5 00:00:50.220 ⇒ 00:00:51.060 Clarence Stone: Yeah…
6 00:00:54.190 ⇒ 00:00:57.219 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I don’t know, I guess we’ll wait for Awash for a minute.
7 00:01:00.850 ⇒ 00:01:06.190 Clarence Stone: Everybody wants to complain of getting cool merging technology.
8 00:01:06.430 ⇒ 00:01:07.389 Samuel Roberts: I know.
9 00:01:07.560 ⇒ 00:01:09.460 Samuel Roberts: I know, every little thing is, like…
10 00:01:09.590 ⇒ 00:01:15.230 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, that’s because it’s, you know, it’s an LLM, it doesn’t, you know, it’s just so many little things, it’s like…
11 00:01:15.230 ⇒ 00:01:19.530 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I think we need to up- update our…
12 00:01:23.200 ⇒ 00:01:30.550 Clarence Stone: Oh, hang on, sorry. I think we need to update our SOWs to reflect that, like, hey, this is a probabilistic machine, like.
13 00:01:30.550 ⇒ 00:01:31.760 Samuel Roberts: Right, right.
14 00:01:31.760 ⇒ 00:01:33.730 Clarence Stone: What do you want from us?
15 00:01:33.730 ⇒ 00:01:39.780 Samuel Roberts: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s… it’s interesting just the general understanding of it versus the, like, actual…
16 00:01:40.270 ⇒ 00:01:42.970 Samuel Roberts: Real-world using it kind of stuff is…
17 00:01:43.510 ⇒ 00:01:45.289 Samuel Roberts: There’s a bit of a gap there still.
18 00:01:46.460 ⇒ 00:01:47.160 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
19 00:01:48.040 ⇒ 00:01:48.700 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
20 00:01:57.100 ⇒ 00:01:58.150 Samuel Roberts: Oh, excuse me.
21 00:02:10.120 ⇒ 00:02:11.170 Awaish Kumar: Hello?
22 00:02:12.140 ⇒ 00:02:13.020 Samuel Roberts: Anyways…
23 00:02:13.840 ⇒ 00:02:14.690 Awaish Kumar: Oh, you’re doing?
24 00:02:15.600 ⇒ 00:02:17.259 Samuel Roberts: Doing alright, how about yourself?
25 00:02:18.250 ⇒ 00:02:19.309 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I’m good.
26 00:02:20.230 ⇒ 00:02:21.140 Samuel Roberts: Good, good.
27 00:03:42.200 ⇒ 00:03:43.050 Samuel Roberts: Excuse me.
28 00:05:56.530 ⇒ 00:06:00.469 Awaish Kumar: Hey, sorry, I was late, are we waiting for somebody?
29 00:06:01.260 ⇒ 00:06:07.019 Samuel Roberts: No, no, no, sorry, yeah, Clarence just said he’d be a little multitasking in this meeting, so I was also multitasking on something similar, so…
30 00:06:07.140 ⇒ 00:06:11.029 Samuel Roberts: I think, you’re both just in the middle of something there.
31 00:06:12.680 ⇒ 00:06:13.840 Samuel Roberts: That’s it.
32 00:06:14.660 ⇒ 00:06:15.560 Samuel Roberts: Excuse me.
33 00:06:17.930 ⇒ 00:06:23.919 Clarence Stone: I thought… Utam said he was gonna be on. I just got off the call with him.
34 00:06:24.200 ⇒ 00:06:25.210 Samuel Roberts: Oh, okay.
35 00:06:25.210 ⇒ 00:06:29.669 Clarence Stone: Yeah, that’s what I was waiting for, but if not, then we can get started.
36 00:06:29.970 ⇒ 00:06:35.369 Clarence Stone: I just gave my LLM a fuck-you task, so… might take a while.
37 00:06:36.900 ⇒ 00:06:41.989 Samuel Roberts: Upton might not… Upton had declined it, so he might not have got, like, a notification or something, so…
38 00:06:43.090 ⇒ 00:06:44.330 Samuel Roberts: Maybe that’s why.
39 00:06:53.920 ⇒ 00:06:55.929 Samuel Roberts: Oh, excuse me, oh my goodness.
40 00:08:44.340 ⇒ 00:08:48.490 Samuel Roberts: No, sorry, I think I was muted there. I was just gonna say, I had to step away for a second. I’ll be right back.
41 00:08:49.460 ⇒ 00:08:50.650 Clarence Stone: Yep, no worries.
42 00:08:50.650 ⇒ 00:08:51.210 Samuel Roberts: Cool.
43 00:09:59.740 ⇒ 00:10:01.700 Samuel Roberts: Alright, back.
44 00:13:11.650 ⇒ 00:13:16.360 Clarence Stone: You guys flip back? If he’s not gonna show up, we can start our meeting. I might as well at least, like…
45 00:13:16.820 ⇒ 00:13:18.519 Clarence Stone: Make use of this time while you guys are here.
46 00:13:18.520 ⇒ 00:13:19.210 Samuel Roberts: That works.
47 00:13:19.560 ⇒ 00:13:20.370 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
48 00:13:21.480 ⇒ 00:13:23.849 Clarence Stone: Alright, so how’s it going this week, gents?
49 00:13:26.250 ⇒ 00:13:34.080 Awaish Kumar: Hmm, yeah, for me, this has been really… good, like…
50 00:13:34.550 ⇒ 00:13:38.310 Awaish Kumar: I’m seeing better linear with the burial coming in.
51 00:13:39.010 ⇒ 00:13:44.669 Awaish Kumar: We are… Like, dealing with… we have dealt with a lot of,
52 00:13:44.930 ⇒ 00:13:46.860 Awaish Kumar: Or, like, the, what you say?
53 00:13:48.700 ⇒ 00:13:53.810 Awaish Kumar: projects, which are, like, had really tight deadlines. It’s a little bit,
54 00:13:55.900 ⇒ 00:14:03.589 Awaish Kumar: like, rush on those, but otherwise, I think everybody was really… Good at delivering work.
55 00:14:04.110 ⇒ 00:14:10.080 Awaish Kumar: Still maintaining, the… Extended flows with client health checks.
56 00:14:11.210 ⇒ 00:14:17.210 Awaish Kumar: And… Yeah, so pretty, pretty… Pretty good.
57 00:14:18.290 ⇒ 00:14:19.010 Clarence Stone: Nice.
58 00:14:19.520 ⇒ 00:14:20.880 Clarence Stone: Sam, how about you?
59 00:14:21.160 ⇒ 00:14:25.250 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, played a little bit of catch-up, missing two days at the end of last week,
60 00:14:26.030 ⇒ 00:14:31.749 Samuel Roberts: And obviously, the stuff with Leela going on, so there wasn’t a ton there, really, this morning when I was out, so,
61 00:14:32.260 ⇒ 00:14:35.679 Samuel Roberts: just kind of doing some internal stuff mostly today. I think…
62 00:14:36.030 ⇒ 00:14:44.929 Samuel Roberts: the dry runs last week with Casey running the stand-ups went well. I don’t… I haven’t gotten a chance to go over the actual meetings that happened Thursday, Friday, see how those went, but…
63 00:14:45.130 ⇒ 00:14:51.630 Samuel Roberts: I was planning to do that at some point, cause I’ll be out Friday and Monday as well now with another wedding, so…
64 00:14:51.860 ⇒ 00:14:52.930 Clarence Stone: Oh, cool.
65 00:14:52.950 ⇒ 00:14:57.940 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, we… we have, like, 5 weddings in the first 6 months of this year.
66 00:14:58.170 ⇒ 00:14:58.980 Samuel Roberts: Which…
67 00:14:59.980 ⇒ 00:15:05.840 Samuel Roberts: is, like, it feels very 20s and not 30s for me anymore. Now I have a baby to go with and everything, so it’s very much
68 00:15:06.490 ⇒ 00:15:12.749 Samuel Roberts: A busy few months, but, yeah. Overall, though,
69 00:15:12.940 ⇒ 00:15:17.670 Samuel Roberts: I mean, things seem to be moving along, ABC, like, they seem to be on top of that. Lilo, I know, is in a bit of a…
70 00:15:18.490 ⇒ 00:15:21.690 Samuel Roberts: You know, interesting point right now, so…
71 00:15:23.270 ⇒ 00:15:28.439 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I don’t know if I have much more than that right now, like, Pranav wasn’t here today, so I didn’t get, really, you know…
72 00:15:28.730 ⇒ 00:15:30.700 Samuel Roberts: Diving too much in that, so…
73 00:15:32.360 ⇒ 00:15:37.050 Samuel Roberts: But you probably have more context than I do, Clarence, at that, so at this point… So…
74 00:15:42.860 ⇒ 00:15:44.830 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, it’s all, I mean, you know, it’s…
75 00:15:45.240 ⇒ 00:15:46.989 Samuel Roberts: Feels like a Monday anyway, so…
76 00:15:46.990 ⇒ 00:15:51.149 Clarence Stone: Well, I, I… so, Wish, I…
77 00:15:51.730 ⇒ 00:16:01.670 Clarence Stone: I went to a few stand-ups for you last week, and I like that you’ve really settled into the structure, so great work on that. Yeah, just keep that going.
78 00:16:01.990 ⇒ 00:16:08.020 Clarence Stone: Yeah, I mean, is there anything else that you guys want to talk about? Any difficulties? Any… you know.
79 00:16:08.020 ⇒ 00:16:14.559 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, yeah, I want… what I want to talk… like, I don’t know if this is the meeting where I should talk about, but the…
80 00:16:14.740 ⇒ 00:16:20.420 Awaish Kumar: A thing is that, like, number one, like, we had… a lot of…
81 00:16:20.660 ⇒ 00:16:24.559 Awaish Kumar: Projects running in parallel with tight deadlines.
82 00:16:26.980 ⇒ 00:16:29.690 Awaish Kumar: So that was, like, maybe we could have…
83 00:16:30.120 ⇒ 00:16:44.679 Awaish Kumar: better arrange it with, like, better communication with the client, in terms of, like, what we are prioritizing first, and how much it’s going to take, or maybe…
84 00:16:44.970 ⇒ 00:16:48.990 Awaish Kumar: doing something about it, like, for Eden, for example.
85 00:16:48.990 ⇒ 00:16:49.400 Clarence Stone: Yeah.
86 00:16:49.400 ⇒ 00:16:52.879 Awaish Kumar: I have… we had 3 things going in parallel.
87 00:16:53.240 ⇒ 00:16:54.979 Awaish Kumar: Like, we have Eden Wiz,
88 00:16:55.510 ⇒ 00:17:03.010 Awaish Kumar: Although there’s, like, less work on the modeling side, but it was, like, constantly there.
89 00:17:03.140 ⇒ 00:17:10.010 Awaish Kumar: That we need to split it off, like… although on the modeling side, we are on… on track.
90 00:17:10.450 ⇒ 00:17:12.810 Awaish Kumar: But on the project side, we are still…
91 00:17:15.630 ⇒ 00:17:31.010 Awaish Kumar: like, on the soft side, maybe it was still… we didn’t actually float an order from that system and things like that. So there was… there was a, like, unnecessary pressure, which… and then…
92 00:17:31.740 ⇒ 00:17:37.530 Awaish Kumar: On the other projects, like, my Omni Migration, took on…
93 00:17:37.860 ⇒ 00:17:39.980 Awaish Kumar: And then there was one other…
94 00:17:40.600 ⇒ 00:17:43.990 Awaish Kumar: EDL, like, helping them with the…
95 00:17:44.350 ⇒ 00:17:53.390 Awaish Kumar: kind of ETL thing, which was, which, like, they just, like… X, like,
96 00:17:54.570 ⇒ 00:18:06.919 Awaish Kumar: They were working with the agency, and they just closed the deal, like, the engagement with them, and we were in a tight spot to actually help them with that. Although, like, that also derailed, that we didn’t meet the deadline.
97 00:18:06.990 ⇒ 00:18:14.620 Awaish Kumar: And because, obviously, it was a lot of work than expected, but now,
98 00:18:14.850 ⇒ 00:18:27.359 Awaish Kumar: Instead of saying that, okay, this is… this was 3 weeks of work, and we need that time, we actually… it was other way around, although we are taking the same time, but now it’s on us that we delete the project.
99 00:18:30.520 ⇒ 00:18:31.220 Awaish Kumar: Yeah.
100 00:18:31.220 ⇒ 00:18:36.400 Clarence Stone: So… so, I… I need your guys’ help on this, like, cause…
101 00:18:37.340 ⇒ 00:18:45.350 Clarence Stone: I consistently hear feedback that we could plan better, right? That we could, you know, be more organized. But the thing is.
102 00:18:45.650 ⇒ 00:18:51.519 Clarence Stone: It seems like nobody in this organization is really, truly interested in playing that function.
103 00:18:51.920 ⇒ 00:18:52.670 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
104 00:18:53.400 ⇒ 00:18:53.920 Samuel Roberts: I can see that.
105 00:18:54.940 ⇒ 00:19:02.490 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, the thing is, on the planning side also, like, although Greg did a good job planning Omni Migration Project.
106 00:19:04.890 ⇒ 00:19:14.800 Awaish Kumar: I think we just took it on, right? Like, they said, we are going to close the engagement with the Tableau by the 20th. Do the migration.
107 00:19:15.160 ⇒ 00:19:18.330 Awaish Kumar: And we just agreed, like, on the… on the deadline.
108 00:19:18.330 ⇒ 00:19:31.920 Clarence Stone: So, yeah, awaish, like, tell me more, who’s we? Like, the team as a whole agreed on that timeline, or, you know, Robert or Utam said off the top, like, we have to do this, or, like, how did this agree happen?
109 00:19:34.780 ⇒ 00:19:39.200 Awaish Kumar: On that part, I think, like,
110 00:19:40.330 ⇒ 00:19:44.449 Awaish Kumar: I think, like, Utam and Robert, they said we can do it.
111 00:19:44.630 ⇒ 00:19:45.770 Awaish Kumar: And…
112 00:19:46.030 ⇒ 00:19:55.870 Awaish Kumar: Then, yeah, we just took it on, and then, obviously, we… all the team actually worked on that, and we kind of completed that work also.
113 00:19:56.300 ⇒ 00:19:59.539 Awaish Kumar: But under a lot of pressure for everybody.
114 00:20:00.670 ⇒ 00:20:02.690 Clarence Stone: Right, but who agreed?
115 00:20:05.320 ⇒ 00:20:06.260 Clarence Stone: Right, like…
116 00:20:06.260 ⇒ 00:20:06.800 Awaish Kumar: Wow.
117 00:20:06.800 ⇒ 00:20:10.479 Clarence Stone: Like, who was this authority that said, this is cool.
118 00:20:11.680 ⇒ 00:20:20.190 Clarence Stone: Or did the whole team as a whole say, hey, I have no problems with this, and you guys just said yes, and started doing it, and realized, oops, this is a lot of work?
119 00:20:21.690 ⇒ 00:20:24.430 Awaish Kumar: I think it’s, like, it’s…
120 00:20:24.540 ⇒ 00:20:33.279 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, like, you can say that, like, everybody just said yes to that, like, nobody questioned, right? So…
121 00:20:33.870 ⇒ 00:20:44.509 Awaish Kumar: Aiden team says, on the 20th, we are going to close the engagement with Tableau, let’s do it, because it’s a long one-year contract, and they don’t want to extend unnecessarily.
122 00:20:44.800 ⇒ 00:20:53.350 Awaish Kumar: And, Utamir Roberts said yes, and then he… there’s… they maybe shared in LinkedIn, and all of us also agreed with that.
123 00:20:53.810 ⇒ 00:20:55.780 Samuel Roberts: Without actually…
124 00:20:56.010 ⇒ 00:21:01.219 Awaish Kumar: Confronting them, yeah. Yeah, or saying, yeah, okay, we need more time, or something like that.
125 00:21:01.540 ⇒ 00:21:09.349 Clarence Stone: Exactly. That’s… that’s my whole point. Like, I structured these teams so that anyone can raise their hand and say, wait a second.
126 00:21:09.890 ⇒ 00:21:19.159 Clarence Stone: That’s not okay, right? And because you guys are all the same leadership role, somebody can always just raise their hand and say, this is gonna be a timing issue.
127 00:21:19.570 ⇒ 00:21:30.190 Clarence Stone: Right, so maybe the lesson learned here is not that we need to be more organized, but we need to understand what plans are being proposed and how that impacts overall timelines.
128 00:21:30.900 ⇒ 00:21:33.789 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, that’s true, that’s true.
129 00:21:34.040 ⇒ 00:21:37.950 Clarence Stone: And just say, like, hey, we can’t do that because we’re doing something else.
130 00:21:39.090 ⇒ 00:21:40.190 Awaish Kumar: Right.
131 00:21:42.410 ⇒ 00:21:52.360 Clarence Stone: Like, I just want to impress, like, we always have the power, right? But we have to time it correctly, or else we’re gonna have to pay for, you know, making corrections on the tail end.
132 00:21:59.140 ⇒ 00:22:06.840 Clarence Stone: Yeah. So, I mean, you as the SLs, like, you guys actually are the ones that would see all of the work in aggregate, right? Like, all together in one.
133 00:22:08.060 ⇒ 00:22:15.619 Clarence Stone: You can literally stop the show and say, hey, we really have, like, 3 clients with projects that end on the same day? Like, come on.
134 00:22:16.820 ⇒ 00:22:17.710 Samuel Roberts: Right.
135 00:22:20.600 ⇒ 00:22:23.019 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, I agree with that.
136 00:22:26.480 ⇒ 00:22:28.969 Clarence Stone: So, I think that’s a good learning, like, we…
137 00:22:28.970 ⇒ 00:22:29.460 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
138 00:22:29.460 ⇒ 00:22:37.839 Clarence Stone: I’m just the same way, guys, just so you know. Like, I love saying yes to a lot of things, and then realizing I’m quite underwater from all the commitments I made.
139 00:22:37.840 ⇒ 00:22:38.400 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
140 00:22:41.010 ⇒ 00:22:45.850 Samuel Roberts: But unfortunately, I don’t have the accountability buddies that you guys do, right, where… Right.
141 00:22:46.140 ⇒ 00:22:53.089 Clarence Stone: So, you know, be somebody that speaks up. I think it’s okay. No one’s gonna get mad, like, it’s more of a discussion on…
142 00:22:53.390 ⇒ 00:22:55.770 Clarence Stone: Okay, then, like, what do we do about it?
143 00:22:56.110 ⇒ 00:22:56.660 Samuel Roberts: Right.
144 00:23:19.550 ⇒ 00:23:20.630 Clarence Stone: What else, guys?
145 00:23:22.190 ⇒ 00:23:29.819 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, apart from that, like, for me, it was… it was good, like, hmm… like, Kim was…
146 00:23:31.070 ⇒ 00:23:39.370 Awaish Kumar: Following, like… The client channels, and they are… they were working on tickets.
147 00:23:39.570 ⇒ 00:23:53.109 Awaish Kumar: And we also… I encouraged the… the last thing, which… the thing… the process which we actually, in the last few weeks, we thought to implement was…
148 00:23:53.200 ⇒ 00:24:09.160 Awaish Kumar: to any… for a start… to start any execution on, like, a bigger project, so we should come up with a plan and get approval before we dive into the executions, and I think that’s going pretty well now. People are…
149 00:24:09.540 ⇒ 00:24:13.969 Awaish Kumar: Are asking for that, like, the review for… and they have a plan on paper.
150 00:24:14.270 ⇒ 00:24:19.859 Awaish Kumar: So… Yeah, team is adopting to that, so I’m glad about that.
151 00:24:22.480 ⇒ 00:24:23.310 Clarence Stone: Great.
152 00:24:25.400 ⇒ 00:24:32.070 Awaish Kumar: Yeah, so, like, yeah, as an ex… yeah, as an example, like, it was from Mustafa for the…
153 00:24:32.620 ⇒ 00:24:39.589 Awaish Kumar: There was a… Task, and he actually had a plan, and then get it reviewed.
154 00:24:40.790 ⇒ 00:24:43.310 Awaish Kumar: And, yeah, so it was good.
155 00:24:52.070 ⇒ 00:24:53.050 Clarence Stone: Anything else?
156 00:24:54.950 ⇒ 00:24:57.240 Awaish Kumar: No, not, not for me.
157 00:24:57.470 ⇒ 00:24:58.220 Clarence Stone: Okay.
158 00:24:58.550 ⇒ 00:25:02.770 Samuel Roberts: Hmm… Yeah, I’m trying to think since we last… Chatted.
159 00:25:07.810 ⇒ 00:25:10.490 Samuel Roberts: I don’t know if I have much, to be honest.
160 00:25:10.490 ⇒ 00:25:11.310 Clarence Stone: Okay.
161 00:25:11.310 ⇒ 00:25:13.079 Samuel Roberts: But, yeah.
162 00:25:15.510 ⇒ 00:25:19.650 Clarence Stone: Well, I’ll give you guys your time back then? I don’t… I don’t know.
163 00:25:19.650 ⇒ 00:25:23.900 Samuel Roberts: Yeah, I mean, that might… yeah, I think so, it’s probably fine.
164 00:25:23.900 ⇒ 00:25:26.180 Clarence Stone: Big catch-up Monday today, so I’m a little…
165 00:25:26.400 ⇒ 00:25:27.480 Samuel Roberts: Not quite.
166 00:25:28.750 ⇒ 00:25:30.590 Samuel Roberts: Full of thoughts right now with it.
167 00:25:31.520 ⇒ 00:25:32.270 Samuel Roberts: Okay.
168 00:25:33.050 ⇒ 00:25:34.669 Clarence Stone: Cool! Alright, guys?
169 00:25:34.930 ⇒ 00:25:36.330 Samuel Roberts: Yeah.
170 00:25:36.330 ⇒ 00:25:37.480 Awaish Kumar: Right. Thank you.
171 00:25:37.610 ⇒ 00:25:39.480 Samuel Roberts: Yeah. Thanks, guys.
172 00:25:39.590 ⇒ 00:25:40.320 Samuel Roberts: Okay.