Meeting Title: Gregory - Brylle - L&D Check-In Date: 2026-04-13 Meeting participants: Brylle Girang, Greg Stoutenburg
WEBVTT
1 00:02:15.830 ⇒ 00:02:17.210 Greg Stoutenburg: There’s the link.
2 00:02:18.770 ⇒ 00:02:19.590 Brylle Girang: Hello!
3 00:02:20.430 ⇒ 00:02:21.520 Greg Stoutenburg: How’s it going today?
4 00:02:21.760 ⇒ 00:02:26.190 Brylle Girang: Good! This is a good week. Did you watch TV shows, Greg?
5 00:02:27.500 ⇒ 00:02:32.650 Greg Stoutenburg: Sometimes… I mean, I can tell you what I’m looking at right now.
6 00:02:33.550 ⇒ 00:02:35.379 Brylle Girang: Well, what are you watching?
7 00:02:35.380 ⇒ 00:02:43.169 Greg Stoutenburg: Newest season of Love on the Spectrum just came on, like, at this point, I don’t know, 12 days ago. I love it, it’s great. It’s like,
8 00:02:43.310 ⇒ 00:02:46.860 Greg Stoutenburg: It’s, I mean, it’s sweet, it’s a sweet show. It’s like…
9 00:02:46.980 ⇒ 00:02:50.669 Greg Stoutenburg: Mostly adults with, like, severe forms of autism, or…
10 00:02:50.670 ⇒ 00:02:51.159 Brylle Girang: Oh, my God.
11 00:02:51.160 ⇒ 00:02:52.980 Greg Stoutenburg: Things like that, but, like.
12 00:02:53.140 ⇒ 00:02:59.220 Greg Stoutenburg: like, learning how to date, like, and, you know, some of the challenges they face. It’s like reality TV, but, like.
13 00:02:59.390 ⇒ 00:03:01.949 Greg Stoutenburg: It’s sweet, and it’s not, you know, it’s not…
14 00:03:02.150 ⇒ 00:03:03.750 Greg Stoutenburg: Critical in any way, it’s just like.
15 00:03:03.750 ⇒ 00:03:04.380 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
16 00:03:04.380 ⇒ 00:03:09.750 Greg Stoutenburg: you kind of see their challenges and root for them, and I’m like… I’m like, man, I could just… I could just watch this all the time. It’s great.
17 00:03:09.750 ⇒ 00:03:10.210 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
18 00:03:10.280 ⇒ 00:03:11.400 Greg Stoutenburg: I’m…
19 00:03:11.400 ⇒ 00:03:13.180 Brylle Girang: I’m looking at it right now.
20 00:03:13.180 ⇒ 00:03:13.769 Greg Stoutenburg: Did you get any shows?
21 00:03:13.770 ⇒ 00:03:14.450 Brylle Girang: feels…
22 00:03:14.450 ⇒ 00:03:15.190 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep.
23 00:03:15.510 ⇒ 00:03:17.470 Brylle Girang: It feels really wholesome. This is a.
24 00:03:17.470 ⇒ 00:03:20.440 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is, it is quite wholesome.
25 00:03:20.440 ⇒ 00:03:23.779 Brylle Girang: We need more shows like this, you know?
26 00:03:24.430 ⇒ 00:03:24.960 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
27 00:03:25.210 ⇒ 00:03:27.560 Greg Stoutenburg: I agree. I agree. I’m for it.
28 00:03:28.120 ⇒ 00:03:33.630 Brylle Girang: So, we were recently watching The Pit, so it’s an ER series, I don’t know.
29 00:03:33.630 ⇒ 00:03:34.830 Greg Stoutenburg: Heard of this.
30 00:03:34.830 ⇒ 00:03:35.669 Brylle Girang: Did you watch it?
31 00:03:36.400 ⇒ 00:03:38.210 Greg Stoutenburg: I’ve heard of it, I’ve not watched it, no. I’ve heard you’ve.
32 00:03:38.210 ⇒ 00:03:43.800 Brylle Girang: Totally amazing, totally amazing. And then The Boys just came up.
33 00:03:43.800 ⇒ 00:03:44.340 Greg Stoutenburg: Oh, yeah, yeah.
34 00:03:44.340 ⇒ 00:03:45.619 Brylle Girang: CSUN just came out.
35 00:03:45.780 ⇒ 00:03:46.850 Brylle Girang: I covered the first two.
36 00:03:47.890 ⇒ 00:03:50.770 Brylle Girang: like, the first two seasons of The Boys.
37 00:03:51.050 ⇒ 00:03:52.260 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. Yep.
38 00:03:52.260 ⇒ 00:04:04.449 Brylle Girang: Oh, yeah. Like, watch season 3, it’s… it sucks, but… Yeah. I guess the story going. There is… there is this show that we’re also watching, it’s called From.
39 00:04:04.770 ⇒ 00:04:12.000 Brylle Girang: It’s super underrated. I haven’t met, like, someone who have watched it, but…
40 00:04:12.620 ⇒ 00:04:14.670 Brylle Girang: It’s, how do you call this?
41 00:04:15.490 ⇒ 00:04:19.829 Brylle Girang: It’s… do you know isekai? Like, the gender isekai?
42 00:04:20.050 ⇒ 00:04:31.830 Brylle Girang: It’s an anime genre where people get transported from other places to another dimension or something like that. So it’s basically, like, American Isekai, but it’s…
43 00:04:32.090 ⇒ 00:04:45.730 Brylle Girang: It revolves around mysteries, etc, so… and so it’s a good week, because all of the shows are coming out, and then a new trailer for Hunger Games and Race of Thirty Pink just also came out, so…
44 00:04:45.860 ⇒ 00:04:47.050 Greg Stoutenburg: Oh, wow, okay, yeah.
45 00:04:47.870 ⇒ 00:04:49.629 Greg Stoutenburg: A glut of new media.
46 00:04:49.810 ⇒ 00:04:55.450 Brylle Girang: Yeah, exactly. My dopamine is… is shouting right now.
47 00:04:55.450 ⇒ 00:04:59.040 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s great.
48 00:04:59.040 ⇒ 00:05:09.050 Brylle Girang: Yeah, so, this call, well, initially, the purpose of this call is just to, you know, check as part of my initiatives with learning and development.
49 00:05:09.050 ⇒ 00:05:23.370 Brylle Girang: I was trying to build stuff the past few weeks, and then I wanted to actually be on the ground and talk to people to understand what their challenges are, how we can help them, and also to get learnings from them.
50 00:05:23.460 ⇒ 00:05:26.479 Brylle Girang: But at the same time, I also want us to touch upon…
51 00:05:26.950 ⇒ 00:05:33.669 Brylle Girang: you know, how you’re doing as a CSO, what your challenges are, just to try to replicate how UTAM
52 00:05:33.780 ⇒ 00:05:36.400 Brylle Girang: Hautam gathers this feedback from you.
53 00:05:36.640 ⇒ 00:05:41.059 Brylle Girang: So, I wanted to start… I wanted to start with the latter, so…
54 00:05:41.340 ⇒ 00:05:41.750 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay.
55 00:05:41.750 ⇒ 00:05:47.319 Brylle Girang: How are you doing right now with default and with element only?
56 00:05:48.240 ⇒ 00:06:02.039 Greg Stoutenburg: I think they’re both going really well. I think with Element Omni, the… the relationship with the stakeholders is in a really good place. I mean, I saw that they signed a renewal, that’s our biggest deal ever, so, you know, I’m…
57 00:06:02.160 ⇒ 00:06:14.109 Greg Stoutenburg: I’m happy to have been a part of that. I mean, not, like, the sales conversations, but, you know, like, maybe they wouldn’t have done that if it were going… if the Omni thing were going poorly. So, happy to be a part of that.
58 00:06:14.650 ⇒ 00:06:17.379 Greg Stoutenburg: I think the project feels organized.
59 00:06:17.380 ⇒ 00:06:35.999 Greg Stoutenburg: it’s going along pretty smoothly, there’s only been, like, one hiccup, but, you know, when… when you’ve got new people who, like, just started and are just getting used to a client, you know, there’s gonna be some fumbled handoffs, and so, you know, that’s… it’s okay, it’s all understandable. So I feel good about that. For default, I feel good about that as well, I think.
60 00:06:36.020 ⇒ 00:06:41.410 Greg Stoutenburg: There, the… I think the client relationship is going well. I think,
61 00:06:41.750 ⇒ 00:06:52.389 Greg Stoutenburg: something that has been a challenge in the last couple weeks, but like, I mean, I’m on top of it, but a thing that has been a challenge is that since I took over as CSO for default, at this point, I don’t know, 3 or 4 weeks ago.
62 00:06:52.790 ⇒ 00:07:12.399 Greg Stoutenburg: I came in, like, I’d been running one workstream that was pretty lightweight and, like, easy, and then running that plus CSO, but where I didn’t really have much context on the other workstream, and it’s… it’s the big one. So, getting my mind wrapped around that while keeping my work stream going and being.
63 00:07:12.400 ⇒ 00:07:12.750 Brylle Girang: Okay.
64 00:07:12.750 ⇒ 00:07:23.339 Greg Stoutenburg: you know, taking over as sort of, you know, client relationship manager, was a bit of a challenge, but I think I’m… I think I’m on it now, which is good, and so…
65 00:07:23.490 ⇒ 00:07:43.690 Greg Stoutenburg: A takeaway for me is anytime I join a new client, like, I’m just gonna insist on one-on-ones with everybody at the company who we ever interact with, and that just… that just has to be a part of it, like, not just onboarding. Like, onboarding to the client has to be something that’s done not just with, you know, cursor and docs, but also just, like, with conversations, and so…
66 00:07:45.050 ⇒ 00:07:49.339 Greg Stoutenburg: just in the last week, I’ve had a handful of conversations with folks at Default that have been really.
67 00:07:49.340 ⇒ 00:07:49.800 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
68 00:07:49.800 ⇒ 00:07:50.390 Greg Stoutenburg: So…
69 00:07:50.390 ⇒ 00:07:50.830 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
70 00:07:50.830 ⇒ 00:08:01.339 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, so feeling pretty good about it, and then, like, just in the role overall, I think, the meaning of CSO has sort of been a sort of moving target since.
71 00:08:01.340 ⇒ 00:08:01.660 Brylle Girang: it was.
72 00:08:01.660 ⇒ 00:08:17.480 Greg Stoutenburg: first introduced at the beginning of January, and, you know, that’s okay. We’re a startup figuring it out. But I think as of right now, like, where… yeah, where it is right now in the relationship between CSO, SL, and ICs is one that,
73 00:08:17.700 ⇒ 00:08:24.769 Greg Stoutenburg: is… is pretty clear, and I think could really be effective. Like… like, today I was DMing through Tom, I was like.
74 00:08:24.920 ⇒ 00:08:42.059 Greg Stoutenburg: I feel like there’s… like, it feels pretty quiet today. I’m not positive if that’s something to be excited about, like, is everything… is everything fine, or is something, like, falling through the cracks right now, and I’m unaware of it? And then, you know, had a call where, Jasmine’s SL on,
75 00:08:42.549 ⇒ 00:08:55.860 Greg Stoutenburg: on Element, and, you know, she led this call, and it’s like, hey, great, we’ve got someone, like, you know, managing linear, and, you know, and, like, keeping things organized, and reviewing docs and outputs for quality, and, like.
76 00:08:55.980 ⇒ 00:09:06.030 Greg Stoutenburg: this is pretty cool. So, you know, I can… I can focus on my own deliverables, and I can focus on the client relationship, and you know, look for expansion opportunities and things like that, so…
77 00:09:06.320 ⇒ 00:09:08.260 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, feeling, you know, optimistic.
78 00:09:08.890 ⇒ 00:09:15.540 Brylle Girang: Okay. Speaking… speaking of Jasmine, I know that there have… there has been, you know, miscommunications, I think.
79 00:09:15.870 ⇒ 00:09:16.780 Brylle Girang: few days.
80 00:09:16.980 ⇒ 00:09:19.889 Brylle Girang: How is that now? Like, how is your relationship with Jessman?
81 00:09:20.600 ⇒ 00:09:39.509 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, good. I mean, I think what I’d say is just, like, she just started, and, like, Brain… this is, like, I’m… this is not, like, a criticism of Brainforge at all. Brainforge’s expectations around speed are really demanding. Like, someone gives, like… like, there’s, you know, there’s a so-called fast-paced startup, you know, been in a couple of these.
82 00:09:39.630 ⇒ 00:09:46.770 Greg Stoutenburg: they’re a third of the speed of Brainforge. And, you know, so I think there’s, like, you know, there’s a little bit of, like…
83 00:09:46.980 ⇒ 00:09:51.149 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, you’re in California, you just started your job, you’re in California.
84 00:09:51.150 ⇒ 00:10:13.799 Greg Stoutenburg: You see a message on Wednesday morning, you’re like, yeah, I’ll check it, you know, it’s, you know, 7am, yeah, I’ll check it. 3 hours later, it’s not done yet, and Brainforge is like, what the heck? This is 3 hours ago, it should be done by now. So I think there’s just, like, a little bit of that adjustment of, like, you know, here’s what… here’s what Brainforge… I just like to say Brainforge speed. Here’s what Brainforge speed is,
85 00:10:13.800 ⇒ 00:10:15.850 Greg Stoutenburg: I think as far as, like.
86 00:10:16.260 ⇒ 00:10:18.980 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, I think as far as, like, doing the work.
87 00:10:19.140 ⇒ 00:10:28.640 Greg Stoutenburg: There were a couple times I had to, like, nudge a little bit, but, I mean, I don’t know, this is… like, today is literally… is one week, and I think… well, aside from whatever, you know.
88 00:10:29.270 ⇒ 00:10:38.019 Greg Stoutenburg: 10-hour week trial from a month ago, or whatever. So, I’m, yeah, I mean, I’m… I’m optimistic there, that, yeah.
89 00:10:38.170 ⇒ 00:10:41.959 Greg Stoutenburg: I’m optimistic there. I think, as far as…
90 00:10:42.450 ⇒ 00:10:47.749 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, as far as the specific context I know, which is the Omni project,
91 00:10:48.220 ⇒ 00:11:05.350 Greg Stoutenburg: I still feel like it’s a little bit on me to steer, like, alright, from the… as the voice of the client for this, like, you know, like, I’ve got some messages in the client channel this morning, like, you know, Jasmine, when you go into this call, like, you know, here’s some suggestions on how I… I would run the call. I’m not trying to give unsolicited advice, but just because, like.
92 00:11:05.350 ⇒ 00:11:10.770 Greg Stoutenburg: I’ve been close to this, so, you know, here’s some things I’d look out for in talking with Shivani.
93 00:11:10.770 ⇒ 00:11:11.180 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
94 00:11:11.180 ⇒ 00:11:29.249 Greg Stoutenburg: So yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m… and when I’ve seen things like, you know, when I’ve seen the work that Jasmine has put out, I’ve been like, this is good, you know? This is like, I can see… I can see her raising the bar on things like the dashboarding specs that we’ve been putting out for, for OmniWork, so, you know, optimistic there.
95 00:11:29.960 ⇒ 00:11:35.060 Brylle Girang: Okay, but optimistic doesn’t mean that it’s currently failing, right?
96 00:11:35.370 ⇒ 00:11:51.030 Greg Stoutenburg: Oh, no, no, no, nothing’s failing. Yeah, I don’t mean, like, yeah, I’m optimistic that we can get out of this gutter. No, I don’t think we’re gonna gut. No, I don’t think we’re gonna gut. I think we hit one bump last week. So, let me say this. There’s only one bump that I know of, and it was, like, middle of last week, where I was like.
97 00:11:51.060 ⇒ 00:12:07.639 Greg Stoutenburg: tagging her, and for that matter, I think also tagging Robert, like, hey, like, I need… I need feedback on this doc that I made. And, it can’t just come from me, like, it’s technical enough, I’ve already read it, so it’s already got my comments, so… but I… I’m… there’s a good chance I’ve missed something, so, like, I need help, and .
98 00:12:07.640 ⇒ 00:12:08.190 Brylle Girang: Boop.
99 00:12:08.880 ⇒ 00:12:12.259 Greg Stoutenburg: And just kind of, like, nothing happened for a while. And so, then,
100 00:12:12.380 ⇒ 00:12:24.470 Greg Stoutenburg: you know, I had… Uzuma said, like, hey, if you don’t have a response to this, you know, in, whatever, 4 hours from now or something, ping me. There’s no response, so I pinged him, and then he was like, alright, we’re gonna call this an escalation, and
101 00:12:24.620 ⇒ 00:12:27.640 Greg Stoutenburg: So, but that was just the one thing, and like I’m saying, you know.
102 00:12:27.840 ⇒ 00:12:30.060 Greg Stoutenburg: I would attribute that mostly to…
103 00:12:31.230 ⇒ 00:12:35.920 Greg Stoutenburg: getting used to Brainforge speed, and being, you know, being 3 days on the job.
104 00:12:36.130 ⇒ 00:12:41.230 Brylle Girang: Yeah, but bottom line, Greg, like, do you feel supported with Jasmine as an SL?
105 00:12:41.640 ⇒ 00:12:53.819 Greg Stoutenburg: Yes. I… well, let me put it this way. I do right now, but it’s also very new that I feel supported as SL. I feel really good about the call… I feel really good about the call that she led an hour ago.
106 00:12:54.540 ⇒ 00:12:55.520 Brylle Girang: Okay, okay, okay.
107 00:12:55.520 ⇒ 00:13:05.570 Greg Stoutenburg: What if I say that? I like to just be really specific, right? My position right now is I’m really happy with how that call went an hour ago, and if I see more like that, then, like.
108 00:13:05.930 ⇒ 00:13:13.790 Greg Stoutenburg: yeah, I’m golden. Then I’ll just, you know, I’ll focus on strategy and stuff, and, she’ll run her SL gig.
109 00:13:14.410 ⇒ 00:13:22.790 Brylle Girang: Okay, like, if a client needs something, let’s say Shivani needs something, you can just tag Jasmine, and then it will be, you know, it will be dealt with.
110 00:13:23.370 ⇒ 00:13:25.239 Brylle Girang: Yeah. Is that how you feel? Yeah. Okay.
111 00:13:25.480 ⇒ 00:13:29.760 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I think… I think that we’re there, as of right now. Yep.
112 00:13:30.110 ⇒ 00:13:31.720 Brylle Girang: Okay, that’s good, that’s good.
113 00:13:31.860 ⇒ 00:13:37.939 Brylle Girang: And I’m just going to go back to what you said about default, you know, I just want to confirm that
114 00:13:38.070 ⇒ 00:13:48.200 Brylle Girang: like, there were little to no transition between Demilada and you when it comes to, like, the data analytics workstream. Yeah. Like, to put it… to put it bluntly.
115 00:13:48.480 ⇒ 00:13:49.530 Brylle Girang: Yes. Okay.
116 00:13:49.970 ⇒ 00:13:59.409 Brylle Girang: Yeah. It’s like… it’s like you were, you were just thrown into data analytics, and then you were just expected to handle it all by yourself.
117 00:14:00.240 ⇒ 00:14:08.710 Greg Stoutenburg: Well, I mean, we had… so, I mean, so he’s… he’s still executing the work stream. There’s still, like, a couple more stages, so he’s just kind of, like, marching along through it.
118 00:14:08.820 ⇒ 00:14:16.530 Greg Stoutenburg: I… you know, I had talked to him, I think, like, one time the week before I was asked to be CSO about…
119 00:14:16.530 ⇒ 00:14:17.230 Brylle Girang: Okay.
120 00:14:17.230 ⇒ 00:14:31.989 Greg Stoutenburg: just, like, what the work stream is, and, like, you know, like, what are you doing here? Because, you know, I’m a little bit like a silo. Now, that’s not necessarily… that’s not necessarily the problem with him, like, I also could have reached out about it sooner, but I just thought, like, hey, I’m just on the client running my own work stream, like, that’s… I’m not CSO.
121 00:14:32.000 ⇒ 00:14:43.620 Greg Stoutenburg: But then when I was CSO, all of a sudden it was, like, kind of an immediate problem, because… I mean, for one thing, you know, my background is not in… it’s not in data engineering work, like, my… the extent of my…
122 00:14:43.770 ⇒ 00:14:49.779 Greg Stoutenburg: data work is, I mean, besides helping Stack Overflow stand up,
123 00:14:50.360 ⇒ 00:15:00.199 Greg Stoutenburg: Power BI, 5 years ago, barely. It’s, you know, it’s been here. It’s been on, you know, it was Omni for Eden, so,
124 00:15:00.380 ⇒ 00:15:01.280 Greg Stoutenburg: you know.
125 00:15:01.440 ⇒ 00:15:04.850 Greg Stoutenburg: Jumping in on this, and then being expected to talk about the…
126 00:15:04.990 ⇒ 00:15:08.419 Greg Stoutenburg: The data analytics workstream was like, you know.
127 00:15:08.750 ⇒ 00:15:12.640 Greg Stoutenburg: figure this out, you know, now. And so what I did for that
128 00:15:13.100 ⇒ 00:15:22.410 Greg Stoutenburg: to client syncs was just asked him to present on the stuff he was working on, and then I was presented… but then I would handle the rest of it.
129 00:15:23.130 ⇒ 00:15:37.089 Greg Stoutenburg: And it… which is just, like, it’s just, like, a poor… it’s not good. Like, I think it’s not a good look, it doesn’t… it doesn’t allow for that, you know, that… the good relationship is one where there’s, like, clearly a lead who… leader who leads, and, like, I wasn’t…
130 00:15:37.290 ⇒ 00:15:42.449 Greg Stoutenburg: I didn’t feel able to do that, so I didn’t do that. But I do…
131 00:15:42.570 ⇒ 00:15:46.439 Greg Stoutenburg: I do much better now, since I’ve been talking to the stakeholders there.
132 00:15:46.580 ⇒ 00:15:47.240 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
133 00:15:47.240 ⇒ 00:16:06.550 Brylle Girang: I think, you know, that’s a major lapse on our end. I remember when Pranav took over Andy, we had some sort of a transition plan, where, you know, we dedicated times where Amber was walking Pranav through how to handle Andy, where are we at, etc. And I think that’s something that we were not able to do.
134 00:16:06.660 ⇒ 00:16:08.180 Brylle Girang: For your behalf.
135 00:16:08.320 ⇒ 00:16:09.210 Brylle Girang: Yeah. Off.
136 00:16:09.210 ⇒ 00:16:20.469 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, I think with default, I mean, the way it went, basically, was one day Utam was just like, hey, the default team really likes talking to you, and so we’re gonna make you CSO. It was like.
137 00:16:20.970 ⇒ 00:16:24.760 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay. So, and then I was.
138 00:16:24.760 ⇒ 00:16:25.170 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
139 00:16:25.210 ⇒ 00:16:27.940 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, not exactly a transition.
140 00:16:28.400 ⇒ 00:16:36.030 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay. We’ll… I will work together there. I’m going to talk with Utem and try to make sure that, you know.
141 00:16:36.180 ⇒ 00:16:42.159 Brylle Girang: that doesn’t happen again. And I hope that doesn’t happen again, where people need to be… to jump in if a client.
142 00:16:42.160 ⇒ 00:16:42.540 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
143 00:16:42.540 ⇒ 00:16:45.059 Brylle Girang: But if that ever happens, then she’d be okay.
144 00:16:45.390 ⇒ 00:16:46.580 Brylle Girang: experience.
145 00:16:46.830 ⇒ 00:16:53.500 Greg Stoutenburg: I mean, I think maybe… I guess my thoughts… I have two thoughts about, like, How to mitigate
146 00:16:53.600 ⇒ 00:17:10.409 Greg Stoutenburg: how to mitigate need… yeah, how to mitigate needing to pull the emergency lever. And, those thoughts are… one is, if everybody who’s working on a project… everybody who’s working on… how about this? I’ll just make a standard. Everybody who’s working on a project should be able to get… to give an elevator
147 00:17:10.520 ⇒ 00:17:22.640 Greg Stoutenburg: summary of what the work streams are on that client. Like, at least that, you know, I don’t have to be able to… someone like me does not need to be able to know the details of Oasis’ work, right? Like, but like…
148 00:17:22.640 ⇒ 00:17:23.200 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
149 00:17:23.630 ⇒ 00:17:28.449 Greg Stoutenburg: The client’s data is here, and it needs to be modeled to
150 00:17:29.050 ⇒ 00:17:33.939 Greg Stoutenburg: to go here. You know, like, to be able to say, like, at least those sorts of things. So in my case.
151 00:17:34.440 ⇒ 00:17:38.380 Greg Stoutenburg: All I could have said is that Demi is doing lots of dashboards.
152 00:17:39.130 ⇒ 00:17:45.940 Greg Stoutenburg: And that’s not… that’s not much of a summary, you know what I mean? So, if everybody… if everybody on a client can…
153 00:17:46.150 ⇒ 00:17:48.090 Greg Stoutenburg: You know, give a sort of high level.
154 00:17:48.300 ⇒ 00:18:00.689 Greg Stoutenburg: of the workstreams, that would be good. And then, I think secondly would just be, when there’s gonna be a transition for something like, you know, coming on as CSO somewhere, or taking over from one workstream and expanding to CSO,
155 00:18:00.780 ⇒ 00:18:02.050 Greg Stoutenburg: Would be, like.
156 00:18:02.100 ⇒ 00:18:18.660 Greg Stoutenburg: more of a formal intro, you know? So maybe… maybe there could have been, like, a transition meeting with the default, like, hey, you know, Greg’s gonna be leading the relationship with the client now, and… and we’ve… we’ve briefed him on all the work streams, and he’s setting up, you know, and, like, give me pointers too, right? Like.
157 00:18:18.660 ⇒ 00:18:25.420 Greg Stoutenburg: you know, Greg, you need to talk to this person, because this person is in charge of this, and you need to talk to this person, because this person’s in charge of that, and so on.
158 00:18:25.870 ⇒ 00:18:42.690 Greg Stoutenburg: So I’ve been doing those calls for, like, the last week, and it’s been really beneficial, like… I don’t know if anyone else on the team knew this. The basic reason why we’re making all these dashboards is because Laura is spread really thin, and has chief of staff responsibilities, and currently there’s no way to monitor things like team performance.
159 00:18:42.850 ⇒ 00:18:45.969 Greg Stoutenburg: Like, that’s the main reason we’re doing this, is basically, like.
160 00:18:46.270 ⇒ 00:18:51.110 Greg Stoutenburg: Personnel management, and coaching, and, you know… Stuff like that.
161 00:18:51.110 ⇒ 00:18:52.240 Brylle Girang: Mmm, okay.
162 00:18:52.240 ⇒ 00:18:58.570 Greg Stoutenburg: Like, did we, like, did we know that? I don’t know that that existed in the context anywhere. What we had is just an SOW that asked for a whole bunch of dashboards.
163 00:18:59.750 ⇒ 00:19:00.710 Brylle Girang: Wow!
164 00:19:00.710 ⇒ 00:19:02.829 Greg Stoutenburg: It’s, like, that kind of insight that’s just, like.
165 00:19:03.260 ⇒ 00:19:06.580 Greg Stoutenburg: You know, needs to be, like, passed along so we know what we’re talking about.
166 00:19:09.270 ⇒ 00:19:14.789 Brylle Girang: Bottom line, we need to care more about what we’re doing for the client, right? I think…
167 00:19:15.720 ⇒ 00:19:20.430 Brylle Girang: And it doesn’t just… it doesn’t need to be just us checking boxes, and I think that’s what.
168 00:19:20.430 ⇒ 00:19:20.760 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
169 00:19:20.760 ⇒ 00:19:26.160 Brylle Girang: Like, we have these dashboards, Laura’s creating this. Yeah. Where’s the why? Right.
170 00:19:26.160 ⇒ 00:19:32.990 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, right, why? Exactly. Yeah, and I like to say, like, you know, nobody just wants a dashboard, right?
171 00:19:32.990 ⇒ 00:19:33.850 Brylle Girang: Exactly.
172 00:19:33.980 ⇒ 00:19:35.530 Greg Stoutenburg: Boring, you know?
173 00:19:35.530 ⇒ 00:19:35.950 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
174 00:19:35.950 ⇒ 00:19:40.599 Greg Stoutenburg: Like, there’s some goal they’re trying to achieve, and they think that this visibility is going to help them get there.
175 00:19:41.740 ⇒ 00:19:50.169 Brylle Girang: I think that’s also the same problem that Demi has encountered earlier, when they created dashboards and then the metrics weren’t even correct.
176 00:19:50.320 ⇒ 00:20:04.359 Brylle Girang: And that’s mainly because, you know, the why wasn’t understood there. I think that’s… that’s good feedback. I agree with that, and I think this has been something that we have been pushing, like, for over the past few weeks, but we didn’t have, like, the tools yet to do that, but.
177 00:20:04.360 ⇒ 00:20:05.129 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. I think…
178 00:20:05.130 ⇒ 00:20:13.980 Brylle Girang: at a glance, everyone, not just the CSOs, not just the SLs, should be able to exactly answer, like, where are we with the client, what do they want?
179 00:20:13.980 ⇒ 00:20:15.389 Greg Stoutenburg: Right. Right.
180 00:20:15.390 ⇒ 00:20:17.179 Brylle Girang: Who cares? Yeah.
181 00:20:17.180 ⇒ 00:20:18.720 Greg Stoutenburg: Right, yeah, yeah, yep.
182 00:20:18.850 ⇒ 00:20:28.859 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, who, what, when, where, why. At least, you know, and if your work doesn’t touch it directly, then at least, you know, you can give sort of an overview.
183 00:20:29.030 ⇒ 00:20:45.820 Greg Stoutenburg: I think in the case of Demi, with, like, for example, with, like, the QA and the ARR dashboard, in case… in case that’s what you were referring to a moment ago, I think there can be… there can be a tendency, and I think we all… I mean, I know I have to resist this tendency, because I have it too, to, like, just do what the client asks us to do.
184 00:20:46.340 ⇒ 00:20:52.850 Greg Stoutenburg: But the client is very often wrong, otherwise they wouldn’t need us, right? Like, if they actually… if they knew what to do, they could probably just…
185 00:20:53.520 ⇒ 00:20:57.850 Greg Stoutenburg: just get an engineer and do it, you know? So, like.
186 00:20:58.280 ⇒ 00:21:08.739 Greg Stoutenburg: I think a way that we can get into trouble, like, with some dashboard requests, is to just grant all of their requests. You know what I mean? And then just end up with a whole bunch of noise that they don’t know what to…
187 00:21:08.980 ⇒ 00:21:12.519 Greg Stoutenburg: And then they don’t know what to do, they don’t know how to use it, and then they’re gonna blame us.
188 00:21:12.810 ⇒ 00:21:18.460 Greg Stoutenburg: Because they got these noisy dashboards, right? So, like, I think we have to be a little bit more assertive, a little bit more opinionated.
189 00:21:19.100 ⇒ 00:21:20.240 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah.
190 00:21:20.520 ⇒ 00:21:21.350 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
191 00:21:21.820 ⇒ 00:21:26.889 Brylle Girang: Yeah, I guess, at the end of the day, we’re consultants, we’re not, like, dashboard builders, right?
192 00:21:26.890 ⇒ 00:21:30.880 Greg Stoutenburg: Right, exactly, yeah, right. Yeah, okay, hey, you have Omni now, just, you know…
193 00:21:30.880 ⇒ 00:21:31.370 Brylle Girang: the button.
194 00:21:31.370 ⇒ 00:21:32.849 Greg Stoutenburg: You can make a dashboard without that hard.
195 00:21:33.070 ⇒ 00:21:34.829 Brylle Girang: You know? Exactly.
196 00:21:34.830 ⇒ 00:21:35.230 Greg Stoutenburg: Google it.
197 00:21:35.230 ⇒ 00:21:36.010 Brylle Girang: Exactly.
198 00:21:36.240 ⇒ 00:21:38.439 Brylle Girang: Good, good. So, I guess, you know.
199 00:21:38.660 ⇒ 00:21:48.679 Brylle Girang: We’re in a really great pace with you as CSOs. I think Otam has also noted this, that with your ownership, it’s… we’re on a steadier pace compared to, like, 2 weeks ago.
200 00:21:48.850 ⇒ 00:22:07.539 Brylle Girang: I guess one thing that I’m really worried about is… the main reason why I asked is, when it comes to Jasmine supporting you, I don’t want us to go through the same path that… I’m pretty sure you know this, but Pranav’s experience with Sam as an SL, where he doesn’t really feel supported and is trying to, like, take over things.
201 00:22:08.130 ⇒ 00:22:11.279 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. But yeah. Yeah.
202 00:22:11.280 ⇒ 00:22:16.439 Brylle Girang: I guess we’re trying to look out for flags that we can, you know, immediately.
203 00:22:16.440 ⇒ 00:22:17.100 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay.
204 00:22:17.470 ⇒ 00:22:30.709 Brylle Girang: But yeah, I think we’re good there. I want to touch upon, you know, learning and development, and when it comes to the, like, the internal stuff. How are you feeling now, with the skills, with the stuff that we’re shipping?
205 00:22:31.830 ⇒ 00:22:36.279 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I mean, things are being shipped quickly enough that I haven’t used them all.
206 00:22:36.280 ⇒ 00:22:36.850 Brylle Girang: Okay.
207 00:22:37.090 ⇒ 00:22:56.899 Greg Stoutenburg: But, I think that’s okay, you know, I think that’s okay. So, I mean, I have been using skills more, I… yeah, I like it. I mean, I feel like… I feel like the team, you know, especially you and Utam, have been very responsive when I’ve said, like, hey, here’s a place where I’m getting slowed down, here’s a place where I need some help, like…
208 00:22:56.970 ⇒ 00:23:04.599 Greg Stoutenburg: Between building skills and… tapping on… tapping on other people and, like, taking things off my calendar.
209 00:23:05.010 ⇒ 00:23:08.070 Greg Stoutenburg: I’ve felt like the team has really been, you know, showing up.
210 00:23:08.070 ⇒ 00:23:08.930 Brylle Girang: So… Yeah.
211 00:23:09.520 ⇒ 00:23:15.290 Greg Stoutenburg: I don’t know if… did that really answer the question? I mean, I guess on the L&D… okay. On the L&D part, yeah, I think so.
212 00:23:15.870 ⇒ 00:23:22.070 Brylle Girang: Okay, okay. Yeah. Well, we… I haven’t been doing a really great job when it comes to, like.
213 00:23:22.280 ⇒ 00:23:32.019 Brylle Girang: delivering the skills over to the team, and that’s something that I’m going to change this week, but I do agree with you, like, we’re shipping faster than we can digest right now.
214 00:23:32.730 ⇒ 00:23:38.519 Brylle Girang: And we don’t have, like, a proper way to deliver those updates to our people.
215 00:23:38.700 ⇒ 00:23:52.939 Brylle Girang: we talk about this, you know, me recording something just to make sure that we have visuals to support that, etc. But one thing that, one workflow that I’m launching this week is… I’m calling it DoorDash Workflow.
216 00:23:52.940 ⇒ 00:24:00.079 Brylle Girang: So, this is… this is with support to, like, Utam’s, analogies when it comes to the platform as the kitchen.
217 00:24:00.120 ⇒ 00:24:17.759 Brylle Girang: But the main problem right now is that the kitchen is, you know, pushing stuff out, and there’s no one delivering it over to your houses, right? And L&D should be the ones to help support that, so DoorDash workflow means that, you know, when people ship, we get to deliver those to our people.
218 00:24:17.910 ⇒ 00:24:18.970 Brylle Girang: And…
219 00:24:19.240 ⇒ 00:24:35.519 Brylle Girang: That starts with, you know, a weekly digest, or a weekly note over to our teams, making sure that we know what the recent updates are, who affects those updates, what those updates are for, why do we have those updates, etc.
220 00:24:36.090 ⇒ 00:24:45.889 Brylle Girang: But yeah, that should be a lot better. I think most of the people right now in our team, their main problem is that they can’t keep up with whatever we’re shipping.
221 00:24:45.890 ⇒ 00:24:46.820 Greg Stoutenburg: And… Yeah.
222 00:24:46.820 ⇒ 00:24:51.820 Brylle Girang: At the end of the day, they’re just blocking out any updates that we’re sending out.
223 00:24:51.820 ⇒ 00:24:57.040 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I know I’ll have the reaction of, like, I’ll see…
224 00:24:57.520 ⇒ 00:25:00.910 Greg Stoutenburg: you know, hey, Brain Forge team, check out this new skill, and it’s like…
225 00:25:01.280 ⇒ 00:25:08.429 Greg Stoutenburg: couple paragraphs, I’m like, I’m like, what does it say it does? I’m like, okay, I can’t use that right now. So, you know, flag for later, and then we’ll see if I actually.
226 00:25:08.430 ⇒ 00:25:09.100 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah.
227 00:25:09.440 ⇒ 00:25:09.980 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
228 00:25:09.980 ⇒ 00:25:12.000 Brylle Girang: Exactly, exactly, exactly.
229 00:25:12.350 ⇒ 00:25:28.709 Brylle Girang: So, I… I know that I requested, like, your eyes when it comes to, like, checking out the modules that we’re… that we’re creating. It’s not finalized yet, but I can send over, like, the draft to you, and you can check it out here, just a moment.
230 00:25:28.710 ⇒ 00:25:29.280 Greg Stoutenburg: Yep.
231 00:25:33.740 ⇒ 00:25:39.609 Brylle Girang: So, we’re launching, like, our internal LMS via the platform. I sent over the link.
232 00:25:39.610 ⇒ 00:25:40.980 Greg Stoutenburg: Did you send it? Oh, okay.
233 00:25:41.150 ⇒ 00:25:41.690 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
234 00:25:42.010 ⇒ 00:25:56.759 Brylle Girang: If you have time within this week, I would appreciate if you could, like, check out the modules, see how it works, determine if, you know, if it’s something that you, as a professor, would, like, share to your students.
235 00:25:57.070 ⇒ 00:26:00.020 Greg Stoutenburg: Okay. Oh, here we go. Okay, I have to go back.
236 00:26:02.390 ⇒ 00:26:09.579 Brylle Girang: But yeah, we don’t need it… we don’t need to do that over the call, but maybe expect that I will be reaching out to you within the week to check this out. Oh, here it is.
237 00:26:09.710 ⇒ 00:26:10.519 Greg Stoutenburg: Here it is. Okay.
238 00:26:10.900 ⇒ 00:26:15.960 Brylle Girang: It might look really broken right now, I sent it over to Utam, but I’ll just nudge you once it’s fixed.
239 00:26:16.400 ⇒ 00:26:22.719 Greg Stoutenburg: Sure. Okay. Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, let me know, and I’ll give it a look, and yeah, happy to… happy to do that.
240 00:26:23.110 ⇒ 00:26:30.100 Brylle Girang: Great, great. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, anything that you want to, like, flag? Like, maybe to Utam, to me, or to Garrett?
241 00:26:30.650 ⇒ 00:26:37.180 Greg Stoutenburg: Not at this time. I mean, I think… I think what I would say is,
242 00:26:37.710 ⇒ 00:26:44.970 Greg Stoutenburg: I think we’ll continue to need clarification around When the… like…
243 00:26:46.830 ⇒ 00:26:54.710 Greg Stoutenburg: about which person is supposed to engage with the client about what. So, like… on… element,
244 00:26:55.200 ⇒ 00:27:00.159 Greg Stoutenburg: it was, you know, I mean, I’m not CSO, you know, I’ve just been leading the OmniWorkstream
245 00:27:00.870 ⇒ 00:27:06.890 Greg Stoutenburg: It… there’s still something that’s a little unnatural to me about…
246 00:27:07.360 ⇒ 00:27:11.349 Greg Stoutenburg: Me not being the person to talk to the stakeholder about, like.
247 00:27:11.920 ⇒ 00:27:16.440 Greg Stoutenburg: what dashboards they’re building, but I think that’s okay, as long as somebody else is, like.
248 00:27:16.620 ⇒ 00:27:34.040 Greg Stoutenburg: that central manager for the relationship with the client, you know what I mean? And so, I feel like in the… in the shift in the way that the SL position is going, there’s… it does feel like there’s, like, a small gap in, like, who owns which parts of the client relationship, you know what I mean?
249 00:27:34.370 ⇒ 00:27:35.470 Brylle Girang: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I gotcha.
250 00:27:35.470 ⇒ 00:27:45.560 Greg Stoutenburg: Because I don’t think that all… I don’t think it’s… I don’t think that the goal is, okay, now CSOs don’t talk to the client anymore, and the SL does. Like, that isn’t… I don’t think that’s the intent.
251 00:27:45.920 ⇒ 00:27:47.729 Greg Stoutenburg: So, yeah, I think…
252 00:27:48.130 ⇒ 00:27:53.779 Greg Stoutenburg: I think there will continue to be some ironing out about where the roles… where the handoffs are.
253 00:27:54.170 ⇒ 00:27:59.290 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah. But I also think that we’re in a better state now with that than we have been since I’ve been here.
254 00:27:59.730 ⇒ 00:28:11.079 Brylle Girang: Okay, I think I’m also reflecting on the previous feedback that we had for default, where, you know, we criticize how, let’s say, Mustafa or Demi was speaking with the client.
255 00:28:11.170 ⇒ 00:28:22.580 Brylle Girang: Is it going… are we going to experience the same problem now, or are we expecting, like, CSOs to actually handle all client communications, and the IC should just work in the back end?
256 00:28:23.200 ⇒ 00:28:23.590 Greg Stoutenburg: Yup, yeah.
257 00:28:23.690 ⇒ 00:28:24.480 Brylle Girang: I think that…
258 00:28:24.480 ⇒ 00:28:25.169 Greg Stoutenburg: If I get to pick?
259 00:28:25.860 ⇒ 00:28:33.890 Greg Stoutenburg: If I get to pick, the clients should know the names of, and interact with everybody working on their project every week.
260 00:28:34.100 ⇒ 00:28:34.680 Brylle Girang: Yeah.
261 00:28:34.920 ⇒ 00:28:51.059 Greg Stoutenburg: Now, I would have, like, so I want… I want Edvate, you know, on default, for example, I want Edvate answering questions that Caitlin asks, because I want the client to have the confidence that everybody on their… on our team knows what’s going on and understands what their concerns are.
262 00:28:51.090 ⇒ 00:29:05.219 Greg Stoutenburg: But then I think as far as, like, who’s leading in the relationship, you know, who’s the primary point of contact that they reach out to, and who reaches out to them proactively, that’s the CSO. That’s the way that I’d see that go.
263 00:29:05.770 ⇒ 00:29:23.119 Brylle Girang: Yeah, I’m going to talk with Utam about this, but I do agree with you, like, there… there doesn’t… it doesn’t need… we don’t need to have, like, a middleman for every step of the way. The CSO should be an escalation point, similar to how, you know, the primary contact is an escalation point.
264 00:29:23.940 ⇒ 00:29:29.150 Greg Stoutenburg: That’s also just, like, that also just introduces a weakness, if you do it that way, right? Like, what if the CSO is out?
265 00:29:29.150 ⇒ 00:29:30.179 Brylle Girang: It’s out, exactly.
266 00:29:30.180 ⇒ 00:29:32.499 Greg Stoutenburg: is busy, you know what I mean? Like…
267 00:29:32.770 ⇒ 00:29:41.140 Greg Stoutenburg: You know? Or just doesn’t seem like the right person to do it, right? Like, for any… if there’s… if there’s a difficult… if there’s a data engineering question that comes in.
268 00:29:41.530 ⇒ 00:29:50.140 Greg Stoutenburg: And Demi is the real person who’s answering it? What, I mean, I, like, forward it from the channel to him, say, hey, what’s the answer? Copy, I go back and paste.
269 00:29:50.140 ⇒ 00:30:01.810 Greg Stoutenburg: like, what? That’s not… and then they ask me a follow-up, and I do it again, you know? So the conversation takes 3 hours instead of, you know, a brief exchange, because I don’t know the answer. Like, that’s not good. I don’t want to do it that way.
270 00:30:02.230 ⇒ 00:30:04.390 Brylle Girang: Yeah. You know? Okay, okay.
271 00:30:04.940 ⇒ 00:30:06.160 Brylle Girang: That makes sense.
272 00:30:07.100 ⇒ 00:30:07.430 Greg Stoutenburg: Yeah.
273 00:30:07.430 ⇒ 00:30:10.570 Brylle Girang: Alright, thank you. Thank you, Greg. Thank you so much for your time.
274 00:30:10.830 ⇒ 00:30:13.239 Greg Stoutenburg: Happy to talk. Alright, cool. CB, have a good one.
275 00:30:13.240 ⇒ 00:30:13.650 Brylle Girang: Bye-bye.
276 00:30:13.650 ⇒ 00:30:14.250 Greg Stoutenburg: Thanks.