What we decided on Aug 3, what surfaced in the room, and who does what next.
Avery, Kristin, Stephanie and Shabnam · Monday Aug 3, 10:30 Pacific
Thanks for a great kickoff chat. The decisions and actions are below, in that order. Please shout if anything looks off or missing.
The centre of this work is the strategy level: how Mulago's systems, data and AI tools should fit together. Task-level wins still matter, and each one should land inside that bigger frame rather than standing alone.
The five open questions from Jan turned out to be inputs into the Feb AI guidance, so they're settled. We'll refresh the guidance together instead, as we learn.
A real pain point with a live resourcing decision attached. It's also the compliance function, so the stakes are high. We agreed to understand it deeply and see what AI could take on before pointing anything at it.
Something visible, aligned with the strategy level, building on work already in motion. Avery and I will narrow this in a 1:1 this week.
5-10 minutes per person, screen share, glimpse energy. It gives everyone, me included, visibility into what's already been built across the team.
Mulago's data hangs off a handful of objects. A fellow, an organization, a funder connection, a grant. Salesforce is reliable for grants made and paid, whereas the richer impact story lives in documents. Fellows work happens in Google Drive and portfolio in Box, with the move to Drive already decided. The architecture note starts from this picture.
Sharing is the pain point showing up first. Skills and instruction files without a shared home, and tools that each end up as their own website with their own login. The shared workshop we've sketched on the workspace home is aimed exactly here.
Writing is where judgment lives. We had a genuinely useful discussion on where AI drafting helps and where thinking-by-writing should stay human. No conclusions yet, and that feels right. This thread feeds the guidance refresh, and it's worth keeping open as a team.
To narrow the first build candidate and plan the architecture work.
The grants-management guides and legal flowcharts are already with Avery and me. Thank you! Show-and-tell goes to the team at the next team meeting.
A short, high-level summary of this work at Tuesday's team meeting, so nobody is guessing what the calendar entry meant.
To pressure-test the architecture direction and confirm the first build.
Questions in the meantime: aggarwal.shabnam@gmail.com