THE CASE FILE · THE PEOPLE · PERSONNEL FILES

Five people, on day one

Who they were before the project, introduced the way their own company would file them. What the project did to each of them is not on these sheets; it is in the dated artifacts, where it belongs.

01Ruth VaughnSR. AR CLERK 02Dana OkaforPRODUCT MANAGER 03Marcus ElleryCONTROLLER 04Priya NairARCHITECT 05Tom BrindleVP SALES
PERSONNEL FILE · FORM HR-1SHEET 01/05
DAY-ONE INTRODUCTION · NO PROJECT RECORD ATTACHED
Portrait of Ruth Vaughn (drawing)

Ruth Vaughn

SENIOR ACCOUNTS-RECEIVABLE CLERK
FINANCE · COLUMBUS, SECOND FLOOR
22 YEARS AT OSTERMILL

01 · WHO SHE IS

Twenty-two years at Ostermill, all of them in accounts receivable. Ruth is the company's institutional judgment about who pays, who is struggling, and which late payer is becoming a problem. She knows accounts by name, not number, and can usually tell you why an invoice is late before anyone pulls a report.

02 · HOW SHE WORKS

Four days a week she works the collections queue; the fifth she works accounts: the calls, the histories, the judgment work. Her method is memory plus attention. She reads payment behavior the way a mechanic listens to an engine.

"The report tells you who's late. I can tell you who's in trouble. Those are different lists."

FILE DATA

JOINED
22 years ago
DEPARTMENT
Finance · AR (5)
QUEUE DAYS
Mon–Thu
ACCOUNT DAY
Friday

PRIOR EMPLOYERS

NOT ELICITED

HOW TO WORK WITH HER

  • Bring her the exception, not the report. She has read the report.
  • Refer to accounts by name. A number gets you a colder answer.
  • Ask why before asking how fast. The why is where her value is.

If the file disagrees with Ruth, check the file twice. — D.O.

PERSONNEL FILE · FORM HR-1SHEET 02/05
DAY-ONE INTRODUCTION · NO PROJECT RECORD ATTACHED
Portrait of Dana Okafor (drawing)

Dana Okafor

PRODUCT MANAGER
OPERATIONS · COLUMBUS, THIRD FLOOR
HIRED THIS YEAR

01 · WHO SHE IS

The company's first product manager, hired into operations rather than IT, which was deliberate. New enough to ask why; senior enough to be answered. She runs on documents: if a decision matters, she wants it dated, owned, and signed, because she has watched what happens to decisions that live in memory.

02 · HOW SHE WORKS

Writes first, meets second. Her previous employer built a triage tool that ran for eighteen months on a roadmap whose second phase was never staffed; she left with a permanent allergy to plans that describe work nobody is doing. Paperwork, for her, is not bureaucracy. It is memory that survives people.

"If it isn't written down, it was never decided. It was just agreed to."

FILE DATA

JOINED
this year
DEPARTMENT
Operations
REPORTS TO
VP Operations
INSTRUMENT
the decision log

PRIOR EMPLOYERS

LAST ROLE
PM, a triage-software firm

HOW TO WORK WITH HER

  • Bring a written question; you will get a written answer.
  • Disagree in the document, not after the meeting.
  • If she asks "who owns this," she is not being difficult. Yet.

Declined to annotate her own sheet. "Writing your own margin is how roadmaps happen." — filed as said

PERSONNEL FILE · FORM HR-1SHEET 03/05
DAY-ONE INTRODUCTION · NO PROJECT RECORD ATTACHED
Portrait of Marcus Ellery (drawing)

Marcus Ellery

CONTROLLER
FINANCE · COLUMBUS, SECOND FLOOR
OWNS THE NUMBER

01 · WHO HE IS

The controller, which at Ostermill means the person who signs for the number and answers for it when it is wrong. Skeptical in the productive way: he does not distrust new things, he distrusts unmeasured ones, and he treats the difference as his job description.

02 · HOW HE WORKS

Conditions before results. He wants the threshold written before the experiment runs, because a number agreed after the fact is a negotiation, not a measurement. Slow to enthuse, fast to fund anything that arrives with its own failure condition attached.

"Tell me what would change your mind before you show me the result. After that, it's bargaining."

FILE DATA

DEPARTMENT
Finance
SIGNS
the credit line
CADENCE
monthly ops review
DESK
door usually open

PRIOR EMPLOYERS

NOT ELICITED

HOW TO WORK WITH HIM

  • Arrive with the failure condition, not just the plan.
  • Never annualize a number he has not seen measured.
  • His no usually contains instructions for getting to yes. Listen for them.

The most useful skeptic in the building. Do not schedule him last. — D.O.

PERSONNEL FILE · FORM HR-1SHEET 04/05
DAY-ONE INTRODUCTION · NO PROJECT RECORD ATTACHED
Portrait of Priya Nair (drawing)

Priya Nair

ARCHITECT
IT · COLUMBUS, THIRD FLOOR
THE 2014 ERP REBUILD, SURVIVED

01 · WHO SHE IS

Ostermill's architect, which in a 640-person company means she is also its review board, its standards committee, and its institutional memory of why the last integration is shaped the way it is. She carried the 2014 ERP migration and has the scar tissue to prove it.

02 · HOW SHE WORKS

She answers questions by building the smallest thing that settles them, and she distrusts any signal nobody is paid to maintain. Boundaries are her love language: she would rather enforce a narrow promise than gesture at a wide one.

"Anything can be built in four hours. Whether it should run is the expensive question."

FILE DATA

DEPARTMENT
IT (14)
TENURE
since before 2014
OWNS
the platform line
METHOD
smallest thing first

PRIOR EMPLOYERS

NOT ELICITED

HOW TO WORK WITH HER

  • Ask for the boundary, not the feature. The feature follows.
  • If she says a signal is stale, believe her the first time.
  • Give her a question she can settle with a build by Friday.

Argues against her own designs when the evidence turns. Rarer than it should be. — D.O.

PERSONNEL FILE · FORM HR-1SHEET 05/05
DAY-ONE INTRODUCTION · NO PROJECT RECORD ATTACHED
Portrait of Tom Brindle (drawing)

Tom Brindle

VP SALES
SALES · ON THE ROAD, MOSTLY
KNOWS THE TOP 40 BY FIRST NAME

01 · WHO HE IS

Runs sales the way Ostermill has always sold: by relationship, by counter, by showing up. Every customer contact is a relationship to him, which makes him the honest countervailing force in any room that wants to automate one. When he objects, it is usually on behalf of somebody specific.

02 · HOW HE WORKS

Enthusiastic early, protective late. He will champion a new idea in February and defend a customer against it in March, and he sees no contradiction, because there isn't one. His numbers live in his head and his head is usually right, which is both the asset and the problem.

"Every reminder we send lands on a relationship somebody here spent years building. Usually me."

FILE DATA

DEPARTMENT
Sales
TERRITORY
Ohio + 3 states
CARRIES
the top-40 list
BEST REACHED
in the car, 4–6 pm

PRIOR EMPLOYERS

NOT ELICITED

HOW TO WORK WITH HIM

  • Name the customer, not the segment. He thinks in people.
  • If a process needs him to maintain something, say so out loud.
  • His objections are field data. Collect them like it.

The countervailing force, and an honest one. When Tom is uneasy, check the accounts he's uneasy about. — D.O.

CF-011 Designed composite · portraits are drawings, deliberately