Nate LS3

• Chapter 9: The chapter starts with an example of stuffing envelopes in large vs. small batches.  For what reasons does Ries say the small batches are more efficient?
• Small batches are more efficient because you can recognize problems quicker and do not have to organize the letters after every step.  This allows less time between each step and mistakes are known immidiatly so you will not have to backtrack.
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• Chapter 10: We also lose people (students, mentors, parents, and sponsors).  What things cause this to happen?  Which of these can we control?
• This happens by a few things like graduation, moving, and disinterest.  The only one we can control is disinterest.  We can keep people interested by finding ways for everyone to be a part of the team.  If we can get everyone to enjoy being on the team, people will not want to quit the team.
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• Chapter 11: Explain the purpose of the "Five Whys" technique for root cause analysis.
• The "Five Whys" technique is used to find the root cause of a problem.  This is dome by getting to the problem that the person so it can be fixed, not just scolding the person and hoping it doesn't happen again.
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• Chapter 11: Explain what Ries means by the "Five Blames".  What things help prevent root cause analysis from turning into a blame game?  What is the role of the "Five Whys Master"?
• Five blames is when someone incorrectly uses the five whys.  This happens when, instead of thinking past the person's mistake, they tell the person it is their fault five times.  The master is used to ensure this does not happen.
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• Overall: Let's say our build team's customer is the drive team.  Our design process usually involves creating and perfecting the robot as much as possible before giving the customer a couple days to use our product (and virtually no time to suggest changes after use).  What could we do to get our customer some kind of product sooner?  How could we learn from our customer and use their feedback in the design?
• We could have them test each feature as it comes out.  This would allow them to see a problem immediately, and then it could be fixed quickly.  With this we could get a great robot quickly.
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• End with a summary of what you learned.
• I learned that it is better to produce one product at a time and to test one hypothesis at a time.  I also learned we need to work to grow our team so that when we lose people we have more strong teammates to fill their places.  Also, it is best to not blame people, and figure out a more simple reason to why it really happened.  With these steps we can build our bot more efficiently and make it better.