Monday, July 20, 2015

SC1 Ben

Chapter 1: Sutherland explains the 80/20 rule: 80% of the value often comes from 20% of the work.  In the last year of FRC, what were some of the 20% jobs that added tremendous value to the team?

I think that our triangles are an example of a quick job that was extremely helpful. We did spend some time thinking of manners in which to modify it, but they still took minimal time and effort to construct.The stop switches were also beneficial in not totally wrecking our chain and gears, and it didn't take much work to decide where to place them and how to wire/program them.

Chapter 1: At the end of every sprint (2 weeks in this case), the Sentinal team presented a working demo to stakeholders across the FBI.  Why is this necessary and important to do?

It is important to get constant feedback on any advancements that are made. There is always the distinct chance that modifications must be made, or maybe there are too many modifications as is.

Chapter 2: "OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act)", "inspect and adapt", and "PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act)" are all getting at the same core idea.  Explain this idea and how it relates to the way a team functions.

All of these systems want you to look around and see what needs to be done, what constraints there are, what materials you have at hand. Then they want you to plan out your course of action and act on it. As you carry out your plan, make sure to watch for changes, so you can make adaptations as the situation necessitates. 

Chapter 2: Explain how we would implement the paper airplane example to practice a OODA cycle at a team meeting.  What would be the point?

We could divide the team into small groups, each tasked with building a paper airplane with 10 minutes. We test the airplanes, and let each team observe the others' planes. From there, people take notes on what they liked and disliked, and make modifications accordingly to their own design.

Chapter 3: The best teams are transcendent, autonomous, and cross-functional.  In your OWN words, what does this actually look like on an FRC team?  It may help to reference examples from the West Point, NPR, and Special Forces case studies.

An FRC team that is autonomous would agree on tasks needed to be done that day and know how to do these tasks on their own. They don't need constant interruption to be told how to do something or to be told to get on task; they stay on task and know what they're doing. Cross-functional teams can do multiple things. They build a robot that isn't restricted to only one function through the duration of demanding games, they know how to raise money and can get by without loans or outside help(not including donations), and they know how to involve their community. They get people interested in STEM and host summer shops and demos. Transcendence would be characterized by results. A transcendent team would win regionals and awards. They would go out of their way to help other teams, schools, and communities, resulting in awe-struck neighboring teams. 

Summary

I have learned about the creation of scrum, how it works, and its efficiency compared to the waterfall method. I learned what characteristics a team should have, how teams ought to go about planning tasks, and adapting to any changes along the way. Finally, I learned to appreciate the easy tasks that constitute grand results. 

3 comments:

  1. I definitely agree that an autonomous team could function without constantly having over their shoulder to make sure their on task. That stuff slows us down considerably.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree that a team demonstrating transcendence would be very good at getting awards at regionals

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think autonomy is what we lack the most. Most of our team, including myself, has a problem working without supervision.Therefor, of the three attributes of the best teams, we should focus on autonomy.

    ReplyDelete