Jacob SC1

• 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?

We had a few small items that had huge impacts on our bot including the cams, the slants on the guide rails, and a few other things. The cams were extremely small and relatively simple, but without them or even with the first version of them our bot would have been nonfunctional.  The slants on the guide rails allowed us to get the first tote flat and relatively center and fixed our yellow tote problem, but they were a late addition that would have helped immensely earlier on.

• 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.

The core idea is that you need to check that what you are doing is making progress towards a true end and pivot if it is not.  All three end with action of some sort; whether this is to change what you are doing or to encourage your team to keep at it, you must make a decision based on what you have observed.  In teams this is used to keep moving in a good direction.  When a team understands what went wrong/right in a scenario and takes action to improve, they become faster and more efficient.

• 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 would break down into small groups with less than 7 people per and then assign a task.  Time would be set aside for planning, doing, and thinking over how things went and then the process would be repeated again.  The point of this would be to teach students the basic principles of Scrum while building team  bonds and morale.

• Chapter 3: What evidence does Sutherland bring up when justifying a focus on team improvement over individual improvement?  Do you think that should apply to our FRC team?  In what cases does it not?

The largest evidence that Sutherland brings forward is in how the best teams compare to the worst teams which has a ratio much greater than 10:1 (the comparison of best vs. worst students in a college class).  Sutherland also points to how much teams can accelerate their pace while a single person has their limits.  I think that focusing on team improvement to our team should be incredibly important since we can't rely on one person to get everything done.  The only case I can think of where this principle would not be true would be in single person sports since a single great person can win on their own.

• 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.

The best kind of FRC team realizes that the purpose of their team is to introduce to and teach people about STEM and works towards that goal with a good robot being a side effect (a nice side effect) of the learning.  This kind of team lets the students test and make decisions based on their results that affect the robot directly.  Lastly, in a great team, everyone has a basic understanding of what everyone else is doing and knows what they are all working towards.  This would be a great FRC team and would exhibit transcendent, autonomous, and cross-functional characteristics.

• Summary

I learned a few things about scrum and how it works such as what a sprint is and how scrum came to be.  I also learned about small teams being efficient, the waterfall method and why not to use it, and how inefficiently teams have been working because "that's the way it's always been done".

Braxton SC1

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?

In our team's last year, some of the 20% jobs that brought an immense amount of value to the team include our cam iterations. These small pieces of metal allowed our bot to lift, hold, and release totes and bins, so there were instrumental to our entire strategy. Our work on the cams my not have been the most exhaustive of anything on the robot, but certainly brought a lot of value by making our entire strategy possible.

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

This is an important and necessary function to the Sentinel team because these stakeholders re going to be the product's primary users, and their input is extremely important for the project. In addition to this, the two weeks of development is long enough for tangible progress to be realistically made, as well as short enough to prevent a large amount of waste to possibly be produced. The development team can then collaborate with the users and improve the product based on their suggestions.


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.

The idea that both OODA and PDCA are trying to get at is that of the fabled agile development, where teams should take in their surroundings and situation, plan accordingly, and then act upon that plan and information. After you act, you should reflect upon your actions, to see how you can improve. This is very relatable to teams, as they should follow this process when developing a product.

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?

The paper airplane idea could be implemented at a team meeting in several ways, one of which would be having everyone divide into small groups, and work on a task such as CADing a model of a part, assembling a piece, or, as we've done in the past, build marshmallow-and-toothpick towers. The point of these exercises, aside from the ambiguous concept of 'team-building', would allow the entire team to become knowledgeable on a part or process, and for everyone to give input, which could lead to new ideas being brought to the table. 

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.

On an FRC team, being able to be transcendent, autonomous, and cross-functional is extremely valuable. An FRC team that meets all three of these criteria would be similar to that of the special forces team, where each member knows how to perform another's job, in the event they are unable to do so. This kind of cross-functionality on an FRC team would be  valuable asset, as team members could still program autonomous, design in CAD, or wire the electronics board even if the people who normally do these things are gone. An autonomous team would be able to know what needs to be accomplished on that day and how to accomplish it without a long meeting. Finally,  transcendent team would be able to fluidly move through all of the motions of design, construction, and testing without hitting any roadblocks that could have been prevented.

Summary:

In this first part of the book, I read about the origins of scrum, and just what scrum is, as well. I read about the ideal size of a team, and bout how much more efficient scrum is as compared to the waterfall method. I learned about the traits that are present in the ideal team, and bout the value of just 20% of work put into a product.