OSE Discipline

Intro

• The OSE Fellowship requires every aspirant to build discipline.

Breaking Down the Meaning of Discipline

Discipline leads to freedom. BOTB (Best of the Best) are wonderful to be around. Humor, lightness, happiness, etc. Life weeds the jerks out. BOTB are good to be with because they solved most of the problems of human existence which has allowed them to be so successful. They found a way to be free, they dealt with fear, they have rigor, they have a great sense of humor.

Discipline for Stewardship Responsibility

• The number one skill after Moral Intelligence is focus. Focus means ability to think independently and with minimal noise, at max art of possibility. Divergent thinking and critical thinking at the same time, being able to make ready assessment of possibility and limit. Thus, after school learning and 10x practice of moral intelligence, we practice ways to attain focus. This is through ancient mind-body practice coupled to modern diagnostics, in the Peak Performance Lab. The goal is on-demand ability to disconnect from noise and to focus, also known as meditation or point enlightenment.
  • Rapil Learning Facility for Focus is one of the RLF modules - an advanced lab that enables any individual to learn full capacity for on-demand focus in 4 years.
• We teach the scientific method. Based on human frailty of remembering perhaps one or a few disconnected bits of information at one time, we engage in the scientific method, and every Fellow has a responsibility to pursue this in earnest. This means: 1. Experimental design, with thesis (experimental question) defined - what is to be proved. 2. Data collection - when experimental procedure is defined - take notes and pictures of ongoing progress. We will not remember in the future, note-taking time-binding is critical. 3. Data analysis- upon review of the data - we review whether the experimental procedure itself was sound, whether the procedure was adequate to uncover the thesis proposed. Then we look at the data, and we determine if the problem is solved. This escapes the persistent plague of lack of progress: doing something over and over again, without noticing what was learned, improved, or failed. Upon data collection, improvements are made to a minimum of 2 or 3 Sigma confidence interval. If method is pursued correctly, the same failure is not obtained in production. If the same failure occurs, it is worked on until solved - either by improvement or pivot.
• Using the scientific method for product development, teams of 24 swarm on projects - and the project is broken up highly into micromodules. The discipline is to document proven methods and performance, with significant data collection time eliminating all variables. The discipline comes from learning that there is a large number of tasks to be done at any time, and only a large team could do this effectively.
• We pursue open collaboration to the full task breakdown at a cohort level (24 designers)
• The way to prevent dead time in a large group project is to recognize that product ecologies are part of a larger system (there is always more integration work to do), to understand the full Task Breakdown or Modular Breakdown, to understand Concurrent Engineering, Second Toyota Paradox, Collaborative Literacy in terms of all available roles, Zachman Framework in terms of all available viewpoints, etc.
• Understanding the non-uniform 'compiler' paradox of open source hardware, which does not parallel the availability of a uniform compiler such as is found in software.
• We increase to a 10 cohort (240) level, which is village scale. We increase collaboration to the 2400 level, which is city scale. Then to 24k collaborators - which is regional scale and at this scale we can solve problems on a regional level. Then we move on to 1/4 million collaborators, which solves problems on the country scale. Then we go on to the 10 million person scale, which is at the scale of solving global issues. Corresponding growth and power results, as it is all guided by moral intelligence.
• At each of the scales (cohort, village, city, region, state, global) - a higher level of organization is required. Cohorts understand basics of product development at the cohort level, scientific method at the village level, Six Sigma at the city level, bioregionalism at the region level, resource stewardship at the state level, and Global Steward level at the global scale.
• Community Service - each Student is expected to do 2 weeks of international, voluntary community service with OSE every year.
• Rapid prototyping relies on Test-Driven Design. In teamwork, we take the smallest detail to 6 Sigma, integrate from there. Never integrate under 3 Sigma level.
• Inital product release is 3 Sigma, mature product is 6 sigma.
• You do not work alone. RLF can be done alone, from there it is teamwork. This allows for the rapid progress that goes beyond ego.
• Ego is the enemy of working together.
• Understand that discipline is not a light thing. It has the same etymology as disciple. Discipline means following an extensive list of practices that are executed to the point of habit that does not require will power - but only habit - to continue.

Tactical

• Relevant to build leadership and quality control - Understanding design rationales throughout a design so that quality control can be performed based on translating requirements into dimensions, fit, tolerances, neatness requirements. Ability to identify discrepancies immediately by visual inspection. Ability to make in-situ measurements to assess quality of build and fit. Reconciling design-for-tolerancing with proper functioning by quick calculations of sideways forces or creating metaphors to known construction - for example slant of wall by 2" locally on a 2x6 will be equivalent to support on 2x4s only, to draw appropriate conclusions.
• Time Binding - the primary goal of the group is to document the full build to the state of replicability, each person on the Founding Team is expected to rise to leadership. Means perfection of time-binding documentation - a party game of retrieval practice. We make up cards of details - we play with them as a set of cards on a ring until we get it tight. This is called The Detail Ring. With 24 students, collaborative writing of documentation in year 1 gets us on our way to construction management in 4 years, no problem.
• Every aspirant has the discipline of carrying a data book or notebook with them whenever they are working - to write down data. Our work in the OSE Fellowship is a 4 year exeriment in uncovering or recovering genius. We also suggest that they carry a note book at all times to capture ideas.
• There are two types of work activity: doing work, and making work. Working gets things done. See Cult of Done. Making work is adding more work to be done now or later - for reasons such as mistakes, poor sequencing, poor organization, lack of proper parts or tools. Making work could also mean lessening the outcome quality, so that more work would be needed to get back to spec.
• Does it meet spec is the correct question (from Seth Godin). There is no such thing as 'kinda meets spec'. If it 'kinda meets spec', the specification is ill defined. If it meets spec, move on.
• Coordinate, do not invent. You are working with people. Do not invent things - ie, ignore requirements from what others are working on.

Continuous Learning

Everybody.

• Pictures for build time data collection until a baseline standard is documented as a basis for pay, advancement, testing out, scope of skill
• Pre-mortem - for every task - reward for optimization during morning meetings. Needs to have flexibility for some people to check out of the team to do optimization work. Team Optimizer could be a privilege.

Links

• OSE Collaborative Design Discipline
• Seed Eco-Home Enterprise Discipline