Chapter 9: Batch Flashcards
What should you do instead of investing in big features?
Release new features less and more often, and you will learn faster.
Why is it hard to change to smaller Batches?
Because your mind tells u that bigger batches are far more effective than small ones.
This is a lie.
What is a big advantage when using small Batches?
You learn much earlier about mistakes.
Describe the envelope analogy, and how is this similar to a StartUp?
The envelope race was between a farther and his two daughters. The Father claimed it was far. faster to stuff one envelope at a time. The daughters claimed they would do one step at all 100 and then take step two.
The father stuffed all the envelopes first because he worked in a smaller Batch.
Even if they finished at the same time, the small batch would still be superior, because it is possible to learn early on.
What if the daughters came to step 3 and they found out the envelopes were too small? Then they had just wasted step one and two when they could have learned much faster.
The similarity between this experiment and a startup is in a startup, you need to release one feature at a time and not go all in. By this you learn much faster about real customer interaction and you have a chance to pivot much faster based on you learning.
How does Xiaomi use small Batches?
They release small updates weekly.
They then listen to user feedback and decide which features to choose next.
Users then feel listened to and they can move in the right direction where users want to go.
However, it’s not all users want to receive these early-access features.
My own suggestion is you give customers the choice to decide whether they want to be an “Early-adopter” and experience these new features or they just want to receive bigger updates less regularly. Now everyone is an early adapter.
How do Hospitals use smaller batches?
Instead of receiving one large shipment of medicine a day, they receive 4-6 shipments
This way they do not rely on just one shipment but put their eggs in different baskets and when they order their medicine it only takes a maximum of 4 hours to receive.
Describe big-Batch working in companies
In big Batches you have a streamline where the designers work on new features, they are then handed over to the engineers and the engineers hand them over to the next.
When one hands them over to the next section, they can now begin to work again on a new project.
But what happens is the engineers have questions for the designers and the designers have to spend time with the engineers to clarify how it is supposed to work. This makes the line come to a halt.
Describe Small-Batch working in companies
Instead of using the example of big batches, you should make designers and engineers work together and make more regularly new features.
This solve the big batch problems of misunderstanding each other and end up with a better result.
How can you reduce the Batch size?
Instead of the waterfall/streamline methods. Promote cross-functional teams working together and communicating face-to-face. For example, you might put engineers, designers, and marketers on the same team, tasked with rolling out new features.
Build in automated testing. When you push small changes often, you need to make sure they’re not breaking anything. Automation cuts down on overhead.
This could be that a website made sure it was possible to go to the checkout and write in the card number.
Build a real-time metrics page that shows key performance indicators like sales and signups. If any major drops happen, red flags will sound, and you can roll back the change to figure out where the error is. This frequent monitoring will lower the hesitation to launch new versions.
This could be if the tests on the website was run correctly, but users were confused about where to checkout and/or write their card number to buy. Then this system would notify that sales have dropped dramatically .
Find faster ways to prototype. In software, modern frameworks let you build apps more quickly than ever before. Marketing software like leadpages lets you design new leading pages in your browser. In hardware, CAD and 3D-Printing speed up prototyping.
What is the contrast between “Lean Startup” and “Toyota lean manufacturing”
Toyota’s goal was to produce much more, more efficiently.
The Lean startup’s goal is to learn as quickly as possible to build a sustainable business.
Finding out sooner is much better than finding out later.
How did SGW design the frame for the military goggles?
They first designed a visual type and got it validated by their client. This only took one day.
Then they went on and build the frame in real life and took it to their client. The frame got validated and adjusted.
This took three days.
They then did this cycle a couple more times (BML)
By doing this they could learn incredibly fast and get a great product at the end. When having the final product they produced all of the final units (40 final prototypes in total)
