Premisses

• I believe that most of our struggles are related to missed conversations, miscommunication and misaligned assumptions about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.
• Due to constant pressures and different approaches, we tend to skip essential conversations and jump right into action. As a consequence, we often act as if we were all working on different projects. The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing. Worse: the right hand assumes it knows what the left is doing although that was never made explicit - leading to conflicts and dropped balls.
• Discussions are often avoided with the reasoning that they’re a waste of time and that we need to “DO” rather than discuss. A dire consequence of this has been a disconnect between team members leading to a much greater loss of time down the line.
• I strongly believe that taking the time to TALK (rather than just prepare documents individually with no debate) will solve the large majority of our troubles and greatly improve our performance and speed down the line.
• It is never a waste to time to get everyone on the same page (even if that means debating things that a team member considers to be obvious) and to bond as a team.

ANNUAL PLANNING

1. Review the Project’s Goals (big picture)

1. Reiterate and discuss (if necessary) the project’s broad, long-term goals.
2. This is not the time to get bogged down on discussions about the “how,” only the “what.” For example: making eco-housing accessible to everyone is a broad goal; building a CEB Press is part of the how.
3. This is meant to ensure that we’re all on the same page, that we’re all in agreement and clear about what we’re working towards.
4. Write down those broad goals as bullet points - while making an effort to leave out the “how” and unnecessary details. This separation between broad goals and tasks is necessary for clarity.

2. In light of the broad goals, discuss and determine the specific goals for the year

1. This includes assessing and revising promises and agreements previously made. Just because we promised something last year, doesn’t mean we haven’t learned more in the meantime and that we shouldn’t revise those promises/goals in light of those learnings. This is especially important in light of the fact that we often make decisions/promises under pressure and without due process.

3. Review and assess previous activities

1. This includes making a list of what we’re late on (things that haven’t been finished)
2. Assess the priority of these leftovers from the previous year and what role they play in accomplishing the new year’s goals. For example: how high a priority is it to finish the seed eco-home and how does this delay impact the new year’s goals?

4. Activities

1. List activities meant to support/deliver the year’s goals. This should include, at this stage, only high level activities—e.g. seed eco-home II build, documentation books, saw mill, etc.
2. Map out the requirements and dependencies for each activity.

5. Schedule

1. Draw up realistic schedule based on requirements and dependencies.

DISCUSSION

1. Define repo for all assets - Drive Link https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0NG-lv1ELQvaFFPODM1MURIR0k
2. Vision -

OSE’s Planning Narrative

Preliminary Stage

1. Vision — e.g. Affordable housing for everyone
2. Scope — includes defining maximum and minimum viable product — e.g. scope of OBI/OSE 2-year collaboration (what’s the best we can do and what’s the minimum we can do - necessary for recovery planning (when something is missed/fails - what can we fall back on).
3. Strategy — how we’re going to execute this — recruiting must be preceded by the creation of assets for training and on-boarding

What is required for a Training Program?

Notes & Questions:

What examples and case studies can you provide?

Is agile methodology

VIVID VISION

Prerequisites for Training Program

• Stable/tested designs (not perfect, but solid, good enough)

• Conditions of satisfaction?

• We must determine what consists a “finished” house - we can handle a great deal of risk internally, but once we start building for others there has to be clarity about what is included in the build

• Review Protocol for 1st house - need to implement review as first step towards MVP

• Successful testing/prototyping in 3 contexts: internal rural, external rural, external city

• Includes a solid and well-documented process to address inspections and documents required by building departments

• We want to focus MVP to rural zoned, not city, meaning outside of city limits + absence of style guidelines + no neighborhood associations. Possibly within city limits if restrictions are minimal. Call it minimally restrictive (zoned), as opposed to restrictive (zoned).

• High quality documentation for all products
• A solid communication / PR plan:

• What we do, how we do it, why we do it that way
• What we offer (expectations), why join (very straightforward)

• Working and tested machines - including documentation

Requirements for Training Program^[1]

• Product Definition (what are we training about?)

• Cost Structure + Market Research. At least 50% lower cost offer compared to any owner build. Slash 25% overhead + labor costs.

• $30,000 House
• Labor proposition (Swarm building--Quantify Labor rates per skill)
• Materials (Local vs global) price, availability, and timing
• Margin - How much money can a person make or save?
• Clients - Who will be the first replicators? What will they need to be successful?

• Revenue Models
• Library of Modules
• House Designs
• Documentation  (how to design and how to build)
• Training Programs

• Extreme builds - experimental, risky, intense
• Mini training programs - safer, limited to tried and tested, closer to standard classes/workshops
• Owner-builder training program?
• Entrepreneur training program

• Construction Machines + Microfactory Capacity to build them
• Design of materials production facility

• Stable modular library

• Have 30%?

• Building Books for each prototype
• Builds/Prototypes
• Clear definition of service to client
• Protocols for:

• Navigating regulatory requirements
• Contracts

• Communication and PR documents

• What we offer
• What to expect

Proposed Rollout

Seed Eco-Home I Documentation

Includes

• Seed Eco-Home I Building Book
• Aquaponic Greenhouse II Building Book

Goals

• Create the first version of a “How to Design” book by documenting all the requirements and design considerations that went into the design of the Seed Eco-Home I. This documentation should serve as both an internal document - so we’re all on the same page - and as means to communicate where we are.

Re-design / Re-organize

Re-design library and procedures to address learnings from previous build.

Includes

• Re-designed library and design procedures based on previous learnings
• Solid workshop/build plan addressing expectations and logistics

Goals

• Revisit everything that didn’t go as we wished - all the known issues surrounding builds - and address them to the best of our ability - meaning: do all the due diligence

Small House Build (Internal)

Build a small house at FeF

Goals

• Test the results of the Re-Design / Re-Organize phase

Client Protocol

Define our offering and conditions

Small House Build (External)