Customer Assumptions That need to be Validated:

1. It is assumed that the people of Sierra Leone will be concerned enough about sickle cell to get themselves and their children tested. We are assuming that people will be concerned over this topic but there is a possibility that many of the people will not care too much about sickle cell.

2. It is assumed that the people of Sierra Leone will have the desire to see health care workers enough to get tested. People must see a health care worker to receive this test, although many people either may not have access to health care workers or not have the desire to visit the health care workers frequently.

3. It is assumed that the people of Sierra Leone have the ability to reach the people and or places to have our tests administered. It is possibly that their is a large proportion of the population in Sierra Leone that does not have frequent access to health care workers or facilities.

4. It is assumed that the people of Sierra Leone will be able to afford our products and have the tests administered. The price of a visit to a health care worker may be too much for many people to afford.

5. It is assumed that our products would be able to be shipped throughout the country to locations that need them. There is a need for a delivery  service for the tests strips to make sure people are not running out of tests. Without the delivery system, it would be very difficult to acquire the test strips as they would be many hours away.

6. Another assumption is the ability to visually diagnose sickle cell. As a society that has not had a proven way to identify and diagnose sickle cell they may have become very adept at knowing who does and does not have sickle cell based off of their symptoms. They may be good enough at this that there is no need for our product.

7. We are assuming that the people who will be administering the tests will have a way to handle blood and dispose of it in an appropriate manor. People would have a large risk of contracting diseases if they did not have an appropriate way to handle the blood when administering the test.

 

Hypotheses that need to be tested:

1. The ability to use the test strip needs to be tested within Sierra Leone. There is a possibility that the product may be very intuitive for people from other societies, there could be many people who are confused by the test, making the likely hood for error much higher.
2. The ability to use our tests in the conditions of Sierra Leone. Any of the solutions used in the test may react differently due to the conditions of Sierra Leone. It is theoretically possible that the conditions of Sierra Leone would have a negative impact on the quality of the test results.
3. Finding the most suitable packaging for the situation within Sierra Leone needs to be tested. We are unsure of what is most familiar for people and what would be too difficult of a packaging system. People need to be interviewed about this topic as well as test our product if it is ready.
4. We will have to test the blood of many people and decide how accurate it is will real human blood samples. We would need to compare the results for the real patients to those of the known trial tests in order to determine what level of accuracy and precision our product has.
5.  The amount of time a product can be outside of its packaging before becoming useless is one factor that may change when in the conditions of Sierra Leone. That amount of time is necessary information for anyone who would be administering the tests.

I believe I bring a sense of confidence to my team. Things can be difficult and uncomfortable at times but I believe I can sense when people need to see someone step up and be a leader and I have been able to step into confident leaders when people are in need of one. I have an issue sustaining it for longer periods of time but I can put forth a a sense of confidence and calmness which is able to allow other people in my group to relax a little more.