diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 3aea49f..7825199 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -40,6 +40,9 @@ Have a look at [this great blog post](http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/state.h
 After cloning the repository, run the following commands to build the project:
 
 ```
+# create the state machine files
+./bin/mr_fsm_gen.py -i examples/simple_fsm.yml -o examples/
+
 mkdir build
 cd build
 cmake ..
diff --git a/bin/mr_fsm_gen.py b/bin/mr_fsm_gen.py
index 372736d..1ec572b 100755
--- a/bin/mr_fsm_gen.py
+++ b/bin/mr_fsm_gen.py
@@ -102,8 +102,8 @@ def terminate(self):
 class Transition(object):
 
     def __init__(self, transition_yml):
-        self.input = transition_yml.keys()[0]
-        self.next_state = transition_yml.values()[0]
+        self.input = list(transition_yml.keys())[0]
+        self.next_state = list(transition_yml.values())[0]
 
     def __str__(self):
         return "Transition={{ input={} next_state='{}' }}"\
@@ -154,7 +154,7 @@ def __init__(self, infile, outdir, default_implementations):
 
     def _parse_input_file(self):
         with open(self.input_file, 'r') as stream:
-            yml = yaml.load(stream)
+            yml = yaml.safe_load(stream)
         self._validate_fsm_yml(yml)
         name = yml["name"]
         states = []