Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

That's the easy way out.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Actually, I think "all of the above" is more the gracious professionalism way out. ;)

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

What so graceless about answering a question?

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I vote dedicated students is 70%, good mentors is 15%, and the other 15% percent is somewhat equally distributed to the rest.

As part of team where there was a dedication shift in students, I can vouch that the results are tangible.

Yes. This is a big reason that good mentors are still important but...

This is why I disagree with the "experienced mentors" being the biggest contributor (as well as facilities): 1625

Now, I hope they don't mind me using them as an example: but they don't have a fancy shop, and their head mentors aren't engineers. One is an architect and the other works with special ed students. I think they have maybe one or two engineers associated with their team but I know that they don't come to meetings frequently.

And they win. They win regional champ titles and chairmans. How, might you ask?

Dedicated students. I know that those kids are in their shop throughout the year. When experienced students leave the team, younger students are trained to become robot-experts (okay, so this is Aren Hill's doing and he's technically a mentor, but still...). These kids are working hard all the time to be the best they can be. They don't have any mentors who have been in the program longer than the team itself and even in their baby years, they were still winning regionals.

And when kids on my team got dedicated, things happened. Good things happened. The year with the most mentor-input (to my knowledge) was possibly one our worst (no offense, mentors... I love you!). This year, most of our students did a 180 and all of a sudden we had a robot built and working BEFORE ship. Who'da'thunk!

Dedicated Students is the biggest piece. You need (a) coherent mentor(s) from year to year that holds things together, but if you have your students going then you have good things happening.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Here's a hypothetical example:
Which family member contributes most to the success of a nuclear family: Father, mother, sister, or brother?

Is it gracious for the mother (or the father) of the family to pose such a question to the teenage children and the spouse? Is it gracious for the mother (or the father) to call copout when someone indicates that "everyone" should be an allowed answer to the question?

Such a question is no more relevant or helpful than trying to vote on whether the mechanical team is more important than the programming team or the fundraising team.

GP is for all involved to help inspire students to find themselves and learn skills and enjoy aspects of engineering. Trying to identify though voting which group members are most important raises some up at the unintended expense of considering other people as less important.

Publicly appreciate everyone- without needless: some jobs are more important than others polling, it's the GP thing to do.

I think most mentors already internally know how important they are without wanting or needing a poll where they are proven to win out over sponsors or students.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

It's rather the square peg in a round hole scenario when you create a thread/poll such as this that tries to drive 1 single most important aspect of a team forward. What purpose does it serve?

Jane

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

We learn when we ask difficult questions. I agree with Ed, saying the entire team is the most important is a cop-out. Obviously, there are strong teams, but how did they end up that way? Just accepting that strong teams spontaneously pop into being by virtue of being a good team sounds a lot like spontaneous generation to me. Someone's gotta plant the germs.

I think it is absolutely dedicated NEMs (or EMs acting as NEMs). I've never run a FIRST team, but after running a college club I'm pretty sure I don't want to. There are so many forms to be filled out, meetings to attend, and decisions to make that have nothing to do with the 120 pounds of robotic goodness that goes onto that field. It is draining (at least for me) in a very different sense than building the robot. Give me a pot of coffee and I'll stay up all night designing/building/testing mechanisms, but a stack of paperwork is the death of me.

Dedicated students are obviously important too (here comes the chicken-or-the-egg bit), but I its easier to get students interested when you've got dedicated mentors as opposed to getting mentors interested when you've got dedicated students. To deal with the vast amount of stuff that goes with running a FIRST team, you've really got to love it. It's not a temporary gig, and you can't just do it for your kids. You've got to love it (or learn to love it). I know lots of dedicated adult mentors probably get involved because of their kids, but they stay involved because they love it. And if they don't, they burn out real quick.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

An engineer should evaluate this is a systematic fashion. Compare each factor to every other factor.

Can facilities give you practice robot? No. Can facilities give you a good sponsor? maybe, but probably not. Can a good sponsor give you facilities? Yes. Can experienced mentors give you dedicated students? Yes. Can dedicated students get you experienced mentors? Yes, but it takes a few years.

Complete that for every pair and you've done a [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pairwise_comparison] and it should be trivial to see what is the most important.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

The purpose of this thread was simply to create thoughtful debate, Jane.
Nothing more.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Another technique is to find those with the success you want and discuss assets, methods, and capabilities with them. Compare and contrast what they have, and what they do with what you have, and what you do. Make sure you talk to a lot of good teams as they often get impressive results with less than you would expect.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

What is interesting about this thread is that everyone thinks that their contributions are the most important. Mentors think they are the "soul" of the team and students feel they are the reason for the team being there in the first place.

If both groups stop and think for a minute, who are the people that allow you to have a successful team in the first place? involved parents. They are the ones who ferry students back and forth from the practice field to the work site. They are the ones who feed my group on our long work days. They are the ones who do all the little things that make my team run smoothly.

As the adult leader of my team, I could not do my job without strong supportive parents. They free me to do what I went into teaching to do: inspire young people and make them tools for a bright future.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

On the field: Solid engineering, which usually equates to having experienced mentors.

Off the field: Tireless organization, which usually equates to having experienced mentors.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

A lot of the debate seems to be treating the question as asking about what makes a successful team. That's not the same thing as contributing to a team's success. A successful team is undeniably a partnership. No single factor can be pointed to as the most important reason. But is there something specific one can add to any random "struggling" FRC team and reliably increase its success? I believe there is.

I also think the definition of success should be aligned with the mission of FIRST. Students are absolutely the target, but mentors are explicitly the foundation on which the programs are based. Without good mentors, this becomes just another science fair.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

I think this is a great exercise. One of the great things about CD is the fact that we can have civilized, academic discussions without fear of offending or alienating persons or groups.
As our team continues to grow, I find it beneficial to see what other accomplished teams' members feel to be critical to their own successes; as such, we can align our team's growth to parallel that. It helps us prioritize our efforts, it helps us recognize if our efforts may be misdirected or simply not as fruitful as we think.
Keep asking the hard questions. Be introspective. That's how we as a team, and we as a community, continue to grow.

Re: What Contributes the Most to a Team's Success?
 

Not me....I speak from the experience of things going well, then not so well, and thinking long and hard about what changed.