If I had to pick a tipping point, I would put it about 1 week after kickoff our first year, when we looked at each other and said "****, how are we going to get this thing finished with only 5 weeks left?" Keep in mind, prior to kick off, the team had met once, and we didn't do anything technical - it was just a meet and greet.
We pushed hard through our first season and did pretty well for ourselves. After that, us mentors got together and said "We have to get these students better prepared before the season starts". So, we had our first fall program. It consisted of 3 Saturday sessions, and helped a little. After the second year, we decided it wasn't really enough, so we went to a summer and fall setup, where we met every Monday throughout the summer and fall. That was rough, and was starting to lead to some burnout, so we switched the summer to a summer camp, and left the fall at every Monday.
Last year, we pretty much had no PR/business team. That meant that the captains ended up doing that portion during the build season, which unfortunately took two gifted future engineers off the robot. We talked with our new captains over the summer about how to fix that, and we finally decided to have the PR/business group meet separately from the build group. This way, the PR/business group meets at the school two days a week through the fall, while the build group meets at our build space (which unfortunately is off-site until next year) on Mondays. As a direct result of this change, we have the largest team yet, with 30 members signed up, compared with 20 last year, and the PR/business group is doing a lot of fantastic work!
Sometimes, changes happen without any direct planning on our part, too! One great example of this is the programming team. 2 seasons ago, one of the seniors basically took over that team completely, acting almost as a mentor and not a student. She passed that down to another student, who has kept the tradition going. This is going to be extremely useful this year, as our lead programming mentor is taking the year off, having had a baby this past year.
Each year, we ask the captains and the team what we're going to do differently to improve the team. We aren't looking for large, drastic changes - we're already a pretty successful and well known team in the area (in 6 years we've been to the semifinals twice, finals 3 times, and won once), and we've been making some pretty clear progress towards Chairman's each year. Rather, we're looking for the small changes that can have a big impact on the experience the members have, or on the future of the team. I challenge the captains to "leave their mark" by improving the way a part of the team works, not by just achieving a specific award that year. I can look at some of the things our team does, and say "I remember who started us doing that!"
PS. I know I read Tribal Leadership years ago when I was in school... but I don't remember enough to place my team in specific stages
