Some things my team tries to focus on:
Pick a winning strategy - Directly after kick-off we try to pick a strategy where we think we can seed high at any level of competition. This is usually based on how many points we can score with a given strategy.
Stick with it - Once we have chosen our strategy, we do what we can to not deviate from it. You don't have time during build season to be indecisive or change your mind halfway through.
Keep it simple - Building a simple robot is extremely important. The more things you have going on with your robot is just more things to fail during a match. Try to keep it down to just a few simple mechanisms that can do a lot instead of a lot of mechanisms that do one thing. Our robot last year was about as simple as they come, but it was very effective.
Don't reinvent the wheel - If there is something out there that works great for what you need, use it. Maybe you can modify it to better suit your situation but generally you don't need to come up with something brand new to be competitive.
Keep improving - Just because build season ends doesn't mean improving your robot goes with it. In the past we have used our withholding allowance to replace entire mechanisms because they were better than the originals.
Good Scouting - At competition it is crucial that you know what every robot there is good/bad at and how they compliment your game. Even your weakest partners are useful for something, it just takes a little creativity to figure out how they can best help win a match.
Hope this helps
