[sciguy125]

We're in the process of restructuring. We tried anarchy but that only worked when the team was very small (<10 members). When it got bigger and we decided we wanted more structure, we tried democracy. That was a total failure. The biggest problem was that people were allowed to give input into things they had nothing to do with. ie, people who weren't going to be doing design work or other engineering voted in robot decisions. With tasks getting handed out to the community rather than individuals directly, it was unclear who was in charge of what. It proved to be very inefficient and troublesome. Democracy has been abandoned and popular voting for any decision is now frowned upon.

The new structure consists of 3 teirs with two branches: Engineering and Administration. Tier 1 is two people - one for each branch. These people are not actual workers, more like managers. They tell the people below them what needs to be done, but not how to do it. And, they aren't supposed to do any actual work, just distribute work and make sure that people are are doing their jobs. Tier 1 is only supposed to get overflow work (aside from their managerial duties). Tier 2 is the "sub-division" leaders. Each branch has been divided into several sub-divisions. One person heads each. Tier 1 and tier 2 are considered leadership positions. Teir 3 is everyone else, essentially the grunts. Each tier 2 leader has one or more teir 3 people working under them. The number of people in each teir 3 group is undefined, but it is intended that they choose a group and stay there. Tier 1 positions are appointed by Teir 0, the moderators. People interested in the positions have to submit a questionaire (sort of an informal application) and give a speech about why they would be good for the position. Teir 2 also has the same process, but the tier 1 leaders get some input to choose those who will be under them. Teir 3 is a free for all.

These are the tier 2 positions:

Engineering
Control Systems
Arm/Environmental Manipulator
Drivetrain/Chassis

Administration
Resource Management
Information Distribution
Marketing
Community Outreach
Website

A constitution of some sort still needs to be written up to describe specific protocol and duties for each position. However, the spirit of the system is that each person in teirs 1 and 2 will have the power/right to do their duties without undue interference from others. Tier 1 will have a limited (so far undetermined) amount of veto power over tier 2. This makes sure that nobody goes crazy and runs away with their power. Tier 0, of course, still has unlimited veto power over the entire hierarchy. With this power, tier 0 is still not supposed to act as part of the system above tier 1, just fix issues that might arise and pose a serious problem. But, because they are the moderators they will always have the power to do whatever they want. They can tell someone to stop playing with the yardstick, or they can shut the entire program down.

Each branch operates independently. Administration doesn't get to say what goes on the robot, Engineering doesn't get to say what goes in the pamphlets. This separation also holds between each of the tier 2 sub-divisions. A method of filing [i]grievances[i], however, is in the works. The idea is that you can tell someone that there is a problem, but not what to do about it (of course, if they feel the need, they can ask you what you think should happen). This prevents people from telling others how to do their jobs, or as what has happened before, taking over their job entirely.

All of this sounds very beaurocratic, but every detail has been put in place to fix problems that we've had. Democracy had to go away because it was too inefficient. There had to be a clearly defined structure to prevent people from trying to boss others around (unless they now have the explicit power to do so). Clearly defined positions now create liability. If something doesn't get done, we know who was in charge of it. As a side effect of all this, however, is that it solidifies the fact that the team is student run. To be cliche, this system is of the students, by the students, and for the students. Students created the system, they fill positions in the system, and it protects their power to be a student run team.

It was pointed out that the constitution (still in the works) is similar to the US Constitution. There is a separation of powers and each branch runs fairly autonomously. Some of the proposed clauses turned out to have a US Constitution equivalent. The whole purpose of it is to make sure that everyone gets along peacefully.