First off, I would like to thank David for some useful information.
As a System Engineer major, I would strongly recommend all the teams to use System Engineering Models to create their projects or teams in general. It not only helps highlight the main goals, but also helps carve out the paths to get to those goals.
A good example would be Team 612. This team is based on a system engineering class (backed up by professors from George Mason University, one of the leading school in this field). Within one year, the team has achieve not only achieved the short term but long term goals too (CA and EI awards). Also they kept documenting their success and projects in form of gant charts and other useful material for the coming generation to use for. Some of their work can be found at
http://www.wikibotics.org (Systems and Systems Competence)
Imad