[Jon Stratis]

As a senior, there's not much they can do to appease you other than apologize at this point. However, there is a lot you can do to help move your team forward still.

One of the most important things you can do is work to create a team handbook. You would need input from all members of the team and from the mentors. The most important thing you can put in it is the roles and responsibilities of everyone on the team. This won't be a simple weekend project - it'll takes weeks of revisions, drafts, and meetings to get it just right for your team.

Two years ago, two of our graduating seniors started a handbook like that. It's evolved since that initial draft, but it does help make clear where the responsibilities on the team are.

What type of team do you (and by you, i mean the entire team, not just the single individual posting here) want to have? How much responsibility do you want the students to have? How much involvement do you want the mentors to have (ranging between the extremes of the mentors design and build everything, to the mentors have their hands tied behind their back every time they enter the shop)? What is the leadership structure like? What is the team structure like (for example, are there clearly differentiated subteams covering specific areas?)?


However with the season quickly approaching the end (or already there, if you aren't going to championships), this is a great time to do a retrospective. We typically do two at the end of each year - one with just the mentors present, and another with the entire team. Focus on both the good and the bad. What went well this year? What didn't go so well? From this, you can develop a list of action items, things that need to be done for next year (or over the summer). To give you an example, here are a few items we have on the list to talk about at the mentor meeting in a few weeks:
Good:
- Intense strategy discussions on kickoff weekend, Mon/Tue had great impact on design drive through build season
- tough boxes work well - easy solution for the encoder mounting - can be cut down for a single CIM motor for more clearance

Not so good:
- Chain tensioners - they worked OK, but need better access / possilby different mechanism.
- Need more rigorous design reviews to quickly identify potential problems

Action items (made up on the spot here):
- Jimbo will work with students Jon and Jane to develop the chain tensioner concept over the summer to better be able to handle this during the build season
- During the build season, there will be a weekly mentor+team leaders design review every Sat. afternoon. Plan 30 min per component.

The key to a retrospective is to avoid blaming, avoid putting down any ideas, avoid direct criticism of anybody. Everyone needs to go in with an open mind and with the goal of making things better for the team next year. To help with that, I've been in groups where a pot was put in the middle at the beginning, and ever time someone criticized or put down someone else they had to put $1 in the pot. Then at the end of the day, we used the pot for dinner (plus a little more from the manager when the pot was too small).