Taking the plunge. . .

[jwfoss]

Originally Posted by MysterE

Or for my Tribal Leadership folks, what changed your team from a stage 2 or 3 into a stage 4 team?

It's interesting that you reference Tribal Leadership as I am currently reading this book. So far it has been a great resource and I now better understand the transformation that 2168 has gone through in the last two years.

When I began working with the team they were a acting like a Stage 2 organization, which is common among many teams. They had dedicated mentors, students, and a teacher. They even had resources some teams could only wish they had, yet they were not properly utilizing them. The team operated with and understanding that there were really great teams out there, but believed that they were not capable of performing at that level. (The "My life stinks" stage.)

The 2011 season saw an increase in experienced mentors, and more dedicated students to the point where we began to see specialized members of the team. Specifically in programming, mechanical design, and the driveteam. Thankfully the team pushed though the "I'm great and your not" stage quickly, as the team began to organically foster striving for greatness and positive growth.

The 2012 season found the team operating squarely in the Stage 4 region as internal motivation took over and the students began teaching each other the critical skills and instilling the cultural norms and expectations of the team to the newest members. I have never been on a team operating at this level before and it has been an awesome experience. As we continue to move forward, I see the team maintaining at Stage 4. This however does not mean that there are times when the team falls back to acting as a Stage 3 however.

What pushed these changes? Experienced Mentors. Positive results from reaching set goals. Setting goals that are both a challenge and reachable. (For 2011 it was being competitive and always playing in eliminations, for 2012 it was being an alliance captain at every competition). When the goals are clear, you can define the steps to get there.

[Jon Stratis]

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

[dellagd]

I believe your notion of "more bodies = better robot" is simply not true. Many very successful teams each year make do with relatively smaller teams. A 100 person team is much more difficult to manage than a smaller team because engaging 100 people is just that much harder.

Maybe I worded that wrong. A Larger team certainly does not "=" a better robot.

I wasn't saying that a larger team automatically makes a better robot, I was simply stating that having 15 motivated workers on a robot vs 7 motivated workers on a robot means that, in order to get the same result, the 7 must put in more time then the 15 in general, going back to my other point on time.

That being said, a huge team that isnt motivated vs a small team that is, Id pick the smaller.

100 is a BIG team though (that was a bad example), that I do see as possibly being hard to manage and could produce a lot of... "wanderers"

Cool discussion