How to Best Manage a Small Team

[Addison4300]

My first year of doing FIRST in 2013, our team consisted of about 8 members. It was quite difficult for us to get anything done as we didn't have enough hands for the job. Our team has grown since then to a whopping 20 members! We have our Teacher sponsor, 4 mentors from Emerson, a mentor from Raytheon, and 2 team captains, another member and myself. It is quite difficult to manage our team but we found splitting the team into 2 different teams, 1 for build, 1 for programming/cad/business works very well! We use 1 of our captains to monitor Programming, and the other to monitor the build team.

[AZDevilRobot]

Hi again,

First of all, thank you guys for the advice. It's nice to see so many teams willing to help out a team that is still growing.

However, I have a couple of clarification statements about my team. First, my school actually only consists of about 150 students. We cap each grade at 60 but people have left without replacements. About half participate in clubs and sports and thus, many students cross over between clubs. With a relatively small number of students, no club ever asks their students to choose. They choose to work around schedules instead. Only one club ever meets on a day and during the off season, attendance is high since robotics occupies Wednesday and we only meet that one day a week. When build season hits, Wednesday is still the highest day but people are out other days to attend their clubs. Maybe my wording in the initial post was harsh or misinterpreted but we do have decent dedication. Our rule is you attend your other commitment first, and since robotics lasts longer than other clubs, you can come to robotics late. The "little work" that I mentioned only happens at the point when the two clubs overlap. Once everybody is bakc in the same room, productivity goes up. We do have people though that come and stay the entire time after school and these people get lead roles since they are the most dedicated. We have talked to the lead I mentioned in the OP and they have started to attend more regularly now that basketball season is over. Other people also picked up the slack and that team is moving again.

When people show up, even if it is late, they do put in the effort. It actually happens that the people with other commitments work harder than those that stay because they feel they have to make up the time. Every member in the club knows that robotics is a lot of work and knowing everyone's schedule, we usually keep our robot minimal. We sometimes feel it is better to have one super component than three or four "eh" components. By keeping the goals manageable, we can still have fun, make something we are proud of and everyone can manage their responsibilities.

As for accountability, our advisor recently created a contract stating that in order to be in the club, you must pay a fee and put in the effort. At his discretion, he can remove anybody from the day's meeting or the team(which has never happened) and their money will not be refunded. As our cost is $95, people have a bit of an incentive to work when they are in the club. With the regional, we never bar anyone as everyone does put the effort in when they can. That being said, the drive team only consists of people who have put the most effort in.

As I said, maybe my OP was considered harsh or I worded it wrong but the problem is not as bad as I made it sound. I was only wondering if there would be a way to continue moving along at a steady pace and not lose steam while still allowing everyone to honor their other commitments. After reading everyone's posts, it appears that we have been following some of the ideas posted all along. We have a core dedicated group and every member helps out whenever they can. We don't bite off more than we can chew and are still able to create some amazing robots.

Once again, thank you for the advice and best of luck to all teams.

[Charlie2016]

I believe that 20 kids is about the perfect size for an frc team (maybe even less than that) Iv worked on a team of 60 kids, and currently on a team of around 15. I can honestly say that with out a doubt, I have gotten more out of a smaller team. It's just like a classroom, it is easier to learn in a smaller class. With more kids it becomes difficult to keep all hands on the robot. Having a 15 kid team with 15 committed minds will get more done than a team of 60 with 5 committed minds any day. What it really comes down to is that you get out of it what you put in. That is the difficulty. In order to have a successful small team, you really need to have all hands on deck. One thing I will say is that students (from my experience) are more motivated to work for a smaller team. You have a greater sense of pride and accomplishment when seeing the finished product.

[Addison4300]

Our team, during the build season works Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays until 9PM, and Wednesdays, and Thursdays until 6PM. This has been a really effective way to get so much accomplished in the short 6 weeks we have to build. On Monday and Tuesday, we give all the team members 1.5 hours to get homework done. then at 6pm we all have dinner together. We also made a time slot sign up form for every member to fill out each week to say what days you can stay and until what time.