Team Structure Help

[Sperkowsky]

Hello all,

Our team has run into a lot of issues with club structure and I figured I would get your help on this.

To start we have about 3 kids who come almost every day 5-6 that come conistantly twice a week ish. and then 10-15 that come once a month. Plus we have 30 or so people that have come in once ate our food and left.

We are from a small sports heavy district. 90% of our team does a sport or 2. Our team president did track, cross county and tennis, I do competitive gymnastics, and another one of our every day members does competitive rock climbing just to name a few. What happens is people join or team thinking of it as a little club they can show up once and put on their college application.

We also had issues with elections. 2 of our 4 club officers showed up less then 10 hours throughout the whole build season and one of them didnt even go to one day of the competiton.

They are nice people they just dont see it as a comitment.

We also have issues with people coming on day 1 and then getting scared off by rules and people talking.

the other big issue is overcrowding of the pit. We have new members who never have showed up show up the competition and crowd the pit instead of going up to the stands. When I say anything to our mentor hes says everyone needs to feel included which I understand but there has to be boundries.

We need help on team organization, member retention, getting new members, making people realize its a big comitment, holding people acountable, and establising boundries.

[rsisk]

I was getting a chuckle reading your dilemma thinking to myself "Welcome to every team USA"

I sure wish I knew how to solve those problems, but we continue to have them on our team after 8 years of looking for solutions.

Couple things that have helped.

We have a core pit team consisting of a lead and 3-4 team members. They have all access to the pit. We also have a drive team and scout team. Anyone not assigned to one of those three teams rotates thru various positions during an event including; pit, pit scout, historian, spirit. We rotated on a two hour schedule at AZW which didn't work so well, probably will try have day rotations next time. This worked pretty well to keep the pits manageable.

Part of the problem, assuming you are characterizing rght, is the view that everybody needs to "feel" included. IMO everyone needs to earn the right to be included in the functioning of the team, that includes being there for meetings, outreach events, and build days. We choose the most active members of our team to be on the pit/drive/scout teams. The others get the rotating duties.

Anyway hope that helps give you a couple ideas of how to improve.

The team, just like the robot, needs constant iteration and innovation cycles in order to continue to improve.

Good luck and keep moving forward

[Arhowk]

One thing to keep in mind is that kids will feel interest in robotics when they are actively involved in what is happening. I see a lot of teams with a "survival of the fittest" style of work in which either you know how to tighten a bolt, your friend teaches you how to tighten a bolt, or he just sits on the sideline. During build season our team meets 6 times a week so spending ~30 hours watching other people do nothing is no fun.

One way to do this is to funnel all recruits in to specific time frames - "burst recruitment" e.g. posting flyers for an open house around the school for interested students (also provide food, drink, etc. to entice the stragglers here and there that might have hidden interest in engineering). At these burst recruitments, get all of the kids involved in different tasks (e.g. building a pit cart, programming FLL robots or similar that doesn't require much programming knowledge, using pre-crimped wires and PWM stuff to wire together dummy robots). Doing this helps get students involved in a specific field of study so they know what they want to focus on in their robotics career. Some kids don't ever have this experience so they stay on a team wondering if there is something they can do, so if nothing is compatible to them up front than they can just turn away after the first day.

Also keep in mind first day turnaways aren't necessarily a bad thing. A lot of these kids have friends, bf/gf, etc. that pressured the other into joining the team. Its not that they were genuinely interested in engineering and robotics and wanted to join but were turned away from the team day one. True interested students will stay (with some s.d.).

We also had issues with elections. 2 of our 4 club officers showed up less then 10 hours throughout the whole build season and one of them didnt even go to one day of the competiton.

In both of the teams I've been involved with, all leadership positions were chosen by mentors. As long as you don't have any issues with favoritism in your mentors, this works well to get the kids who attend meetings and competitions effectively and remain involved within the team.

What happens is people join or team thinking of it as a little club they can show up once and put on their college application.

For this there is no true cure. You will get a lot of kids like this who may even be good kids but just have absolutely no interest in engineering and have an abysmal record to get into the ivy league college of their (parent's) dreams. If you truly see that they have the potential to be a key player on the team, than you may be interested in gathering some alumni information regarding their involvement in the team (driver, captain, etc), how many hours they put in, and how robotics affected their scholastic career.

the other big issue is overcrowding of the pit. We have new members who never have showed up show up the competition and crowd the pit instead of going up to the stands. When I say anything to our mentor hes says everyone needs to feel included which I understand but there has to be boundries.

I totally agree with you; at any given point in our pits there can be anywhere from the 2-3 people that actually need to be there compared with the person doing after-match repair with the 15 bored students standing in the pits with the mom that brought her entire elementary school with her to the 8x8(?) pit.

Usually the best option is to designate an additional two members "pit crew"- working with the drive train + programmer to just perform general modifications. When not busy, these members should be responsible for working with some of the newer students and getting them in the pits (because, they still need to be there to get experience...) but still maintaining order. Sometimes, though, if a student says he is just watching, than you just need to be straight forward and say "Please stand in the hallway so we can get our work done easier, please!"

getting new members

Make a video with your chairman's team (or just give a kid Windows Movie Maker and have him go to town with it) and make it a requirement that every student presents the video along with a short presentation in at least one hour in school. (though there can be some exceptions, e.g. i cant do this because I have a full AP schedule) In addition, just short demos like bringing in the robot to the side of the room during lunch and stacking totes with a Chairmans display and a few passionate students to get people involved.

holding people acountable

Food privileges!

Edit:

I was getting a chuckle reading your dilemma thinking to myself "Welcome to every team USA"

So true! I've only been an active member of a team for two years so maybe someone more experienced than me can give some insight / point to where this topic has been discussed before.

[EricH]

OP, do you happen to have a team handbook, or other similar document that outlines expectations and requirements? If you don't, I suggest that you and the rest of the team spend at least part of the summer writing one. And remember when you do: "The world is run by those who show up."

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by EricH

OP, do you happen to have a team handbook, or other similar document that outlines expectations and requirements? If you don't, I suggest that you and the rest of the team spend at least part of the summer writing one. And remember when you do: "The world is run by those who show up."

We are working on two.

One is a so called Constitution thats still imo too vauge another is a student and I's project with 9 pages of policies so far.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

We are working on two.

One is a so called Constitution thats still imo too vauge another is a student and I's project with 9 pages of policies so far.

That's better than nothing...

Typically, in an organization of this type, the constitution/charter will have the group's structure: What leaders do they have, who's in charge of what, requirements to be an officer, and various other "legal" type items (this last would probably include the whole "who's a member" determination). So that's your answer to the "two officers didn't have a lot of time invested"--one of the items might be that officers who aren't putting in the time may be removed and replaced by other officers. Again, this is your "team structure".

The policy document is what I would consider the "team handbook" (others might call it "bylaws"). It would have some of the same information as the constitution in that it would reference the stuff laid out in there, but would also have items like team dress code, attendance policy, how to get the team to let you represent them at competition, grade policy, role of mentors (yes, please please put that in--it could save some internal hassle later), just to think of a few items offhand.


One thing that you should be absolutely sure to include--in both!--is the process to change them, should that be needed (hint: it will be, at some point in the future).

[sanddrag]

We model our team after a business, with specific job classifications (each with a job description) that students can apply for, and are ultimately granted or assigned. For competition, we have specific role assignments, and those not assigned to the pit crew are not allowed to be in our team's pit area unless specifically requested by someone on the designated pit crew.

We soon hope to produce our first-ever org chart.

We expect every student on our team to be able to coherently answer the question, "What would you say, ya do here?" at any time, as asked by any person.

Setting standard policies and procedures, and having mentors to come up with them and help enforce them, is a big help.

[Shrub]

To what I can contribute to: our team typically only allows pit crew, judge speakers, and safety captains in our pit at all times. Of course on day 1 there are usually programmers and scouts posting schedules in the mix. Team members, if not scouting, are allowed to browse the pits and visit ours, but as soon as the pit becomes a "meeting spot" someone brings up the fact it's getting crowded and we disperse. I feel like this is related to rookies not knowing that just like during build, there are a multitude of positions during competitions.

Our team doesn't have that many students involved in sports, mainly things like speech/theatre/music. (I'm in like 5 clubs but that's Another Story.) As long as that member lets the mentor know where they are going and how many days they cannot attend build, and don't sit around when they can be there, it's been fine. We also have a 60% attendance requirement to go out to our week 1/2 regional since its considerably further than our second one. Also, not to point fingers, but are your mentors aware of this issue? It always helps when they realize it too.

I remember there being a video 1114 made about team management? I think this is the PowerPoint link. Feel free to PM me OP, I have a bunch of safety guideline sheets we use for going to competitions. :>

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by EricH

OP, do you happen to have a team handbook, or other similar document that outlines expectations and requirements? If you don't, I suggest that you and the rest of the team spend at least part of the summer writing one. And remember when you do: "The world is run by those who show up."

This is a really good suggestion. 1923 has a pretty extensive handbook, and we're still developing it each year to adapt to lessons learned - if anyone's interested in a copy, PM me!

[GeeTwo]

A charter is nice in specifying mechanics and procedures of the team, but it really has nothing to do with how the team operates. In reality, it all comes down to personalities, politics, and policies. This is true whether you're a tiddlywinks club or a government. The key to keeping an organization healthy is to be ready to have an effective means of managing dissent. These means range from the "big tent" in which the organization recognizes differences but keeps the discussion open to the secret societies in which dissenting or disruptive members are never seen again. Hopefully, your team can find a nice balance between these extremes.

What you may need to do to promote participation among team members is to establish real standards regarding expectations at the various levels of participation. On our team, we have two or three levels of officers (varies from year to year and according to the team dynamics), varsity, junior varsity, and (between spring banquet and fall tryouts) prospective members. The number one rule (unwritten, but strongly enforced) is that all positions except prospective members must be earned, both to rise into them and to hold them.

On our team, officer selection and ranking within officers is decided by the head coach. He definitely consults with the mentors and other officers, and often asks for recommendations, but these are his decisions. Each department (whether technical or business) is assigned a number of varsity positions. When there are vacancies, that department's officers and mentors nominate a JV member for varsity. The head coach has (rarely if ever executed) veto authority. JV is earned at the tryouts from among the previous year's JV and the prospects. Mentors and varsity members present a number of relatively simple to moderate challenges which the JV and prospects must tackle. We select members to the JV based on their attitude, drive, spirit, and interest, then assign members to the various departments based on aptitude and interests. The big distinction between JV and varsity is pretty much like athletics - varsity gets to go to competition as a fully excused educational field trip. JV only goes on Saturday.

When we won Bayou, the school administration told us we could bring 25 members to CMP. Our varsity happened to number 24. We announced that our "wild card" spot would go to the JV member who raised the greatest amount of funds between the two competitions. As a result of the Bayou win and this announcement, we raised as much money in 6 weeks as in the preceding 11 months, if you exclude only the "3 year" donation we received from Ingersoll Rand Foundation to purchase and outfit a trailer. The bottom line is to make membership on a team a position something which must be earned.

[Tungrus]

Many teams have this issue. In our team we have incentive...only those who come regularly will be in drive team, they probably know the robot better than others. Yes, this has its own drawback, we cannot pick the best driver (at least till now), we are living with this.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Tungrus

.. this has its own drawback, we cannot pick the best driver (at least till now), we are living with this.

Consider whether the best driver is the one with great hand-eye coordination and fair commitment, or the one with fair hand-eye coordination and great commitment. If a team member skips a third of the build sessions, how confident are you that (s)he'll be there at competition?

[Libby K]

Originally Posted by Libby K

This is a really good suggestion. 1923 has a pretty extensive handbook, and we're still developing it each year to adapt to lessons learned - if anyone's interested in a copy, PM me!

I was gently reminded that our handbook is, in fact, online.

For those interested: http://frc1923.pairserver.com/firstr.../?page_id=1459

[Jon Stratis]

It's really hard to draw the line between inclusion and team performance. Including more people is great, but can cause issues for the team that ultimately degrades the experience. How you handle it goes a long way.

The first point you need to keep in mind is setting expectations. A team handbook can help a lot with this - you can list expected hours for travel and lettering, expected behavior and performance whip in the shop and at competition. Create a process for selecting leadership each year that rewards dedication and leadership qualities, and ensures that the leaders will be around for the meetings (fun fact: of a scheduled 99 build hours this year, my teams two co-captain's were at 104% and 117% - in other words, all the scheduled meetings plus extras we had at the last minute!)

A large part of FIRST is about changing the culture. Unfortunately, science or math clubs are seen in our culture as something that you can participate in occasionally with no big commitment required. Changing the culture puts a FIRST team on the same level as other sports. The time commitment, intensity, and fun all compare with sports. It's hard to create that culture. Many teams have to deal with conflicting priorities, as their students are over-achievers involved in multiple after school activities. Create a schedule that works for your team! While many teams try to meet right after school (after all, the kids are already there, right?), If this conflicts with a significant portion of the team, then find a different time. We meet from 7-9 in the evenings. This allows kids involved in other activities time to do them, eat dinner, and get a little homework done before robotics. It's a win-win!

It won't happen overnight, but it's something a team needs to constantly work at to change. My team had 27 students this year. 19 were present at 50% or more of the meeting hours, making them eligible to travel with the team (a majority of those 8 who weren't eligible to travel were first year members). 15 had enough hours (80%) to letter.

FIRST teams should be inclusive - it doesn't matter if a student shows up 5% of the time or 100%, so long as they are inspired and get something from it. But you need to face reality and utilize everyone appropriately.

For the crowded pit problem, my team uses a schedule. Everyone gets scheduled time in the pit, either as part of the pit crew or doing "pit scouting", and everyone spends time in the stands. Some people may be scheduled in the pit more, base on their expertise, but that is an incentive to everyone to work a little harder. It's all about having a scheduled job for everyone, at all times, to help the team succeed. If you don't have something for people to do, they'll loiter wherever they want. Come up with a rule in your handbook that gives you a maximum number of people in your teams pit - you need elbow room to work, and over crowding in an area with power tools is a safety issue. Everyone else needs to be outside the teams pit, either in the stands or talking to other teams.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Libby K

I was gently reminded that our handbook is, in fact, online.

For those interested: http://frc1923.pairserver.com/firstr.../?page_id=1459

Wow read through the whole thing a few questions.

First the $200. Ive thought of this in the past but it has been dismissed as people aren't sure if their parents will pay it. We live in a generally well of area but I wonder if there's an attendance issues.

Second is the $50 do parents pay it?

Third is how do you keep the mentor heirarchy flat. We have issues where we only have one mentor most of the time so when our other mentors are there, there are issues with the main mentor overruling their decisions. Again this isn't a shot at him it's just an issue when anyone has absolute power.