Why Do Teams Succeed

[GeeTwo]

My first thought on reading OP was to essentially write gblake's post above. +1!

Also, as I posted earlier this afternoon on the "fold" thread:

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

..inspired, educated alumni change the world.

We won our first Blue Banner at Bayou this year. I had dyed my beard green, yelled myself hoarse, and was every bit as thrilled as I was when the Pirates won the World Series in 1971 and 1979 or when the Saints won the Super Bowl at the end of the 2008 season, and even more proud as I had helped it happen. However, the real tug on the heartstrings came at the next team meeting. While we knew that we had plenty of work to do, we gave the students the floor to express what the team meant to them, fully aware that it might take hours. We almost got some "work" done, but at the last call, J. took the offer. He didn't settle for the floor, but the little guy stood on a table. I had known J. for at least four years already, as his family attended my church. Four years ago, J. was painfully introverted. PAINFULLY. Gixxy helped him through an out-of-state mission trip, and then FRC brought him out of his shell more recently. The team was a key part of FIXING A PERSON. That's success in my book that goes way, way beyond a blue banner. J's story was followed by at least a dozen more (all delivered while standing on the table, now that the precedent was established). Every one of them was pushed from a life of mediocrity or insignificance towards a life helping people live better lives. A dozen such stories constitutes unqualified team success in my book.
I'm not going to claim that we've achieved the same level of success as 148, 254, 118, or 1114, but I also know that no one will ever convince me that I was wasting my time; that's unqualified success by my criteria.
I have not answered the poll, as I do not understand its criteria.

[gblake]

It just struck me that it seems that our answers, so far, focus on creating exemplary teams. While those are certainly among the successful teams; they are only a small subset of them.

Now, I know all of the slogans about never being satisfied with anything less than excellence, etc; and I don't disagree in the slightest with an attitude of continuous improvement; but the fact of the matter is that unless you want to declare the vast majority of teams that have had a fairly long life so far, and that aren't in trouble right now, "unsuccessful", there are plenty of ordinary, successful teams.

And sure, successfully seeking to emulate an exemplary team is one way to keep the wolves away from the door; but A) it's not the only way, and B) given that a community's resources are usually limited, it might result in a detrimental overemphasis on just one aspect of STEM inspiration.

For example, what advice do we have for a community that is so successful at inspiring their best and brightest students to get involved in computational biology and genetic engineering, that having a robotics team in that community is unambiguously an important, but secondary activity?

Or, regardless of whether or not an FRC-style STEM team is the primary STEM activity for a community, who has some thoughts on how to smooth out the peaks and valleys in the life of a team enough so that the team avoids valleys deep enough to mortally wound them, while still enjoying "success" during the peaks, and during all of their middle-of-the-road seasons?

An analogy: Some people run to get to the Olympics, some run to beat their previous best, some run for their health, some run because they enjoy it, etc. Runners have all sorts of motivations, and are successful in many ways. In this analogy, let's not assume that anyone who isn't training/running with Olympic intensity, is unsuccessful.

Blake

[waialua359]

Originally Posted by gblake

Maybe I'm thinking more about what a School Board is interested in hearing than the OP was when they wrote their post.

I don't say that to attack the OP, or their immediate intention, but to instead just get them to think twice about whether they are asking the right question.

School Boards often define success differently than individual teams do...

If the OP isn't interested in my thoughts, they can easily ignore them.

Blake

I'm glad that you and many others (presuming) have faith in your respective School Boards. In our State, almost all of them have never been in education and/or attended public schools, and it shows.
Sometimes, just sometimes, school boards can outline their definition of success differently than what teachers, an individual school, and their respective community thinks. The culture and beliefs of our program are in line with our school community, IMO.

[LCJ]

I am a student so I obviously don't have as much experience as many of the other people who have already posted in this thread, but I am most successful when I am absolutely in love with what I am doing and when I am doing everything I can possibly do to be successful.
I know there are circumstances where just working hard won't cut it, but I'm sure that no team will be successful without working hard (and smart) in the first place.

[Nathan Streeter]

Originally Posted by Koko Ed

I don't see any choices for preparation or dedication. Those take a team a whole lot further than any of those things listed.

Originally Posted by Darkseer54

I'd say that Preparation and Dedication earn teams every one of the things listed. Having a few students who are dedicated will inspire mentors to dedicate their time and effort to assist them achieve their goals, and these mentors will in turn inspire more students to be dedicated. Having students and mentors who are willing to learn and work to succeed is what allows them to succeed.

EDIT: Gonna add a bit more to this as I have more time now. One thing I have noticed over the past few years is that the teams that succeed on a large level do is take the competition aspect extremely seriously. As 254 stated (don't remember where), they (and all these successful teams) strive to be in the top 1% of all FRC teams. These teams work to win, and are driven to do so.

Originally Posted by Caleb Sykes

From what I have seen, the mentors and students on "high-quality" teams spend 20+ hours per week, in and out of build season, dedicated to robotics. The "powerhouse" teams have students and mentors who spend 40+ hours per week dedicated to robotics.

Teams that are willing to put in this much effort have almost no difficulty achieving anything/everything on that list.

Originally Posted by Karthik

Culture, leadership, passion.

Everyone hit the nail on the head with these responses, in my mind... The survey points to a bunch of "effects" of having a good team. The "cause" of all those resources (build space, machine shop, large budget, etc.) is having a passionate team. This should really include a dedicated group of students, some committed mentors, and hopefully also school, sponsor and/or parent support.

Now, if you see yourself as a passionate, dedicated team that is willing to roll up their sleeves and put in the serious work of 'raising the bar' on your team, then we can provide some advice there too... As two top-level pieces of advice, I'd say:

1) Be strategic. Decide what your goals are and pursue them. Maybe this is "impacting students lives, skills, and perception of STEM," maybe this is on-field success, maybe this is effecting change in your community, or maybe it's something else. Be specific with these where you can... Also, aim high, but also be realistic. If you want on-field success, maybe target 'being on Einstein' in 5-years, but first target consistently making it into Saturday afternoon or consistently playing in the Finals. If you can't make a robot that will frequently make it to the Finals at your Regionals or Districts, then it's very unlikely you'll make it onto Einstein. Once you have your goal(s), then make your roadmap (HOW you plan to make yourself successful in that area).

2) Be relentless. This will require hard-work, good decision-making, an attitude of constant improvement, and at least a little bit of "luck." Don't settle for something that "kind of works," make it highly effective.

I think the three quotes in my signature accurately summarize my advice in general on 'how to be successful.'

[IronicDeadBird]

Happiness, nobody stays on a team where everybody is always angry,

[WynS]

I have noticed several posts talking about team culture and that it can't be changed or is very hard to change. It can change but it may take a while. Our team culture many years ago was very different than it is today. It took many years but it is different and more cohesive today. With that said, if a change is implemented successfully, it can take hold quickly. The beauty of getting new students every year is that if something goes well, they think we've always done it that way. In the same way, it can go bad quickly too. We work hard to keep sarcasm to a minimum and to make sure everyone is treated with respect, is included and has meaningful work to do. Before every competition we talk about gracious professionalism and team reputation - a good reputation takes a lot of work to establish but can be lost very quickly.

I think that dedicated students and mentors are key. These two things feed off of each other. The mentors help provide continuity on the team as well as support for the students. A group of students decided this past summer to design an entirely new 2015 robot to run at Chezy Champs. Our strongest design people had graduated and the current leadership wanted more experience. Many students spent most of their summer designing the robot and key mentors provided support by supervising and answering their many questions. This robot was assembled by new and returning students who are excited for the new season. The resulting robot exceeded everyone's expectations. I can hardly wait for 2016.

[staplemonx]

Thanks again to everyone who shared comments and voted in the poll. The thread was pretty enlightening and made us think a lot about who our team is an what we want it to be.

Here is a link to the summary blog post http://team1389.com/why-do-teams-succeed/