Hours Teams Meet

[weberr]

Greetings,

In doing our homework so that our team can advocate for more resources, we need to gather some information on how teams meet. I will be happy to share the data once we have collected and compiled all the entries. Thank you from team 3641, The Flying Toasters!


https://goo.gl/forms/S87c98GAOP5vdIMi1

[ollien]

"What was the highest success of your team? *" confuses me. Our rookie year was certainly not a good year for us, but we haven't won a regional or competed at champs. Could you clarify what you mean?

[nickbrickmaster]

Do you mind explaining a little more about what you need the data for? Getting your school to give you more shop hours?

[EricH]

Originally Posted by ollien

"What was the highest success of your team? *" confuses me. Our rookie year was certainly not a good year for us, but we haven't won a regional or competed at champs. Could you clarify what you mean?

And for those that did make Champs, there's varying levels there (Champs playoffs would be a nice option to have).

[dirtbikerxz]

I suggest you add another column to the forms asking for the number of members on the team. Because while I might say that we meet 35-40 hours a week during build season (or even more) its because our team consists of basically 5 - 6 consistently working members. A team with maybe 50 members doesn't need to spend as much time etc.

[Monochron]

The whole "how does the number of hours you meet effect how effective you are per hour" question is really too complex for your survey to gather any useful information. Effectiveness per hour has a lot more to do with organization than it does time spent. For instance, a team that meets infrequently could be very effective per hour, but only if they spend a lot of time outside of those meetings ordering parts, planning meetings, doing prep, etc. Even then it all depends on how much work you actually plan to put into the team.

I'm guessing you want to know if putting in more hours could boost your productivity in meetings? To answer that you should look at how 'strapped-for-time' you currently feel in meetings. If right now you do a lot of waiting in meetings, then better organization is going to help a lot more than more meeting time.

[dirtbikerxz]

As monochron said, it really varies from team to team. On fridays while we meet from 3:30 to 10:30 , we generally spend an hour or so just eating and playing video games, etc. So it really is a hard metric to measure.

[IKE]

The questions from your survey are similar to a handful I have discussed with other really high performing teams throughout the years. I will be interested in your findings.

Of note/caution, I have found that persons you want to survey will have crazy extremes for the hours that they participate. I have had many tell me that they spend 400 hours as an individual during the build season. While not impossible, this would be averaging almost 10 hrs/day for the 42 day period. Another way to look at it would be spending nearly double a full time job (IE 40 hrs/week x 6 weeks is 240 hrs.).

[ollien]

Originally Posted by EricH

And for those that did make Champs, there's varying levels there (Champs playoffs would be a nice option to have).

Reading over it again, wouldn't someone who won a regional inherently be championships level? Not vice versa of course, because of things like waitlists, chairman's, EI, etc.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by ollien

Reading over it again, wouldn't someone who won a regional inherently be championships level? Not vice versa of course, because of things like waitlists, chairman's, EI, etc.

Yes. But WHICH Championships level?

There's Championship, and Championship Playoff. I could point to at least one regional winner who found themselves completely outclassed at Champs--didn't make playoffs, non-winning record, you get the idea. On the other hand, they had a blast, and learned a lot--which is exactly what you want to do when you're a rookie at Champs.

That's why I'm thinking there should be a split there, because champs playoffs (about half of the field) is a whole 'nother ballgame.

[ollien]

Originally Posted by EricH

Yes. But WHICH Championships level?

There's Championship, and Championship Playoff. I could point to at least one regional winner who found themselves completely outclassed at Champs--didn't make playoffs, non-winning record, you get the idea. On the other hand, they had a blast, and learned a lot--which is exactly what you want to do when you're a rookie at Champs.

That's why I'm thinking there should be a split there, because champs playoffs (about half of the field) is a whole 'nother ballgame.

Oh no, I was making a separate point. Your point is totally correct. I'm just pointing out a another flaw related to yours.

[Mike Schreiber]

Originally Posted by weberr

Greetings,

In doing our homework so that our team can advocate for more resources, we need to gather some information on how teams meet. I will be happy to share the data once we have collected and compiled all the entries. Thank you from team 3641, The Flying Toasters!


https://goo.gl/forms/S87c98GAOP5vdIMi1

Will team numbers be kept confidential when sharing data?

[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by dirtbikerxz

]A team with maybe 50 members doesn't need to spend as much time etc.

This is a funny one... less time whew! I cannot wait to tell the kids!

I do agree with some of your other statements - it all comes down to personnel and commitment levels. Other areas that impact the number of hours spent include goals, areas of the team that need work, etc.

[dirtbikerxz]

Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog

This is a funny one... less time whew! I cannot wait to tell the kids!

I do agree with some of your other statements - it all comes down to personnel and commitment levels. Other areas that impact the number of hours spent include goals, areas of the team that need work, etc.

HAHA, ya okay . Let me rephrase that " a team with 50 students doesn't have to spend the same amount of time as a team of 7 to achieve the same results. Should they choose to spend the same amount of time, than more than likely they will probably do better".

Does that satisfy you ?

[Chief Hedgehog]

Originally Posted by dirtbikerxz

HAHA, ya okay . Let me rephrase that " a team with 50 students doesn't have to spend the same amount of time as a team of 7 to achieve the same results. Should they choose to spend the same amount of time, than more than likely they will probably do better".

Does that satisfy you ?

Yeah - I saw what you were going for, the original wording just struck me as humorous from my vantage point. I do believe that smaller teams can be more effective in their planning (as they may be forced to) and turn out great product as the larger teams in terms of robots, media, and students! We worked with teams 6175 and 5913 - both turned out great products.

As a coach of a team that went from 20 kids to 50 kids seemingly overnight - the challenges are different - but the desire for most is still there. A larger team means more oversight, but it does still need great personnel and talent!

Good luck this season, sir!