Quote:
Originally Posted by GalacticNights
1.) Has your mentor/coach dropped off the radar unexpectedly for family/personal reasons, and if so how did you get help to keep the team going?
2.) Have you been behind/procrastinating during the build season before? How was it fixed and stopped?
3.) Would you suggest reaching out to local teams for help?
4.) If you have had horrible communication in the past, how was it fixed?
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1.) Not quite to your level of severity, but we do find ourselves strapped for mentors once in a while because our mentors are either parents or college students. For this reason, communication is imperative to make sure we have enough mentors to hold a meeting each night.
2.) We have had a habit of this before. Coming up with a solution required a serious talk with the entirety of the team to sort out organization and leadership. This is a good time to talk about goals, resources, and obstacles.
3.)
PLEASE, I cannot stress this enough. Even the best teams out there collaborate with each other. Whether you are in direct need of help or not, I would strongly recommend taking any opportunity possible to reach out to other teams. If nothing else, you get a new viewpoint on things (and some cool friends). I wouldn't even limit this to local teams. FIRST is a huge community of people willing to help each other out. CD, email, and social media are your friends. Use them well. Keep up with what other teams do and ask questions. More often than not, you will get enthusiastic answers.
4.) Everyone needs to agree one one (two max) methods of not only communicating, but organizing. There is a plethora of team-oriented communication platforms, so you should be able to find one that's right for your team. Use it frequently so everyone can stay up to date. We've gotten into the habit of writing out detailed meeting summaries after every meeting is finished so we know what we have done and what needs to be done. Have a way to keep track of files/links/etc, especially for administrative and logistics purposes. If you miss a meeting, be ready to reschedule or plan around it on short notice, and don't use up valuable meeting time talking about things that could be discussed in an online platform.
I hope this was helpful to you. Good luck to you and your team.