Improving the Efficacy of a Team

[Jaine Perotti]

To the FIRST community - mentors, veteran team members, and rookie team members - this is going to be a very long post, but I would like it if you could please take the time to read through it and give me your opinions. They are very valuable to me.

I am seeking advice and feedback on how to improve the efficacy of my team. This year, only about half of the rookies who joined the team in the fall made it through the rest of build season and competition season. I feel that this is of great concern, because we can't even begin to start new FIRST teams, start FLL teams, or facilitate cultural/community change in any way until we have enough knowledgeable, motivated, and involved students to do so. However, I am finding that we lose too many rookies, and not enough veterans are becoming thoroughly enriched by the program - they aren't getting as much out of it as they should be. Our team also has communication problems, which hold us back from being as sucessful as we could be. We need to retain and educate our rookies and veterans in order to grow our team - so that we can attempt to do greater things, and have a greater educational impact on our students.

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After thinking about these problems, I have attempted to come up with a plan for dealing with them. This plan is meant to be helpful to the FIRST community, but it is also meant to be added to and critiqued. As FIRSTers, I want your advice and feedback about this plan, so that I can improve it and hopefully get new ideas.

Just as we come up with strategies and designs before we begin to actually build our robots after kickoff, we must come up with a list of goals for our team. We need to list the characteristics of an ideal team, and then come up with a plan for acquiring those characteristics. Here is a list of characteristics I quickly brainstormed that I believe make up a highly effective team that will retain it's rookie members:

Attributes of a Highly Effective Team

- Atmosphere of respect and kindness
- Highly motivated students who are able to lead groups
- Knowledgeable students with the ability to work independently
- Students who are able to teach rookies new skills
- Good communication
- Everyone knows what their job is and what they are supposed to be doing

Now, what can our team do to meet the above goals?

Atmosphere of respect and kindness

- Make it clear to all team members that disrespectful behavior will not be acceptable
- Mentors must treat students with respect and understanding, instead of being too sharp and harsh when a student is confused or doesn't know what to do
- Break cycles of already-present disrespectful behavior by holding a team meeting to address these issues and explain the importance of a respectful atmosphere
- Talk to students who are being disrespectful privately about their actions
- Make sure that the rules about respectful treatment are enforced: i.e. if you see a student speaking rudely towards another, tell them that it is not appropriate
- Teach students about gracious professionalism, and teach them that it applies to their interactions with each other, not just towards teams at the competition
- View failures as positive learning opportunities, and never "guilt-trip" anyone for making a mistake. Mistakes are learning opportunities, because rookies will never forget the lesson they learned by making them.

Motivated, Knowledgeable, and Independent Students


- Make sure students have the opportunity to obtain adequate background knowledge once they have joined the team
- Basic background knowledge builds confidence in terms of working with veterans on a project
- Basic background knowledge gives students a better ability to take on new projects - ex: basic knowledge about robotics will enable a student to mentor an FLL team.
- Basic background knowledge can be obtained by holding workshops to teach rookies the basics about robotics.
- Ex: Machining workshop, electronics workshop, chassis design workshop, programming workshop, 3DS MAX workshops, Autodesk Inventor workshops
- Have rookies "intern" with veteran members to learn a new skill.
- Ex: have rookie students attend FLL robotics meetings held by a veteran team member so that they can learn the knowledge and teaching skills necessary to run a team
- Ex: pair a veteran student with a rookie student to be a teacher and a resource for knowledge throughout the season (this will also build good interpersonal relationships between veterans and rookie members)
- Have students practice their leadership skills by assigning them sub-groups to run
- Have students develop leadership skills by having them head offseason projects
- Ex: put students in charge of a mini-engineering design competition, such as the BU Design competition, which is what my team is doing this year
- Ex: have rookie members be a part of a VEX or FLL robotics team

Good Communication

- Have a communication plan in place, such as a telephone chain, or email announcement system
- Make sure that everyone knows when and where there are meetings
- Make sure that rookies always know what they are supposed to be doing
- Give rookies good directions and have a job assigned for them
- Put someone in charge of being a communicator between sub groups
- Always follow up on commitments and agreements made between people

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Ok, so now that I have outlined this plan, I have a few things to ask of all of you:

Everyone, but especially mentors:

- What goals do you think should be added to the plan?
- What approaches to meeting those goals should be added to each of the categories I have listed (what are good ways to foster respect, educate students, and improve communication)?
- How does your team reach these goals? What are your methods for improving efficacy?

Everyone, but especially rookie students:

- How were you treated your rookie year?
- What problems did you encounter your rookie year?
- What could have made your rookie year more enjoyable and rewarding?

Everyone, but especially veteran students:

- How were you treated this year?
- What problems did you encounter this year?
- What could have made this year more enjoyable and rewarding?

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Thank you all for reading through this monstrously long post. I hope that I can eventually write a more detailed essay on the topic, maybe as a white paper, that can be made a resource to all teams. Please respond to this post in any way you wish, but especially if you have something to add to my lists of goals and methods of reaching them. I value each and every FIRSTer's opinion, because no matter what your experience has been, it is worth listening to. If you can think of something that would improve your team, post it here. I want to know what your problems are. If you can think of a solution to one of the problems, please post it here also. All solutions and opinions are valued.

-- Jaine