Having a Hard Time Getting Members Involved

[Storcky]

Originally Posted by JaneYoung

You are receiving some excellent advice in this thread.

One thing that I haven't seen yet that I'd like to contribute is the value of the postmortem. That is a time that the team meets to evaluate the season. Everyone comes prepared with ideas and suggestions of what went well, what didn't go well, and what can be improved upon. Someone is charge of writing down all the pros/cons/needs for improvement on the white board. Then we divide it into sections: robot, Chairmans, Spirit, Safety, etc. We can get a little loosey goosey and start crossing over into sections so our teacher keeps us on track and in one section at a time. If they cross or mix, we make sure to note that further discussion is needed.

There should be plenty of time allotted for this meeting. If it has to end before the postmortem is completed, schedule another time to finish it. Then, next year, make use of the suggestions. Learn from what you have just achieved and implement it.

Although if your postmortem is too lengthy, team members may just look at it and get scared. This is speaking from experience. Last year, after our final competition, I came up with a 5 page list on my own of stuff that we could improve on, a lot of which was impractical. The rest of the team just kind of stared when I brought it up and it became infamously known as "The List"