Team leadership reorganization

Originally Posted by iyermihir

I would suggest having one "president" (the title does not matter but one person must be identified), who is willing and able to make a final decision in the event that the other members do not agree. Also, I understand your thought that mainly the veterans decide, but remember that rookies can have good ideas. If any person or a group of people are disregarded, they will become detached from the team. Make sure that ideas are not dismissed or overruled, but that a different idea has been shown to be more suited to your team and its goals. Lastly, avoid arguing "Larry's idea vs. Rob's idea," instead, discuss "shooter vs. dumper." By connecting people to an idea, they are less likely to see it as deciding which idea is a better option, and more likely to see it a personal battle.

I like that. I like that a lot. I'm sometimes bad at wording things, and I apologize for this. We don't disregard anyone, even the freshman. I just mean the more experienced people use their experience to filter out things that unexperienced people don't know. The mentors do this in our team as well. Our team was completely new in 2011, and in 2012 we wanted a long bot. However, our more experienced mentors told us that a wide robot that could pick up from both sides would have a huge advantage to a long one that picked up from one side, based on their days as mentors in 2006 and 2009. They didn't disregard what we said, they provided new ideas and information we hadn't thought of. That's my goal with these 4 leaders. Have the 4 experienced people who can say "Instead of using ultrasonic sensors to see where we are on the field, let's use a gyro because of x, y, and z (forgot the reasons).

[gracie.]

Our team has traditionally had a fairly loose government. In the past we've just had subteam leaders, who are the seniors in their subteams (electrical, mechanical, programming), who share the leadership- and one would pretty much always emerge as the captain-captain. However, based on my experience, and what I've heard from my sisters' experiences, this almost always results in some combination of captains hating each other's guts. This year we certainly had a couple issues.... even with captains who were good friends. But it's important to remember we're a fairly small team, I think around 16 or 17 kids this year, so this might be different with you.

For next year mentors/seniors decided to change the structure and solidify it, actually to what you're thinking of leaving- a captain with subteam leaders. We'll see if it works any better! We're a pretty student-driven team, so I hope it does.