Convincing a team to go electronic

[jweston]

Your strategists and scouters are really the ones to make or break this argument. Their jobs are directly affected by it, for better or worse.

A lot depends on what kind of data they find important. Stats (points scored, misses, fouls, etc.) for each robot works well. Qualitative assessments (stability, execution speed, durability, etc.) or showing illustrations (routes, critical point on the robot, etc.) can be harder to incorporate into a good UI. This is especially true if your UI did not anticipate a game metric your strategists would want.

Does your team currently have the tools to use electronic records in a way that would make a difference to your strategists during an event? If not, you may be putting the cart before the horse.

Regardless of how your team chooses to implement, I recommend ensuring your scouting system serves the people who use it and not the other way around.

[Skyehawk]

Originally Posted by T.Krauter

[For] me, the next logical step is to move to an entirely electronic scouting system. However, other members of my team don't see the advantages of a fully electronic system... How did you convince your team to change to electronic scouting...

Tanner,
At this point of my time in FIRST I have gone through many different scouting approaches, many resulting in failure with a few successes dotting the path. The key point that I have come to recognize is that people don't want to sit through hours of data interpretation and list tabulation, they want a developed pick list in one shot, scouting meeting done in a half hour. I do not know how far along in you are in your solution, but here is my recommendation:

I have found quantitative data is often over stressed, there is only so much numbers can tell you when you are not in possession of the whole picture. It is often the case a team is more concerned with the 'how' more than the 'why'. If you can find a way to collect the 'hows' (quantitative) via a familiar method (paper) and the 'whys' (qualitative) via your method (electronic), it may prove to be a fine stepping stone for electronic in later events or for next season. There should be several ready-made solutions floating around (i.e. google forms) that allow you to have several quick-to-answer, pertinent questions on how the individual robot and the alliance fared during the match. With these qualitative ratings comes the 'wrapped' quantitative data and any other stuff that may have slipped through the cracks. It may not be easy to separate, but it will serve you better than trying to calculate individual scores and the like. Once this has proved its usefulness a move to a full blown electronic solution should not be a tough one.

I convinced my team over 4 long years of 'fixing what ain't broke', making slow but steady progress. Paper has served us well and we are still using aspects of systems past. Our primary concern has shifted less from data manipulation and more towards data integrity. There is this one quote, maybe a little too relevant in this situation, that I have come to appreciate:

The word you're looking for isn't simple, it's familiar .
-Venkat Subramaniam

Once your team sees that electronic isn't any more work (and in most cases is less) than paper I'm willing to bet they will drop some of that familiarity in favor of a different implementation.


Just my thoughts, I hope you find success,
Skye Leake
FRC Team 876