Building Trust Between HQ and the Community

FIRST General Forum
1

It is extremely clear from all the threads about Houston Einstein that there is a lot of anger and mistrust aimed at HQ. In this thread people brought up some very valid points about where that lack of trust comes from. The distrust in the community is prevalent and understandable. However, we have similar gripes about this kind of thing every month on CD. Instead of arguing about how exactly HQ messed up, or what they should’ve done, we need to focus on the future.

What can we as a community do to increase trust with HQ?

What can HQ do to increase trust with the community?

What ideas does CD have?

I think the best thing we can do is to stop complaining and start coming up with tangible things we want HQ to do. Those who worked on the California District Proposal did an absolutely stellar job on this front.
A small but meaningful thing would be to have a Championship Conference hosted by the HQ staff. Have them talk about the season from their perspective and also their backgrounds before FIRST. Then open the floor for questions. It may seem small but hopefully, it would help the community to see them as people rather than monsters trying to ruin your regional.

2

I for one would love to see FIRST shift the goal from inspiring as many teams as possible with mediocre events (2 Champs) and instead inspire slightly fewer teams to a greater degree, with a higher quality event (1 Champ). I think the choice to move to 2 champs meets FIRST’s Goal, but it also makes sense to avoid that due to the overextension of manpower.

The community could lose some of the critical levels we tend to reach. I definitely can see where a lot of the issues come from, and while I agree with most of the issues, FIRST is an organization that has to build a game that can handle 3500 or so teams while not being incredibly easy. It’s become more of a quantity than quality organization in the past several years (Recycle rush onward IMO)(Stronghold was good, but had is issues.) So the Community could back off, and let them make mistakes, and needs to offer valid assistance instead of just complaints with greater frequencies.

And I am not mentioning Districts in MN, TX, or CA, because that’s not what this thread should be about, so please keep it away from that dark void of anger.

3

I would just like to see some more acknowledgement from FIRST when something they’ve done or a decision they’ve made is perceived negatively by the community. Perhaps offer some explanation as to why they did whatever they did in the first place, and if absolutely necessary, do something to amend the problem or revert the decision. Just something like a “Hey, we know we messed up on this, we apologize [and will do XYZ to fix the issue]” in blog posts. FIRST has generally been pretty good about doing this already on really major issues, but I’d like to see this happen for less major issues as well. Also, if FIRST just got more community input on a lot of things via surveys or town halls, we could make the overall experience of being a part of FIRST even better.

4

I personally think a lot of people remember during Einsteins 2012 when FIRST acknowledged the issues that happened and admitted they were working on it.* The last time issues surrounded their largest stage, they did their best to fix it, being up-front with the people who they need to trust in them. Even if not, the variance in the way event issues at any other scale shows a stark contrast.

The inherent bias people have against 2Champs already had their opinions in the red, and until HQ acknowledges that not everything went to plan, and promise to do their best to fix it, I don’t think the status of trust will change in the positive.

I think that the same level of transparency that HQ had during Einsteins 2012 and the four-month period of terror (I was told about, I never experienced it firsthand.), would go a great deal towards placating much of the community.

I still believe in HQ, but they need to do their best to resolve issues. In a time when they need support more than ever (gigantic turnover and the rise of other programs), keeping their biggest advocates as advocates is something they so desperately need.

    • Please note that when I refer to Einsteins 2012, I only mean it as in a situation that impacted both the perception of the competition, as well as the way it was played. The situation with Houston as far as I’ve heard through the rumor mill refers to the venue and planning. (or apparent lack thereof.)
5

You hit the nail on the head here. Few people do FIRST halfway…most are “all in” and it’s the largest part of their lives. With that much commitment, feeling valued and heard becomes critical to satisfaction.

It’s really about communicating (like they did in 2012) and in doing so, they will rebuild the trust. More Surveys and/or gathering WFA input would go a long way to rebuilding that. Having been a WFA recipient since 3 years ago in 2014, I can tell you I have NEVER been reached out to by HQ for anything. Disappointing. I give my life to this organization 7 days a week, more open and honest communications would help me feel that my dedication is not in vain.:frowning:

6

Summary of the pages of thread that will probably follow, and sentiments that I agree with: Transparency and more reception to team/mentor/volunteer input

Also, we as a community need to be more cautious about complaining about things, and being so sensitive. If every thread is “This change HAS to happen otherwise FIRST is ruined” and that’s what we talk about, people will lose sight of the forest because of a few rotten trees. Instead of always reminding ourselves of what HQ is doing wrong (and sometimes they do need to be called out), we can make an effort to also celebrate what FIRST does RIGHT.

7

I fully expect there to be some communication about the issues and what they’re going to do to solve them next year. Of course, the community does need to be patient… today is literally the first business day since the issues in Houston. FIRST staff are already onsite in St. Louis setting up fields. For me personally, I want FIRST focused on St. Louis this week, and dealing with Champs issues after St. Louis is over. Otherwise they let Houston distract them from doing a good job in St. Louis. It’s a tough position to be in right now.

8

Carried over from the previous thread:

FIRST may have gotten as far as it can as a stand alone non profit trying to recruit through motivated individuals. It’s time for FIRST to switch to working on recruiting institutions directly, such as schools. That’s what FiM has done. Given that education policy is done almost entirely at the state and local level, that also means that FIRST should delegate more to state organizations and help those organizations grow organically.

9

I endorse this. FIRST teams receiving no support from (or, at worst, actively fighting with) their school administration is far too common, and is a huge drain.

10

This is a good idea, and how most national organizations run. Think about organizations like the Boy/Girl Scouts, 4H, etc. In the BSA, for example, most everything is run at the council/district level, at least things that directly involve the scouts (local events, summer camps, etc). Regional and National leadership move the organization as a whole and set standards and run national events, but leave most of the day-to-day operations to the local councils. However, this requires a lot of local-level employees, something FIRST doesn’t have.

Also, every unit is required to have a chartering organization, which also correlates to your idea on direct involvement with local institutions.

11

I mean, is that better or worse than starting a team with lots of funding and school administration support but no lead mentor?

12

We don’t think it’s quite fair to say that there are two mediocre champs yet. I think (and I’m sure many other voulenteers and staff would agree) that a significant portion of issues were caused by the lack of Show Ready Events. It has been said a few times on CD before but they are really the people that run the show and they do a great job. Everyone who works at the event is a contractor of Show Ready and for the first time, FIRST used another company called Sullivan Group. Robotics events, of this scale, were just so foreign to them and they did not seem prepared. Show Ready is still doing St. Louis so I’m hoping that it turns out to be of the same high quality Championship we are accustomed to. If that happens, the root of many of the issues will be clear.

13

I can safely say they no longer have that level of transparency. They desperately need it though.

From the conversation I had with Andy Baker about WFA, to the conversations I had with several people about FRC vendor relations, to the conversations I had with Kevin O’Connor about the field network, and the conversations I had with Al about COTS battery solutions the 1 issue throughout FIRST is a lack of transparency and a lack of understanding with what the other side is thinking or doing.

Embracing the offers of help with resolving the gaps in documentation would go a LONG way to encouraging transparency and making me a happier customer.

14

Show Ready Events is pretty great. Event specialists in general make magic happen, but SRE’s understanding of FIRST and their needs makes them even more valuable. While I can think of a few valid reasons they didn’t produce Houston, their absence leaves a deficit of knowledge for sure.

15

Mediocre likely applied to it no longer being all the best teams and instead being half the best teams.

And SRE is there… for now.

16

I thought a different company had to do it for Houston because SRE is doing St. Louis? I only heard this once though so that could be totally wrong.

17

SRE is doing St. Louis. Why they didn’t do both seems to be a bit of a mystery. I’ve heard cost, availability, and doing two events in a row - maybe someone here knows for certain.

18

Yeah… that is one thing I’ve seen happen a lot recently in FiM. We even had a rookie team that was registered for our local district that had signed up, registered, and payed their fee (presumably by an administrator), but the team itself only existed on paper so they were no-shows at both of their events because the team never actually existed.

Incidentally, I believe the school will now have to pay the grant money they got back to the state because the team didn’t actually compete.

19

FIRST HQ is not a monolith, and I think it’s an oversimplification to say that the key issue is a lack of understanding or transparency from top to bottom.

Everyone I’ve ever met in Frank’s organization absolutely loves the program and takes the experience of the teams to heart. The folks directly responsible for the team experience with the control system, kit of parts, and game are virtually all current or former FRC participants, key volunteers, or mentors with their finger on the pulse of the community. Moreover, there exist channels of frequent communication between HQ and Hall of Fame teams, WFA winners, LRIs, Head Referees, and groups like the Rules Review Committee to ensure that - to the extent that they can - the FRC side of the house makes the best decisions possible for the teams. (But yes, I think they can and should use these channels - and create new ones especially for technical issues - even more)

What I think you perceive as a lack of understanding and transparency from this group is more a result of limited resources and having bigger fish that need to be fried first. For example, I think that 254 has a larger engineering mentor staff than FIRST HQ has for all FRC-related activities…and that’s to design, source, and build two robots versus a whole game, who-knows-how-many fields, thousands of kits of parts, etc. Being transparent is great, but it also bears a sizable cost to an organization that is already overworked.

The other part of this is that if you reread my first paragraph, I chose my words very carefully. FIRST is not just FRC. There are other programs, some of which are not flourishing as much as they want to be, and who are looking to ride FRC’s coattails. Then there are the founders, the President, and a group of more senior FIRST HQ staff who are responsible for the long term strategic planning and growth of the program. The latter group is where a lot of the feeling of “lack of understanding and transparency” comes from, in my opinion. This is where 2 Champs came from. This is where long-winded Einstein speeches and corporate partnerships come from. This group is also not without influence over aspects of the game design process. I’d blame this group for the new website, too, except I have no idea how that one happened :slight_smile:

It’s important for any organization to have a balance between near- and long-term thinking, whereas those of us who live and breathe the program are really, really heavily biased towards the present (or past). That part is fine. But I also think the “strategic” arm of FIRST is where I really see the biggest lack of transparency and a fundamental disconnection from the team experience. The message I keep picking up from this group is that the current participants and volunteers are totally taken for granted, and will stick around no matter what the program does. The only focus is on expansion. If I’m wrong, I really wish someone would say so…

20

So if the problem of the lack of transparency is due to a combination of FIRST HQ staff not having enough time in the day and FIRST senior staff planning for the future without considering the present as much, then I see two ways that FIRST HQ can improve the situation.

The first is just to hire more staff. Of course this is easier said than done; it’s not easy finding qualified people with FIRST experience in search of a job with HQ. But if the senior staff is really planning for the future, then they must know that they will need to expand their staff in order to expand the program. Barring a major overhaul of the administrative process, at a certain point FIRST won’t be able to rely on volunteers to do all of the work (not to say that paid HQ staff doesn’t do any work, just that a lot of it is also done by volunteers and that amount is only going up). I’m sure that the senior staff realizes this.

The other thing that HQ can do is to open up the senior staff’s decision making process to the public. There’s no reason that FIRST couldn’t have publicly said a few years ago “We need to expand the Championship to include more teams. Here’s why. This is the idea we have. What does the community think?” Then take that information and use that to help make a decision. This way, the community gets a better idea of what factors are influencing the major decisions made by HQ and may even get some input.