Today, you’ve been asked to write the “standard” Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that FIRST will use to crystallize their relationship with Program Delivery Organizations (PDOs) worldwide.
The specific agreements with each individual PDO might need to be tweaked to account for unique circumstances, but they’ll be based on your boilerplate contract. That means your standard draft agreement will always serve as an underlying template, but sometimes certain parts of it will be changed as a result of negotiations with specific PDOs.
In your opinion, what should go in the doc?
You might decide to simply formalize and document the existing relationships between your employer and the PDOs around the world, with the assumption that these relationships are already working well enough. On the other hand, you might take this opportunity to change a few things.
The two biggest unknowns for me surrounding PDO/PDPs are team development goals and cross-program focus. Are RDs supposed to be invested in recruiting and sustaining FRC teams, or just running their event? Are multi-program PDOs supposed to care about FLL or FTC in the same way that they do FRC?
These questions are in line with your points on performance targets and operational considerations, but I felt that they were worth calling out again. If the intended motivations of the signing party can be agreed upon upfront, and be made publicly known, I think that all parties (HQ, PDO, community, sponsors) would benefit.
Just a note in the margin that I don’t love the use of terms like “memorandum of understanding” or “letter of intent” to refer to an actual contract between parties. Instead, that terminology should be reserved for a document that preliminarily describes the mutually acceptable objectives of an intended relationship, as a result of a process of discussion, but which is not intended to be legally binding and comprehensive in its own right. Ideally, it’s an outline which guides the construction of the actual agreement, and which can be negotiated by executives without the process being slowed by details. (Details can be discussed later, when it comes to the real agreement. As a practical matter, it is often very important for staff members of an organization to see the MOU early on to understand what their bosses are thinking, so that they can react promptly and appropriately, because lines of communication are not always direct.)
I am well aware that this distinction is not always made, and that wishful thinking does not make it so. Different areas of business, and different places have different traditions, so when you see a so-called memorandum of understanding, consider whether it proposes to legally bind you, or just to state some principles for future reference.
Back on topic, I think it would be reasonable for FIRST to have a non-binding MOU that they propose to PDOs, so that PDOs know what they are potentially getting into. And maybe the PDOs will ask FIRST to also confirm certain understandings in that document. For the purposes of this exercise, I think that is exactly the right level of detail.
Maybe a subtle point, but if FIRST just hands a prospective PDO the MOU, and doesn’t expect to engage in a process of discussion about it, they’re probably not doing this correctly. Deviating from the boilerplate shouldn’t be a big deal, because the whole point is to rapidly iterate to establish the essence of the relationship, rather than playing dumb and wondering out loud whether the lawyers will accept any deviation (with the effect of rejecting the proposal). (This behaviour can be either incompetence or malice.)
Not entirely related to your point, but from my observations in FTC, historically, FTC PDPs/PDOs that are not also responsible for running FRC in particular locally on average seem to produce better outcomes. Most notably:
Washington and Oregon are both part of PNW in FRC, however, Washington’s PNW-associated PDP historically struggles to get the same number of plays going while also having to run a season 1-2 months shorter compared to Oregon’s independent PDP in large part due to fighting over the same volunteer pool as FRC.
The regions with the volunteer bases considered trustworthy/competent/available enough to be responsible for running Champs most years are typically those from partners that only do FTC and/or FLL, such as Pennsylvania, NorCal, Minnesota, and Iowa
Historically, small regions jump-started by Championship Chairmans/Impact Award winners are run extremely poorly, typically running the region as a single state championship the first weekend of December and calling it a season for the whole state while the team does FRC in January.
These regions typically have high turnover/little growth, limited opportunities for teams to compete in-region aside from the single December event, and often relied on much stronger out-of-state teams to have more than 5 teams, culminating in a dynamic best described as “post-Covid Canadian Pacific Regional.”
To run a region effectively, you generally want a good number of volunteers that focus primarily on one program or the other and being too tied to FRC-prioritized volunteers runs a risk of overextending that base. That being said, that’s not to say you shouldn’t draw from FRC volunteers; it’s not a coincidence that the vast majority of FTC regional championships are held before or around Week 1, and a lot of people still volunteer at local FRC events too.