Now, keep in mind that this isn’t something that’s ever been put into real practice, but it’s a system of organization and training that I tried to develop for some of the teams I’ve worked with.
The impetus was the need to expedite the process of design and construction by working hard during the pre-season. It means training new and old team members in a variety of disciplines ahead of time so that they can be relied upon during the intense build period to take on real responsibility for the project. It also has a system of accountability built in so that people are expected to do what they say they’ll do.
In short, it’s as egalitarian system as I can imagine. There is a small handful of elected officials that are the point-people for the team. They handle things like tracking attendance, performance, and skills-based training seminars. Additionally, they would call upon other team members, mentors and teachers with other skills-based ability to be trainers. Outside of those individuals, this system eliminates sub-groups and sub-team leaders. There is no longer a need for an electrical group or a mechanical group or a public relations group.
In short, the pre-season – from August/September through Thanksgiving – is the training period. During that time, the team will run a series of seminars and lectures about varied subjects pertinent to FIRST teams. This might include PBasic Programming Skills, Inventor Workflow, Drawing Annotation, Design Philosophy, Sponsor Relations, etc. Additionally, there would be classes in Tool Safety and FIRST Philosophy, and these classes would be required for maintaining membership on the team.
At the start of the pre-season, each potential team member is issued a Team ID. This could be something they can keep as a souvenir of their involvement and should be nice. It might have the team name and logo, and the student’s name and photo. Along the bottom of the card would be a series of small boxes, each labeled with a two letter abbreviation. For example, again, there’d be “PR” for Public Relations or “IN” for Inventor Workflow.
Students would be required to attend the two mandatory classes, and then they’d be asked to sign up for a minimum of three other programs during the pre-season. After successfully completing those programs and passing a perfomance evaluation, the students’ cards would be punched for the appropriate skills.
I know that I’ve sometimes been overwhelmed by trying to remember the talents and abilities of 70 or 80 kids. This system should make it easier to quickly identify who’s capable of completing a certain task.
During each day of the build season, the team leaders would be charged with developing a schedule of what needs to be accomplished during that day and over the following days. This might include a brief description of the projects at hand, the skills required for each, and the allotted time frame for their completion.
As the remaining students come in to the meeting each day, they’ll be able to look over the daily tasks and see what is expected to be done and what needs to be accomplished. Then, they’d simply take their ID and insert it into a pocket for the project they’ll be working on.
I think that this provides a simple way of making sure that students are capable of competing the projects we assign them to, and it also holds them accountable for doing the things they say they’ll do. At the end of the day, or upon their departure, each student checks out and brings a team leader up to date on what they accomplished.
This should also prevent more students than are necessary working on certain projects and neglecting others. Again, from personal experience, students tend to want to be involved in the biggest project there is and they don’t ever realize how important the little things can be.
I’m sure this system can be improved and streamlined considerably, and, as I said, it’s just an idea. It’s never been practiced, so I can’t really say how well it works or what effects it has on team productivity.
