Leadership & Team Structure Mark McLeod Main Advisor FRC 358 Control System Advisor (CSA) FIRST Technical Advisor (FTA) December 2, 2017 Long Island & Hudson Valley Regional Planning Committees Long Island mentor on call

Overview Leadership Produces... Concrete Leadership... Types of Leaders Organizing Responsibilities Sample FRC Team Structure Remember Care & Feeding of: 1) students 2) school advisors/school administration 3) mentors 4) parents 5) sponsors

Leadership Produces... Organization Always focused on the Big Picture Clear goal/focus purpose — establishes a vision Task/result driven — vision is broken down into discrete team goals Divide responsibilities/work Unified commitment — a team, not a group Collaborative climate — people aligned to a common purpose Always focused on the Big Picture - Goals/Schedules for Off-season/Build season/Competition season. - Teams Grow/People Grow Read the game rules Decide on a strategy Break that strategy down into tasks Divide up the tasks Come to a common agreement

Concrete Leadership... Set the Goals/Schedule Organize & Coordinate Sub-Team Efforts Recruit, Train & Motivate Members Manage Conflict Keep to the Schedule – Deliver on Time Recover when things go wrong Advocate & raise community awareness Build a Long Term Team Ensure the Improvement of the Team Ensure the Continuation of the Team Schedule Breakers: - Sponsor funding delays - What can you do when a sub-team lead doesn't show for a week? - How do you redirect a task when the original plan isn't working out? - Try to overlap school breaks/exams with parts shipping time.

Types of Leaders Authoritative (do what I tell you) Strengths-takes risks, goal oriented, gets to the point Weaknesses-decisions may be rushed, risky, single point of view, poor over more experienced people Affiliative (people come first) Strengths-people person, idea oriented, entertaining Weakness-too many ideas, no priorities or follow through Thinker (gets buried in the details) Strengths-fact oriented, quality & precision focus Weakness-No big picture, unwilling to take risks Harmonizer (What do you think?) Strengths-team & relationship focus, friendly & fun Weakness-avoids conflict, slow decision maker - Most people are a combination - FRC Leadership are participants not traditional supervisors or managers - Your mandate derives from the team members-they are your customers

Organizing Responsibilities Off-Season Recruitment, training, fundraising, outreach Build Season Set & track goals/schedule Support-materials, parts, skills are on-hand Competition Season Drive team, spirit, judged awards Support Team communication, travel planning, budget/purchasing Year-end Review SWOT/Successes/Failures/Improvements Continuous Improvement Increase Team Efficiency - Decide on tasks & goals - Assign responsible people - Regular progress reports - Take remedial actions (follow up) - reassign people - drop the task - change the goal

Sample FRC Team Structure Team Leadership Captain(s)/President/VP Secretary/Treasurer Sub-team leads Sub-teams Public Relations & Media Communication Budgeting/Purchasing Outreach Fundraising Build teams Mechanical drivetrain/mechanisms/chassis Electrical/control system/programming Drive team/pit crew/scouts/awards - Lots of ways to handle this - People may cover more than one position - Every position needs backup - Reassign the positions if someone loses interest, is needed elsewhere, or is unavailable

Sample Org Chart - What do the attending teams do? - What else have they tried? - What ideas would you like to try? - What problems can arise?

Closing Notes FRC teams end up as networks rather than hierarchies Teams Grow Organically – people gravitate to the jobs that appeal to them. People want to take on new things. People Won't Always Be There Expect your Leadership structure to change over time Succession Planning Shadowing Historical records/handbooks, retaining skills and lessons learned Don't lose account logins, e.g., team twitter - You first job is to find your replacement - Make things fair to all - Things change - More people means sharing the load - How will you pass on lessons learned before you graduate?