Team Management

[Chenyu_Lin]

Hi everyone,

As a new coach who just started to manage two V5 teams, I need some advice about team management skills. One of my teams was working well from September last year until this year. They have 4 members, 1 member is mainly working on programming the robot. But as his autonomous programs kept failing during the competition, other team members started to lose the trust and confidence to the programmer.

The programmer did nothing wrong, he just didn’t have enough time to fully test the programs because the team spent the majority of time on changing the hardware design. Another reason is the programmer was not good at communication, and he is also kind of introverted and preferred to work alone at a slow pace. The characteristics also make him not very used to working in a group.

Other team members showed a clear sign of excluding the programmer from the team activities and also want to replace him with a new student. I talked with the team, all members said they would work together and help each other, but the other 3 members still kept doing the same excluding things to the programmer.

Is there any suggestion of how I can handle this situation? How to make the teamwork works again?

Thanks

[Jason_McKenna]

Hi @Chenyu_Lin Sorry for the delay in my response, but I was thinking over what you wrote. The one issue that you address - not having time to test the software because the hardware design is changing - is a common one that I hear a lot. We are getting ready to film some Mentor PD+ videos with mentors, so I will make sure to address this point.

I really like this video from Kam Yee, Team Engagement Manager at the REC Foundation: VEX Professional Development Plus

In that video, she does a great job talking about creating an inclusive learning environment for students and reframing success. I would suggest, watch that video as a team. Afterwards, discuss with the team and come up as group with a definition of success. The team may want to define success just in terms of wins and losses - most teams I think would. That would then bring up a broader conversation where you can say- “why can’t we have both?” Meaning, you can have success while also doing things like creating an inclusive learning culture.

As an example, one of the greatest coaches in NFL history, used to say that the “score takes care of itself.” Meaning, create a great culture and do things the right way, and winning is a natural result. He even wrote a book with that title: The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership: Walsh, Bill, Jamison, Steve, Walsh, Craig: 8601400965511: Amazon.com: Books

One more example from the business world - the importance of culture over strategy. I would say that your team is focused on strategy (how do we win) and not the culture of the team. The problem is that culture always trumps strategy.

Peter Drucker was famous for this alleged quote: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” In working with many entrepreneurs, I have found this to be very true, as the culture is the secret sauce that keeps employees motivated and clients happy. In fact, I recently read a great quote that said, “People do not just quit companies or leaders … they quit organizational cultures.”

Great question - thank you so much for sharing. I look forward to what others suggest and your feedback.

[Audra_Selkowitz]

Hi @Chenyu_Lin - first of all, welcome to the Community! I echo everything @Jason_McKenna said about the importance of the culture of the team being a predictor of success. In thinking about your post myself, there were a few strategies that I thought of to offer.

• Finding common ground amongst all team members. This doesn’t mean that everyone on the team becomes best friends from one conversation, but looking for the places where students can find that they have something in common gives a place for a relationship to begin or to grow. As Jason said, it is likely that they have different ideas of the goal of the team or the project, but may not realize that without articulating it. So whether it is robot-related or otherwise, play games, have a question of the day, etc. to give team members a place to start from.
• Establish a shared goal. Just as team members may have different ideas of success, they also likely have different ideas of the goal of the programmer’s project. Making sure that everyone is on the same page, means that hardware and software can work together to accomplish the shared goal, not one or the other.

You mentioned that the programmer isn’t great at communication, so perhaps this isn’t done in a verbal way. This can be an opportunity to use engineering notebook documentation, drawing, or a strategy like ‘Chalk Talk’ (where you have a conversation in written words on the board) works better. The 3 hardware focused team members may not realize how complex the programmer’s strategy actually is - but if they can work together, maybe they can simplify it, or help build the project together.

• Put the focus on the programming. Just because we like working on one part of a project over the other doesn’t necessarily mean that we always get to do that one thing. Just because the 3 students like hardware more, doesn’t mean they can’t work on the programming side. You may want to put a pause on the building for a few meetings to help everyone gain a conceptual understanding of what they, as a team, are trying to do with the code.

Virtual Skills might be a useful tool in this situation - so that students can test projects with a virtual robot for quick feedback, to help troubleshoot before using their own robot. You could also put pair programming into place, where once there is a shared goal for the project, 2 groups of 2 work to create pieces of the project. That way all 4 members can have a more active role in the coding.

Hope this is helpful Keep us posted on how things are going!

[Bob_Mimlitch]

@Audra_Selkowitz

Virtual Skills

I can’t overstate how helpful VRC Virtual Skills is. This is a training ground for students to hone their autonomous skills. It is not specific to your robot, but most of these skills are universal in how they are applied. The most important thing we learned when testing Virtual Skills were

• Access to a robot to program at any time was invaluable
• The removal of field reset time and battery charging time sped up learning
• Once a coder has confidence in Virtual, moving to the real world is easier

To be sure, the real robot and the real life issues will be new, but confidence in one’s coding skills will help them troubleshoot issues that are likely caused by robot repeatability.

VEXcode Virtual Skills - VEX Robotics

[LORI_COLANGELO]

One of the great aspects of robotic competitions is having students learn to communicate and develop the soft skills they need to succeed when they enter college and the work force. Since this is a small team, there is no reason why they can’t work together and have input on the programming. Some suggestions: (Not in any order)
*As an exercise divide the challenge into four sections, having each person program part of it and them bring them together to share what they came up with and them refine the program as they combine it together. That way there is ownership of the program by all and the students can practice collaboration skills.
*Have the students do the testing of some of the programs while the programmer is working on another section. Those students can male necessary adaptations as they perform their “quality control”.
*I go back and forth between programing and building in my classroom. I think it gives the students a fresh pair of eyes when they take a break. I am not sure how many days you meet, but maybe have an engineering session and a programing session. You never know when a teammate may get sick or have something prevent them from a competition, so it’s important that they know all aspects of their robotic endeavors.
*Start your sessions with a team premeeting. Point out the positive things all the students have accomplished (like brining attention to someone helping a teammate.) Model conversations and guide the students to get to know each other better to become the team you want them to be.

Hope that helps a little

[Anna_Blake]

I really like these suggestions @LORI_COLANGELO

I similarly am starting my students with a competition setting for the first time. My students are competing in my classroom but I make each time we’re together as a “practice” to get to see what we are each good at for the competition.

We are using VEX GO - but similarly there is programming and building involved.

I have the students pick a new partner to program and build with. I want students to start learning what traits they are looking for in a partner and in fact start making changes in themselves.

Since you’re working with a small group - I highly suggest breaking up those tasks and developing mini groups in this small competition team. Once everyone understands how each person thinks or builds, the team will start to mold together.

I have found that students don’t see what they can offer until someone else has pointed it out. Develop that self-confidence with your students by pairing them up and sharing what worked and what didn’t work.

Keep us updated! I hope to learn from you too Chenyu_Lin!