Team Leaders: Their commitment to the team.

[Quinn]

We are strugling with our team structure and have alot of infighting. What are the duties of your team leader and how significant a role do they play in the building of the car?

[Quinn]

We are strugling with our team structure and have alot of infighting. What are the duties of your team leader and how significant a role do they play in the building of the car?

[kwancho]

I... do everything.

[Mike Flitcraft]

Without BJ, Rawe, Jabs, and all the other guys working late nights and putting every waking minute outside of class into the car, it wouldn't be in existance.

[Alan]

When I was at Kettering we came up with a very specific and detailed organizational structure. Because of the A and B section, and lack of accountability due to it being a volunteer organization, that structure was very fluid at times. I think one of my main mistakes was being the "Chief Engineer" in addition to designing most of the suspension and subsequently building it. I ended up designing and building other odds and ends like the fuel tank, the pedal tray, and other crap I can't think of right now which took away time from concentrating on the overall picture.

Had I done it right, I would have spent more time delegating and sort of mentoring other people to be competent contributors. This would have hopefully alleviated me from having to worry about the really fine details and focus on the big picture. Maybe talk to Hoff and see if you can dig up that organizational structure and use it as a starting point.

[Azim]

We have a fairly loose organisational structure here; while there are titles of captain, co-captain, secretary, etc. our functions often transcend these titles. While I am officially co-captain and treasurer of the Baja team and simply a member of the Formula team, I handle all the financials of the Baja team and much of the Formula team's. I also handle all of the relations of both teams with the university and many of our sponsors. In addition, I also take care of most of the purchasing, travel arrangements, presentations, sponsorship literature and both team websites.

The official captains of both teams design and build almost everything that goes on both cars, with the exception of certain niche systems, like the electronics on the FSAE car which I do. Being a small team (though not as small as Kettering's) means everyone does a lot of everything. Every couple of weeks in the shop someone laments at the paltry combined size of both our teams and wishes we had more people, but then again, c'est la vie...

Naturally, the lack of people and spread of tasks often leads to disagreements between the strong-willed in our team, for only they have survived this long. We haven't quite got to violent losses of temper yet, but on occasions when my grumpiness threatens to make me downright unpleasant I always try to think of the goal - the cars. For all our petty quarrels and frayed tempers, everyone on the team sacrifices sleep, social activities, grades, time, etc. for the two cars that lie in our shop. When you focus on the goal and imagine yourself sitting in the car and zipping by cones at dizzying speeds, it's a lot easier to let those arguments simply fade away, isn't it?

[Jersey Tom]

I am one of the co-captains for our team this year, along with Greg ('reflexdb'). At CU, the team captain(s) have typically had a couple years experience on the team, know the car inside and out, know how competition goes down, what things are due, et cetera. They also are ultimately responsible if the car doesn't get done, and thus need to be pretty good problem solvers staying late at night and fixing / fabricating things last minute.

That winds up being a problem. Greg for example, after our EE guy who was engine lead for 4 years left, has been stuck getting an engine dyno working, as well as a completely new ECU (Mototron) and getting it tuned, as well as being responsible for finances.

I on the other hand wound up designing the uprights, hubs, wheel centers, part of the suspension, doing numerical tire force modeling, and then machining the hubs, uprights, centers, dry sump components, bodywork molds, and welding most of the suspension, the chassis, fuel and oil tanks, and part of the intake and exhaust. On the 04 and 05 teams, this was the work of 4-5 people.

Not gonna lie, its kinda sucked having Greg and I staying till 2, 3, 4, 8am pretty much every single night since November. Lack of food and sleep and being overworked has definately shortened my temper, and I get pretty irritated when people continually ask "Hey Tom c'mon man can't you weld this real quick for me?", "Tom can you CNC this out real quick?", "Hey Tom, I need a bolt that fits in this nut.." etc. Normally I really enjoy teaching and working with people (my team will not believe this if they read it), but I just can't do it when overloaded.

As such neither of us have had much opportunity to be good project managers and do the required amount of 'hand holding' to keep everything else on pace. Some people work incredibly well independently and with little supervision, getting their stuff done and then some.. and others completely flake out and/or cannot make or follow a schedule.

The other big issue is since its a peer group, if someone blows a deadline or doesn't get something done, or done well enough.. there's basically no accountability. We have a faculty advisor who keeps a fairly hands-off approach, which is nice in a lot of ways, but often can't see how poorly some people are doing until peer evaluations at the end of the semester.

We will have two new faculty advisors next year, and one of my primary reccomendations will be to have a dedicated project manager who does very little engineering or fabrication, and to have some serious accountability. Its necessary with a team of 9 seniors.. if 3-4 people flake out, you got big problems.

[poweredbyvdub]

personally, i believe in keeping as few people with specific titles as possible. the more people you have at the top, the more people that could potentially screw you down the line. however, there are limits to this. we've just started a new system where we have 2 "team leaders" who are basically on the same page about what needs to get done, purchased, made, etc. etc. it helps to have 2 people because if one has a bad couple days with school (tends to happen in this neck of the woods) the other one covers. it also helps because a new person can work with an older person in order to pass on the knowledge and leadership skills and what not. for next year, we're splitting the car in half (2 guys on chassis/suspension/drivetrain/brakes and 2 on electrical/cooling/engine/intake/exhaust) and that should work out pretty well. below that we have project lists that people can pick from so that they can get a broad experience in the club, rather than getting stuck on one portion of the car for the entire year.

but yea team leader or whatever you may call it spends every moment of their concious life working on or thinking about the club/car. and it helps to have a credit card on hand.

[GSXR05K]

Hello fellow FSAEholics,
It seems these teaming problems exist, or have existed, on just about all teams. So no one here should feel like they are the only ones who have to work with a tough group.

At this point in time, I believe most of the stress arises from:

1. The type of project we're all working on, and
2. The nature of typical engineering students.

1. As most of us have found out, the commitment level required to produce just the minimum to pass in FSAE is extraordinary; let alone what it takes to be a champion. I'm sure all of you have had members resign because of the work load, or have those who say they are on the team, but only show up to a couple meetings a month. So you might not be surprised to find out that even on the best teams, there will still need to be those members who are committed to working the extra hours to guarantee the completion of the project.

2. Adding to this massive time demand, is the fact that all of us are still trying to earn our degrees and landing a good job. With FSAE student's work load essentially doubled, and the fact that most are in their teens or early 20's, it's no wonder that tempers and emotions rapidly fluctuate. I think it is good to be prepared for these episodes, both personally and towards other team members. Having the leadership load distributed, like Tom mentioned, will help maintain momentum when one person is experiencing a bad phase.

Well, what is the solution? I don't have a PhD in anything, but I can at least say that I have been researching these topics. The answer seems to be that a lot of patience will be needed to help massage the team into the structure you want it to be. For teams going to Detroit and Fontana this year, you won't be able to make any immediate changes, but you can start thinking about next year. It is a process that will take some time, reflection on the team (perhaps composing some team surveys), honesty, and hard work. My team has had a great year in terms of the overall team. But this was the result of at least 3 years of trial and error, reading some helpful books, analyzing some depressing surveys, and fixing those problems. We did have some members quit, and even booted a senior for not being minimally competent. Having some good team Values and Code of Conduct helped with these issues.

Hopefully you can devote some time in the upcoming semesters to understanding and initializing some team development. Many of us will probably have to do this in our future jobs too.

Thanks, Aaron
Formula Hardrocker Racing 06-07 Project Manager

[pablo180]

Here at Cal State Northridge we run a corporate style system. Our facutly advisor acts as the CEO followed by myself as the project manager with a business major as an assistant. My duties include setting deadlines, obtaining materials/parts, data management, organizing meetings, and taking care of all finances. Futher down the line I have 4 engineering chiefs who are in charge of the different areas of the car (powertrain, chassis, suspension, controls) We have 2 weekly team meetings, 1 weekly chief meeting, and I am in constant communication with the faculty advisor.

Pretty much in a nutshell, my job is to make sure that the engineers have the resources or tools to let them do their job. Each persons role is clearly defined and they are responsible for the design, manufacturing, and testing of their components. One thing that has worked great with us this year is to have a "job" for everyone to do to keep everyone busy. Some examples include CNC Machinists/Welders/Quality Control/Tool Manager/Assembly personel...etc. This has kept us from the trends that have happened in the past where "only 5 core people build the car".

I have delt with team infighting and the best advice i could give you is to address it as soon as possible and dont let it go by. Bring it out and speak with the participants. In a worse case scenario, bring the faculty advisor in to bring up the issue in his/her presence.

[John Stimpson]

How do y'all deal with the "members" of your team that almost never show up, and almost never do anything productive for the car? How about people that have taken on responsibilities, and then dropped the ball, creating more work for the people that *do* do things?

Do they get to come to competition? Do they get to drive the car? Do you tell them to never come back?

The way it seems to go the last year or so with our team, its all good. Basically, if you think the FSAE car is cool, and would *like* to be a part of it, you are! You get to drive, come to comp, get the tshirt, proclaim yourself a member etc etc, regardless of whether or not you've actually helped or been productive. This bothers the hell out of me.

[pablo180]

Well, unfortunately, if a team member drops the ball, then the chief has to pick it up. To help combat this what we do is in the first couple of meetings we weed out the students who are in it just to graduate. We tell them that their social life will be frozen for a year, their GPA's will suffer, and they will be sleep deprived until the day comp is over. Our first meeting brought in about 50 people. By the third meeting we had 20 people who were willing to take on the responsibility. Also, if you dont put in any work into the car week in and week out....then you dont drive it.

I dont tell them not to come back. I just relieve them of their duties and give them something that they would be capable of doing. I cant kick them out, but I can certainly control what they are responsible for.

[JR @ CFS]

We do Formula Student/SAE a little differently from most other Universities. We start with a fresh, brand new team every single year. The team usually consists of 50% exchange students and 50% home grown students. They come from different degree backgrounds and are either in the 3rd or final year. This in itself creates problems, but once gelled together, the different cultures have a great influence on the work we do. The team starts every year with a blank sheet, with no prior knowledge, little documentation on what has been done before and little to no previous team members around from the year before to help. Why do we do this. It is the belief of the examiners that this project is here for students to learn about conceiving, designing, manufacturing, testing and operating an engineering project. In doing this, they feel they produce better Engineers. The students themselves define their project, not the project manager or examiner.

What we produce each year is a car that is not even close to the car the year before, so in a way, we are almost a first year team every year we compete. Yeh, we do suffer in some ways because of this, but I can tell you from my own personal experience, our guys have learned a hell of a lot more this way (I have worked on the complete opposite style of team.) Very little is outsourced, most of our parts are made in our own machine shop and practically every member has no experience on a machine at the start of the year. After 5 years at Uni and in industry, I got to lay my hands on a lathe & mill!

So, how is the team managed? Being Swedish, we believe in running a flat structure. There is the team manager and 7 subgroups. Each subgroup meets once every week and a responsible person tracks progress and reports on behalf of their subgroup at the weekly team meeting (with all 27 members present). This responsible person is changed each month to give every member in the team a chance at the position. A group called "Technical Communications" handles everything that isnt about designing individual parts, so that the Engineers are free to do their job and not worry about these things. The project manager is paid to dedicate 1 day a week to the project and instead dedicates 3 and claims no overtime for this. Like the rest of us on the team, she works 6-7 days a week from day 1 until the end!

So, what about the project manager? What is her role? She is of the opinion that she is there to serve us, to do whatever is within her power to provide the resources we need to to our jobs. She provides us with the management tool, the team defines deadlines, the team defines deliverables and the team together defines who is responsible for what needs done and when it needs done for. If we don't meet these deadlines without attempting to do whatever was within our power, then there are consequences which affect you and your subgroup members. These range from contribution to the trip to England, to failing the course. We are given complete freedom and she is there keep track and to crack the whip when it needs cracked and I can tell you, that has been very few times this year. With regards to infighting, she is very upfront with a simple policy..bitching is not tolerated. You have a problem, talk about it! I am not going to lie and say we haven't had problems, we have, but why haven't we had so many problems? A sense of ownership, the freedom we have been given and her determination to provide us with the resources we need! We don't have a huge budget given to us form our Uni, contrary to popular belief, we locate and source that ourselves from sponsors and the project manager with some others in and outside of the team have played a big part in that.

This year we planned to be rolling on 7th May. We were ready, but were let down by a supplier and will be 1 week late because of it. There are 58 days left to the competition and it has been through good management, hard work and determination on the part of our project manager and of each and every individual of our team (yes!!!) that we were on time.

In summary, I would say you need a project manager who is good at obtaining resources, therefore needs the "gift of the gab" i.e. be very persuasive and have very good industry connections to call upon. Every individual on the team needs to feel a sense of ownership of what they are doing, know the direction they are going in and what is expected of them and know the consequences for not doing so.

I hope that this has helped in some way. I found the Swedes mad and I criticised some of their ideas when I first arrived, but I have seen how well this has worked and I will definitely take these lessons away with me at the end of the year!

Oh, forgot to mention the plug;

http://web.student.chalmers.se/groups/formula

And, I am studying project management of our FS team as a side project if anyone is interested http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[Mike Cook]

Some things I have came up with this year that has worked really well:

Separate the team into 3-4 groups:

Build Group
CAD Group
SIM Group
Projects Group

What I've found is that everyone has different skill sets and time commitments.

Some kids (actually most) don't know what a hammer is, nor really care. They might be great at matlab or CAD or something else computer related. So let them do that. I don't expect everyone to build things nor would I want that, its way too much of a headache. Generally, people that don't want to commit more than 20 hours a week, I put on the cad group (where all they do is cad parts). The sim group is made up of kids that want to do things like adams and matlab (kinematics, vehicle sim, fluent, fea,etc). The project group does things physical testing, fund raising, any shop maintenance, etc. Generally, if we don't put people in the right position, it's evident quite early on in the process.

I think with this setup, I get the most I can get out of everyone. In the past, if someone wasn't willing to put in 20+ hours, they got written off completely. This structure eliminates this.

Now, a lot of the other details depend on the team members you have, but the above advice I think will work for pretty much any team.

Other random thoughts:

DESIGN

Have one or two people do most of the design. Let the cad guys finish modeling things. Design is an art more than a learned skill. Let those who are good at it excel. Otherwise get out of the way.

TEAM POSITIONSS
Eliminate team positions. Put people into their groups and don't have sub team captains. It has always caused a lot of problems for us. It only works if you have really really good guys. Generally, the best guys will rise to the top anyways - and this is what you want. You don't want to pick a captain artificially at the beginning of the year and have picked the wrong person.

MEETINGS

We meet 5 times a week:
Monday and Wednesday with our advisor to go over admin stuff.
Monday, wed, fri to go over everything else.

GRADES:

Let the team captain give the grades. If people piss me off and don't complete their assignments, drop their grade. Generally, I ask people how much the can complete every week and assign work based on that. If someone tells me they have 3 tests this week and don't have any time to commit, I don't give them anything to do, and I don't stress it. If on the flip side, they say sure i can do x,y,z this week, and come back next week only completing x, I get pissed. Dropping the ball is worse than doing nothing at all.

To address the original question:

The team captain is responsible for getting the car to competition and winning. If they need to fund raise, design, machine, weld, cad, sim, -whatever, they do it. You pick up all the slack. If someone doesn't do their assignment, you do it. For me, I designed most of the car last summer, participate building and mentoring most of the build team, and keep track of the rest of the team. It's a lot of work and I wouldn't do it again.

[kapps]

Our formula team would most likely not be existant if it wasn't for our team leader. He is the main designer of the chassis in Solidworks, oversees the build, and is always doing something for the team outside the shop. Even though he's graduating this summer, he plans on staying on as an advisor to help us out.

Our team usually breaks up into several subgroups when working on the chassis build, engine tuning, etc but most of us can hover between different groups if something needs to get done. Our team leader is the one who coordinates these groups and makes sure everyone has something to do. He's the first one out at the shop on Saturday morning and is also the first one to meet new members when they come out to the shop.

Our team is pretty small. Just this semester, we got 6 new members (myself included) who are all committed to FSAE at UCF. This really helped take a load off our team leader. We have around 10 guys who regularly show up to meetings and that's a lot more than any of our previous teams have ever had.

[ttk3]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by John Stimpson:
How do y'all deal with the "members" of your team that almost never show up, and almost never do anything productive for the car?
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Every fall we have an informative meeting for prospective students. Typically, we'll get about 60 people to show up. Over the next few weeks this number will slowly decline until we eventually end up with 5-7 new, USEFUL people by the end of the year.
Yes, there are 'members' of the team who are essentially useless for any fabricating work. But we [team management] will never say gtfo and never come back. We avoid giving any work to them that is critical or time sensitive so that if they drop the ball, it's no big deal. As far as competitions and t-shirts and driving claiming to be a member; they're all privileges of busting-ass all year. Everyone on our team does not come to competitions and certainly will not drive the car. If someone puts FSAE on their resume, the employers going to ask what they did while on the team. ("umm I made 25 spacers"...)
But realize that, just because someone isn't losing as much sleep as you this year, doesn't mean that they won't step up their commitment next year. That's why I feel it's important to never kick someone out of the team.

To the OP:
We have many team 'leader' positions. Including; a project manager responsible for administration duties, a chief engineer responsible for keeping the subsystem designers on track and subsystem leaders- engine,drivetrain,chassis,suspension/VD,composites,
brakes,fabrication. Each group leader is responsible for the design and fabrication of their subsystem. The leader is ultimately held responsible no matter how many mill-monkeys are working with them.
As far as infighting- when you put a handful of sleep-deprived and stressed engineers in a room together, it's probably bound to happen. Our team definitely does not get along in perfect harmony, but we're all here to build a racecar, no matter what. Organization and patience are key.

[Charlie]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">
GRADES:

Let the team captain give the grades. If people piss me off and don't complete their assignments, drop their grade. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Grades?

[Mike Flitcraft]

Good luck dropping my grade, won't even have a chance to do this for credit for another 4 or 5 years.

[B Hise]

Grades...

Yes, Mike and my school (Maryland) have the FSAE and Baja teams as a senior design class. Baja is a neccessary evil, we have to admit a cetrtain amount of people into the class to get the uni funding, otherwise I would send that abomination of an organization to the abyss. Those kids love making noise 24 hours a day, damned grinders.

Anyway, grades are useful in putting a fire under the behinds of kids that dont want to do much otherwise. Its good for getting small/admisistrative things handed out and it helps take a bit off of our plates. All the decicated people use FSAE as a GPA booster (god knows we need it) and the university likes having a senior design project that is more hands on than what the alternative is.

-Bryan