Team Management Styles

[Brent Howard]

Hey Everyone

I was just wondering how other teams divide up the workload and how it has worked for them. In the past we have run a team leader with sub leaders and it has worked alright, however there have been packaging issues quite often. Each of these sub teams was responsible for all their documentation and testing. These teams worked independantly and pretty much the team leaders communicated together any information that other leaders might need.

The style that we are currently looking at is more of a team style where much of the work would be done in small sub team working meetings.

I'd love to know what other teams do and the problems assosiated with it. Also, what is the role of the faculty advisor? Ours does not take an active role at all and FSAE is not given any course credit at the U of C.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Scott Wordley]

Very interesting topic.

In the past we have done as you described and divided the car up into a number of subsections and then given the responsibility and ownership of these sections to the section leaders. Due to terrible leadership and internal bickering we were unable to pull the car together either on time, on budget or on the track. It was however a spectacular piece of turboed, dry sumped static art, and having never moved under its own power proceeded to take second place in design. Go figure.

In response to such a dissapointing year we took away the 'utlimate ownership' of any parts at the subsystem level. The team as a whole has equal comment on direction with final desicion in the hands of the leaders. In essence we 'workshop' the car. The more time you spend hanging round the project the more influence you have on the final design. If people don't do the work we ask, someone else gets given their job. If people do the work we ask they get more work. Simple.

We find this system works well specially since 3-4 people in our team are very experienced (3 years FSAE). It does require a lot more actual management though since the responsibility for everything is ultimately carried by those few grey hairs.

I'm hoping we can eventually transition back to a more regular management model once we are established and we get more final year students, currently we have like 2 and heaps of 2nd and 3rd years.

Regards,

Scott Wordley

http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae

[Brent Howard]

Sounds like our teams are quite simaler Scott. It seems when the project is divided into sub systems everyone gets tunnel vision and only sees their specific needs. This results in a car that doesn't have enough time for final assembly and is overbudget. I really hope that moving more towards the newer model that you have adopted we can really start to make progress. I think the main advantage of the new approach is that finally the car can progress in an orderly fashion, with the tasks being completed in some order. In the past the biggest problem has been that everyone always seems to be waiting on someone else to finish before they start......resulting in a big rush and lots of decisions at the end. I hope that we can solve this by simply making major decisions in a team setting.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Big Bird]

Brent, Scott and anyone else interested,

Yep, very interesting topic, and one that is also quite dependant on the personalities in the team itself.

Presently we have a number of subsystems which look after different areas, (suspension, engine, chassis, etc.), each with a designated leader. Each leader is responsible for making sure that everything is working well within their groups, and also that their groups components integrate into the rest of the car. We also have a Chief Engineer and a Team leader who co-ordinate overall integration and attend to other team management issues.

Each week we have a couple of meetings. Firstly, a general meeting for all team members, to discuss general project issues - budget, sponsorship, social events, etc. We follow this up with a CAD design review, where each of the design sub-systems present their weeks work in SolidWorks on a projector screen. Each design group must have a rep at these design reviews, and through these meetings we resolve all of our packaging issues. It also keeps the team moving (each design group is accountable each week), and it also keeps morale up as we can all see a car coming together week by week.

To do it properly you will need someone responsible for co-ordinating the whole CAD model.

The whole process seems to be working really well for us so far - our car design seems pretty tight and well packaged. Most team members still seem really motivated, everyone is involved and informed, and the weekly meetings keep everyone on their toes.

So what is everyone else doing?

Cheers,

Geoff Pearson
RMIT FSAE
Melbourne Australia

[ben]

That's pretty much what we do; Team leader, tech director and focus groups. One general meeting and one technical meeting a week.

We also have a design review at the beginning of december.

This worked ok this year, but I feel that the packaging has suffered from having too many management layers.

I think next year we will end up more like Scott has described Monash's arrangement with 4-5 experienced final year guys and lots of assistance from lower years. 4-5 people should be enough to do a design spec for one of these cars, with all the others on detailing and manufacturing.

Ben

University of Birmingham
www.ubracing.co.uk (http://www.ubracing.co.uk)

[Kevin Hall]

Hey Guys

The way we work is One Team Director, and about 7 group leaders. Each leader is responsible for co-ordinating his group, and must meet atleast weekly with the entire exec (director and leaders). A progress report and explanations are required for everything. Money has been more of an issue than anything. We had to sit down at every meeting and decide what was most necessary, and how to come up with it. The chassis was already designed, so buying tubing to build it was first. Sensors, etc to start tuning the engine came second, and from then on, it was a toss up. Riding a debt didn't help. Overall, sometimes one person felt shafted, but the team as a whole pulled through. A small city leaves little in the way of sponsorship, and our group of tightly knit experienced leaders helped alot. We have zero faculty support. We have tried, and it's not available. They are over-worked, and can't seem to get interested in a team that thinks a top 30 finish would be excellent for a start, considering our background in World Record setting Super Milage and Air Cargo.

It's great to hear that this is bascially the standard

Kevin Hall
University of Saskatchewan
'03-'04 Team Director

[Sam Zimmerman]

We worked for about half the year last year with three sub-groups: chassis, suspension, and engine. We switched to more of a total team approach mid-year, transferring people to different areas as needed.

This year we are splitting into small sub-teams for specific tasks such as intake design, uprights, etc. Since we are a small team, each team member works on more than one subteam and will be moved around based upon their knowledge and intrests. As of now, nobody has volunteered to be shop boy. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_frown.gif We need to recruit a few underclassmen. http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

Sam Zimmerman
Vandals Racing
2002-2003 Team Leader

[Dave Riley]

In 2003, up till now we've run a system of a Management team, with the team manager, technical coordinator/chief engineer, three technical managers responsible for their own technical areas and the fac advisor. Running alongside this is a Technical team, chaired by the technical coordinator and consisting of the two tech managers and some 'area' managers, responsible for chassis, suspension, engine, etc. Technical decisions are discussed there, and management decisions discussed in the management meeting. Other meetings are scheduled as needed. Simple!

Or not... the teams above were designed to only have a few people in them in order to keep things efficient etc. This hasn't worked as just about all of our designers routinely rock up to the tech team meeting... which is probably better anyway. Sometimes however the meetings aren't as efficient as could be though. Most decisions are actually made outside the meetings through members talking and working together anyway, which is at it should be.

At first the management team was supposed to replace the project manager... however look in my signature and you'll see this didn't happen. In short team members focus on technical areas and don't really want to be bothered with the team mangement stuff... so in reality the team management has been accomplished outside these meetings with a few of us just talking through the issues. And to be honest the organisational stuff, mundane crap, has been done by me alone, with a bit of help from a few others.

From now we are moving to a different structure... basically the all-in team idea some of you described, with members of the management team responsible for coordinating each of the static events, the tech coordinator in charge of testing/driver training, and the team manager in charge of the build process, planning resources, etc. Hope it works!

Our structure has worked, from a technical point of view, but only cause we've got a large, committed group of (particularly final year) students working very hard.. like I said with the whole team turning up to the tech team meetings. From a management team point of view sometimes it's like pulling teeth... everyone's going nuts designing stuff and the last thing they want to do is "hey Joe, can you get up at 5am the Sunday before exams to set up a display at the V8 Supercars?" Understandable, but a problem given there's only one person to pick up the slack...

Cheers -sorry for the thesis!
Dave R

Project Manager
UWA Motorsport 03

[Mark Anderson]

Management Styles is a personal perference of all the team and especially the Team Director. UNRacing run a simple democratic system, where each memeber of the team votes on all actions major actions of the direction of the team. The Team Director is simply the facilitator of actions and has the determining vote on all actions minor or major. The team has Three groups (Engine Management), (Dynamic Systems)and (Industrial Design) The first two groups have about 7 people in each group and the last has a bout 15.

We have made it so that one person has the ultimate authority over one piece of the car, however the group has ownership of the system. This allows the group to take responsibility of the design of any component and allows all group members to become familar with all parts of the car.

The second important aspect of the management of any FSAE team is the control and management system. UNRacing has implemented a Total Management System (Computer Based) which allows us to order, Inventory, Non Conformances, Timesheets etc. This was a program that was created by me, specifically for FSAE. We have the capabilities of producing the Detail cost analysis report in about one (1) Day.

If you would like more information on the team, please don't hesitate to contact me.

UNRacing
Team Director - 2003
University of Newcastle
email: mark.j.anderson@studentmail.newcastle.edu.au

[Brent Howard]

Hey Mark,

A detailed Cost report in a day? Feel like making that avalible for download hahaha. We did ours over the course of 2-3 days, but it wasn't detailed of very correct.

Brent

www.ucalgary.ca/fsae (http://www.ucalgary.ca/fsae)

[Scott Wordley]

Mark,

How is the TMS working so far?

Regards,

Scott Wordley

http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae

[Mark Anderson]

Our system is working well, it is full integrated with the UNIVERSITY accounts. For the australian teams a quick note. If you order all of you equipment through a University account then you pay no GST. It took some time to set this up through but it is well worth it in the long run.

Scott, the problem with ours is that there is no way of fugding the numbers, as all the correct FSAE setting are in the system. The report is extremely detailed. If you are interested in having a look at a typical report that the system is able to produce, please send me your emails for a demo.

mark.j.anderson@studentmail.newcastle.edu.au - this would be also good, as you maybe able to find anything that has been left off.

UNRacing
Team Director - 2003
University of Newcastle
email: mark.j.anderson@studentmail.newcastle.edu.au

[Frank]

i'd be very surprised if you didn't function through the universities accounting system, considering they dish out the money

as well as GST exempt, you're duty in imports is flat 3% with no CAN

the only problem as I understand it is you still have to pay GST for sponsorships (not donations though, only where the customer seeks an invoice)

and you have the protection from the university system

need reports, get them generated by the uni's system (a little hard to decipher sometimes)

so how does our team work? i think up a different interpretation each time I'm asked the question, the longer you're here, the more you realise that you're going to be VERY LUCKY to get more than a handful of guys (5 or 6) who can really produce detailed design... you have a group "helpers" and at least 2 "managers" to make sure things get done (they carry baseball bats)

we tried the "get the marketing students to help" thing this year, but they produced crap all, except one (potential) sponsor

http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[This message was edited by Frank on June 26, 2003 at 07:12 PM.]

[Scott Wordley]

Running finances through uni is a problem for us.

We don;t pay GST either when we buy things, but get this... we get GST DEDUCTED from all our deposits. Furthermore we also got fleeced to the tune of a grand by a random 'Dean's Research Funding Levy" Basically the dean decided he's going to tax everybody so all the research accounts got raided. We're still trying to get the money back.

And then we cant get any actual money out of our account, we have to put in reciepts and claim forms. They choose not to accept a whole lot of them at random claiming food for a sponsors BBQ is not a reasonable use of research moneys. Plus we are all personally out of pocket the cash while waiting weeks for claims to be processed.

To get around this we've diverted as much of our funds as possible ($2-3k) to a slush fund in an external bank account. This gives us a cash buffer when ever we need it so we can buy stuff for the car, so we can still afford to eat while waiting for the claims to process.

Regards,

Scott Wordley

http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~fsae

[Al]

Just one thing I thought I might add is that a lot of our suppliers hate dealing with the University when it comes to paying bills and will in fact offer you a discount if they dont have to. Then of course if you pay cash they always seem to ignore the GST (don't tell the government). Therefore you win both ways. On the negative side you dont have the records to prove your transactions which can cause issues for the cost report. They usually are happy to write dummy ones for this purpose anyway (with correct prices of course!)

As for managers with baseball bats, Scott and myself prefer to use cricket bats as they offer variable ranges of coercion. The flat side is good for just that little urge on that some guys need. Then when things get a little more desperate the sloped back face can have the desired effect (force/area that sort of thing). Then finally there is the handle which is great when someone needs a real shafting!!

[Frank]

nice http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

ahhh.. they always complain that we are hard on 'em

off to the sport store to get some cricket bats then

[gug]

as i understand our gst, it only gets put on the final product. if you started up f-sae as a business, and then told the tax office that you are planning on producing these cars at the finish, you should be able to claim all the gst back. im pretty sure this will work, cause my friend has done something similar with a boat he is building.
would have the added benefits of <UL TYPE=SQUARE><LI>removing control of the money from the uni (i'd turn those cricket bats on your dean Scott), <LI>having sponsors deal with an independant business would look alot better than a bunch of kids working under the uni banner[/list]

actually, what im really courious about, is that the uni seems to have decided that they own our car, and they get the final say on where it goes. in adelaide uni, everybody working on the car is a final year mech eng student. so maybe if we wrenched control of the car from the uni, we could go on driving it afterwards? would shaft next years team though.
sorry, enough rambling. any accountants out there? could we escape gst by making our own business?

- if it isnt coming, you need a bigger tool.

[Frank]

That would mean either

A You convince the uni to give away Money
B You get your funding and support elsewhere

let me think.. both seem unlikely

Hey Al, you reckon the suppliers dont like dealing with us.. I tell you man, I've got the shytes with three suppliers at the moment....

Circle Track wheels.. cos he's an incompetent jerk "why do I need to supply an invoice before i get paid"

and Dirt Works "oh they'll be here in 3 weeks"...... SURE

and Apollo metals who want money up front !! like WTF

[Sam Zimmerman]

We get money from our university, so they take care of the budget and issue credit cards and purchase orders. Do other teams do the same?

Sam Zimmerman
Vandals Racing
2002-2003 Team Leader

[Disco]

Guys and Girls,
Have a talk to some accountants. It is completely legal to set up your team as Sports Association. Go to the ATO and get something called "Club Pack". You can then get an ABN (Australian Business Number) a TFN and register for GST, although this is not necessary if your dealing with less than $50K. You set yourself up as a non-profit organisation, so you don't need to pay tax or do tax returns. You will need to keep a good record of your books though, because the ATO may audit. You also need to complete a annual review to make your your association remains non-profit.

You can then get sponsors who give cash grants to put straight into your own account (and not the uni's!!). We have two signatures for a our account, so it's all by the book.

You may also wanna get in contact with you Student Union. They set up clubs/societies etc all the time.

Give us a yell if you got more questions.
Cheers
Steve

[Frank]

and RMIT was happy with this, they donated cash to your cause?

and the ABN not required if dealing with under $50K.. i thought that only applies if you trade on small terms, and aren't required to issue tax invoices. I was under the impression you NEED to supply an ABN when dealing with larger companies, or they simply wont deal with you.

How do you go about ordering materials example 4340? what companies do you use, how do you have to pay for the materials.. up front?

Regards

Frank

[Dave Riley]

Some sponsors want ABNs too before they will sponsor you, although these are usually the big companies (Alcoa, the banks, etc) and hands up everyone who's snagged one of them?

We do all our financial dealing through the university... although we don't pay GST on purchases, we do have to deduct it from ALL deposits. I guess since we usually purchase more than we deposit, this works out in our favour... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Most of our actual ordering etc is done with our own paperwork, which once we've ordered something goes to the school accountant, who then pays the bill. We need signatures from the manager of the technical area, the team manager, faculty advisor and head of school, which can be a pain. If any supplier doesn't like our own purchase order, which happens occasionally, we send our paperwork to the uni workshop manager and he does us up an 'official' PO. Most payments are made using a credit card held by the school accountant, or we can go right through uni financial services to get a cheque, but this takes absolutely forever.

We get steel from Onesteel for mild or Gogear Racing for chrome moly, our sponsor Robert Cameron & Co give us all the aluminium we need, and we get carbon fibre from a couple of different sponsors. Other composites from Fibreglass & Resin Sales.

Cheers
Dave

Project Manager
UWA Motorsport 03

[Disco]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Frank:
and RMIT was happy with this, they donated cash to your cause?

and the ABN not required if dealing with under $50K.. i thought that only applies if you trade on small terms, and aren't required to issue tax invoices. I was under the impression you NEED to supply an ABN when dealing with larger companies, or they simply wont deal with you.


Frank<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Frank,
Your getting yourself confused. You can still get an ABN without registering for the GST. It is compulsory to register for GST if your cash flow is over $50K. If your cash flow is under $50K and you don't register for GST, you simply cannot claim back the GST off the government. You effectively set yourself up just as a fotty or cricket club. In the unlikely event that you have money left over, you do not have to pay tax on it, as long as any revenue is being put back into the association in the following year, and quote "no individual person/s in financially benefiting".

As for the uni, they do not hand out the cash that they supply to the team. The only money that we control fully is the money supplied to us from sponsors, fund raising etc. This means that the first money to go, it the universities money. We lloked into this after it became necessary to get pre-approval on purchases, something that takes about a week at best, and it realy difficult when something breaks during testing

[Frank]

so you end up with two systems ahhhhhhhh
to dodge the GST on the sponsor money....

[Mark Anderson]

Setting up a company (Sport Association) would require detail financial records of transactions. We are a little lucky as UNRacing has access to a $5K visa card, which enables us to raise an order and pay for it as required.

Try your Faculty Finance Co-ordinated, you may have this system in place. No one person of UNRacing is out of pocket and all dollars are avaiable immediately for us.

UNRacing
Team Director - 2003
University of Newcastle
email: mark.j.anderson@studentmail.newcastle.edu.au

[Michael Jones]

Interesting discussion...I'm writing my dissertaion on related issues (mostly organizational learning, but leadership and management structure plays a strong role...) with Cornell FSAE as the major case study.

Our team generally is structured as others have outlined - a core team leadership groups and functional subteams.

The core leadership generally oversees all technical and administrative details. Usually 3-5 people, with the most effective structure I've seen having 5 leaders working closely in concert with each other. Technical leadership generally solidifies around engine/electronics/chassis desingations, with some small changes as to what subteam falls where year to year. Administrative leadership really involves two separate and distinct roles - project management/manpower coordination and business/operations. I continually advocate for two people here, and when it happens, it works well. One person generally can't pull it off and usually is better suited for one side over the other.

Below this are subteams with a range of coordinators. The coordinator role is usually more informal, localized leadership, but is important to keep those teams on track and develop leadership ability for the future. It's also a good role for graduating members who aren't suited/interested in the role of full team leader.

Stitching it all together is a committment to systems engineering. Our faculty advisor teaches and does research in SE and stresses systems approaches to team leaders. He's assisted by a master's student in the SE graduate program who uses the team as their case for their thesis research. The student SE role is hit-and-miss, depending on the person. It's hard to talk and influence systems without knowing much about them, and given that the SE prgram is a one-year professional program, there's no time to learn. Our best SE guy had two years of experience in FSAE at Lehigh - he at least knew the general goals and timelines well, and was able to quickly figure out how his experiences would translate here. The others had a much higher learning curve.

In many respects, I've helped on the SE angle a lot as well, given that organizational learning is inherently systems-driven. Helps also that I"m not an engineer by trade, so taking a big picture angle is kind of inevitable - you can't get bogged down in details if your knowledge of them is sketchy, after all. With time, I've been able to pick up the details enough to understand and help out with the technical systems planning as well.

Beyond stressing the importance of a systems approach, there really is no right answer to how to organize one of these teams. You frequently have to go with what you've got. So, while this year's leadership was quite strong, it was thinly spread - a very green team, and even the people in informal leadership roles were treading water half the time. The lack of breadth was really evident at competition. Conversely, while the 2002 leadership group was problematic at various times, there was a very broad network of informal content and administrative leaders to back them up.

So, I'd say cover the core roles and find/train good people to assist and help build the future of the organization. The best core groups will work cohesively and at least informally see their role as systems engineers primarily.

As for finances, it's confusing here as well of course - lots of Big Red Tape, we call it. You learn the tricks, and frankly I've always found it easier to take smaller purchases out of the system entirely. I'm not one to waste $100 worth of human labour to buy $2 of rivets.

With respect to tax exemption, it's generally accepted without issue at most retailers and mail order places...thank God, since if you put through taxes on our account, it gets hairy in a hurry...can certainly sympathize with the Aussise on this though since the Canadian GST system can be as maddening to deal with.

---
Cornell Racing
http://fsae.mae.cornell.edu

[vinHonda]

This is me just check'n the board before we leave for the UK:

Our team works pretty smoothly, with 1 team Captain who deals basically oversee's and is informed of every aspect of the team/car. The Technical Director works quite closely with the Team Captain with regards to the direction of the car. The Tech Director oversee's 5 groups: Engine, Suspension, Chassis, Drivetrain, and Electronics. We have competent leaders for each group. Then I have a Business Director in charge of sponsorship and business affairs. So you're looking at 8 dedicated team members. By far, these 8 will work the hardest.

The others will play fill in roles and are usually new students to the team. We call them 'monkeys'. Monkey's will step up according to their interests and drive/dedication. We had some 1st years this year build all of our glass body pieces.

Ideally, I'd like to have some more 'leaders' to take care of Recruiting, PR and Finances.

Faculty Advisors play a 'sign this' role. That's about it.

As to this money/tax discussion..... I'm not really sure what it's all about. All of our finances are housed out of the Faculty and they have some GST exemption thing.

Our team is organized quite well; I'd say the challenges for us that lie ahead are bringing the responsibility of the team out to more then the core 8 people.

Vinh

University of Toronto Formula SAE Racing Team
www.fsae.utoronto.ca (http://www.fsae.utoronto.ca)

[Mick_P]

To give my two cents worth I reckon you have to flatten the management structure out as much as possible, whilst at the same time having a core group of leaders. We are in the early stages of our 2004 program, however we have a great group of guys and so far no problems with work put-in, which will no doubt change when the hard yards start late this year. I say keep your functional groups, but dont stand your group leaders and team leader/s up on pedastalls (Spelling..?) to make the other think they are meaningless workers. That is my opinion anyway... http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Mick Partridge
Swinburne University
2004 FSAE
Dynamics Leader

[Michael Jones]

Part of flattening out team structures and appreciating the contributions of non-leaders is appreciating all contributions that people will make and realizing that some will inevitably contribute more than others. The core team should be the core team by virtue of dedication, effort and commitment to the full system vs. any formal role designation.

Peripheral people can then be integrated by achieiving a mututal understanding regarding what they can put in to the mix. So long as less central folk do what they say they will, their contributions should be appreciated and acknowledged.

Done appropriately, the leadership group will coalesce naturally and the worker bees will internalize their roles and responsibilities accordingly. It falls apart when leaders expect more from workers than can be realistically expected, or when workers assume, usurp or challenge leadership without willing to ramp it up and take responsibilty.

---
Cornell Racing
http://fsae.mae.cornell.edu

[Andy Houk]

We modeled our system after an ant colony. It looks like a cluster f*$% to an an outsider, but the job gets done with selfless sacrifice and brute force. Every once in a while, someone (the establishment) comes along and pisses on our little ant pile and screws things up but we survive and carry on. It's not the best system in the world but it works.

[Calum Douglas]

My advice is not based on what works (because we suck).
However that does mean I do know exactly what DOESNT work, which is often just as useful.

The biggest thing we have to deal with is the university insisting that "formula student is for everyone". This means we (team leaders, team manager, technical director etc) are not allowed to limit the number of people on the team, nor to fire anyone.

Consiquently this is roughly how our year goes....

Week1. A massive room full of about 150>180 people turn up
We hand out application forms
End of week 1: Forms sifted through and likely candidates picked for team section leaders (eg suspension lead)

Week 2: Leaders picked and team section leaders pick about 10>15 people for their "department". Even though of those 80% are probably of no use at all because they cant use CAD yet or dont know what an allen key is.
......
......
......
Week 10: All team leaders realise that nobody has done anything useable, in spite of their best efforts to teach people CAD or keep track of designs people were supposed to do; because you cant manage 15 people by yourself. A crisis meething is called and it is explained to the university why we are 2 months behind schedule.

They ignore us and say if we manage ourselves better we should be able to manage 100+ people.

The remaining 15 people work 100hours a week for the rest of the time remaining. We get the car build shoddily and have no time to test it properly.

Competition time=EPIC FAIL

Limit your team numbers otherwise you have no chance of keeping track of designs, people and general progress. You also cannot bond socially as a knit group with too many people. Which is also very bad for the car (and bad for having fun!).

Thats how we do it, DONT copy us and you will be off to a flying start!

Some F1 teams only have about 10>20 people actually doing really major design work. If you have double or even more than that on your FS team...big trouble is around the corner!!!

Calum Douglas
Oxford Brookes University
Tech Director/Welder/Metal basher/troublemaker 2008+09+10

[Bemo]

Perhabs you should try to make a compromise with your uni.
FS is for everyone, but if someone wants to compete, he has to bring a certain effort, otherwise he's out. If you want to call yourself a team member you have to do the work of a team member.
In fact this is more or less how we do it and suddenly you don't have 100+ applicants, but 30-40 people who are really willing to spend a lot of time and to work hard for the project.

[Bazanaius]

^ +1.

I think critical mass for most teams is in the 30-40 region, and if you follow the idea of Bemo it tends to maintain itself at that level quite naturally.

Last year we ran with a 'core team' of 6 people - 4 engineering group leaders and 2 people covering sponsorship/promotions and the business/cost areas respectively. By the end of the year it would have been useful to assign 2 people to sponsorship and promotions as the differences between maintaining sponsorship and finding new sponsorship became clearer.

Each group contained between 7 and 10 people, which worked well for communication and chasing people up - we tried to also meet regularly as a whole team to briefly keep everyone up to speed on the whole cars development (incetivised by the pint afterwards). The core team would also meet regularly to discuss the system, and this provided a path of communication from every member up to the team leader, and over to the other groups that they inevitably had to interact with. Mailing lists allowed any member of the team to 'spam' a group, or the core with a question whenever they needed to liaise with them.

Initially we had about 50 people turn up to the first 'hello' meeting, and around 45 signed up to stay (tripling our previous team size). We were very fortunate to not lose many people (~4-5) over the year, and I think this was partly down to the accountability provided by the smaller group size, and the ease of communication between members.

[blister]

We were never more than 25 people involved with the project. Last year, which was by far to most succesful we were for example 3 for the chassis and 4 for the suspension. But i don`t think that this is very good on a long term base, as if one member does an internship, one has important exams and one finishes uni, then you have a massive brain drain. Nevertheless for realizing the single year project it is more effective to have a strong core group, with additional people who have special duties (Event planning, relation with uni, milling)

In a perfect world the team size would be 15 enginners and 10 organisation people with at least two very fast drivers :-D

At FSG i realized that there are some really huuuuuge teams (and i don`t mean Stuttgart with like 35) with more than 60 people involved. I think above 30 people, much of the time is spent collecting infos from your members and reporting to xyz leader which can discuss it at the pqr meeting. Probably this is more professional and more oriented towards real life. But in our team there is more the spirit of building a small race car together with your friends and try to race it as often as possible.

[Adambomb]

IMHO critical mass varies widely between schools based on several different factors. Historically (average of last 8 years), we've had upwards of 90+ SAE dues paid members, 30 that show up to meetings regularly, 15 that show up to the shop regularly, 7 people with assigned technical leadership positions (another 3-4 with business positions), and about 5 people do 90% of the work. And this is with almost no faculty involvement (outside of safety and warding off evil university spirits...which from what I've gathered over the years is a pretty much ideal scenario), and all team members taking a full course load.

[Peter Deutscher]

Hey all,

This is a rather long post, and in quite a level of detail. It summarises the management problems that have faced Melbourne University in the past, and how we are now dealing with them.


Melbourne University has had a rather different way of running its Formula SAE program. We have a very particular set of circumstances that, to my knowledge, not many other Universities have to deal with. Since the program was introduced in 2000 (Australasia remember), it was fitted into the University's curriculum by making it an option for the Final Year Project subject. However, this system has several very important drawbacks (at least when it comes to winning a competition) and I believe has significantly hindered our success:

1. Experience. All of our members are final year students, and so consequently we have to deal with a 100% turnover. This means that our new team has an incredibly steep learning curve - maybe 4-5 members of the previous years team will stick around, and even then, contact is usually via email or the occasional meeting rather than direct support. There is a 'support squad' system for younger members to get involved, but in previous years it has been very much a secondary concern of the team members, since their marks depend on their work, not someone else's.


2. Research. Since Formula SAE is run as a final year project, we are expected to research and develop new ideas for our car - this has resulted in our teams coming up with some fantastic ideas, but also ignore the previous work of other teams. Too much time is spent on development rather than optimisation! Also, since each sub-team has a different supervisor, they focus on excelling in their own sub-system without considering the effects that it has on other sub-teams and also on a whole-vehicle level. The best example are our uprights. We run external brakes on the front uprights (usually aluminium CNCed ones). The brakes team always designs the brakes to run hot. The suspension team use aluminium to save weight. The stub axles are press-fitted into the uprights. The brakes get hot (as designed), but transfer significant heat to the adjacent uprights. For 7 out of the 9 years that we have run tin the competition, we have had very ugly weld marks between our uprights and stub-axle bearings. Point in case.

Our Academic supervisors are also just that - academics. They can provide great knowledge in the fine details, but are more often than not unable to see on the large scale, as is required for a competitive SAE team. Vehicle and Competition level integration have not been taken to the level required to win so far.


3. Leadership. The University frowns on the idea of one student being in an officially appointed leadership position where they can heavily influence a project. This is fine when dealing with a 4-man R&D project, but is unacceptable for 27-man Formula SAE team. In past, the coordination and integration teams have jointly lead the project, but there is no official figure-head of the project, student or academic. This has sometimes led to minor power-struggles, but more importantly, people in this style of project don't know who to look for for direction (since there is no clear figure-head), and so consequently they do not communicate! At least not on a significant enough level.


These three points, when put together, mean that every year we have a thoroughly new car that, whilst has potential, continues to perform on a very mediocre level (7th-10th out of around 25-30 teams). Complete redesign. I am actually very impressed with our level of performance under these circumstances. But, if we are to be seen as a competitive team, then I am confident that the above points must be addressed. Here's what we've done so far:


The first step was the Team Structure. At the first meeting which I chaired, I put forward my plan to change the Team Structure and it was subsequently implemented. Now, we have a well-defined (and I emphasise 'well-defined') Core Leadership body, amongst which include the portfolios of Technical Director and Team Leader. All of the Sub-Teams also have a (democratically elected) Sub-Team leader, those sub-teams being:

Chassis
Mechatronics
Brakes and Drive-Train
Aerodynamics and Ergonomics
Engine
Suspension and Steering

I emphasised from a very early stage that these positions (mine included) are not for beating people over the head in order to get work done - a pyramid hierarchy if you will. Instead, the leaders are facilitators of their team-members, and consequently could actually see themselves as below them - an inverse pyramid model. This is to avoid conflicts and to keep members humble, and not abuse the power given to them - a very real possibility in a completely student run organisation. After all, from their perspective, why should a student of equal seniority be able to give orders to another? 'For the Greater Good' only gets you so far in equality situations that can occur.


The Team-Leader model also allows for what I believe to be a very effective manner of decision-making. Design by Committee (i.e., all 27-members have their 2 cents) not only takes far too long but also results in fragmented decision making and group-think mentality. Design by dictatorship is not much better, since Formula SAE is far too complicated to have the decision making properly carried out by an individual, especially someone who is relatively inexperienced with Formula SAE. The Team-Leader model allows us to have 8 well-informed individuals discussing the project from a very high level in order to come up with a Competition Strategy , and from that, a properly discussed and well-thought out vehicle level strategy. From this, it can then be determined what and how components/systems need to be designed, but most importantly, it allows everyone on the team to understand the reasons why the decisions were made - and consequently, they will do it better, and avoid problems such as the uprights example above. From this point, roles, goals and accountability can then be clearly defined and determined - every single member is aware of what they are responsible for, and these have been printed and put up around the office not only as a reminder to themselves, but also to allow other people to know what they are supposed to be doing.

We are also doing a complete redevelopment of the support squad system to streamline the knowledge transfer system. Rather than seeing the support squad as baggage, we want transition to a more personalised mentor system that will very quickly builds up these members to a stage where they can be of proper assistance!

We have also 'won' the argument with the university about not needing to redesign everything - arguing that optimisation is research in itself, since it forces us to look at our failures and think 'how can we make this better' or 'how can this system improve the performance of the car as a whole', rather than redesigning for the sake of redesigning. Sometimes, this does indeed end up with redesign, but the reasons as to why we redesign are totally different. It is a small distinction, but a vital one. Ultimately, it also develops the skills of a good engineer, and at the end of the day, that is an integral part of what SAE members gain from the project.


Whilst we are still very young, progress so far has been incredibly promising. We are already making decisions and implementing strategies that were made mid-april last year. This is not to say that last year's team were bad in any way - there is no doubt in my mind that without the extra effort taken by the 2009 team, we would not be in any position to be where we are now. They set up for us a fantastic platform upon which to build and the the benefit of hindsight - and hindsight is 20/20.


Many thanks must also go to Geoff Pearson from RMIT , whose document I read about 2 weeks ago and not only verified what steps I have been taking, but also gave me fantastic new insights. Cheers.

[Peter Deutscher]

NB: Comments and criticisms are welcomed

[flavorPacket]

Peter, Many teams in the US have similar structures. They are almost universally unsuccessful. It is of utmost importance to have people with 4+ years of competition experience making the decisions on a FSAE team.

Talent/ability cannot replace knowledge of how to 1) deal with shit going wrong, 2) run a team during a competition, and 3) get money.

[Adambomb]

I will definitely agree that it is necessary to have one person (Technical Director/Chief Engineer) that is responsible for systems integration, communication, and some broad level of design strategy. One person that knows all the interconnections and recognize potential problems ASAP. However, I will also agree that making this person "outright dictator" can be quite dangerous. It's a tough balance...committees are terribly inefficient, and things devolve into pissing matches and meritless debates more often than not. A good balance IMHO is to have a Technical Director who makes decisions jointly with his/her team leaders. And when disagreements arise, develop an engineering metric to compare solutions, then stick with the "winner," no matter who's idea it was.

I think you've really highlighted some of the drawbacks of having a team run by committee, as well as some of the attributes required for a good Technical Director. It's a damned tough job, requiring very broad, extensive technical knowledge, project management skills to keep things on schedule, personnel management and leadership experience to keep the team functional, maturity (which is not necessarily a function of age), money management so you can afford to go to comp, knowledge and experience management to deal with turnover, and just plain hands-on, on the spot problem-solving experience for dealing with ol' Murphy. And I've probably left a couple things out too.

And of course any deficiency in any of these areas will naturally result in varying degrees of short term and or long term detriments to the team's success.

[flavorPacket]

Originally posted by Adambomb:
However, I will also agree that making this person "outright dictator" can be quite dangerous.

I think this is still the best structure to have once you are out of the concept development phase. Committees are great for deciding on an engine, or turbo/NA, but when the team needs to produce results, there must be one person who says, "this is what we're going to do", and that person must be respected enough for that statement to mean something. Of course, this person should ask for and receive input from other qualified people (team leaders, technical sponsors etc). On my team, this person wasn't always the technical director: for example when on track, there were other members who were much better qualified to run test sessions/argue with judges.

That is how I ran a team, and I would do it again if given the chance.

[Calum Douglas]

Have recently reached a compromise with our uni about the huge team and it being impossible to manage. We are still not allowed to limit team numbers BUT, they have agreed that we CAN fire anyone who (for example) doesnt turn up more than 3 weeks in a row.

This should be a great help to keeping things managable. Although it wont be until week 4 that we can slim the team down from 150 to 40!

Bottom line is that unless you are very lucky your academic staff are not going to be very good at understanding how to run an FS team that can win anything.

They ususally emphasize the "learning aspect" (as if you cant learn if you set out to win by any means required!!!).

The funny thing is they still get really pissed off when we fail miserably. Something about having your cake and eathing it springs to mind...

Still perhaps in 3 years or so (long after I`m graduated) we can get things to a position where finishing top 5 might be likely again.

Its hard for our faculty people to understand because for many years we were COMFORTABLY the best UK team and several times finished top 10 in FSG and FSAE Detriot. They cant understand why we USED to be able to win, so why cant we now?

Apparenly the fact that everyone else has improved by a factor of 5 is lost on them.

Calum Douglas
Tech Director/metal basher/troublemaker 08/09/10
Oxford Brookes University

[exFSAE]

I would agree.. winning teams are managed well, with cars that are fairly well-engineered. Or at least, they are less shitty than everyone else. Faculty which are turned off by the notion of setting your goal to WIN as opposed to learn, seemingly do not realize the two go together.

I learned the most when I was driven to compete and win.

[Zac]

I can only imagine how much trouble it must be to deal with so many people. I remember doing some testing with you guys a couple years ago. When only 5 or 6 team members were there everything went pretty smoothly, but once everyone else showed up, things ground to a halt.

[Bemo]

Originally posted by Calum Douglas:
They ususally emphasize the "learning aspect" (as if you cant learn if you set out to win by any means required!!!).


What these people just don't understand is that you don't have to build the most complex car to learn a lot.
A simple car is still a very complex system and hard to understand in detail. In my opinion you can learn much more if you try to build a competitive car and focus on what is important to that you goal.
People often think you have to build fancy stuff to learn a lot. But FSAE should be about engineering practice and this means you have goals and think about what you need to fulfill these goals. And if you come to the conclusion that something doesn't help you to fulfill your goals you just don't build it, although it might have been 'cool'.

[Adambomb]

Originally posted by Bemo:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Calum Douglas:
They ususally emphasize the "learning aspect" (as if you cant learn if you set out to win by any means required!!!).


What these people just don't understand is that you don't have to build the most complex car to learn a lot.
A simple car is still a very complex system and hard to understand in detail. In my opinion you can learn much more if you try to build a competitive car and focus on what is important to that you goal.
People often think you have to build fancy stuff to learn a lot. But FSAE should be about engineering practice and this means you have goals and think about what you need to fulfill these goals. And if you come to the conclusion that something doesn't help you to fulfill your goals you just don't build it, although it might have been 'cool'. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

+1 Bazillion

This is SOOOO hard to explain to those who think the best route is to lace the car with gew gaws and doo dads (which sadly appears to be most engineers).

[Demon Of Speed]

Having been a member on two different teams, I have gotten some unique insight on this subject.

The first school I dd this project at was for my senior design class. So there were 7 ME seniors, 3 engineering admins, and a few underclassmen help out some.

The first half of the design/build at my first school we tried to have a group for each subsystems and then have 'group leaders'(the engineering admins) from each group communicate with the other groups what was needed. This failed horribly. Mostly because the leader of the groups were unable to do there job, and because no motivation was placed on people to get things done.

After the 'group leaders' were removed, we worked as a team, each continuing to focus on there specific task. We had a team leader/chief engineer (me), who got massively over worked (2000+hr in 9 months). The system worked with the everyone doing the own thing calling the shot on the own thing. However, the team leader had final say over everything. the team leader also organized all meetings, finances, papers to submit to SAE, etc. A problem is people only want to do there own task and then they feel done, even if half the car is missing. Also, because everyone is given a task to do there are some things that never get looked at until the end. Overall this worked well except the team leader does 2-5 times as much work as everyone else usually.

At my current school we have a some what similar set up. There is a team leader who organizes, turns in the paperwork mainly. The school help do all the finance accounting (since that is who our account is through). The chief engineer is the major designer, and organizes the designing of the car and has final say over everything. We have an engine guy who does everything for the engine to get it in running order. Both the chief engineer and engine guy have a apprentice to take over for the when they are gone. Everyone else is given/chooses 2 task to complete for the car. Incoming freshman and anyone else picks up the things forgotten about, so that others didn't do/finish. This seems to work well (for a small team at least {10-15}) for us.

Democracy does not work from what I have seen. You spend to much time voting over stuff and no one is happy how ever things are chosen, so let the people that know what they are talking about decide things.

[Jon Oneill]

Just to fuel this discussion with a little of my own experiences. I've been on my uni's FSAE team for 5.5 years now, and i think i've seen pretty much every management style possible.

I've been the underling, but following a mass exodus of senior team members at the start of 2007. we then came along hard times, and in my second year, I was a senior member and the team Technical director. Its been a matter of continually building the team from there.

In 2007, at the start of the year, we had over 60 people on the team, but this quickly dwindles as people loose interest. We ended up taking 30 people to the australian event in 2007, but of this, 5-6 people were actually active members. So we ended up with a poorly built car, with only 2 people who we're involved. To many people without an effective management structure = fail.

2008 saw us start out the same, and by 1/2 year, it was clear we did not have a chance of making the event. We ended up cutting around 40 people from the team, and decided to focus our management attentions onto truely active, and promising members. Removing all the people who screwed around didn't end up helping anyway as some of the people left behind just fell into the newly created void. It was around this teime that I was promoted to the team captaincy, as the previous captain could no longer afford the time commitments.

By 2009, we had at least 4 people who really were commited to the project. Subsequently, these 4 ended up putting in ludicrous hours and we subsequently had our best result yet at the 2009 event. We did have other people helping out, but there was a clear difference between these 4 peoples work ethic, efforts and workshop time, and the other team members. Managing these 4 people was a brease, as they always understood every implication, and complication, where as the other team members struggled, and subsequently take a lot more time to manage.

At the start of 2010, we have lost 1 of our key members, but he has decided to stay on in a supporting role. This makes a massive difference when new members come along, as there is a real depth of knowlege within the team. We were also able to interest and recruit 4-5 more people who are already very commited to the peoject. This year we also have a full time manager , so the paperwork, sponsorship and general admin are taken care of. This has free'd me up to focus all of my time towards technical issues.

Long winded I know but for me, there are a few key things a team needs, to be successful:

1. Commited members.
I cant re-inforce this enough. Regardless of the management structure, or the teams position, Commited people make all the difference. If you have 4 or more people who are really, really commited to the project, and that all get along, there is a pretty good chance, regardless of management, you will do well. Any more than this, and things run very, very smoothly. The right people, will always produce the goods, regardless of what structure you use.

2. Depth.
You have to have a clear depth of knowlege within the team, otherwise no decisions ever get made, and things wont move forward. A lot of this competition depends on a car being finished. A perfectly designed, unfinished car wont get you anywhere. Dont get me wrong, discussion is an important element of engineering & team work, but discussions must result in a conclusion. So there always has to be a senior member, or members, that can finalise these discussions.

3. Support
Excellent results by team have occured in the past without this, but the support of your university goes a long way towards achieveing results. We have fought hard for the past 5 years and finally, we have our university in strong support of the team. It does take time however, as they want results, but you all know that they are difficult to achieve without the right support. Keep plugging away and they'll come around though.

4. Dont run before you walk.
This can be taken any way you want, but work towards small goals and changes. Success builts success, so by achieving small goals, you'll continually progress. Aiming to high, to quickly can quickly spell the end of any team.


Personally, I think management is important, but unless you have the right people and the right team direction, your efforts will be pointless. I've spent months trying to manage a team members to an achievement, but at the end of the day, its probably just the wrong person for the job.

Management is never a solution, it is an Aid.

I know this was long winded, but hopefully it helps someone.

[RollingCamel]

I'm quite reluctant to talk about it but did anyone had to "manage" their faculty adviser?

[moose]

when you say "manage"..in what way? Trying to get him/her more involved or less?

I think that no matter the type of faculty advisor, there is a need to manage just as you would a client (e.g. in a consulting type engagement) to make sure that the relationship/guidance/involvement you get from that side is the amount that is right for your team's skills / needs.

[RollingCamel]

Well less and more.

Our problem is that our adviser's ego is quite large. We had 2 advisers in fact, one young and open and the other old and quite old fashioned.

The first adviser was a joy to work with until he had serious health problems and is now in Europe getting treatment. He was enthusiastic about the project, understands what is to be professional and doesn't interfere with our work. We were always looking forward for the weekly meeting with him and letting him be in constant update with what we do.

The other is very good in paper work and very very specific about everything, which is a great point in a heavily bureaucratic country as Egypt. Plus, he got a great bulk of the sponsorship money. To sum up, he is very energetic when it comes to routine.

However,inferiority complex and ego is a huge problem. First a magazine interviewed me so it quoted me talking about the team and competition, i learned afterward that he was furious how was was my name written and where are the faculty advisers names, etc.

Then after we formed our team and contacted him to be our adviser he proposed the same project in another university he lectures at. Then sent the other to a a car company for sponsorship and never told us then asks us to cooperate with them.

Also, when we sent to Dassault for Solidworks sponsorship he took one and told us that we should have got one for him..

Then our SAE chapter wasn't active for a long time so we decided that we must activate it and recruit young members so they could continue the team's work later on. So we recruited some members and appointed the board based on quality, our team is only the members so it was basically a near 100% vote. So we tried to introduce the suggested board members to him but he kept delaying and was reluctant to form a board until we kept pushing. He treats the board quite bad and then was heard describing its president as "self appointed".

Furthermore, we were planning to make an SAE chapter member come with us to the competition so they could see what it is like and be beneficial to the future teams. He scolded me while he was wants his wife to come with him and in he told me that he wanted to get an invitation from FSG for her...

It doesn't matter for us now but the new SAE chapter students are finding it very difficult to work with him. They made a reopening ceremony for the chapter and have put so much work into it and tried to keep him informed but he didn't even showed any enthusiasm and appreciation for their work. They told me they don't know what to do, they talk to him he listen to them hardly and when they don't he tells them that they are superseding him.

[moose]

ok.. so this one is a bit tougher than I expected.
Now, I don't know the politics and situation involved with running a team out of Egypt, but it sounds to me that you've got a little bit of a grasp on what are the points that gets his attention.

From what you have written, it sounds that he sees being the faculty advisor of the team as an opportunity to get recognition for himself. You have come to that realization, so now its a matter of how to make sure that doesn't hurt the team / determine how to use it to your benefit.

Since it sounds that he is needed by the team to keep things moving - you don't have the option of trying to just become more independent. I think that the key here is to think about a few situations where he became an issue for the team - how things were prompted, what occured etc. Think about how to fix the interaction for next time, so that you can get the outcome that you want. Maybe it means spending a little bit more time before meeting with him, and bringing some "backup" material to say that look - teams x, y & z have a similar situation to us, they bring 20 people to competition. Here is our plan on why having these extra 3 people will help for the future. This person is going to go learn all about suspensions from other teams, etc. After doing this... and connect it back to something he supports: The team doing well.

I'd try to keep a fairly regular cadence with him, invest a little bit of time to stay on his calendar and show what progress the team is making, what the SAE team is doing to help, etc. Show how its all coming together with some pictures and an email, whatever it takes to make sure that he stays bought in, and maybe can use it all to showcase the team to the administration, fellow faculty, etc.

Hope that made sense & helps.

[RollingCamel]

Holy Crap!! This has just came in.

I was speaking to my teammate, our project manager. He told me that the Dean is delaying signing to buy some stuff we need.

The word is that he is also not happy for not mentioning him and our teachers...

Anyways, there should be a magazine post that should do it.

Corrupt institute that is!

[Zac]

clearly you need to stroke this guys ego on a more consistent basis. I recommend that you start having team members create fake blogs and request interviews with your advisor like once a month or so.

[HenningO]

Bringing this post back because something struck me today.

There is much wisdom in this thread, a must read for every aspiring team leader. Out of the 5 cars I built in my uni career, I've also seen as many types of project styles. There always seems to be one thing that always take place, people don't finish their assigned tasks, at all or in time.

I've recently come in to contact with a project method that is commonly used in software development, it's called SCRUM and it has been around for quite sometime now. I'm not going to go into details (the wikipedia article explains it quite well), but one basically breaks the project down to 2 week iterations. Every 2 weeks a new list of tasks is created that has to be completed in 14 days. Each task is given a certain amount of points/hours based on how hard/time consuming it is to complete. After a couple of iterations, the team will know how many points/hours worth of tasks they can done in 14 days.

Obviously software development is quite different from FSAE projects so it might not be possible to apply it straight off. But the key to using SCRUM would be that it is really easy to see when something/somebody is lagging behind. Starting this already in the design phase, you'll know who finishes his/her assignments on time and who doesn't.

SCRUM and other "agile" methods would indeed be very interesting to try in FSAE projects.

[RollingCamel]

More updates, the doctor has privately reserved 2 tickets for himself and his wife AND a hotel room all for which he want to pay from our sponsorship money. All that while he knows that we are seriously tight on budget and there is risk that the car may not be complete before shipping time.

The team is falling apart although we finished exams and should be working all day and night. I have a plan to hold this team together but i really don't know what to do with our adviser.

[JeffreyH]

Originally posted by HenningO:
Bringing this post back because something struck me today.

There is much wisdom in this thread, a must read for every aspiring team leader. Out of the 5 cars I built in my uni career, I've also seen as many types of project styles. There always seems to be one thing that always take place, people don't finish their assigned tasks, at all or in time.

I've recently come in to contact with a project method that is commonly used in software development, it's called SCRUM and it has been around for quite sometime now. I'm not going to go into details (the wikipedia article explains it quite well), but one basically breaks the project down to 2 week iterations. Every 2 weeks a new list of tasks is created that has to be completed in 14 days. Each task is given a certain amount of points/hours based on how hard/time consuming it is to complete. After a couple of iterations, the team will know how many points/hours worth of tasks they can done in 14 days.

Obviously software development is quite different from FSAE projects so it might not be possible to apply it straight off. But the key to using SCRUM would be that it is really easy to see when something/somebody is lagging behind. Starting this already in the design phase, you'll know who finishes his/her assignments on time and who doesn't.

SCRUM and other "agile" methods would indeed be very interesting to try in FSAE projects.

We use the scrum method of project management at work. With electronics/mechanical designs it doesn't work as well - though I'm not sure if that's because often our sprints involve mixed software/hardware development, or because it's a feature of a management style designed for software dev. Remember with software development you don't go through nearly the same amount of planning, modelling and simulating before starting coding as you would with electronics/mech design - mostly because software development is cheap and if it fails, it's cheap enough to fix it or do it over.

As a general principle I think it would be quite applicable - ultimately it's about breaking down a large volume of work into small chunks and knocking it off in small amounts. I just don't know how well it would work in a fluid environment such as FSAE where people are balancing car work, university projects and part time employment. The scrum process requires regular meetings (daily) - though this could potentially be treated as a twice weekly meeting or something similar.

Interesting thoughts - I think it could certainly be modified to work well.

[HenningO]

Jeffery,

Interesting thoughts. As you said, it's meant for software development but I believe it could successfully be applied to mech/elec projects. Sure code is easy to re-write, re-manufacturing an upright might not be. With scrum however you would be able to make sure that the design/simulation/manufacturing progress is on time and not figuring out that the guy have been slacking for the past 4 weeks.

Here is quite an informative video on scrum:
h ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5k7a9YEoUI&fmt=22