Recruiting

[afroney]

Question for every team:

How do you guys find quality people?

ISU FSAE has been in a slump with membership. Its pretty much down to 5 people that actually build the car, and 2 people who spend more than 20hrs/week in the shop.

Our problem is finding quality members. Every year, we have 50 people that show up, and most of them leave. I would say that the problem is that 95 percent of the incoming engineers at ISU are either too stupid or lazy to contribute to the team. It sounds harsh, but its the truth. Trouble is finding the 5%. It seems that Iowa State University is lacking quality people nowadays...

How do you guys keep recruit/retain members?

[afroney]

Question for every team:

How do you guys find quality people?

ISU FSAE has been in a slump with membership. Its pretty much down to 5 people that actually build the car, and 2 people who spend more than 20hrs/week in the shop.

Our problem is finding quality members. Every year, we have 50 people that show up, and most of them leave. I would say that the problem is that 95 percent of the incoming engineers at ISU are either too stupid or lazy to contribute to the team. It sounds harsh, but its the truth. Trouble is finding the 5%. It seems that Iowa State University is lacking quality people nowadays...

How do you guys keep recruit/retain members?

[J. Vinella]

I have seen this a few times on the forums. There are a few good threads. It is a hard question to answer. I'll give my 2 cents for the day:

We are lucky to have SAE as a credit class here at UW. That being said only a couple take it for credit each quarter. How do we keep the other people? We have a decent sized team. Many come and go as you have experienced, and I wish I knew the secret to making them stay. I know a few people on other FSAE teams and they do not have SAE as a credit course; they say the major difference in my experience and theirs is organization. Passion is great to get people involved but if you are not organized people can lose interest fast.

There is that old adage: 20% of the people do 80% of the work. I bet this holds true for most teams out there. It's just another good learning experience that FSAE teaches you. Some people are hard working and some are flakes.

We often show our car in public events like the Engineering Open house and other big events. Many people come up and ask questions, about 5% actually come to a meeting about out of that 5% probably 1 will stay on the team. Meeting people in class is another good way to recruit. I never pressure them to join the team, just a gentle nudge. The people that join the team on their own are usually the best.

Good luck,

[John Stimpson]

This is a massive problem with our team right now. We have perhaps 10-15 people "on" the team.

Of those 10-15, there are maybe 4 people that have legitimately put good effort forth to get the '07 car done in one way or another. As far as building/fabrication of the car goes however, we have 1 person doing 95% (or more) of the work. You read that right!

I think part of the problem is having patience for newbies. Fact of the matter is that almost all newbies have never worked in a shop before, and don't have the first idea how to use equipment to build things. When a newbie makes something, and its complete crap, not worthy of being on a go-cart with a rub-the-wheel brake, how do you not piss them off when you explain its not going to work/not good enough? Its a big turn off to them when their ideas aren't good and get shot down. A bigger turn off to them when they put effort forth to build something and it gets shot down.

Then you've got the skilled people that have built cars/engines in the shop with their dad since they were 10. In my experience, these people want to walk in the first day and be chief engineer running the show. After coming down a few times, they feel like they're being shit on because everything isn't done "their way", and they stop coming.

Anyone else notice that when an interested freshman gets involved with a fraternity, they are LONG GONE?

Crazy, Kettering University used to be called "General Motors Institute", and we are highly acclaimed as car guys. How we can't get some true, experienced car people down to the shop to build a frickin' racecar is way beyond me.

[Mike Flitcraft]

First off, I don't know how some of the members can put in the hours they do and balance school at the same time. They know who they are, and they're largely responsible for the car getting finished.

I just started contacting instructors of mandatory courses, to see if we could get a chance to talk to the class. I've had pretty good response, especially from the co-op courses, but dont' ahve any dates from the instructors yet.

I think the only way to get car guys into the shop, experianced or otherwise, is to do a mass recruiting campaign, we're at our smallest team number in eyars. The folks that aren't that interested will drop like flies, the experianced will start designing and manfucaturing, and the new guys (like me) will start where we can help.

I've had experiance reparing since a young age, but this is my first year of designing and fabrication on this scale. Needless to say, I'm learning quite a bit.

Edit: I guess I'm an interesting subject for this. 22 years old, freshman. I've learned to take critizism and relize the more that I get, the better I can improve on something. Most folks in college are right out of high school and have never held the same job for more than a year straight, and I don't count pizzas as a job, been there, done that.

The thing I find funny is most people it seems are too worried about hurting what feelings are left in me by telling me that I'm screwing something up, doing something the hard way, or something's complete crap.

[John Stimpson]

You touched on this, but I'd like to reiterate it and bring it into the light:

The new potential members that are older are almost ALWAYS keepers! When you come across a 22+ year old freshman, or transfer student, GET THEM INVOLVED! They're by far the best.

Last year in Cali, it was pretty obvious the older the team members looked, the better their car looked and the better it performed.

Sorry if this offends the youngsters, but 25 year olds know whats going on better than 19 year olds, basically without exception.

[Mike Flitcraft]

Yeah, Ben Frisby and a few other folks couldn't believe that I was a freshman. Apparently, according to them, I either know too much to be a freshman, or look too old.

[DustinJones]

The University of Evansville has gone through the same thing. We've got 20 members on our team, and 6 or so of us that do 90% of the work, and our car is even considered a class project for credit. Granted 5 of those 20 are freshman and are still learning the basics of machining. We usually pair the underclassmen with the upperclassmen, it helps with passing the information on to future classes. The prospect of driving the car is usually a good enticement to get potential engineers on the team, its just a matter of their work ethic to see how they do.

[Jersey Tom]

Same thing happens every year, though you get periodic fluctuations in the amount of "good" solid core members and how much they're driven.

I feel the 2007 car, or possibly 2008, will be a peak for CU Racing, though its hard to predict after that. Past couple years started as kinda redneck engineering, and through knowledge transfer and some intensive study has gone up orders of magnitude in quality.

We have 9 seniors on the team this year, 5 of which returned from previous years for a total of 11 man-years experience coming onto the team. Also had have some long-time alumni around helping out here and there. Of the 9 seniors we have now, most put in a good amount of work, and 2-3 put in the long long hours. At this point I'm doing 40-50 hrs a week on top of class.

Underclassmen, think we have 15 total. 4-5 of them have been absolutely tremendous in getting the car done. And I agree with John, a lot of times the older people, even if new to the team, have a lot more maturity and proactivity. Next year's team I think will be a bit more driven and organized, though will be losing out on a lot of fabrication knowledge and facility access.

Its tough to motivate peers. I think its particularly difficult for people who have been on the team and then do it for senior design.. while they may have come done work when it was just volunteer work on their spare time.. the fact that theyre now responsible for work and have to get it done when it means throwing away some social life, etc.. doesn't always work out.

[Yellow Ranger]

For the past 9 years I've been with volunteer organizations (not just FSAE) I have noticed that a 5% retention rate is normal under most conditions. When our team acknowledged the fact that we were loosing 6 seniors this year (our 90% of the team) we new that recruiting was not something we could brush aside. That's why when the year was started- I knew the team needed at least 7 new members on the team which meant having 150 names on a roster.

Here we are, two and a half months before Detroit and we have 7 new, good members (two of which are freshmen) and we started with 136 on the new member roster. The key is to get your name out there, reach out to the community, recruit, but that "90% of the team"� will find you, and stay with the program; the hardest part is keeping those people. Assuming your retention skills don't involve you being impatient with new members and making "newbies"� do bitch work rather than learning key habits and skills, keeping those people should be easy- but then again, some people tend to neglect the obvious.

[Wesley]

Especially don't make them die grind aluminum.

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

[LU-Bolton]

It takes a special type of person to build these cars in one year, and even more to build them right. It's very difficult when there's a few people on the team who would do whatever it takes to get the car done, and the rest just don't have the same priorities. I think we all have similar stories and face similar situations. It will never be perfect. All we can do is try our best to build the teams and make small improvements each and every year.

Restore an old formula car that's been lying in the basement of your engineering dept., come up with an interesting freshmen project, teach them everything you know. That's all we can do because eventually it will be their turn and we don't want what we built to go to waste.

Aaron Cassebeer

[SpdRcr]

UNH Precision Racing is in its 4th season. I have been a member of the program since the 2nd season. Recruitment has been something I have worked hard at to keep the program going. UNH Precision Racing is the single most important thing to me in school.

To recruit members, we do the same stuff anyone else does...Display the car, attend all university acctivity fair days, etc. This season, we had about 50 kids show up wanting to 'build a racecar' before they knew the true meaning. Most of them were underlcassmen, the blood and future fo the program. Keeping them was crucial; I was aiming to keep 50% realistically.

The trick here is to KEEP the members...Recruiting is easy when you have a racecar on display and promo videos. To KEEP the members, our 'super' seniors, who have an extra semester left, are 'Student Advisors' and get technical credit. They host seminars in the fall to bring the underclassmen up to speed on theory and fabrication experience. There were about 4 and they covered the basics from statics and frame design, to basic suspension geometry; i.e. what to do and what to avoid...

This helps bring them into the program on a basic level, rather than slamming them with fluid dynamics and intake design.

The next step is to get them in the shop. MAke them know they are needed and the car won't get done without their help. Whether it was sanding or making slugs. Make sure you tell them they are needed, because THEY ARE!

Final step. Keep it fun. When it comes down to it, ya the seniors need to man up and get it done with or without the underclassmen. So keep them involved by keeping it fun. Whether its playing GTR-2 during down time or going karting and teaching the basics of navigating a race track, its fun, and its beneficial for the program in all aspects.



Side note: Lap times in GTR-2 get better after an average of 2-3 beers, but begin to get worse after approx. 4.

Ok, time to get back in the shop and get this thing built. Good luck.

[SpdRcr]

Note: Our 'super seniors' were 4th year seniors the previous year when they were on the team. As Student Advisors they have to write a large, indepth research paper on a specific aspect of the car. This is the primary reason for their credit.

[number77]

We have lots of people show up at the driver's meetings, and some at the general meetings, but only 5 or so that ever do real work.(everyone wants to drive, no one wants to build)
I'm one of two who built the chassis. Next year I am suppost to carry it on. As a non engineering major, its something I probably won't do for a few reasons. The main reason is that disagreements on the team are never compromises and always end in someone thinking their manhood is being challenged.

[Mechanicaldan]

Tony,

Trust me, what you are going through is nothing new. I think a lot of teams will report loosing members as it gets closer to competition.

You can try announcing incentives (free food?) at the general meeting so people show up to work on the weekends. This will also bring people to the shop for free food, and then they will leave.

Most new members have generally stopped coming because they didn't have anything to do. They stood around for a while during the fall semester and then just stopped coming.

You're problem is NOT finding quality members, it's that you haven't spent time TRAINING quality members. There are very few students that come to college that can perform any type of design or fabrication, and less that can do quality design or fabrication.

It's hard to say why older members stop coming. They need to study more? Could also be "all work and no play" sucks. Everyone needs to find their balance. How much school work they can handle. How much FSAE they can handle. How much other fun they can miss.

The best way to keep members is to have a mentoring program. One on one. Current member works with a new member. It's hard work, but that's what it's going to take.

Here are a few of the past posts:

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/2406044402/p/1

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/24060444...676055402#7676055402 (http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/2406044402?r=7676055402#7676055402)

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/14310959...10089511#70410089511 (http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/14310959511?r=70410089511#70410089511)

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/25810897...10599131#70710599131 (http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/25810897131?r=70710599131#70710599131)

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/58260153...076073485#2076073485 (http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/5826015385?r=2076073485#2076073485)

[afroney]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Mechanicaldan:
Tony,

Trust me, what you are going through is nothing new. I think a lot of teams will report loosing members as it gets closer to competition.

You can try announcing incentives (free food?) at the general meeting so people show up to work on the weekends. This will also bring people to the shop for free food, and then they will leave.

Most new members have generally stopped coming because they didn't have anything to do. They stood around for a while during the fall semester and then just stopped coming.

You're problem is NOT finding quality members, it's that you haven't spent time TRAINING quality members. There are very few students that come to college that can perform any type of design or fabrication, and less that can do quality design or fabrication.

It's hard to say why older members stop coming. They need to study more? Could also be "all work and no play" sucks. Everyone needs to find their balance. How much school work they can handle. How much FSAE they can handle. How much other fun they can miss.

The best way to keep members is to have a mentoring program. One on one. Current member works with a new member. It's hard work, but that's what it's going to take.

Here are a few of the past posts:

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/2406044402/p/1

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/24060444...676055402#7676055402 (http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/2406044402?r=7676055402#7676055402)

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/14310959...10089511#70410089511 (http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/14310959511?r=70410089511#70410089511)

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/25810897...10599131#70710599131 (http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/25810897131?r=70710599131#70710599131)

http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/58260153...076073485#2076073485 (http://fsae.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/125607348/m/5826015385?r=2076073485#2076073485) </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not to rant, but I remember in my first two years of ISU FSAE, I had only a few parts go on the car - A carbon fiber radiator shroud and a few chassis tubes and mounting tabs and brackets. Most of these two first years were spent doing the "bitch" work of the team - taking out the trash, sanding, and grinding chassis tubes. I also watched the other leaders machine, weld, and assemble various components. I knew if I kept coming to meetings and shop days that I would eventually get more meaningful work. In the past, I also watched a lot of leaders, namely Jason and Jim, scare away alot of new members, but I decided to put up with their criticism.

I might sound like an old man, but alot of the new guys that come in here don't know the vaule of a hard day's work. They come in, tell you you should turbo the car, put NOS in it, and tell you that they could build a better car themselves. We've had a few new guys that knew their shit and rose to the top quickly. They are the ones now building the car. But, most of them don't know their shit, and don't think they need training on a lathe or welder. When told to sand or grind, they think they are above that "bitch work" and leave. In my mind, the new guys should have to put up with the same level of "bitch" work that I did and work their way up, but that hasn't obviously worked out for us.

After reading all these posts, I have thought of a possible new position - New Member Coordinator. The leaders could train this person in all aspects of fabrication and design, then this person could pass this knowledge down to the new members. Our problem is right now, we honestly don't have the time to train new members, which in turn, screws us over even more in the future. This new position could allow the leaders to go about their work while engaging new members at the same time.

I have also thought of conducting an interview process and tryouts for new recruits. Over the past few years, our team has built up a very high level of prestige on campus, and I think we could use this prestige to our advantage. Make every new member go through basic shop and saftey training. Give them a few small projects, like repairing systems on an old FSAE car. The ones that show up every weekend and show a geninue interest in the car are the ones we will focus more training and support on, the ones who only show up occasionaly, get cut. This way, leaders can focus training efforts on people who are going to stay, rather than spreading out their training efforts on 50 different people.

As a side note, another interesting trend i've seen with some of the new members is outright lying on resumes about FSAE positions. I've seen random people claim they were Project Directors, Engine Team Leaders, etc. Of course, this bites them in the ass when I get a phone call from the Caterpillars, the Mercurys, and the Hondas asking about their ficticous positions. These guys are just asking to get blacklisted from an entire industry. Have any of you guys seen this? Its a pretty interesting trend...

[Azim]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by afroney:
Question for every team:

How do you guys find quality people?

ISU FSAE has been in a slump with membership. Its pretty much down to 5 people that actually build the car, and 2 people who spend more than 20hrs/week in the shop.

Our problem is finding quality members. Every year, we have 50 people that show up, and most of them leave. I would say that the problem is that 95 percent of the incoming engineers at ISU are either too stupid or lazy to contribute to the team. It sounds harsh, but its the truth. Trouble is finding the 5%. It seems that Iowa State University is lacking quality people nowadays...

How do you guys keep recruit/retain members? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
Hah - you think you're in a bad spot? Wichita State has about 6-7 hard workers in both Baja and FSAE. A few of us are also wanting to go to both Baja SAE Rochester and FSAE West - we're still trying to figure out how to do that! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[Mike Flitcraft]

Ask H. G. Wells http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif

[John Stimpson]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Azim:
Hah - you think you're in a bad spot? Wichita State has about 6-7 hard workers in both Baja and FSAE. A few of us are also wanting to go to both Baja SAE Rochester and FSAE West - we're still trying to figure out how to do that! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hah! You think you've got it bad?? Between the Clean Snowmobile, Mini Baja and FSAE, we have 4 productive people! 2 on CSC, 1 on Baja, and 2 for FSAE. You might notice that adds to 5... Thats because I'm one of the 2 on both CSC and FSAE

Good grief....12 days to CSC competition, and 72 days to FSAE...

[afroney]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by John Stimpson:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Azim:
Hah - you think you're in a bad spot? Wichita State has about 6-7 hard workers in both Baja and FSAE. A few of us are also wanting to go to both Baja SAE Rochester and FSAE West - we're still trying to figure out how to do that! http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Hah! You think you've got it bad?? Between the Clean Snowmobile, Mini Baja and FSAE, we have 4 productive people! 2 on CSC, 1 on Baja, and 2 for FSAE. You might notice that adds to 5... Thats because I'm one of the 2 on both CSC and FSAE

Good grief....12 days to CSC competition, and 72 days to FSAE... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah thats bad. I know I've become the angry shop resident after 4 years of Formula. I remember looking at some of our leaders my freshman year and wondered how someone could be so angry at the world. Now, I realize that I've become the pissed off, freshman bashing, chair throwing shop monkey.

One more competition left... Then i'm FREE!!!

[Gasperini]

At Cal Poly Pomona, we do pretty well with $800/yr from the school and a "hands off" professor. Here's what we do to get and keep new guys:

1.) Display a clean, complete, polished car at club recruting events. (Sometimes we just wheel it out near the engineering building.) That car is a freakin magnet.

2.) Put new members to work on meaningful tasks. More "hey, think you could sand that a bit?" and less "Take out the trash, rook!"

3.) Pair rookies with older people. It's less work on us, and more fun for them. We call it the buddy system.

4.) No responsibility = No authority. We don't have a program, and the guys with 3-4 years on the team are either helping with the '07 car, or off the team. This prevents them from being "executive members" that just boss people around. If you aren't designing something, you don't get to boss a rookie around.

5.) Everyone drives the car. If you put in a year on our team, you drive when the season is over. End of story.

6.) Respect the new guys. They're young and dumb sometimes, but they're sharp as hell at other times. They're also you a few years ago. Don't be a jerk. This also means asking them if they're having fun, or how you can improve as officers.

7.) You also want team decisions to be fair, honest, and transparent.

Good luck, and see you all in Detroit, California, and Italy!

[Chris Allbee]

Number 7 on that list is very important, not just for new members but even for the oldies around. Nobody likes to feel that important decisions are being made behind closed doors without any consult of the rest of the group, especially when it involves a volunteer orginization.

[Ben Dyer]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Gasperini:
2.) Put new members to work on meaningful tasks. More "hey, think you could sand that a bit?" and less "Take out the trash, rook!"
</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Being one of the new members to the UWFSAE team this year I've found that number 2 sits above the rest in my opinion. If I wasn't allowed to participate in a way that I felt was helping the team in any tangible way I most likely would not have stayed around. Although some of the tasks that I have done were not quite as important, they actually worked towards getting the car finished. In return for my willingness to help out, I have absorbed copious amounts of new information.
That's just my $.02

[BrendonD]

This is an excellent thread with all sorts of good advice. This is the first year for our team at Northwestern, and it's also the first time there have been 3 extracurricular vehicular teams working at the same time. I am in an awkward position because I am a freshman, yet I am the acting president of the club, and I have a huge amount of responsibility. Right now I count our active members as the people who have the keys to the shop. As of the moment, that makes 11 including our three captains. That may change at the beginning of next quarter, with everyone coming out from the rocks they've been under with finals. While I have to tread a very very fine line when being authoritative, people tend to respect the amount of time I put into the organization. You all make some excellent points about team dynamics, and I believe giving people meaningful work to do is by far the best decision we have made so far. People seem to lack passion here in the engineering department, so much so that the Dean of Engineering has made it a point to attempt to improve culture here. Drew, Grant and I (The three captains) have made it a point to always have fun and exude pride in what we do, and it rubs off quite a lot on the other guys, they work hard and late to get things done and we all respect the work we do. I can honestly say we're lucky to have made it this far, building a team from nothing and competing in the same year is going to be rough on all of us these next few months, but I see worth in what we do, and that's what matters.

[Kenny T Cornett]

Here at UT we have a neat philosophy behind FSAE.


I'm a member from another school who transferred and started the program here this year. I was struggling to gain a footing inside an SAE club that is already highly developed and has a capstone design project associated with it (translating to no upperclassmen in the formula team).

I've come to the conclusion that the core members do exist out there, it's just a matter of finding them. I did a search on facebook for everyone at my school who had the mention of cars or racing in their profiles and sent out mass messages. Same with local car forums.

The results have been overwhelming...

I have 10 freshman/sophomores coming to learn solid modeling on a weekly basis (for 3 hours at a time), 15 guys learning machine tools and fab techniques, and several who do racing on the side... shifter karts, hpde's, etc etc etc

The system works... and well.

To sum the philosophy... it's all about mass numbers. The weak will weed themselves out, especially with a fast pace in learning and design, but the inherent side effect is that you gain the dedicated people you need by sheer exposure.

[Gasperini]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by NU mafia:
blah blah blah... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's good to hear!

Brand new orginizations have a very loose leadership structure, and I believe the attutude you have can have a huge influence on the team culture. (Among other things!) I can see you are on the right track here, and it appears to be paying off.

Where will we be seeing you compete this year?

[GSXR05K]

Hello Tony, and all the other teams reading and responding to this thread.

As I research more about other teams, it is definetely no suprise to hear you expressing your recruitment and retainment troubles.

Hopefully some information I've found is something that will be of use to us all.

First of all, I am fortunate to be on a team that has been around 10 years; of those I've been involved in the last 3 1/2. Not very long ago our team had the same syptoms many of you have shared; such as autocratic leaders and less members than you can count on one hand.

Within the last 2-3 years, our FSAE team has started doing more work on Teaming, and conducting feedback surveys to current members and team alumnus. With the feedback, we have worked to resolve many issues that were causing all these common problems. One of the surveys we used was from the book, "The 5 dysfunctions of a Team."

As this work has continued, we have seen our team grow from about 5 core members doing all the work, to about 15 really putting in a decent effort. This is more than we hoped for, even when we had 60 people initially sign up at the beginning of fall semester.

I also attribute the success to teaming activities we do in our weekly meetings. This year in our meetings, we have had team led discussions and demonstrations of "Giving and Receiving Feedback," "Asset Distribution," "Team Cognition," and a few others. We also have planned fun team events after certain milestones are acheived - making a more personal connection outside of campus.

Finally, one of the best retainment techniques we've used is letting the incoming members have thier own meetings, entitled, "Formula Future," where they discuss and research team development, understanding a Learning Organization, Core Values, and all kinds of future innovations or projects they would like to try relating to the racecar. Instead of just having them do grunt work, they are given free reign to a variety of projects they conceive, such as swapping an f4i engine for a single cyl. with a CVT, Tool wagon design and manufacture, Design Board manufacturing, prototype shifter, and launch control. Of course to do all this, they are all teamed up with experienced team members, but that is an integral part of our program. Their projects all have a budget, deadlines, and must report Preliminary Design Reviews and Critical Design Reviews before the whole team and advisors. This gives them a real taste of how in depth and busy the main project is. It also allows them to experience successes and failures.

I will also note that it does help to have more mature members on the team. All the grad-students we've had have been excellent members. Compared to some teams, we lack this aspect. Dr. Woods even mentioned this same thing to us, expressing one of his opinions about some of UTA's success being related to the large amount of grad-students enrolled.

It is a long process to getting a consistently healthy team. Some people will not join your team until they see a history of success; so it takes a while. Keep recruiting at every event you can. We work very hard to do this, and our school has less than 2000 students. We even start with High School students. I don't know how we do it, because we have an additional 8 student projects in addition to the 4 SAE; and all the school funding for these projects is divided among these 12 teams. Anyway, expect a healthy team to take at least one full year to build.

You must also expect a 40 - 66% rate of loss in human capital every year. From what other teams have shared with me, even the best teams, this is the percentage that they experience.

Hope this gives you some encouragement, and the best of luck to you all,
Aaron

[BrendonD]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Gasperini:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by NU mafia:
blah blah blah... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's good to hear!

Brand new orginizations have a very loose leadership structure, and I believe the attutude you have can have a huge influence on the team culture. (Among other things!) I can see you are on the right track here, and it appears to be paying off.

Where will we be seeing you compete this year? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, and it's been quite a learning experience stepping up and doing this. We will be competing in Fontana this year because we *barely* registered. Me and my two other co-captains had enough faith in ourselves and each other to build a team this year that we put up the money and registered before we were even a student group or anywhere on the radar of the Northwestern administration. Sometimes I wish we weren't on the radar of the Northwestern administration, hahaha.

Luckily, one of our advisors is the Dean of Undergraduate Engineering, so he plugs the fact that we exist any chance he gets to incoming freshmen.

[noname]

This is my experience.

First some background, I grew up in a motorsport family and have worked in motorsport for the past 7 years with a team who prepare cars for a few national saloon car championships. I also work as a race car driving instructor and have the dubiously prestigous title of having more track miles at my local circuit than any other person.

Having noticed that the years are clocking by, I've begun a course of study to become a mechanical engineer. I was aware that my university had an FSAE team and I attended their open day and subsequent team meetings.

The open day-
This was held in the workshop and was combined with a meeting of the existing team and sub-teams. There wasn't any particular formal structure and it primarily consisted of the prospective members standing around with their hands in the pockets looking at the previous years car. There were a few current members who chatted with the prospective members and a short speech by the faculty member in charge of the team.

Weekly meeting 1 -
The faculty member in charge of the team engaged in a 20 minute speech ended with asking the prospective members what course they were studying and then arbitrarily assigning them to a team. Still zero interaction between continuing members and prospective new members.

Weekly meeting 2 -
Noticable decrease in the number of prospective new members (from perhaps ~50 to ~15). Meeting consisted of another 20 minute speech by the faculty man followed by a rant and random threats from the H&S officer.

Weekly meeting 3 -
No official weekly meeting, out of curiousity I poked my nose into the workshop and found it full of the existing team members deeply engaged in debate, design and discussion.

Summary -
In my time I've been part of many organisations, with roles from grunt to group leader. Including 15 years working in and running volunteer organisations. This is how I see the team at my university...

(1) The existing members are interested in the car, they recognise (as do we all) that the vast majority of prospective members will fall by the wayside and never make a meaningful contribution to the team and as such are disinterested in making that connection.

(2) The faculty member is largely there to feed his ego, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, we all have a reasons for becoming involved. But this means he takes on the vast majority of interaction with the new students.

(3) Somewhere hidden behind him is the actual team that is making the car (By now I know who these people are), they do their best to keep their work largely away from the faculty members attention, in that they (possibly rightly) feel that he isn't as knowledgable as he maintains.

(4) Of the other prospective members I spoke with, the vast majority of those who remain are the 'school-leavers' with minimal or zero practical knowledge who spend most of their time having guessing competitions based on 'magazine and internet knowledge', of the reasonably experienced prospective members I spoke with, only two have remained and only because the existing team latched onto them because of their fitting/turning background.

Where does this leave me... I could wander into the next team meeting, list my background and experience and become deeply involved in the team for the next half a decade... but quite frankly I don't feel the least bit inclined. FSAE interests me, but so far this team doesn't.

Interestingly, I've been warmly welcomed in my interactions with a few members of FSAE team from the neighbouring university (natural arch-enemies).

Oh, guess which university I'm from and I'll buy you a pint.

-noname.

[fade]

can you narrow the choices down to a specific continent? http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

[J. Vinella]

I'd say Europe, and sounds like he/shes from England. The post uses "saloon, H&S and pint," just a hunch. Noname, what does that get me?

This sounds about right. As a new member you must engage the current members and participate in discussions or as you said they might look at you as another student that will fall by the waist side. It is easy to let members slip away because you are too busy designing/building a car.

Hope things turn out better for you. Hey, you could always become really active and change the team for the better given your experience.

Cheers,

[noname]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Hey, you could always become really active and change the team for the better given your experience. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Its precisely that response which is why I'm disinclined to raise the issue with the team and I'd contend the logic within is flawed.

Person 1: "I don't feel welcome around here"
Person 2: "Well why not spend lots of time around here completely changing the place into something you do like"
Person 1: (blank stare)(long pause) "You are kidding, right?"

[Garlic]

I'll throw a guess and say you're at Monash.

As a prospective member of a team, and as one with experience, it's clear you'd be an asset to the team. Assuming that you are willing to work properly and productively with others.

However sounds like you just need to evaluate whether it's worth your time and effort to be a part of the team. I would say, if you make the effort, it will pay off. but it is up to you.

In your case, at meeting number 3, you ought to have shown yourself in, listened to the discussion, and made the existing members aware that you exist. Then keep showing up and start to offer opinions or even better, offer to help work on something.

It's really not that hard to become involved. And at that point, you'll have a much better idea if it's something that really interests you, or if you have enough racing under your belt to just concentrate on the engineering side of things.

[BrendonD]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by noname:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Hey, you could always become really active and change the team for the better given your experience. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Its precisely that response which is why I'm disinclined to raise the issue with the team and I'd contend the logic within is flawed.

Person 1: "I don't feel welcome around here"
Person 2: "Well why not spend lots of time around here completely changing the place into something you do like"
Person 1: (blank stare)(long pause) "You are kidding, right?" </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

There's something to be said for that. This is what sets people apart, the ability to change the status quo. We ran into a shitstorm of opposition from uptight administrators because this was a new thing. They now know me as the one to get things done. When I get a chance to sit down and structure the team again, I'm writing it somewhere that all members of the team have equal rights. I will NOT let this team become a clique, I've been excluded from too many things in my life before college to do that to other people.

[whatupchuck]

I end up doing a lot of work with newbies on our team and the biggest thing that drives them away is when the senior guys ignore them, just talk to the guys a little bit even if you dont remember their name.

Ive also found that a good way to get guys interested is to have them work on older cars, they can get experience without it being a disaster if they mess it up. just a thought