How do you manage your SO team?

[harryk]

Looking at possibly instituting some new systems to both get our team organized and running earlier, and inspiring members to work harder
Anybody willing to share how they're team runs?

[hscmom]

It's really hard to legislate hard work.

Often pairing new (lost) kids with medal winners helps as the enthusiasm is contagious and often it takes an experienced team member to get across to the new members how much work it takes to really excel. One of the biggest problems I see is newbies that come in and think they're really good. They learn more than the average kid about fossils, earthquakes, or whatever, but they tend to not realize that they will be competing against excellent students who also are far above average.

Maybe requiring progress reports during meetings might help. You won't have time to do this for each event but if you do it "pop quiz" style where about three or four events make a report at each meeting but you don't know WHICH three or four until the actual meeting...

Just an idea...

[Azukeri]

It's really hard to legislate hard work.

Often pairing new (lost) kids with medal winners helps as the enthusiasm is contagious and often it takes an experienced team member to get across to the new members how much work it takes to really excel. One of the biggest problems I see is newbies that come in and think they're really good. They learn more than the average kid about fossils, earthquakes, or whatever, but they tend to not realize that they will be competing against excellent students who also are far above average.

Maybe requiring progress reports during meetings might help. You won't have time to do this for each event but if you do it "pop quiz" style where about three or four events make a report at each meeting but you don't know WHICH three or four until the actual meeting...

Just an idea...

Yeah Agreeing with him. We usually pair up sure wins with new kids to train them, but we also give people a choice about what they want so they're more motivated to study. It's hard to convince them to study and explain how good they have to be so my coach signs us up for a lot of invitationals. Lets the team fall flat on it's face the first one so they get not studying will result in not winning. This also helps get rid of any people who are not really committed. It doesn't hurt to mix people up too: changing events when necessary so you can find strengths and weaknesses. We do self testing, studying, self teaching. It pays off, but it's hard to get the skills it takes to learn something completely foreign, but the long hours kinda makes everyone into a family and we end up doing it more for each other than for ourselves. At least in my experience that's the case.

[kjhsscioly]

Usually, with building, the captain checks up on most of the events, at least once a month, and with study events, we are required to show some handwritten notes every so often. Most of our building knowledge is passed down, so if a senior is leaving, they are either paired with a younger person, or paired with someone experienced and have an unexperienced observer. We try to pass down our notes between years, so the next year has something to start on.

Chia and I are the captains of our team next year, and we have seen a few different ways of organization, but the conclusion we both came to is that timeliness is a huge factor. Getting rosters out in September gives the team a huge advantage over a team that sets their rosters in december, and the powerhouse teams in our state supposedly start assigning events in the summer, especially for building (though that seems overkill). As far as motivation goes, you have to start out with people who care already, and work to make meeting somewhere people want to be. This is just a theory, but keeping some of your highest state and nationals medals in a frame, displayed prominently at the early meetings might make people more motivated. But, on a more serious note, my team uses invites to judge how dedicated people are, and if you fail to show responsibility, it isn't hard to get cut from the team. Motivation is a delicate combination of the two. Too much fun can cut back productivity, but too much harshness can drive people away alltogether.