Managing a Solar Car Team

Speaker	Matt Goode
Time and Date	February 20, 2021 @ 1:00 PM ET
Attendees	Catherine Cai, Kristen Shiozaki
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The Good	The Bad
Members held one another accountable and everyone were understanding of the project’s goals Members were extremely dedicated and helped wherever they could	Leadership was cliquey and not very open, which led to a rocky transition when the leads graduated Didn’t listen to experts and didn’t want to admit it when they needed help

Chose the core team 1 year before WSC, which they found to be a bit early
- also required everyone to stay near the school (they have some members that had co-ops and so they put this rule in place)
Personal conflicts were not resolved before leaving for the competition

Internally, everyone made hard deadlines for unveiling and departure for the competition
- Tip → ensured lead tasks were allocated properly through multiple meetings
Promote honest communication - cannot be afraid of bringing up bad news
- Ansys and other softwares are difficult to learn and the sooner you raise your hand, the sooner you can get out of the pinch
Make sure you show appreciation to members
- Many people with PrISUm were burnt out and you want to make sure they know they are making an impact (everyone is a volunteer)

Make sure all sponsors and partners know what donations and money is going towards
Share progress with companies
- PrISUm shared bad news with one company, which happened to be connected with a company with experts who helped solve their issue (so being transparent with the good AND the bad can have some positive results)
Show people that you care
- 1 graphic of the project is worth 1 thousand words - this helped enable the team to realize how much work they had to do and also got sponsors excited

I really like this idea for Midnight Sun’s sponsorship package (i’d honestly replace the budget page with this)

They have a sponsorship package to understand the cost of going to competition, indicate tiers and identified specific needs
Also had a calling centre - had new memnbers sit in on calls that older members had with the sponsors
Emailing is critical and they sent daily emails while at competition
- Sundials → PDF with captioned images and small blurbs about the project’s progress
- Connecting with sponsors + showing appreciation!
Don’t underestimate your University → see which professors you can work with and the foundation

Lost a lot of contact information and had to start from scratch → now they make sure to have a massive spreadsheet with contact information
Rekindling relationships → see if the team has old records of donations (always record that and hang onto it for future teams)

Having ambitious goals will force team members to work hard towards it
Keep in mind that everyone is a volunteer - school is a priority (and should be)
- Account for members needing to learn how to machine, learning to use a new software
Identify who your rockstars are - who will fill in the holes and be the future of the team
- Before you hand someone a project, make sure they have taken on smaller projects to evaluate how dedicated they are (someone might have the skills, but how much are they willing to put into the team → this needs to be known before you drop the ball on them)
Make sure there’s a proper handoff process for all members that move on → set a date!
Give people a runway - if you micro-manage, you’ll probably drive members crazy
Setting milestones → setting them a month and a half early so they can be moved if needed

Used to compare PrISUm to some of the other teams - but they were different
- Make sure to understand what your team wants to do and what it wants to accomplish - that’s how you’ll succeed
Being transparent about milestones will put a bit of pressure on the team members and hopefully motivate them

^ yea timelines will always be off… But stay as close as possible to the goals you’ve set (obviously )

How do you navigate onboarding during COVID-19

Very hard to solve, but some companies have group learning sessions (similar to what we do for the hardware talks )

Conversing with sponsors after not finishing WSC 2017 - how did you rekindle those relationships?

Did PrISUm do any personality-trait or any team-building activities?

Projects for new members?

Drive into them the process of approaching a problem and technical skills will follow
Extremely important for all projects to tie back into the car so that members see that they are making an impact

How were leadership meetings run?

Matt had a rough agenda and at the end of every meeting, would have a list of action items, which would be reviewed at the beginning of the next meeting
Extremely important to have a balance of work and fun

Reaching out for sponsorships?

First thing - find someone you can connect with (start with mutual contacts through current supporters or go through LinkedIn and team alumni!)
If the initial contact doesn’t work out, contact a representative blindly
If companies ever visit the University, ask if they want to visit your shop / bay (premise for starting a conversation )

What were leadership transitions like?

Very very rough…
What Matt tried to do was send out updates and call a couple key alumni to gage interest in initiatives / design stuff
Big regret - not establishing alumni communication