Battery Box Leads-in-training Mandate S2023

Leads in training will shadow the current leads (@Owen Li , @Eric Zhao ) to gain the experience to assume leadership roles in MS16. These are your major responsibilities:

1. Becoming experts in all parts of the Battery System and how it integrates into the mechanical and electrical systems of the vehicle:

   1. Joining in on big-picture architecture conversations

   2. Taking on more tasks in different domains of the team

   3. Learning about systems of the car that you aren’t working on currently (reading and tinkering with batteries, EVs, or just engineering stuff in general, everything you learn will come in handy eventually!)

   4. Don’t stress out too much, this stuff will come with time!

2. Becoming good leaders

   1. Leadership is a skill that should be improved the same way you guys work on your engineering skills

   2. Observe the other leads, everyone’s leadership style is different and you’ll need to find out what works best for you

   3. You’ll make lots of mistakes but thats okay! Reflect on what you did well in that leadership position and what you didn’t, then try to improve on that next time.

3. Create and manage task schedules on Trello to ensure continuous alignment with entire battery box team, this includes:

   1. Updating Trello

   2. Organizing/running meetings

   3. Managing deadlines

   4. Reaching out to suppliers/stakeholders

   5. Helping the battery box lead determine and manage risks and issues

   6. Helping battery box lead record battery box spend

   7. Meeting with Midnight Sun Mechanical Project Manager (currently @Michael Hanley ) to provide schedule updates

4. Maximize member interaction and retention through:

   1. Organizing team socials

   2. Organizing 1-1s with new members to align member’s personal goals with battery box tasks

   3. Helping with resume critiques

   4. Reaching out to members to upkeep member morale (essentially, check-in on them personally through Slack)

   5. Keeping a positive attitude (sounds silly, but this is crucial)

Open

Leadership Style

Lana, the previous Battery Box PM had some great advice:

From Lana’s perspective, the servant leadership style, whereby the “leader” puts the needs of the team first and focuses on engagement and fulfilment of team members rather than simply hitting goals and deadlines, is the most effective for Midnight Sun, certainly for the Battery Box team. The servant leader tries to remove all obstacles so the team can do what they do best - design, engineer, and manufacture the best battery pack yet.

Required Skills

• Be Shem, Nicole, or Donna

• Be willing to learn and adapt (both as leaders and engineers)

• Want to see the team succeed

  • In Owen’s opinion, the primary goal of MidSun is for members to grow with the team and for the team to help members reach their personal and career goals. With proper planning, time management, and hard-work, good results in competition will come naturally with this goal.

• Someone who takes initiative and is able to foresee problems beforehand

• Strong time management skills

Skills Gained

• You will become way better engineers and be knowledgeable in Mechanical, Electrical, and Software disciplines

• Leadership

• Communication

• Organization and Time Management

• Prioritization

• Understanding an effective use of resources (team members, time, money)

Estimated time commitment

Onboarding for S2023

• We need to meet to discuss this

• Overarching question: How do we make onboarding better? How do we make the team better as a whole?

  • There is a lot of potential for the team. We have a handful of recurring core members who are super smart and becoming cracked through their work on the team and the experiences they are gaining from school and co-op.

Final Comments

Thanks guys for all the hard-work you guys do on the team it is seriously REALLY appreciated. Being a lead is pretty stressful and hard at times, but it’ll be ok. You’ll probably get burnt out at times or feel like you don’t know enough, but thats normal and you’ll get better at handling all that I promise. I’ll do my best to prepare you as much as I can and if you guys have any concerns, questions, or ANYTHING, just talk to me please! You guys will learn, grow, and have a really challenging but fun and gratifying journey doing this job. Have fun!

Open