Team Advisor Tips: Creating a Mission Folder Plan

Team work and advance planning are keys for a successful Mission Folder. A project plan helps your team to stay organized and on track. Your project plan should outline the role of each team member, detail steps of what is necessary to complete your project and contain deadlines for each step.
Here are some tips to think about when creating your plan.

• Have a meeting at the beginning of the competition with your teammates to talk about individual and team goals. What does your team hope to accomplish?
  
• Set rules that everyone must follow when working together or having a team meeting (i.e. no cell phone disruptions, punctuality, etc.).
• Agree on who does what and when. Your team can trade off doing things so everyone shares the work and learns to do new things. Make a list of all the things that need to be done for your Mission Folder and put them in order of when they need to be completed. Then decide when each task needs to be completed. After you create this list, assign different team members to each task. Some examples might be:
• Who will remind the team about meetings?
• Who will be responsible for each part of the Mission Folder?
• Who will be responsible for keeping track of data?
• Who will get materials ready for the experiment?
• Who will take notes during the experiment?
• Who will create charts and graphs?
• Schedule regular meetings for the team to get together and discuss the progress of your Mission Folder. At these meetings discuss what is going well and what things might need to be improved or modified.

Team Advisors can register here, to receive student worksheets and additional tips!