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Tips for Time Management

Teaching your team members how to organize themselves, how to make and keep calendars, the importance of checklists, and how to divide labor is not considered to be Outside Assistance.

  1. Set interim goals and deadlines

    • Have the team create a big calendar ending with the tournament in March.

    • Help the team identify all of the tasks that need to be accomplished. The list might include:

      • Decide on the premise of the solution and an overall theme.

      • Brainstorm on the storyline and how the required elements will be addressed.

      • Think about style elements. Who has skills that they want to highlight? What might they want to do in their solution that isn’t specifically scored for long-term?

      • Create an outline of the script that incorporates the decisions about how required elements and style elements will be addressed. Decide who will draft the script, complete the first draft (date when team can read through and fine tune script)

      • Decide on costumes, how they will be designed/made, what materials are needed, who will actually make each costume, when costumes should be finished

      • Decide on design of membership sign, materials needed, who will work on making the membership sign

      • Similar tasks for backdrop (if there will be one), props, other required and style elements

      • Rehearsals: How many, when. Coach can help implement team’s decisions (finding the space and obtaining permission to use it.)

    • Pencil dates onto the calendar so the team can tell if they are meeting their milestones.

  1. Schedule full team meetings to:

    • Practice spontaneous

    • Show and tell from sub-teams (if you are using them)

    • Review progress against the overall schedule. Help team figure out how to adjust the schedule if necessary. This is a good opportunity for a mini-brainstorming session:

  • Given the time remaining, what can you do to still finish everything by the tournament?”

  • The team may decide to: schedule extra work sessions, change how they want to build the prop, redesign a costume or backdrop, eliminate a prop or element of their solution, etc.

    • Review official clarifications and have the team decide if they need to adjust anything

    • Brainstorm additional aspects of the problem

  1. Schedule “work sessions” separate from team meetings. Encourage the team to create sub-teams with their own deadlines.

    • Can be more efficient because there are fewer cooks in the kitchen on any given task

    • Good way to let team members shine with their particular expertise, particularly if there are strong team members who might stifle the quieter members.

      • Is someone especially artistic? Let that member lead a sub-team on making the backdrop.

      • Do a few team members love to write? Let them write a first draft of the script based on the ideas generated by the team.

      • Does the team want to include music (or does the problem require music)? Let band-members take the lead on music.

An opportunity to get parents involved as hosts of sub-teams (make sure they understand the importance of team independence and what constitutes Outside Assistance).

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