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2.009

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Team Roles

Resource title Roles Scope of responsibility

Course Instructor Set course vision Class and all teams in 2.009
Course Sponsors 2.009 Investors Provide resources for 2.009 teams
Course TAs Administrative assistance 2 - available to all 2.009 teams
Librarian Aid in finding resources 1 per class
Lab Staff Technical experts 5 available to all, 1 per team
Lab Instructors Technical managers 1 per section, 2 per team
Team Mentors Project consultants 1-2 per team
Communication Staff Communication consultants 1 per team
Student Teams Product development execution 8 people per section, giving 16 per team
Financial Officers Managing budget 1 per section, giving 2 per team
Tool Officers Maintaining workspace 1 per section, giving 2 per team
Information Officers Interface with librarian 1 per section, giving 2 per team
Safety Officers Product and team safety 1 per section, giving 2 per team
System Integrators Product and team integration 1 per section, giving 2 per team
Task Forces Ad-hoc tasks Defined by section and team as needed

Course Instructor

The course instructor sets the vision for the course, how the course is structured, and what is expected of all the participants. The lectures, project area, grading structure, guidelines, and milestones for the project are determined and administered by the course instructor. The course instructor is available to offer advice to or receive input from any student on all aspects of the course. The course instructor is also available to all teams for design consultation in the Pappalardo lab.

The course instructor does not have a primary role in the grading of individual teams and team members.


The course instructor works with the lab instructors to: clarify and maintain the course vision; obtain detailed feedback about team progress; and identify ways to ensure that the goals of the course are met.

More details:
• The course instructor is equivalent to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a company, setting the top level vision and having ultimate veto power.
• The course instructor sets the vision for the course: how it will proceed and what is expected of all the participants.
• The course instructor invests heavily in guiding lab instructors and facilitating cooperation between teams.
• The course instructor may offer suggestions to lab instructors or individual students but without insisting on executing details in a specific way. Similarly, the course instructor listens to feedback and stays in tune with the project so that the course vision is realized at every level.
• The course instructor is available to help with any 2.009-related issues.
• Lab instructors (technical managers) act to carry out the course vision and facilitate their engineering team.

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Course Sponsors

Sponsor donations provide resources for the team budgets, general supplies for projects, improvements to shop prototyping equipment in the Pappalardo lab, technical staff overtime, reference materials, team office materials (fax, printer, phone, etc.), and materials used for class exercises. Sponsors also give topical lectures for the class when appropriate, and participate in the final presentation.

More details:
• The course sponsor may be thought of as seed investors in a new product development organization. Course sponsors are often interested in recruiting graduates from the class.

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Course TAs

The course TAs assist the course instructor in preparing materials for class and provide materials and resources for the teams. They work with financial officers to process team credit card purchases and receipts for reimbursement. They are available to all students to provide advice.

More details:
• Course TAs may be thought of as providing a combination of administrative assistance and technical assistance.

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Course Librarian

The course librarian provides tips on how to find information. They prepare resources specifically for the course, assist in class exercises to improve information gather skills, and work with team information officers by suggesting possible sources or search methods for different types of information.

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Lab Staff

The lab staff are employees of the Mechanical Engineering Department and work in the Pappalardo lab. They are available to help with advise on prototype fabrication, suggest ways to make parts easier to fabricate, and assist teams in the use of heavy or specialized machine equipment. The shop staff are very valuable team resources. One lab staff member also participates in each team's weekly meeting.

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Lab Instructors

Each team has two faculty members (one per section) serving as their laboratory instructor. Lab instructors attend lectures and all of their team's labs. During lab students make most decisions and build prototypes, but the instructor facilitates team organization, the development of their product specification/contract, helps with risk assessment, concept selection, provides technical advice, assists with prototyping techniques, and conducts design reviews. One of the key roles of the lab instructor is to help teams maintain and adhere to their product development schedule.

The lab instructor will not say "do not do that because I did it once and it does not work" The instructor will say " you should not do that because force does not equal mass times acceleration squared". Instructors may encourage the testing of an idea using analysis or mockups to learn whether a concept is or is not viable, and to perhaps synthesize a new design from observations. The lab instructor should not allow students to incorrectly pursue a design on false hope.

Lab instructors also grade their own section and team members on the basis of weekly performance in lab. All lab instructors grade each team on the major project milestones.

The lab instructors act like technical managers, and thus they:
• Augment the course instructor's vision with detail (i.e., help teach the design process).
• Help students organize their projects by helping them to select feasible design goals and create a workable schedule.
• Act as coaches and facilitators (i.e., catalysts and information data banks).
• Encourage the students to create and learn by allowing them to take chances and make mistakes.
• Allow for a period of discovery and invention.
• Help the design team recognize problems and prompt for solutions.
• Help the design team let go of dead-end ideas and refocus on workable solutions.
• Require justification of feasibility (analysis, experiment, or supporting data), preventing the design team from unduly pursuing concepts on the basis of a wish to be successful.

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Team Mentors

Each team has at least one alumni mentor PD. PD Mentors are professionals with product development experience or 2.009 alumni, and they are volunteering their time to the class. They can assist with a wide variety of issues, ranging from technical details, to team organization or business models. Some mentors will be able to meet with lab sections, others will be able to come in when requested, and others are available through email.

Each team also has a communications mentor. Communications mentors are course staff that help teams with both their presentations and internal communications.


More details:
• The mentors can be thought of as experienced advisors, as is common for startup companies.

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Communication Staff

Communications instructors are available from the Writing and Communication Center to provide feedback on your oral presentations and team communications in 2.009. They will participate in team meetings prior to major course milestones. They can provide feedback on past presentations by reviewing video with you and provide feedback during practice sessions. 2.009 counts towards satisfying your communication requirement.


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Student Teams

The students are ultimately responsible for designing and building an alpha prototype in a manner consistent with the course vision, using their lab instructor, the course instructor, course TAs, librarian, shop staff, and mentors as resources. The course grading outline provides a concise summary of milestones from which success will be largely measured.

Some of the major responsibilities include the development of ideas for possible directions and corresponding first order analysis for technical, customer, market, and resource feasibility. Resource feasibility includes purchasing, fabrication, and personnel (time) limitations. The team: creates and coordinates an internal structure; develops and follows a schedule for the project; and a plans for how the prototype will be manufactured and assembled. The team begins by working in two independent sections through preliminary estimates and mockups, and then converges to a single concept and builds a carefully designed and well executed alpha prototype.

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Financial Officers

Each team has two financial officers (one per section) that track expenditures and monitor the project budget. The financial officers also ensure that purchases follow ethical guidelines. Team financial officers will be selected during the first team lab meeting.

Financial officers are responsible for initiating the process of purchasing project materials (team credit card or purchase order) and reimbursements. The financial officers will have a team credit card in their name.

Financial officers are expected to keep receipts, keep an accounting ledger for the project, and be prepared to provide a budget status report at each team meeting. Each week they will update an expenditures spreadsheet (.xls) documenting all charges—credit card, requests for payments, and petty cash—and send it to the course administrator. The administrator will email the spreadsheet back to you so that you will know when petty cash can be picked up. The reports will also be sent to the lab instructors.

In many cases the financial officers also play a lead role in product cost modeling.

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Tool Officers

Each team will have two tool officers (one from each section). The tool officers will be responsible for coordinating the cleaning of the team workspace and the weekly organization of the team tool cabinet.

Tool officers will be elected during the first week of lab. Tool officers will sign a form indicating that the team is responsible for the tools in their cabinet and will replace tools that are missing at the end of the term. Then, the tool officer will receive a list of tools that are in the team workspace and the combination for the team tool cabinet.

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Information Officers

Information officers are the primary contacts who work with the course librarian to obtain information that the team needs. The information officers should also take responsibility for observing team meetings, paying careful attention to note when decisions are difficult or arbitrary because of insufficient background information and bring the issue to the attention of the team. They should also play a key role in developing a team web site and mechanisms for members to share information.

In many instances the information officers will help integration officers by recording and maintaining team minutes.


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Safety Officers

Each team has two safety officers (one per section) that assist shop staff with monitoring working conditions within the team space and remind teammates or instructors about safety issues when dangerous practices are observed. Additionally, the officers will identify safety issues related to their team's product and conduct research to identify relevant regulations or standards. They should obtain and post material safety data sheets in the team area for potentially dangerous materials.
 
Safety officers will be elected during the first team lab meeting.
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System Integrators

There are two systems integrators per team (one per section). In the first lab meeting all students interested in this role should be identified. Then, each person should have one week in the position before a section vote is made to choose the integrator for the rest of the term.

 
The system integrators will assume a number of coordination and integration roles during the project from both a project management and technical design viewpoint. The system integrators will have management responsibilities that include:
• Coordinating weekly team meetings, agendas, and goals.
• Structuring the task force definition process.
• Ensuring the meeting minutes are properly maintained.
• Facilitating communication within and between other task forces.
• Forming and maintaining the overall project schedule with the lab instructor.

Additionally, the system integrators will serve a technical system integration role in the project.

• Spearheading the development of the design contract.
• Forming and maintaining a system image of the product as it is designed.
• Helping with the physical integration of product subsystems.

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Ad-hoc Task Forces:

The full team is needed to tackle the problem of developing a product concept and alpha prototype in roughly 3 months. However, it is rare that all members will be able to simultaneously work together on the same thing effectively. Even when the individual sections are working in parallel this will be the case.
Each week the team will typically divide into ad-hoc task forces with different responsibilities. Each task force is a mini-group with 2-4 members typically. One of the main functions of the weekly lab meetings is project integration though the sharing of information between task forces, making group decisions, and terminating, adjusting, or forming new task forces to address current project demands.
The system integrators are responsible for coordinating the ad-hoc task forces and facilitating the task force definition process.
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