Managing teams

The teams

A team consists out of minimum three students, at least one coach and a partner. There's always exceptions, but this is how it usually works:

1. A student should only participate in one team. They can however, help out other teams now and then — but they are not responsible for that team.

2. A coach can manage one or two teams. This depends on the size / complexity of the project, and their own availability.

3. A partner can have several projects running, but should be available for key moments (client meetings, answering mails, feedback sessions, demo day).

4. A team can have one or two coaches, depending on their availability. There's always one coach available.

5. The organisation has as many teams/projects/students/coaches they can handle. Start small, dream big!

Students

One project has one team of students, full-time. The amount of students required is defined per project by the partner and the amount they're paying for.

The minimum amount of students in a team is three. At least one of them should be rather experienced, to make sure you can have some level of quality and they can learn from each other.

Coaches

The baseline is; a team of students should never be "alone". There should always be a coach available that is up-to-date, and knows the partner they're working for.

A coach can choose to coach half- or full-time. A half-time coach should be paired with an other half-time coach — so the teams will never be coachless. Half-time coaches should make sure one of both is always available to the team(s).

Availability

Availability means being there for key moments, when the team needs you.

• Welcoming the team on the first day

• Scoping projects

• Attending client meetings

• Doing (virtual) standups

• Having retrospects

• Client communication

• Feedback sessions

• Providing help & structure

• Etc.

Depending on the size of the team and how hard the project is, a coach can handle one or two teams.

Big or hard projects

• Scope Think a big or complicated web-application — or a medium project with a lot of students with different skills (for example hardware mixed with software or for instance exhaustive research / creativity required).

• Size Usually has a lot of students (more than 8 team members)

• Coach Needs a full-time coach, or two half-time coaches. This requires a lot of availability. A mini project on the side is possible but not required (for instance an easy website or a very experienced team with a student-coach).

Easy projects

• Scope Think a website, maybe with an integration with a fixed design. A project that is well-defined or easy to scope along the way.

• Size Minimum three students

• Coach There is always a coach available to manage the smaller team and the client, but probably won't be occupied the entire time. This means it is possible that a coach (or two half-time coaches) is managing two small projects at the same time. This does mean that this coach is available for both teams for their tasks — see "The job" under coaches.