Shepherding retrospective
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Elisabeth Erbach
May 1, 2015, 5:44:13 AM5/1/15
to sr...@googlegroups.com
I like the idea of noting down things that went well or didn't before we forget them... :-)
So here is a slightly unstructured blurb on the shepherding.
People needed:
---------------
double shifts for shepherding are ideal, if ppl are happy to do full days that made things go even more smoothly. Especially for the second day with the knockouts/finals its good to have shepherds who already know the team desk locations.
4 shepherds who actually fetch the teams (two on each floor)
3 people downstairs in the staging area
additionally: 2 more for the first shift (not the full shepherding double shift just the first 1-2h of the matches) of each day when teams don't know what they are doing or have forgotten, things go wrong and shepherds need to be trained - one helping with the staging shouting at people who go the wrong way or chase after tags and usb keys
1 more person for knockouts: watching screen and handwriting out cards for shepherds when information comes in match by match
ideally 2 runners who distribute the information to the upstairs shepherds. Those could mostly watch the matches and would only have something to do every 10min or so.
Having a shepherd by the lift was great, but people who had that job hated it because it was really boring.
Supplies needed:
-----------------
6 radios + spares (or spare batteries, we had trouble changing the batteries)
single colour shepherding sheets for 4 shepherds
team pit map, ideally coloured according to shepherd colour 6x
all colours shepherding sheet for bouncer
no colour (or any colour) sheet for stager
laptop with shepherding app for timekeeper
Roles:
========
Timekeeping (Max and Rob this year)
------------
- watch the shepherding app
- tell people when they need to do things
- check whether we're fetching too early (teams waiting around for ages) or too late (teams late, frantic radio traffic)
- watch out for delays/changes in schedule and adjust if necessary
- keep shepherds updated of any changes, delays etc.
Bouncing (Alex)
--------------
- keep people out of the staging area until it is time to stage
- tell people which slot they will be in
- making sure people behave
Staging (Paul and Elisabeth)
-----------------
- hand out markers of right colour and for right arena!
- make sure people go in one way and out the other
- don't let teams leave with markers/competition usb-sticks
- make sure staging desks are clear once teams are in arena
- go round once all teams are staged to check everyone is in the slot they are supposed to be in
shepherds
-----------
- once told to fetch teams for a certain match, make sure all teams have been told within two minutes
extra knockouts shepherd:
-----------------------------
watching the shepherding screen. Once we know who will be in a certain match, make 4 cards with
- match number
- shepherding colour
- teams to fetch
- make sure downstairs shepherds collect the cards and upstairs shepherds get it delivered or if not enough time tell them via radio.
Ask shepherds to check that the teams you told them to fetch are really in their zone (in case you made a mistake or the colouring is wrong). If not: radio to find out in whose zone they are, as missing teams at this stage is very upsetting for the teams.
Things that were not great:
===========================
- It would have been good having known about the usb keys before (and maybe I did and forgot...).
- Something went wrong with the scheduling so we had to redo a lot of the schedule and just find whoever we could. In the end it worked out though because there were enough volunteers but something to improve next time.
- One tiny improvement for the website would be to have the colours on the screen match the shepherding colours. Tom suggested that and I thought we would want the colours of the arena, but turns out the shepherding colours would have been better.
- It would be good to know which teams are no-shows so we don't have to look for them.
- Some of the colouring was wrong initially and the team pit map needed updating. We almost had a delay and might have missed some teams initially, so next time it would be good to be notified of any changes and get updated material.
- Having the team pit maps coloured according to the colour of the shepherd responsible.
- maybe have one helpdesk person downstairs at the staging area entrance? People seem to keep going there for questions even though we sent everyone away...
Most of these are pretty minor though, but why not make it even better next time? ;-)
Things that were great this year:
=================================
- enough shepherds and all shepherds did a really good job!
- enough people around that could sort out last minute things
- having the first few matches spaced out so we could sort out things
- long enough shifts so we didn't continually have to train people
- high vis vests were a brilliant idea, especially having the team name written at the front and back. It made it possible to check whether teams were in the right slot and we could identify lost teams
- having the shepherding website was crucial, so it was great that we had the website, a laptop and a working network connection the whole time!
- the staging timing was great, maybe Alex can gives us detail on what the exact timing was?
- the timekeeping role made things a lot easier, maybe Max and Rob can give us details on that?
- the staging area with the markers was very well organised, it think Paul took a picture of the final setup, that would be good to have as reference.
- the shepherds fetching teams were all very independent and no teams were missed this year as far as I know
Regarding how much we chased teams, we decided that the first priority was to tell each team within 2 minutes. It would be good to hear how much chasing/keeping track of people was happening after that, maybe people could comment on that? I know we did that for the knockouts/final when there were longer breaks, but don't know for sure. Details from the people involved?
Below is how I think we did the timing but Max/Rob/Alex please correct:
Timekeeping
---------------
6 minutes to staging deadline: fetch upstairs
4 minutes: fetch downstairs (upstairs teams should have been sent)
2 minutes: staging opens, previous match starts (all downstairs teams should have been told), check on teams
1 minute: fetch for next match upstairs (=6min next match if 5min match cycle)
0: staging closed
Bouncing
--------
open staging (i.e. let teams in) when previous match starts (gives 3min for staging), at which point we have match x-2 teams out of zone and match x-1 teams in arena and out of the shepherding desks.
So here is a slightly unstructured blurb on the shepherding.
People needed:
---------------
double shifts for shepherding are ideal, if ppl are happy to do full days that made things go even more smoothly. Especially for the second day with the knockouts/finals its good to have shepherds who already know the team desk locations.
4 shepherds who actually fetch the teams (two on each floor)
3 people downstairs in the staging area
additionally: 2 more for the first shift (not the full shepherding double shift just the first 1-2h of the matches) of each day when teams don't know what they are doing or have forgotten, things go wrong and shepherds need to be trained - one helping with the staging shouting at people who go the wrong way or chase after tags and usb keys
1 more person for knockouts: watching screen and handwriting out cards for shepherds when information comes in match by match
ideally 2 runners who distribute the information to the upstairs shepherds. Those could mostly watch the matches and would only have something to do every 10min or so.
Having a shepherd by the lift was great, but people who had that job hated it because it was really boring.
Supplies needed:
-----------------
6 radios + spares (or spare batteries, we had trouble changing the batteries)
single colour shepherding sheets for 4 shepherds
team pit map, ideally coloured according to shepherd colour 6x
all colours shepherding sheet for bouncer
no colour (or any colour) sheet for stager
laptop with shepherding app for timekeeper
Roles:
========
Timekeeping (Max and Rob this year)
------------
- watch the shepherding app
- tell people when they need to do things
- check whether we're fetching too early (teams waiting around for ages) or too late (teams late, frantic radio traffic)
- watch out for delays/changes in schedule and adjust if necessary
- keep shepherds updated of any changes, delays etc.
Bouncing (Alex)
--------------
- keep people out of the staging area until it is time to stage
- tell people which slot they will be in
- making sure people behave
Staging (Paul and Elisabeth)
-----------------
- hand out markers of right colour and for right arena!
- make sure people go in one way and out the other
- don't let teams leave with markers/competition usb-sticks
- make sure staging desks are clear once teams are in arena
- go round once all teams are staged to check everyone is in the slot they are supposed to be in
shepherds
-----------
- once told to fetch teams for a certain match, make sure all teams have been told within two minutes
extra knockouts shepherd:
-----------------------------
watching the shepherding screen. Once we know who will be in a certain match, make 4 cards with
- match number
- shepherding colour
- teams to fetch
- make sure downstairs shepherds collect the cards and upstairs shepherds get it delivered or if not enough time tell them via radio.
Ask shepherds to check that the teams you told them to fetch are really in their zone (in case you made a mistake or the colouring is wrong). If not: radio to find out in whose zone they are, as missing teams at this stage is very upsetting for the teams.
Things that were not great:
===========================
- It would have been good having known about the usb keys before (and maybe I did and forgot...).
- Something went wrong with the scheduling so we had to redo a lot of the schedule and just find whoever we could. In the end it worked out though because there were enough volunteers but something to improve next time.
- One tiny improvement for the website would be to have the colours on the screen match the shepherding colours. Tom suggested that and I thought we would want the colours of the arena, but turns out the shepherding colours would have been better.
- It would be good to know which teams are no-shows so we don't have to look for them.
- Some of the colouring was wrong initially and the team pit map needed updating. We almost had a delay and might have missed some teams initially, so next time it would be good to be notified of any changes and get updated material.
- Having the team pit maps coloured according to the colour of the shepherd responsible.
- maybe have one helpdesk person downstairs at the staging area entrance? People seem to keep going there for questions even though we sent everyone away...
Most of these are pretty minor though, but why not make it even better next time? ;-)
Things that were great this year:
=================================
- enough shepherds and all shepherds did a really good job!
- enough people around that could sort out last minute things
- having the first few matches spaced out so we could sort out things
- long enough shifts so we didn't continually have to train people
- high vis vests were a brilliant idea, especially having the team name written at the front and back. It made it possible to check whether teams were in the right slot and we could identify lost teams
- having the shepherding website was crucial, so it was great that we had the website, a laptop and a working network connection the whole time!
- the staging timing was great, maybe Alex can gives us detail on what the exact timing was?
- the timekeeping role made things a lot easier, maybe Max and Rob can give us details on that?
- the staging area with the markers was very well organised, it think Paul took a picture of the final setup, that would be good to have as reference.
- the shepherds fetching teams were all very independent and no teams were missed this year as far as I know
Regarding how much we chased teams, we decided that the first priority was to tell each team within 2 minutes. It would be good to hear how much chasing/keeping track of people was happening after that, maybe people could comment on that? I know we did that for the knockouts/final when there were longer breaks, but don't know for sure. Details from the people involved?
Below is how I think we did the timing but Max/Rob/Alex please correct:
Timekeeping
---------------
6 minutes to staging deadline: fetch upstairs
4 minutes: fetch downstairs (upstairs teams should have been sent)
2 minutes: staging opens, previous match starts (all downstairs teams should have been told), check on teams
1 minute: fetch for next match upstairs (=6min next match if 5min match cycle)
0: staging closed
Bouncing
--------
open staging (i.e. let teams in) when previous match starts (gives 3min for staging), at which point we have match x-2 teams out of zone and match x-1 teams in arena and out of the shepherding desks.
Alexandra Diem
May 1, 2015, 8:52:09 AM5/1/15
to sr...@googlegroups.com
Essentially I agree with everything that Elisabeth said, but have a few more comments on my job as a bouncer:
----------------
Positive points:
----------------
- I much much much appreciated the high vis vests with the team names! They made my job so much easier and I think they made the teams a lot less cheeky than last year (this year no one tried to sneak into the staging from the sides)
- Having a staging and destaging desk was fantastic.
----------------
Negative points:
----------------
- As Elisabeth mentioned people kept asking questions they need to ask the help desk and most of the time people came with questions while I was trying to sort out the teams for staging. Most of those people also didn't seem to know where the help desk was, maybe it would be an idea to have it somewhere more obvious downstairs?
- During the knockout matches people also kept coming with questions about scoring (at least one team wanted to dispute the score), which means one of us had to go and fetch one of the scorers while we were busy sorting out shepherding as the new match information came through. For the those matches it would probably be useful to have radio contact with the scorers so we can call them instead of fetching them.
- Because the staging area is around Arena B people who wanted to watch matches there kept standing in the way of the entrance.
- These are just suggestions and we still managed to cope quite well, so if you don't have the capacity for those, no worries!
---------------
Staging timing:
---------------
- open staging when previous match starts
- close staging when previous match finishes
- This worked really well, especially because I could use the arena screens as my cues for when to open and close the staging!
----------------
Positive points:
----------------
- I much much much appreciated the high vis vests with the team names! They made my job so much easier and I think they made the teams a lot less cheeky than last year (this year no one tried to sneak into the staging from the sides)
- Having a staging and destaging desk was fantastic.
----------------
Negative points:
----------------
- As Elisabeth mentioned people kept asking questions they need to ask the help desk and most of the time people came with questions while I was trying to sort out the teams for staging. Most of those people also didn't seem to know where the help desk was, maybe it would be an idea to have it somewhere more obvious downstairs?
- During the knockout matches people also kept coming with questions about scoring (at least one team wanted to dispute the score), which means one of us had to go and fetch one of the scorers while we were busy sorting out shepherding as the new match information came through. For the those matches it would probably be useful to have radio contact with the scorers so we can call them instead of fetching them.
- Because the staging area is around Arena B people who wanted to watch matches there kept standing in the way of the entrance.
- These are just suggestions and we still managed to cope quite well, so if you don't have the capacity for those, no worries!
---------------
Staging timing:
---------------
- open staging when previous match starts
- close staging when previous match finishes
- This worked really well, especially because I could use the arena screens as my cues for when to open and close the staging!
Peter Law
Apr 16, 2016, 12:06:16 PM4/16/16
to Student Robotics, Elisabeth Erbach
Hi,
> Things that were not great:
> ===========================
any more details about this, it would be useful so this could be
fixed.
> - One tiny improvement for the website would be to have the colours on the screen match the shepherding colours. Tom suggested that and I thought we would want the colours of the arena, but turns out the shepherding colours would have been better.
I hope to have both a staging screen (i.e: what was available last
year) and a shepherding-coloured screen available for SR2016. This was
raised as #3035.
> - It would be good to know which teams are no-shows so we don't have to look for them.
I'm hoping that we can determine this from reception though if not
then maybe we should have the safety-check inspectors also take a
register of teams? Either way I've raised this as #3180.
> - Some of the colouring was wrong initially and the team pit map needed updating. We almost had a delay and might have missed some teams initially, so next time it would be good to be notified of any changes and get updated material.
I think this was a result of some teams having been moved around
last-minute. The update process for this has been improved this year,
so it should be much easier to keep things in sync.
> - Having the team pit maps coloured according to the colour of the shepherd responsible.
Presumably it was the lack of this which was the issue? I'm tracking
this as #3179; I've attached a copy of the current PDF to the ticket.
> - maybe have one helpdesk person downstairs at the staging area entrance? People seem to keep going there for questions even though we sent everyone away...
I don't think that having a helpdesk person by the arenas would be a
good thing as it would probably make that bottleneck worse.
Something I noted at some points last year was that teams would
approach the reception desk to ask for help, which I'm guessing is
another instance of a similar issue. In the case of reception, the
person there is somewhat more likely able to help, which is probably
fine.
I wonder if the root cause of the issue is that there weren't enough
Blueshirts generally available for offering help on the ground floor.
This is probably something to adjust in how we schedule volunteers.
Thanks,
Peter
#3035: https://www.studentrobotics.org/trac/ticket/3035
#3179: https://www.studentrobotics.org/trac/ticket/3179
#3180: https://www.studentrobotics.org/trac/ticket/3180
> Things that were not great:
> ===========================
> - Something went wrong with the scheduling so we had to redo a lot of the schedule and just find whoever we could. In the end it worked out though because there were enough volunteers but something to improve next time.
I realise this was quite a long while ago now, but if you can remember
any more details about this, it would be useful so this could be
fixed.
> - One tiny improvement for the website would be to have the colours on the screen match the shepherding colours. Tom suggested that and I thought we would want the colours of the arena, but turns out the shepherding colours would have been better.
year) and a shepherding-coloured screen available for SR2016. This was
raised as #3035.
> - It would be good to know which teams are no-shows so we don't have to look for them.
then maybe we should have the safety-check inspectors also take a
register of teams? Either way I've raised this as #3180.
> - Some of the colouring was wrong initially and the team pit map needed updating. We almost had a delay and might have missed some teams initially, so next time it would be good to be notified of any changes and get updated material.
last-minute. The update process for this has been improved this year,
so it should be much easier to keep things in sync.
> - Having the team pit maps coloured according to the colour of the shepherd responsible.
this as #3179; I've attached a copy of the current PDF to the ticket.
> - maybe have one helpdesk person downstairs at the staging area entrance? People seem to keep going there for questions even though we sent everyone away...
good thing as it would probably make that bottleneck worse.
Something I noted at some points last year was that teams would
approach the reception desk to ask for help, which I'm guessing is
another instance of a similar issue. In the case of reception, the
person there is somewhat more likely able to help, which is probably
fine.
I wonder if the root cause of the issue is that there weren't enough
Blueshirts generally available for offering help on the ground floor.
This is probably something to adjust in how we schedule volunteers.
Thanks,
Peter
#3035: https://www.studentrobotics.org/trac/ticket/3035
#3179: https://www.studentrobotics.org/trac/ticket/3179
#3180: https://www.studentrobotics.org/trac/ticket/3180
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