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⏰ Recurring Processes

This page documents administrative processes that Launch Pad runs every year. In general, both the Leadership team and the Strategy team are responsible for driving efforts on these processes.

Evaluating Objectives

This section documents when and how we evaluate our club-wide objectives. Learn more about our current and past objectives in our club objectives page.

Mid-Year Evaluation

In the middle of a school year (towards the end of the fall semester), the Strategy team should evaluate the numeric goals set out for each objective and see how we are trending towards our goal. At this point, adjustments can also be made to our objectives and goals, for example, to account for shifting priorities or if a goal is deemed unfeasible.

The club objectives page should be updated with our progress, and an announcement should be made in Slack about whether we are ahead or behind on our goals and whether the club has any feedback for the Leadership team.

End-of-Year Evaluation

At the end of a school year (towards the end of the winter semester), the Strategy team should again evaluate the numeric goals set out for each objective and see if we have achieved our goals. The Leadership team should hold a retrospective meeting and determine what we did well, and what we can improve.

The club objectives page should be updated with our progress, and improvements we could make to our processes should be updated throughout the handbook. An announcement should be made in Slack about our goals, any outcomes from the retrospective, and whether the club has any feedback for the Leadership team.

Kickoff Event

Each school year starts with a kickoff event where new members are introduced to Launch Pad and project ideation happens. Smaller-scale versions of this event might happen at the start of the second semester, depending on how many new projects are started.

Schedule

This schedule might vary year to year, but kickoff events will generally follow this format. Because a lot happens at our kickoff events, particularly project ideation, these have traditionally been all-day events. The current format is already condensed, due to remote requirements.

Icebreakers

Icebreakers are intended to help everyone familiarize themselves with some members of Launch Pad. Members are assigned to groups in each icebreaker round, where everyone works together on an activity. We have done various activities for icebreakers in the past, but one such activity is a discussion prompt:

Find up to three things everyone in your group has in common (for example, syllables in names or sock colour) and one dimension where you are the most diverse (for example, nationality or major).

The lead in the group should start by encouraging each member to make a self-introduction. The goal of this activity is for groups to collaborate by coming up with a strategy for finding commonalities and differences, while getting to know each other better!

Project Ideation

Project ideation revolves around the guidelines provided in our Project Scope guide, especially our guidelines about using a “core feature” to help narrow MVP scope. The goal of ideation is not just to come up with ideas, but to also form our project teams.

In general, the process is as follows:

  1. Prior to kickoff, we will ask for some “core feature” submissions via Google Forms from the entire club
  2. Leads will review the submissions and consolidate them into “themes”, with each lead adopting one idea that they are interested in working on. These will act as topics for discussion groups that will become Launch Pad teams.
  3. During kickoff, the “themes” will be presented to the club, and we will form discussion groups based on interest to try and refine each “theme” back down into an “idea”, and then a “core feature” - learn more about this process in our Project Scope guide. Discussions will take place over several iterations, between which members are encouraged to switch groups.
    • For the first 3 shorter rounds, members will be required to switch to different groups. The goal of these rounds is to brainstorm and accumulate potential directions.
    • After the first 3 rounds, leads will provide updates on where each group is going.
    • For the last 2 longer rounds, leads will start focusing on narrowing down ideas and prioritizing more feasible directions. Members will still be able to move in between these rounds.
  4. After the last round of discussions, we will ask everyone for their group preferences and try to assign everyone to a team such that the teams are reasonably balanced in size and experience.

Note that the goal of ideation is to simply define a “core feature” which will then be spec’d out into a minimum viable product (MVP) during the following week. This is when implementation and design details can be decided, so don’t worry too much about that during ideation!

Selecting Leadership

This section documents how Launch Pad’s Leadership team is selected. Learn more about club leadership in our manifesto’s “club structure” section.

Co-Presidents

Each year (or whenever a co-president steps down), the existing co-presidents should nominate their replacements to the current Leadership team. Unless any serious objections are raised, the nominees will act as the co-presidents of Launch Pad.

Candidates should be nominated based on active participation in Launch Pad, an understanding of our goals, and an aptitude for mentorship and team management.

There should always be two co-presidents. We should aim to have one technical and one non-technical (i.e. someone from Strategy or Design) co-president when possible.

Relevant handoff tasks are documented in the leads onboarding guide.

Leads

Each semester, each tech lead and the design lead should nominate members they have worked with whom they believe would make good leads. Leads should let their members know that they can indicate their interest for this role.

Candidates should be nominated based on active participation in Launch Pad, a robust foundation in relevant technical/design skills, and an aptitude for mentorship. Nominees should be provided with the tech lead role description or design lead role description to help them decide if they are interested in the role.

There should always be one design lead, and the number of tech leads should be evaluated by the Leadership team based on club membership.

Relevant handoff tasks are documented in the leads onboarding guide.