More Design Challenge advice

I just read Sam's latest entry and I couldn't resist adding my $.02. He says the new SDM'ers in the January program shouldn't burnout on the design challenges (DC) because they are more about team building and having fun than competition. Yeah, that's what the DC losers say! :-) Speaking as a member of the winning DC1 team last year, I can say that while all that stuff is important, it sure feels nice to win if for no other reason than you can rub it in your classmates face for the duration of the SDM program. Kinda like I'm doing right now.

Seriously, I had a great DC1 team and I deserve little if any credit for our success. I was "project manager" which amounted to making sure we were making progress (which we always were) and staying out of the way. Interestingly enough, in over 10 years of work experience, my DC1 team was one of the best teams I've EVER worked with. I got lucky. I've also been on teams at MIT that would rank as the worst I ever worked with.

New SDM'ers: my one piece of advice for you (which doesn't really apply to DC1) is if you are allowed to pick your team for a class project, PICK YOUR TEAM. Don't get assigned to a random team. A couple of times last year I thought I'd be adventurous and let my team form through osmosis and perhaps I'd meet some new people along the way. Sometimes you'll get lucky like I did with DC1, but other times it will be a disaster. In fact, when teams are picked at random you are more likely to end up on a disaster or end up on one that no one else wanted to join because everyone else picked their teams ahead of time.