Flight Plan for a Community Design/Build Challenge

Coordinating and organizing a modeling community Design Build Challenge is not an easy or simple thing - just ask anyone who has done it before. :) I have been a participant in several challenges that were great experiences - and I have seen challenges fall apart and create lasting negative impressions with community members. While I am in the midst of my first experience as the primary organizer for a large community challenge I wanted to share my learnings to both help future organizers, and to continue to grow myself though community feedback and discussion.

While there are many good things that can come of these design/build challenges - increased community activity, camaraderie of common goals and interest, help for newer members and growing of skills and knowledge - there are also some risks and obstacles to deal with. Lack of participation from the community which can stem from many different things, frustration of participants with different expectations, negative 'in-group' and 'out-group' perceptions, and confusion rooted in conflicting or hard to find information. All of these factors can be influenced by the organizer, and by participants I will call 'champions'; those people who are the most active and respected community members engaged in the challenge.

As I tend to tackle projects by breaking them into phases, here is the structure I have found to be most successful for these challenges, based on my own experiences as both an organizer and participant. And since we are all about flight here, of course I'm wrapping these phases in an aviation metaphor. :)

1) Laying the ground work - gathering feedback and community interest
2) Takeoff - formal launching of announcements, guidelines, rosters, etc.
3) Flying the course - encouraging positive participation, resolving confusion or conflicts
4) Prepare for landing - final steps to ensure a successful closure
5) Landing - concluding activities and celebration of participants achievements


Phase 1: Laying the Ground Work 

I have seen several unfortunate challenges with great ideas just shrivel up and disappear from the beginning, or devolve into chaotic and negative experiences that drive away as many participants as they attract. To avoid these fates, I believe a preparatory time to work with the community before formally locking in on expectations and rules is critical. I believe it is so important that I will dedicate almost as much space to this phase as I will to all the others combined. I agree with the mantra of "a failure to plan is planning to fail", so right up front there are several things that need to be in the plan and completed early to ensure success going forward.

1) The purpose of the challenge
2) The theme of the challenge
3) The structure of the challenge
4) Community interest

The purpose of the challenge is very important to figure out right away, as it will be the guiding navigation beacon for every decision and conflict that comes up. The challenge purpose could be things like; encourage participants to learn and share a new skill, competition to demonstrate mastery of a skill, develop a new resource for the community, or provide a showcase for glory and bragging rights.

Without a clear purpose established, the organizer's life and community interactions will become rather difficult as the challenge goes on and participants with different expectations grow increasingly frustrated when they feel tricked or ignored. And if a challenge meanders between different purposes and makes changes from the initial expectations of the community, it will create negative feelings and interactions that drive people away from both the challenge, and potentially the overall community as well.

In my experience, the purpose of the challenge is an item that needs to be clearly communicated, preferably in writing to the participants, and is best primarily decided by the organizer of the challenge. Input from potential champions is very helpful here, but it is best to gather this input in small group settings and avoid letting this become a democratically decided item - that will only create divisions within the potential participants.

The theme of the challenge is frequently the first thing talked about when explaining the activity to participants and spectators, and is a primary attractor to get people engaged. Examples are "building this kit" or "designing a water capable aircraft" or "build to highest scale accuracy" or "build for an in person high speed showdown".  Changing themes as the challenge goes on will have a huge negative impact and likely lead to the end of the activity. If expectations from the participants are different when they officially start it can cause conflicts and negative interactions between those who felt mislead or overruled later.

The challenge theme is an area where there will be misunderstandings and confusion about boundaries and acceptable choices - there is no way I have seen to avoid that. However, unlike the purpose of the challenge, I feel the theme of the challenge is best worked out and clarified with the community in the groundwork phase. No single organizer will be able to anticipate all of the ways people will interpret or attempt to influence the stated theme, and gathering feedback in an open forum is great at bringing out those differences of understanding early so they can be resolved before the official start of the challenge.

The structure of the challenge is another area where early miss-understandings can drive away participation and bring positive momentum to a stop. Similar to the impacts of theme communication, misunderstandings of the challenge structure after participants start working can be significant negative factors that sour involvement. To minimize these problems, I recommend the structure elements also be discussed in open forum to highlight and resolve different interpretations and expectations early. Aspects of the structure to clarify early include beginning and ending time frame, what elements of the challenge are virtual vs. in-person, how the rules, activities, and results will be communicated, and what are the conditions for success and ranking if appropriate to the purpose of the challenge. When working through these structure decisions, community input will occur wether requested or not, and having a clearly stated challenge purpose will be an invaluable tool to guide these decisions.

I placed the community interest aspect last in this phase as it is heavily influenced and grown through discussion and clarification of the theme and structure of the challenge. What seems like an amazing concept early on might only resonate with a few people, and the organizer needs to make sure they are committed to supporting the challenge. And that as an organizer you have the support and advice both in front of and behind the curtain - necessary for the expected size and structure.

Organizer support needs and demands are very different from a 'build along' vs. an in-person race at a major event. Coordinating amongst a handful of participants focused on teaching each other new skills is not like dealing with the input of dozens of people's differences of opinions and rules interpretations when there is a 1st place trophy or a world record on the line. As an organizer it is best to have a plan up front for what support you will need as the challenge progresses, and a plan for how to deal with a runaway success. Reach out to other organizers of challenges with similar elements, respected community members, or past events you have enjoyed for advice and a peak behind the curtain of what positive and negative things they faced, and what they might recommend doing differently in the future.

Phase 2: Takeoff

This is the phase where the formal launching of announcements, guidelines, rosters, etc. takes place and marks the point where expectations about the challenge are no longer changing, especially in the mind of the organizer. I strongly recommend a fresh thread be created to hold the official challenge purpose, guidelines, scoring metrics, etc. This will both prevent miss-communications with people taking guidance from older posts, and help transition the community  focus away from re-opening the rules debates in the preparation thread, and towards sharing in the challenge activities.

Make sure you reserve the first several posts in the thread for your use as an organizer so you can keep the instructions, guidelines, and participants lists updated and easy to find by any new people who are interested in joining in. It's also a good idea to keep one of those posts for a final wrap up / results message when the challenge is over - otherwise it will become lost in the middle of the thread as additional messages are added over the years congratulating successful participants - or still asking if they can participate even though the event has been over for months!


Phase 3: Flying the Course

Once you have officially launched the challenge, you will still get questions about the guidelines and scoring - often from people who are newly discovering the thread. Clarify miss-understandings, and if appropriate add those clarifications to the primary guideline and scoring posts so there aren't any conflicting directions left in the thread.  Make sure to think about the purpose of the challenge when responding to these questions and increase resistance to changing conditions as you get closer to the finish line. Switching direction on participants who have their heart set on a plan (or plane) with untold hours of effort into the project usually does not go over well at all.

Make sure you interact with the participants in their own build threads - and keep all the interactions positive and constructive even if (or when really) you need to let someone know what they have done or plan to do is not in line with the challenge rules. Celebrate their ideas and work while still letting them know it won't fit into the challenge. Don't just drop a one liner like "this is against the rules".  While that might be a factually correct statement, it is also a guaranteed way to drive away participation and eliminate all fun from the challenge for anyone who comes upon the message - not just the participant who was so rudely shot down.

When potential conflicts and disagreements come up, be careful of falling into a mindset of trying to make everyone happy - down that path lies madness and grief. Be respectful and positive in your communications, but also consider expectations and commitments that have already been made when you might be tempted to make an exception or rewrite a rule.


Phase 4: Prepare for landing

It's a good idea to make sure you have several participants who are likely to be done on time before getting too close to the finish line. If not, discuss the potential of an extension or an alteration of the rules with the participants long before the final date. If you decide to extend the contest by two weeks on the last day, the people who worked really hard to meet the deadline are going to feel cheated and probably resentful. Make those changes early enough in the challenge that everyone can benefit from a level playing field.

It is also important to make sure any final scoring activities are able to be completed in a timely fashion - and to communicate that time expectation to the community. Don't go radio silent at the end of the challenge for weeks or months, leaving everyone wondering how they did. If that means needing to recruit additional help, let the community know before the end date too. It will keep momentum and participation positive to be transparent about these things, and avoid a sour closing experience.


Phase 5: Landing

Wrapping it all up is a great part of the challenge - but don't cut yourself short on the time and effort it will take to do this well. After all, the participants have been putting lots of effort into the challenge - and this is when the workload shifts back from the community to the organizer in a big way.

Being fair and open about any scoring decisions could be difficult, but it is extremely important to maintain a positive experience. And it should be your goal as an organizer to ensure all participants have a positive closing experience. Make sure to provide positive feedback for all participants - and not just a generic 'good job' either. Personalize the feedback, and highlight not just the final achievement but also the skill growth and even audacity participants have shown. Not everyone is coming from the same place, and a first timer's achievements should be acknowledged just like the experienced modelers. Remember this is a place for community challenges - not an adversarial contest. If you have violent objections to participation ribbons, organizing a community challenge might not be for you.

Closing the challenge will take some time and effort to do well, but as the organizer it is an expectation and responsibility you accepted by starting the challenge. If you think this will be a particularly difficult commitment to meet, refer to my earlier thoughts on recruiting help. :)

In Closing...

So these are my thoughts on organizing community challenges. What are yours? As a participant, what things make you the most excited in a challenge? What other things can be done to make sure it stays a positive experience? As an organizer, what other wisdom do you have to share? Tell us the things that worked, or the things that could have been done to fix a negative. Dwelling doesn't help us grow, so let's keep the angle of attack positive here :)