Author: Alexandra Stoppler, Rennteam Universität Stuttgart

Having completed a very successful season with three overall wins and one almost-win in fife competitions the question we hear a lot is: How did you do that. To make one thing clear from the very beginning: There are many ways to approach this complex task of building a racecar with limited resources such as time, money and workforce. Here is our way:

We believe that not only our engineering skills made us designing a great racecar, moreover the project management is one of the very important key factors to manage this project.

First of all it is important to decide how the team should be organised in general. We preferred being organised as a non-profit organisation, so we are independent from the university. Being active in motorsport makes it often necessary to decide things very quickly. If you have to go the university’s administrative channel it might take a very long time to set up a decision and it can be too late for it.We have the advantage to make a decision very fast.

As a non-profit organisation we support “the advancement of science, research and the education of students” and for that we have the possibility to certificate contribution receipts and we have advantages as regards taxes. We do not only support engineering students, but in having an independent administration we also encourage students of every other course type.

The organisation itself gives every team the goals to base all decisions on. This year we had three goals.

The first was to be ready with the car as soon as possible. The sooner you have finished building the car the sooner you are able to start testing. If you are able to test your car a lot it rises the chance to find all the parts which might fail and you can fix them before the competition. If you did not have the chance to test a lot prior the competition there is a higher possibility that a part will break.

The second goal was to reach the finish line in every dynamic event. There exists a great sentence which has a lot of truth in it: “If you want to finish first, you first have to finish!”. You cannot reach a good result if your car does not reach the finish line – so reliability is a key factor.

The third goal for this season was to defend the titles. We were already very successful in the season of 2007 and we wanted to defend the titles we won there. But this was only possible after reaching the first and the second goal.

So after we set up the background the next step can be taken and this is the structure of the team. Our team has three team captains which are responsible for three different fields and these are the chief engineer, the head of the non-profit organisation and the head of organisation. The main parts are the technics and the organisation. There are different packages made out of the technics and the organisation which are set up based on the time and the effort which are needed. For every package one single student is responsible in order to have clear references. It is very important to clarify the interfaces between the different packages at the beginning of a season so everyone knows exactly what to do.

In weekly meetings of the different technical sub areas, such as the engine, the frame or the suspension, upcoming problems can be solved early and questions concerning the interfaces can be purged. There is also a weekly meeting of the leaders of the sub areas with the chief engineer. It is to solve problems between the sub areas as soon as possible and of course to set up a collective direction. For organisation and technics there is a meeting once a week to share all information which came up in the last week to bring everyone on the same level of information.

We decided for us that the optimal size of the team is between 30 and 35 students. So it is possible that you know each other well and that there can arise the feeling of togetherness and of being a group. It is also possible to work together in the construction phase in a computer pool so questions can be answered really fast because of the short ways between the different people. The size of a team is always a compromise between the work which has to be done and the best coherence of the team.

Every team member has to work very hard during the season. The weekly effort is in average minimum 20 hours per week. But there are also off-peaks in which team members work up to 50 or 60 hours per week. The work cannot always be shared fair, so it is really important that everyone helps each other as far as possible and the work packages are made as equal as possible. Working this hard most team members are not able to study a lot moreover everything is made in the spare time everyone has, so for this it is really important to have highly motivated people. You can raise motivation with group events such as having a barbecue or going to a cart track together. There you spend time together without working and difficulties can be discussed in a relaxed atmosphere.

For such a complex way of posing a problem which you have to solve in a very short time with a lot of people it is necessary to use your resources the best way possible. So you need to invest your time in preparing a good way to manage your project.

The first thing you have to make is a schedule for the whole season. You should have completed it before the season starts. In our case it insists mainly on four different parts: the conception phase, the construction phase, the manufacturing phase and the testing and competition phase. It is important to set a lot of intermediate deadlines, so a continuous work is requested from all team members and interfaces are recognized soon.

Plan to work together as much as possible, like designing the car together in a computer pool. The schedule should be arranged in that way that the work is divided even for everyone. It should also be set up in a way that it is tight but also possible to keep. It can always happen that a deadline cannot be kept for different reasons. If this happens it is necessary to set up a new, realistic date when the work should be done.

Another very big point in the organisation of a team are the finances. In our team everyone has to deliver an estimated budget at the beginning of the season. In this budget you have to write for what you need the money and the exact date of spending it. The basis of this budget are the experiences of the last seasons. The budget permits us to have an overview how much money is needed at what time and no surprises can arise. With this data you can calculate the amount of money which is needed over the whole season.

It is also important to compare the budget with the real costs during the season for not loosing the overview. In our team everyone has to ask first before he orders something so we never run out of money. You should also fix several deadlines for refreshing the budget because it might change during the season for example if you get something for free. After fixing the budget we create a sponsoring concept in which we have different packages, so every possible sponsor has the same circumstances. Contact the possible sponsors right at the beginning of the season. Many companies have long decision making processes and therefore it is the best for you to ask as early as possible.

For recruiting a new team it is useful to advertise for your team on the campus during the whole year. We made for example a hot spiced wine stand at the beginning of the year or “a day of the open workshop”. At the same time we have several team members there to inform about the work in the team.

At these occasions we collect e-mail addresses of interested students so we can inform them about our car presentation or our information evenings. On these information evenings we inform about the competition, the team and the work in our team. After this everyone who is interested is invited to one-on-one interview where he or she can talk with the new team captains about his interests and his motivation. It is important that you are true about the work which has to be done and the time everyone has to spend in the project, because the people who are interested need to know what is demanded of them. Only like this you can compose a team which is in sync.

We invite our new team members to visit the competition in Hockenheim. It is not far away from Stuttgart and so everyone gets to know the spirit of the competition and they get to know what they are working for during the upcoming season. For knowledge transfer we start our new season a few weeks before the old season finishes. So the new team members have the possibility to meet their forerunner and can ask them about their experiences. Personal contact is the best way to do the knowledge transfer. This is not always possible, so everyone hast to document his work in a folder which his follower can look at whenever he wants. You can also make something like a Wikipedia Side. This needs more effort, but you can collect every information since the existing of the team.

At that point, everything starts from the beginning – with a bit more of experience in every respect. If you have further questions feel free to contact us.