Getting started: Essential steps to (re) start your SIFE team
Welcome to the Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) leadership experience!
We at SIFE are delighted with your interest in using the positive power of business to improve the lives of people in your community. To assist you in your role as a team leader, we’ve developed this manual as a blueprint for establishing and leading your SIFE team and more so, to help you navigate through a few leadership tips.
So read up, explore and have a fun-filled as well as successful SIFE year!
Register and get access to resources Once your SIFE team has been officially inducted and recognised by the SIFE country office, you can register yourself online as a SIFE student and gain access to the unique SIFE resources available online. To register, visit www.sife.org. Please contact your programme manager/country leader should you need any help in this regard. Upon registering, you will be able to access several valuable resources and tools which will help you get organised. Thoroughly read the SIFE Team Handbook and the Team Toolkits first, as these will provide you clarity on the next steps.
Understand SIFE
As a SIFE (team) leader you are an ambassador of SIFE at your institution. In order to lead your team effectively, you will need to ensure that you understand fully and completely what SIFE is about.
As a leader you should be able to help your fellow team members to fully grasp what SIFE is all about. Start by familiarising yourself with the SIFE judging criterion. The SIFE Team Handbook and www.sife.org serve as a good starting point to learn more.
Develop a structure for your teamBefore you can be effective as a team, you will need to ensure that you have a fully working team structure in place. Every SIFE team should have at least a very basic organisational model to ensure efficiency. Refer to the SIFE Team Handbook for a sample organisation structure. The next section of this manual gives you a brief description of their core functions. Use this as a starting point and build a structure that would best suit your projects and team size.
Create job descriptions
Once you have an organisational model for your team, make sure that all members are familiar with their roles within the team. Whether you have 10 or 100 students in your team, every single member who joins SIFE should know what they are responsible for. In order to facilitate this, your team will need to develop individual job descriptions for leadership positions as well as group job descriptions for general team members. The SIFE Team Toolkit on www.sife.org offers samples and ‘best practices’ on how to go about doing this.
Evaluate your project portfolioOnce you fully understand SIFE and you have developed a structure for your team, you can now go ahead and start evaluating your project portfolio. As a new team, you will need to decide on the number of projects you wish to start this year. As a rule, there is no maximum number of projects a SIFE team can do. However, in your team’s first year, it will be most effective if you focus on a smaller number of projects. Setting ambitious yet realistic and attainable goals is imperative for the success of your first SIFE year. If your team already has a project portfolio and you are taking over the role of someone else, make sure you evaluate your projects. Which ones will you continue again this year? Which others will you cease and how many new projects will you start?
These decisions need to be made at the very beginning of the year, to ensure that your team can start working and maximise on the academic year.
Structure team meetings
As your team will likely consist of several different project groups, you will need to ensure that each of the project groups is running effectively. On top of that, as team leader, you are also responsible for building a team atmosphere. Part of your role entails creating a team ‘feeling’ amongst different project groups within your SIFE team.
Use first meet for brainstorming Use your first team meeting not only as an opportunity to pass on information about your team but also as a brainstorming session. Ask those who attend the meeting for their ideas and about the kinds of projects they would like to be involved with. The more your team’s activities mesh with its members’ interests, the more successful it will be. To encourage discussion inform members about the range of programmes offered by SIFE. Use the SIFE Team Handbook as your primary reference tool. Describe the team’s initial structure and service areas. Ask your members what kinds of programmes interest them the most and how those interests fit into creating effective SIFE projects.
For example, are they interested in programmes empowering disadvantaged groups, programmes involving inter-nation interface, etc? Many members will be interested in honing career skills. Encourage them to target a SIFE programme that will help them accomplish their personal goals.
Be creative and allow free-flowing discussions. You will be surprised at the ideas that will be generated.
Communicate with SIFE national officeDesignate one of your members (usually it’s the team’s president) as the primary contact with the SIFE country office. This student leader could provide reports to the SIFE office. The important thing is to make sure the lines of communication stay open between your team and the SIFE national office.
Designate central (online) location to store key team informationThe most important information your team will need to store includes the Active Team Sheet (an up-to-date list of all the active students in your SIFE team including their year, field of study and email address). In addition, you need to store the team data sheet for current year, team’s financial records, contact database, project /action plan documents, including any agreements with beneficiaries and project partners, project tracking and evaluation tools, other team organisational tools (hierarchy chart, tracking tool for hours invested, etc.)
Useful sites for storing information online include “cloud” storage sites such as Google Docs or Dropbox.
We at SIFE are delighted with your interest in using the positive power of business to improve the lives of people in your community. To assist you in your role as a team leader, we’ve developed this manual as a blueprint for establishing and leading your SIFE team and more so, to help you navigate through a few leadership tips.
So read up, explore and have a fun-filled as well as successful SIFE year!
Register and get access to resources Once your SIFE team has been officially inducted and recognised by the SIFE country office, you can register yourself online as a SIFE student and gain access to the unique SIFE resources available online. To register, visit www.sife.org. Please contact your programme manager/country leader should you need any help in this regard. Upon registering, you will be able to access several valuable resources and tools which will help you get organised. Thoroughly read the SIFE Team Handbook and the Team Toolkits first, as these will provide you clarity on the next steps.
Understand SIFE
As a SIFE (team) leader you are an ambassador of SIFE at your institution. In order to lead your team effectively, you will need to ensure that you understand fully and completely what SIFE is about.
As a leader you should be able to help your fellow team members to fully grasp what SIFE is all about. Start by familiarising yourself with the SIFE judging criterion. The SIFE Team Handbook and www.sife.org serve as a good starting point to learn more.
Develop a structure for your teamBefore you can be effective as a team, you will need to ensure that you have a fully working team structure in place. Every SIFE team should have at least a very basic organisational model to ensure efficiency. Refer to the SIFE Team Handbook for a sample organisation structure. The next section of this manual gives you a brief description of their core functions. Use this as a starting point and build a structure that would best suit your projects and team size.
Create job descriptions
Once you have an organisational model for your team, make sure that all members are familiar with their roles within the team. Whether you have 10 or 100 students in your team, every single member who joins SIFE should know what they are responsible for. In order to facilitate this, your team will need to develop individual job descriptions for leadership positions as well as group job descriptions for general team members. The SIFE Team Toolkit on www.sife.org offers samples and ‘best practices’ on how to go about doing this.
Evaluate your project portfolioOnce you fully understand SIFE and you have developed a structure for your team, you can now go ahead and start evaluating your project portfolio. As a new team, you will need to decide on the number of projects you wish to start this year. As a rule, there is no maximum number of projects a SIFE team can do. However, in your team’s first year, it will be most effective if you focus on a smaller number of projects. Setting ambitious yet realistic and attainable goals is imperative for the success of your first SIFE year. If your team already has a project portfolio and you are taking over the role of someone else, make sure you evaluate your projects. Which ones will you continue again this year? Which others will you cease and how many new projects will you start?
These decisions need to be made at the very beginning of the year, to ensure that your team can start working and maximise on the academic year.
Structure team meetings
As your team will likely consist of several different project groups, you will need to ensure that each of the project groups is running effectively. On top of that, as team leader, you are also responsible for building a team atmosphere. Part of your role entails creating a team ‘feeling’ amongst different project groups within your SIFE team.
Use first meet for brainstorming Use your first team meeting not only as an opportunity to pass on information about your team but also as a brainstorming session. Ask those who attend the meeting for their ideas and about the kinds of projects they would like to be involved with. The more your team’s activities mesh with its members’ interests, the more successful it will be. To encourage discussion inform members about the range of programmes offered by SIFE. Use the SIFE Team Handbook as your primary reference tool. Describe the team’s initial structure and service areas. Ask your members what kinds of programmes interest them the most and how those interests fit into creating effective SIFE projects.
For example, are they interested in programmes empowering disadvantaged groups, programmes involving inter-nation interface, etc? Many members will be interested in honing career skills. Encourage them to target a SIFE programme that will help them accomplish their personal goals.
Be creative and allow free-flowing discussions. You will be surprised at the ideas that will be generated.
Communicate with SIFE national officeDesignate one of your members (usually it’s the team’s president) as the primary contact with the SIFE country office. This student leader could provide reports to the SIFE office. The important thing is to make sure the lines of communication stay open between your team and the SIFE national office.
Designate central (online) location to store key team informationThe most important information your team will need to store includes the Active Team Sheet (an up-to-date list of all the active students in your SIFE team including their year, field of study and email address). In addition, you need to store the team data sheet for current year, team’s financial records, contact database, project /action plan documents, including any agreements with beneficiaries and project partners, project tracking and evaluation tools, other team organisational tools (hierarchy chart, tracking tool for hours invested, etc.)
Useful sites for storing information online include “cloud” storage sites such as Google Docs or Dropbox.
No comments:
Post a Comment