We often say “iGEM is hard, but it’s worth it”. We spoke with 2020 iGEM teams in February and March of this year to hear about their experiences last year. From those conversations, we’ve collected some useful tips for teams and have shared them below!

Deliverables and Medal Criteria

Start work on the deliverables earlier - things take longer than you expect

Arrange the work in advance so you won’t go crazy before the deadlines
Determine who will work on the various deliverables and requirements at the start of your iGEM project
Wiki writing and designing should be done throughout the iGEM season, starting in May or June
Focus on the Registry part pages earlier and ask questions early if you’re unclear on how to create and/or document new part pages

"Do things in advance, do not cram for deadlines!"
"[Our] team was told to work on deliverables in advance but had to learn from experience to do so."

Pay attention to requirements and deliverables

Review medal criteria to understand exactly what your team needs to do, and check for changes from the previous year
Look at winning iGEM teams from past years for inspiration
For videos, recruit team members experienced with video editing or animation

"We realized quite late that we didn’t have some of the medal criteria"
"Focus on the medal criteria and what the objectives are… Not just the science, but how it will be presented"

Have an internal calendar based on deliverables and deadlines

Set internal deadlines instead of everyone waiting until the real deadline with chaos the night before
Read the iGEM newsletters; they will help you keep track of deadlines

"Time management is crucial -- don't wait until the last minute!"

Team Structure

Define the role of Team Leader for your team

Determine how many team leaders you will need
Team leaders should ensure that team members are doing well
Some aspects teams mentioned of a good team leader: must really love the project and be responsible, they need to keep on top of deliverables and deadlines

"A new team needs at least two team leaders, it’s hard to handle all the things. I was the only team leader… very tiring"

Create time for social connections and team building

Try to keep it fun at the same time, try to keep the atmosphere light
In the end it’s a competition, it’s okay to take a break: iGEM can be overwhelming and stressful - taking days off of iGEM is important
Do team building and evaluate who works well with whom
Team building and having a good rapport with team leaders is really important

Consider splitting into subgroups with different focuses

There are different ways to split into subgroups. Some examples of subgroups might include: wiki, wet lab, modeling, fundraising, human practices, software, and/or communications.
Team members should be in multiple subgroups or rotate between them

"I do not recommend having subgroups and making only a few people participate in experiments because you need a profound understanding of your experiments regardless of your "specialized" area."
"We rotated around the subgroups, which created a mentality of being available to help each other out"

Decide on a style / strategy of team management

Look at different methods of organizing a project group (agile, sprint) outside of the field for inspiration
Have a clear distribution of tasks so everyone knows what they are responsible for and check in to see if anyone would like to change tasks during the season
Be flexible! Some people may realize they are better suited and/or more interested in other tasks as the project progresses

"We worked together to determine how to organize ourselves, what roles do we need to fill, how do we find people to fill those roles"

Connecting and Communicating

Nurture connections with each other

Keeping open channels of communications across the entire team is really important

"The most important thing was to talk to each other. If something doesn’t work: ask for help or different ideas"
"Team management was the biggest internal challenge; cooperation and communication is key"

Reach out for support

If you’re a newer team, join the Mentorship Program

"Never be afraid to cold email or reach out to people you don’t know--the worst you can get is a “no” or a lack of response!"
"Our Ambassador was really helpful and open for questions. She was always ready to meet with us, held regular meetings and opened the iGEM Zoom room to us for collaborations with other teams."

Connect with Other iGEM Teams

Use the Collaborations page to connect with other teams
Join the Global Slack channel

"Use the iGEM Slack to engage with other iGEM teams - we found it very helpful!"

Meeting Organization

Have regular whole-team and sub-team meetings

Whole team meetings, once every week or two weeks, keep everyone well-informed
Some platforms teams used were: Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, WhatsApp, WeChat, Discord, Jitsi, QQ
Regardless of platform, it’s important to keep notes from your meetings

"We often used whole-team meetings to brainstorm our next steps as a team, to evaluate performances and keep track of deadlines and special events."
"Each subteam (for example Human Practice, Software development etc.) scheduled its own meetings when necessary according to progress."

Track action items, objectives and shared to-dos

Use organisation apps so you have an overview of time and tasks
Weekly learning objectives were initially set by team leaders and then set by ourselves as the season went on
Create action item lists at the end of every meeting and note who is responsible for those action items

"Regular team meetings were very helpful to who needs help and who has already finished their work. Also a weekly to-do list was very helpful to stay organized."

Project Development

For engineering, it’s better to research the problem and determine if synbio is a good solution

Spend more time on the “Design” phase of your project than you would expect to need
One team recommended taking 3 weeks for project design:

Week 1: Brainstorm
Week 2: Research the specific problem
Week 3: Determine if synbio is a good solution for the problem

Planning ahead is the most important thing - if you don’t do things ahead, it’s hard to carry out all of the plans

Write up notes and summaries for each paper → get the citations ready as you work on the project
Modeling perspective: working on modeling earlier is very important
Be prepared to spend some time finding the relevant information online

Don’t be afraid to change your project design

You may realize you’ve missed important considerations and need to redesign part of or your entire project, even late in the season; this is a part of doing synthetic biology to address real-world problems!

"When narrowing down the topics for projects stay innovative and passionate but also rational and well-concerned"

        Other Tips
             Resources
Read the Judging Handbook, which includes helpful examples from past years
Review resources provided by iGEM: tutorials from the Engineering Committee were useful
Sponsor Offers are very useful - make use of them!
Attend iGEM events, “a seminar early in the season on surveys and human practices was very useful”
Starting early: not just for deliverables
"Define the limitations of your project earlier in the season and use your Human Practices interactions to address them."
"Start fundraising efforts early (this should be an on-going effort throughout the season). Email and call local companies, talk to the head of the department or college, investigate other on-campus funding sources"
Learning from iGEM
"The thing I learned most is teamwork and teamwork again"
"The iGEM Competition is a unique experience with many difficulties but also so much satisfaction. What we would advise to future teams is to relax and enjoy every day of their iGEM life. Through these challenges, they will manage to understand themselves better and culture many skills. The only thing they need is to choose a project that will make them wake up every morning happy to be working on it."

        

Resources/Tips for Teams

Tips for Teams

Deliverables and Medal Criteria

Team Structure

Connecting and Communicating

Meeting Organization

Project Development

Other Tips

iGEM Foundation

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