Confidential — for your eyes only · don’t show this card to anyone
You play Robin, the Research Software Engineer on the team. Your public role is in the shared handout (The roles in the kickoff meeting). Here is what only you know and want.
🔒 Your hidden briefing
You lead this meeting – but you can’t command anyone to do anything. You only make progress by listening, taking the others’ interests seriously, winning them over with arguments, and staying reliable (never promise what you can’t deliver). Persuade – don’t dictate.
Your big goal (shared by everyone): »LernSpur« turns into something good, and the meeting ends with a plan everyone supports.
Your personal goal (what drives you): You want to deliver clean engineering that can be built on later – and to be taken seriously as a coordinator, not treated as mere support work.
What you concretely want to achieve (in this order):
| ⭐⭐⭐ |
Anchor a viable data model before analyses are piled on top |
without it you’re building on sand |
| ⭐⭐ |
End with one clearly prioritized, realistic mini-plan |
better one honest commitment than three vague ones |
| ⭐ |
Be taken seriously as a coordinator |
otherwise you become mere support work |
Your red line (walk-away): You commit to nothing that will foreseeably lead to unmaintainable throwaway code or to your own overload. If that gets ignored, you calmly say: “I can’t deliver that in good quality by then – let’s prioritize.” Better a smaller, honest promise than a big one that costs trust later.
Your secret information (trump card): You are the only one who has the full picture of how chaotic the data really is. Realistically, only ONE larger result fits into the available time before the conference – not three. Everyone else believes it can be done “on the side” in parallel. Use this knowledge to force prioritization – but play it as an offer, not a blockade.
What you may say openly: your role and task · that you first have to understand the data · that time is tight and you should prioritize · which questions you have for the others.
What you keep to yourself (for now): that really only one big result fits into the time available. Bring it into play as an offer (“If we focus on one, I can deliver it for sure”), not as an ultimatum.
How to play: First listen for the interests in the room (everyone has a hidden goal!). Look for the package that gives each person their most important thing without promising the impossible. You don’t win by getting your way, but by getting everyone to support the outcome in the end.
Your prep task: bring Robin to life Take 2–3 minutes to think: Why did you become an RSE (a love of clean code? frustration over lost research data?)? What’s your one quirk under pressure – do you talk faster, go quiet, reach for the whiteboard? Give Robin a line to open the meeting with. Jot it down – you’ll need it in a moment.
