The Guild Counsel: Raid leading 101
It's time to break out the chalkboard and textbooks, as The Guild Counsel begins the subject of raid leading 101. Ironically, the more I think and write about guild management issues, the more I realize how much they really do have in common with my experience in the classroom management. Teaching history to a class of high school students and running an online gaming guild seem like two completely different spheres of responsibility at first glance. But in order to do each well, they actually require similar preparation and a common approach.
Read on for a look at how teaching and raid leading resemble each other!
The prep
If there's one word that made me break out in a cold sweat, it was "lesson plan." (Ok, that's two words.) I understood that I couldn't just walk into a classroom and wing it, but I resented the concept of a lesson plan because most of it always felt like busy work to me. I knew what I wanted to accomplish, so I prepped notes and activities, but I didn't understand why my education professors in college had us writing out objectives like "fosters better cognitive and reasoning skills" or "encourages self-expression and awareness." Whom exactly does that benefit? It wasn't me, and it wasn't my students. If I walked into the classroom and announced that we'd be improving on our self-expression through student-centered activities, I'd be laughed out of the room.
What was most valuable to me in my prep work was having a framework for what I planned to do that day. But I refused to be a slave to my plans. If my lesson on the economic effects of World War II on the homefront led to questions about women's experiences in America, who was I to curtail that and demand that we wait until next week to talk about Rosie the Riveter?
Raid leading is similar in that your best hope is to go into new content with a broad plan of what you'd like to accomplish. But you need to allow for some freestyling and improvisation along the way. In fact, this is especially important in raid leading because those extra eyes on the ground might have some ideas that you hadn't anticipated. That's a valuable resource that you can't plan for, but it's one you need to use.
The before
One of the most overlooked parts of the school day was the four minutes of time between classes. In many departments, teachers spend those four minutes at their desk, at the photocopier, or in the teacher's lounge, as they race to prepare for the next class. But our department spent those four minutes outside our classroom and in the hallways. Our presence helped prevent bullying and fighting; it kept students moving along to their next class so they wouldn't be late; and most importantly, it provided a friendly, albeit brief, opportunity for students and teachers to chat and bond.
The 30 minutes before a raid begins are no different. As a raid leader, you can choose to spend them at the TV or tabbed out surfing the web, but the good ones know that the more proactive you are at getting things going, the more organized and better off your raid will be. Start forming up early, but expect a slow drip of invites followed by the inevitable tidal wave of last minute log-ins. Yes, it will mean that you'll have to sit and wait while others who are in the raid can go AFK and break out the crock pot until raid time, but you can use that time to do a little bonding and some pre-raid prep (and pep!).
Time management is important, and it begins even before the raid itself is scheduled to start. As a raid leader, if I can get a raid fully formed and starting on time, I've already won the battle. Staying visible, being proactive (and loud) and having a grasp of time are key to getting a raid started on the right foot.
The during
Going back to the lesson plans, I learned to teach by my class, not by the book. I needed to take into consideration the size, abilities, and overall personality of my class in order to find the best approach to teaching my students the material. Textbooks break things down into nice little units, but it's up to the teachers to use them in a way that reverberates with students. It's the same with raid leading -- a successful strategy that worked well with your force one night might fail miserably the next because of differences in the size, makeup, and even temperament of your team.
What's equally important is making sure that you're the one to keep things going at a nice pace. Just as you wouldn't want to let a discussion drag on in the classroom, you also don't want to have people sitting around waiting for buffs all night or hearing each and every person out on the raid before the next pull. Classroom discussions are just like raid discussions -- allow one hand to be recognized and you're guaranteed to have several more follow. It's a tightrope, but you need to balance feedback with the need to move on.
The after
After my school day was over, I always spent time figuring out what worked and what didn't. And that's always changing, no matter how many years you've taught the same material to your classes, because what works for one group may fall flat for another. I was always focused on finding the most effective way to reach my students because if I could do that, I could get through the curriculum more thoroughly and with more speed.
It's no different for raid leaders. In recent years, Revelry and Honor raided less often per week then we did in our early years. But I knew that we still had to maintain some feeling of steady progress or I'd begin to lose members to other guilds. I used off-nights to look over raid parses, ACT data, and feedback from officers and members in order to find a workable plan for the next raid night. Raid leading was sort of like playing a game of Master Mind. Sure, I could always eventually figure out the code, but what mattered the most was figuring it out in as few moves as possible.
Lastly, don't forget to take time out to give a little collective pat on the back. It's sometimes hard to see progress, both in a classroom and in a guild. But taking a few minutes to look back at where everyone was six months ago is a valuable perspective that can help your whole team.
Do you have a guild problem that you just can't seem to resolve? Have a guild issue that you'd like to discuss? Every week, Karen Bryan takes on reader questions about guild management right here in The Guild Counsel column. She'll offer advice, give practical tips, and even provide a shoulder to lean on for those who are taking up the challenging task of running a guild.
