Internal Communication Software (ZULIP)

As mentioned previously RoboTeam Twente is a bit complex organization, but also quite chaotic. This is not strange as it is a student organization after all. But it can hurt the transfer of information between members due to this. Students are on average driven, but lazy this causes them to take the easiest, but usually not the best option to accomplish a certain task. Communication is one of these, in the past updates or specific technical questions would be communicated either in person or on WhatsApp, This caused many problems, things would be missed when conversations became very active, its hard to comb through old conversations when trying to find information, but most importantly the attitude people have when using WhatsApp is very joking, gifs, stickers, etc. I am not saying fun shouldn't be allowed, but on these platforms its more of the norm then the exemption.

Therefore, in order to keep communication structured and efficient to use specific software that is optimized for working on complex projects, There are many options to choose from Slack, Discord, Teams etc. But we landed on ZULIP as it can be hosted by ourselves making it practically free while still being professional in contrast to something like Discord.

The structure of the channels should reflect the structure of the organization as well in order to make it feel intuitive to use.
You can start with a general section that includes announcements, general chat & memos and after it would depend on what you think is more applicable.
This can be either based on specialization: software, embedded, mechanical, electrical, etc.
Or based on sub-system: drill, drive train, human relations, etc.
Each of the channels can then get different topics depending on what is being worked on at that point in time.

Here is an example of a specialization based communications layout: