unclear roles

what happened

discovered "are we all technical here?" as a simple first question that creates immediate clarity. without it, you end up with three people all trying to code the backend and nobody working on the frontend or the pitch.

why it's a gotcha

in a group of strangers, nobody wants to be the one to say "so what do you actually do?" but without that conversation, work gets duplicated, gaps go unfilled, and the team runs inefficiently for the entire event. roles are part of shared understanding, and the most common gap is having no communicator on the team.

the fix

ask it directly in the first 5 minutes. "are we all technical?" "who's strongest at frontend?" "who wants to own the presentation?" assign lanes early. it feels awkward for 30 seconds and saves hours of confusion. know your own role first, and when role confusion makes the team actively worse than working alone, remember that solo is a valid option.