TLDR: Grading rubric for TLing exists here and here; I am not the author; I hope you find them helpful.
At a recent event, I spoke with some newer judges about team leading. Most often, team leading is a judge’s first step up from floor judging. Being selected for a team lead (often abbreviated as ‘TL’) shows they have enough familiarity with how events should run that they can teach some newer folks, and they know enough about rules and policy to be a first point of contact for judges who want a doublecheck. A judge’s first time being selected for a TL position at a larger event is a significant milestone.
The most fundamental grade for a team lead is more or less “did you do the thing?” At a very basic level, determining how well someone did is fairly easy. Did you perform deckchecks without issuing 45 minute time extensions? Did you post the pairings the same round they were printed? How many literal launches fires did you start? Did you let the whole team know when their break time was, or did someone never eat lunch because you forgot about them? Success or failure with this level of grading is fairly binary, and should be clear to even the greenest of team leads – if you screw up so badly the HJ replaces you during round three, hopefully you know on your own that there was some room for improvement.
Once a judge has been a team lead a couple of times, however, they might start thinking about moving beyond the basics. Introducing a bit of nuance can make it harder to evaluate how well someone performed. Whether you’re a team lead unsure exactly where to focus your attention or a head judge trying to provide good, actionable feedback for someone on your crew, a real rubric can be helpful.
To that end, I’m sharing an article from back in 2019. It went over the grading for the Team Lead in Training Position – a badge judges could get that allowed them to team lead on day two of Grands Prix (if you don’t know what those are, ask a judge whose back hurts). Despite being quite out of date at this point, the article here is still one of the best resources I’ve found for helping guide judges from Beginner to Excellent team leading.
The most important thing the rubric does is make it clear that doing a good job at the assigned task is a small part of being a good team lead. The candidate was graded on Task Preparation, Success with the Team Task, Delegation, Event Overview and Feedback, Team Building, Mentoring, and Communication…and it begins by saying “A candidate is expected to perform at least adequately in all of the following qualities to pass the Team Leader Certification Test. A candidate deficient at any of the skills has failed the Team Leader Certification Test” (emphasis mine). That is, by this rubric, a candidate could fail the evaluation even if they earned top marks in Success with the Team Task.
I recommend anyone interested in stepping up their game when leading at events give this a read now and again, as it is a great way to see what kinds of things go into a great Team Lead beyond simply “doing the thing.” It’s also helpful for head judges, as it can help guide feedback. Without further ado: the rubric is available here. Judge Academy and Cascade Games were working on something similar for a badge at one point.
Huge thanks are owed to the great judges who worked on the TLTP project. Despite multiple changeovers in judge programs over the years and Grands Prix being replaced by other events, their work here remains as relevant and helpful as ever. Hats off to Alfonso Bueno, Matteo Callegari, Rob Castellon, Kevin Desprez, Dustin De Leeuw, Nate Hurley, Fabian Peck, Mikaël Rabie, Luca Romano, Hans Wang, and Yu Win Yew. Also thanks to the Azorius Senate crew for proofreading.
Happy team leading!