Question

When you need to complete a group project:

1. What are you hoping to achieve? Think about the teams and projects that were very successful for you. What strategies, processes or norms were in place that worked? How were your skills utilized?

2. What are your concerns? Think about the teams and projects that were NOT successful for you. What were the specific pitfalls and how can your new group deliberately avoid or manage them going forward?

3. What's your Conflict Style? How can your conflict style help or hinder your group?

4. How will you meet followers' needs? Or in this case, each others' needs for Stability, Hope, Trust, and Compassion?

5. What are your edges? How can your group help you to challenge yourself to do something new?

Answer 1

Group projects

When the whole team is assigned the task of working together to achieve a collaborative aim- it is known as the group project.

1. Achievements we gain through the group projects are vivid, distinct and lifelong learning. Enlisted here are some of the achievements that we hope to acquire from group projects:

• At the time of working as a group we develop various skills such as team work, understanding our role in a team and working in collaboration.
• The students learn to take responsibility of their performance and role as a team worker.
• It enhances our intermediate communication levels and helps in forming good professional etiquettes.
• Content knowledge gets well versed and every member in the group gets subjected to vast information through sharing of group work.
• Various organizational aspects get clarified and we develop better understanding of “self” skills and SWOT- focusing on the strengths and the areas that need to be worked upon.
• We learn to handle criticism and appreciation in the most productive manner.

During our several team projects we adopted various strategies. Initially it used to create a mess as we were given different teams for different projects. Gradually we developed our learning and realised that we all should understand basically 2 things:

• What role do I need to play in the team
• How to accept and accommodate other team members and their roles

There were a few strategies that worked the best:

• Assign leadership to the least participative group member- every member becomes the responsible team player and the leader in itself gets major responsibility to play. It extracts the work.
• As soon as the project was given- the team members should individually write their area of expertise on a paper and make small groups among the team who would fall into same zone.
• During the mid of the project- we would have a common email group where we would send the continuous progress of the work and the group leader was responsible to monitor and coordinate.
• Towards the end of the project- every team member should share their experiences with the team and then explain their findings, content and reasons.

The group discussions were a great way to appreciate, analyse and criticise the team work and the work of team members. We learnt more about our strength and honked our skills by working hard and creatively on them.

2. Concerns:

Whenever the group project is assigned our first ever concern is- the deadline and our role. Here are a few more concerns that we always had while we were part of a team:

• What if I may give 100 percent to the work but my other team members fail to do so? Will it cause a downgrade of the whole team?
• How can I, being in the limit of my role, encourage a non performing team member to work and contribute effectively?
• From where can we get data, sources and information?
• What should be my ideal plan of action?
• At times the information was not flowing smoothly from all team members that actually turned up into big disasters towards the end.
• Petty issues leading to conflicts among the group members also led to big difficulties in managing and organizing the entire work. Also it would shift the focus of many team members from their roles to handling the conflicts of others.

The biggest problem that I have faced during a group work has mainly been about the individual differences and conflicts among team members.

How should new groups avoid pitfalls:

i) No individual credits:

One should not be bothered about “individual credits” while working in a group. Even if your individual assessment is done in the project- one should know that the assessment is done as your “role in the team”. Therefore, one should always contribute significantly towards team work instead of trying to pull down other members.

• The ground rules must be clarified at the beginning of the work itself.
• Members should adhere to the rules
• Meetings and reviews should be taken seriously
• Every person should be given a chance to put forth their views and experiences

?ii) Team members who were not very serious during the group work:

Often the team members do not see any relevance of the team work in their student life. They need to be taught the importance of working as a team and its benefits:

• Regular discussions of the team members with the mentors
• Association of the group feedback with the final assessment
• Defining the goals of the team and vision at the beginning of the project
• The responsible members explaining the importance of group projects to everyone and setting examples for others

iii) Conflicts:

Conflicts should be handled on situation basis. However a few measures can be taken:

• Specific roles be given to individuals and any lending of support to other team members be credited in appreciation during group meetings
• Problems be talked about in the group not individually and all feedback be accepted and given without favours
• Understanding the situations and difficulties of team members and lending the time and effort whenever needed
• Keeping one team member to be there to assess the roles of all the team members so that people feel monitored in the group task as well

3. My conflict style is “to collaborate”. I have developed this conflict style with practice and inherent nature. Over the various group works that I have been into, this conflict style has helped me the most in resolving various group issues.

I often try to be a good listener as a result many group members come over with their concerns to share with me.

I try to discuss their problems with other team members in order to solve their issues. Due to my analysing and creative skills I am often termed as one of the “creative studios” of the group.

This also helps me to generate positive responses from all team members and give creative solutions of their problems.

4. In order to meet the needs of any following members we need to have compassion for our teammates. Whenever I become the part of a team- I try to bring along everyone on the same platform through some social online groups and meetings.

If any of my followers’ requires any specific help from me, I would take following measures:

• I would go forward and discuss the issue with them in detail in person
• Then I will try to give suggestions and motivation to the person
• If the need is bigger than my reach I will seek permission from the person to discuss the issue with other team mates. The issue will be discussed outside only when my follower friend will agree to it.
• In order to make sure that our fellow team mates develop understanding and trust in each other we should respect their opinions and try to give some productive solutions to their problems.
• If we feel any of our team mates are lacking behind, we should discuss the matter in person with the group leader instead of going directly to the person as it may create a lot of misunderstandings amongst us.
• We should support our team and help them grow in all aspects.