How To Pull Off A Successful Group Project
No matter what happens, college students will inevitably be assigned a group project.
Of course as long as humans continue to interact, conflict will arise. It is a fact of life. As such there could be some friction between group members that can make it hard for the members of the group to get along.
While several ideas are valid, there are some ways to make the group project go smoothly and ideally get an “A.”
Divide Work Evenly
It should go without saying that if you have a group project, everyone should contribute. However, it is not fair to make one person do more work than everyone else.
As soon as you receive the assignment, get together with the group and talk about everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. Then divide up the work based upon what everyone can do. Suffice it to say that division of labor according to personal skills and abilities will result in a more pleasant experience.
Communicate
Communication is the foundation of civilization, and a lack thereof is a major source of conflict. While meeting with your group for the first time, exchange contact information and stay in contact to stay up to date with what is going on.
If you are unable to meet with the rest of the group, let them know as soon as possible. Otherwise you may miss out on important information, or worse, sink the entire group project.
Set a Schedule and Deadlines
While your professor will set at least one deadline for the final project, things will go nowhere if there is no set time frame to get each part of the project done. Whether it is a group project or an individual project, things will be less stressful if you divide it up into smaller tasks.
Set a deadline for each part of the project and stick to each of them. Only push back deadlines if there is no other way. Otherwise it will just turn into procrastination and the final deadline will arrive before you know it.
Hold Everyone in the Group Accountable
It will take everyone in the group to produce a final project of sufficient quality, but sometimes there will be one person who just does not do anything. Just one person can drag down the entire group, so that person must be dealt with.
Make sure everyone does the tasks assigned to them. If someone will not cooperate, then talk to them. If all attempts to talk to them fail, get the professor involved and possibly kick the offending party out of the group before reassigning the tasks.
If a group evaluation is part of the assignment, take advantage of it to communicate their failure to contribute.