Building Better Groups
Who would have thought working together was so hard?
I’ve written previously about my distaste for group assignments. While that was written early in my career at RIT the experiences have not improved over the years. Now, as a graduating senior, I have so few positive group experiences that I can count them on one hand. But, there is still hope! I have come up with some tips to help build a better group. While these are all drawn from my educational experiences, I am quite confident that the same principles can be taken in to the workplace, or other venues and still be applicable.
Know Your Abilities
Obviously, knowing what you are capable of will make a great deal of a difference when getting the most out of a group experience. This helps you ensure that you take on the right tasks to be able to positively contribute to the group.
Know Your Peers’ Abilities
Next step once you know what you can handle is to figure out what those around you can handle. Preferably this would be done before the groups are formed that way you can take abilities in to account to construct your group. However, in large environments, like RIT, there are just too many peers to have a strong handle on what each can bring to the group.
Diversify
While there is a convenience factor to working with friends, or even just acquaintances, the group dynamic is much better when you have diverse members and diverse backgrounds. Too often groups fall in to the habit of having members that are too similar to one another.
Accountability
It may be hard, especially if you don’t know your group members, but delegating and then holding group members accountable for their responsibilities is the only way to be successful. Having everything be done as collective rarely, if ever, works out fair to all members.