Organizing and Learning with Group Projects - Report Example

GROUP WORK Group projects in a or in a professional life can be immense experiences or can also prove to be onerous at times. Those who treat a project as an uphill yet an encouraging task thrive to submit it on time, putting in their best effort. While those treating it as a burden, start working on it at the eleventh hour and end up submitting it right on the deadline or may even surpass it. Therefore, group projects can get involved into some insurmountable problems. However, you can put in some effort to guarantee that your group project leads to a satisfactory grade rather than a colossal task. Learning and working in groups entails communal and/or academic values, resources, and techniques of accomplishing tasks. Successful groups find out ways to do well by combining these factors. A group, and each individual in it, will only be as effectual as they are eager to value disparities among each group member. Carrying out group projects require professionalism in its superlative form. Professionalism means completing each and every task of your project efficiently and effectively. To do that, one needs to identify a problem and how to go about solving that problem. If one follows a problem solving process, then the results would be more fruitful than otherwise. To all intents and purposes, a problem is not something which could be easily jettisoned. From a utilitarian’s point of view, a procedure or a generalization should be applied. When I have been assigned a project, I would always carry out a pre-project analysis or what I call a feasibility analysis of the project, which encompasses the practicability and the likelihood of the project to be accomplished efficiently and effectively (and before the deadline). FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS: As a group member I always tried to make out a situation where the shoe pinches or where the problem lies in the project. Not identifying and accepting a problem has been a major reason why problems get graver and panic starts creeping in. Identifying and accepting a problem in a project is like finding a remedy before hand. Individuals and groups who have never thought of something big or novel in their lives have never made their mark in this corporate world. They haven’t ever won their laurels in any field of activity and the reason of their fiasco has been that they have never recognized how to debug the problems in their project. Another important technique that I as a group member applied was that I always realized a project’s complexity. This phase necessitates a detailed and a noteworthy examination. The complexities of some projects are not apparent: they are hidden and shallow. They have an inclination to put a spoke in the wheel out of the blues. So at that stage I never tried to be narrow-minded and intolerant. I tried to analyze the complexity from the basic level. However I never tried to be dogmatic and considered and analyzed the situation from all possible aspects. Once the situation was understood and tackled from all dimensions, I drafted a fool-fledged plan in carrying the project’s plan or the proceedings. Remember that openness, efficacy and good organization of your plan lead to a prolific result. If implementation of your plan is compact and practical, best group outcomes would be propitious. But if the reverse comes about, you would thud back to an even multifaceted situation where you would need to start all over again. PROCEEDINGS OF THE PROJECT- SELECTION OF LEADER AND GROUP MEMBERS: In my academic and professional life, when I was assigned a group project, I would quickly think of people whom I would ‘recruit’ in the team/group. In a group, I always believed in the democratic way of carrying about the proceedings. In an autocratic environment, each member would not be able to have an equal say because the dominant group members would overshadow the ideas and opinions of other members. So I always favored the democratic way of running a group. We always try selecting a leader via voting system which is again a classical example of how democratic system is run. So the best amongst the group was always selected. I never presented my name for the leadership role because I felt that there were other more deserving candidates for this post. Since our group members were all open-minded and respectful of each others’ ideas, everyone had a chance to chip in with their opinions and plans for carrying out the project. Hence a flat hierarchy was always developed which meant effective communication and productive flow of thoughts. No one complained that a particular member was being autocratic or dogmatic. Everybody was the soul of the group and if, in group meetings, any member went missing or was absent, the meeting would be called off. This was how well-knitted we were. FUNCTIONING OF THE GROUP: Since the gelling between the group members was immense, the group functioning was near to perfect. Sometimes it happened that some differences in opinions were engendered. But we usually took these differences as positive signs and tried resolving the disparities by engaging ourselves in prolonged brainstorming hours. When tasks were assigned to group members, everyone was expected to deal with their tasks seriously and professionally. Since the group leader always tried to recruit suitable and hardworking individuals in the group, he expected them to turn up and to accomplish their respective tasks within the deadline. By long odds, members in my group always lived up to the leader’s expectation and were always able to submit the task putting in their best effort. Those members whose tasks were interrelated, they were given some provision in by the leader in the form of extension of deadline, since each of them depended on each other task’s completion. KEY MOMENTS: The key moment in the life of the group, though many would disagree with me, was deciding the name of the project. This was a very grave problem that I faced as the group member. In a democratic environment, where everyone has an equal say, deciding on peculiarities such as deciding on giving a name is a tricky task. We faced a lot of problems in this aspect, as everyone gave their own name choices, but in the end the best choice (in this case-the name of the project) would usually not be of all the group members, but would be of an individual or of a subgroup. In such situation other team mates would start having grudges or jealousy for the winning sub group or individual whose choice has been preferred. To avoid such dodgy circumstances, we always gave our names to the leader without knowing each others names. The leader would then decide the best name of his choice. Since the members would not be informed about who gave the winning name, no one had grudges against each other and the matter would be buried there and then. ASSIGNEMENT OF TAKS TO THE GROUP MEMBERS: Since the leader always handed over the task to the individual according to his/her area of expertise, all the group members were able to finish their task professionally and before deadline. Because our group members were very competent, there was always a healthy and positive competition between each other in submitting the best work. This was something highly desirable for the completion of the project. GETTING ALONG WITH THE GROUP: I always had a very friendly, yet professional experience with my group members. Since we always chose people who were friends in communal life, each of the group members had very nice experience with each other. We were all very well gelled with each other and were always there for each other if anyone encountered any difficulty in carrying out the task. Albeit we were professional when at work, we tried being a bit jovial with each other just to transform the environment into a friendly one. REACHING THE DECISIONS: There were certain critical decisions in group which took significant time of our group meeting. We used to have a long productive group discussion session, where we used to get involved into arguments and a lot of brainstorming. Sometimes a deadlock was reached. But then the group leader had to intercept to avoid any further commotion and was always able settle the issue. In the end he was the one to make the decision. ADVANTAGES OF WORKING IN A GROUP: I learned a lot working in a group. Since the group members I have been working with have always been enrolled in the group projects I have been involved in, I always find it easy working with them. The advantages of working in the group are manifold: Firstly the end product of a group is always better than the end product of an individual. Secondly, the communication flow within a group and amongst the group member brings about the productivity and best quality project. A democratic environment allows immense communication to flow due to which group members get to know the workings of a group and get to know the techniques of carrying out their respective tasks. If there is a communication gap amongst the members, the leader needs to intercept and make sure that the gap is filled. DISADVANTAGES OF WORKING IN A GROUP: One of the biggest disadvantages of working in a group is the difference of opinions that might arise amongst the group members. Again it is very important for the group leader to interrupt and to resolve all the issues. Another disadvantage that might arise is that an individual is heavily dependant on the group members. He/she cannot take an important decision by himself. In fact he should always be ready to get his decision scrutinized and examined by other members of the group. EFFECTS ON AN INDIVIDUAL: One important discovery that I unearthed about myself when I work on a group project is that I have turned into an open-minded person. I’m always open for opinions, no matter how bad they are. Since in my group, we were open to have our say heard by everyone in the group, we ended up nourishing a good habit of being unbiased and being able to respect each others views and ideas. I also learnt how to adapt good traits and how to revolutionize myself to suit the liking of others. It is imperative to know that each group member has specific disposition. So to befriend each other one has to make a lot of compromises as compromises and conciliations are for the betterment of the group. Sources: Study and Strategies Guide. 2011. Organizing and learning with group projects. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.studygs.net/groupprojects.htm. [Accessed -]. Read More