Five ways to survive working with other people on a group project and shine as a team
Collaborating on an assignment needn't be painful if you follow these helpful tips
If you think you'll never have to do another group project once you graduate from secondary school, then you’re in for an unpleasant surprise. The dreaded task is likely to follow you into almost any university and job you go into.
You might be someone who enjoys working with other people, but that doesn’t guarantee every group project you do will be trouble-free. The more people involved in a project, the more factors are out of your control. Here are five things to consider when working with others to ensure your project runs as smoothly as possible.
Divide and conquer
One of the first things you need to do with your team is sort out how you’re going to divide the work. Make sure the workload is split as evenly and fairly as possible so that everyone is happy. It’s a good idea, in your first meeting, to find out what everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are and assign tasks accordingly.
Set clear deadlines for each of the tasks, and make sure everyone has a good idea of what they are in charge of (a simple checklist on something like Google Docs can help your team keep track of what needs to be done). Once everyone’s on the same page, you can go your separate ways and get working.
Leave margin for error
It’s great to be super organised and have everything planned down to the final second. But remember, files get accidentally deleted, and people can get sick or forget things, so leave a good time cushion in case anything suddenly goes wrong.
Remember to make time to review each other’s work. Ideally, you’d want to do this with all members of your team present and at regular intervals – even if it’s just to touch base on how everything is coming along. People are busy and your schedules might clash, but try to do this at least once before the final deadline, especially if you’ve been working on separate parts of the project.
