Welcome to this first of three lectures on working in an effective team: top ten common
problems and how to solve them.
My name is Marina Miletic.
In this lecture series I'll be going through the most common team-related problems I've
seen in my teaching career.
Over the past ten years I've noticed the same teamwork conflicts come up semester after
semester.
Having experience teaching many chemical engineering seniors, I can tell you that almost no one
expects that their team will have conflicts or problems.
The unfortunate reality is that it's far more likely that you will have a conflict or problem
rather than not.
With that in mind, I'd like to provide some guidance on how to circumvent and resolve
some common issues.
First problem, person X isn't working hard enough or their work is of low quality.
This problem is probably one of the most common, and thankfully, there are a lot of approaches
you can take to prevent this.
First set early deadlines, many students incorrectly believe that if each individual in a team
works on their part for the longest amount of time possible, and then meets to put everything
together at the last minute, the result will be the best possible report imaginable.
This is completely wrong.
By setting early deadlines, you ensure that you will have enough time in case a big problem
comes up, a major revision is necessary, or someone needs extra help.
Next, set intermediate goals and intermediate deadlines.
This means that a section of a project doesn't have to be completely ready before showing
it to the rest of the group.
Showing progress to the team means that everyone can see the work that everyone else is doing
and give feedback.
This is actually a useful time saver, because the group can catch small mistakes before
they become big ones.
Everyone should show their work in progress to each other to get feedback.
You should never be seeing someone's work for the first time right before the due date.
No matter how much you trust your teammates, and how smart you think they are, you should
never be seeing their work for the first time right before it needs to go into a report.
This is a big gamble, and usually results in having to revise a lot of work at the last
minute.
Notice that I didn't say everyone should tell each other what they're doing, they should
actually come to meetings with something to physically show everyone else.
Make it a team rule that people cannot just talk about what they are doing on the project.
They actually need to show it to everyone to get feedback.
I've found that many people will describe what they're doing as the greatest accomplishment
of their lives, but when the rest of the team looks at it, they notice problems and lots
of areas in need of improvement.
Make sure you see everyone else's work while it's in progress means there should be no
big surprises when everyone gets together to put their work into the one document.
To help with this, make sure to have frequent meetings where everyone shows their progress
at each meeting.
In fact showing your work to everyone and getting feedback should be the main focus
of each group meeting.
Having regular and frequent meetings keeps everyone on task, and is a way of making sure
those intermediate deadlines are being met.
In terms of dealing with the problem teammate, make sure that the teammate is always working
with somebody else in the group.
This is a good way of making sure this person is actually doing their work and staying focused.
Also by working alongside another person, they might better understand the overall expectations
of the group, and what they might not have been contributing.
Lastly, if your professor does not use peer evaluations, encourage them to do so.
Peer evaluations help instructors understand the contributions of each team member to the
final project, and is frequently used to adjust grades if necessary.
The next common problem relates to the first one, person X is lazy and not as motivated
as the rest of the group.
To prevent this, set early and intermediate deadlines to make sure the individual is staying
on task.
Have frequent meetings to check on their progress, and always make sure everyone shows the work
they're completed.
Lastly, work with this teammate to match them with tasks that leverage their strengths and
interests.
People are a lot more likely to do well if they're doing something they enjoy and have
experience with.
If people feel they're making a unique contribution, then they're usually more motivated to do
a good job.
The next common problem is, we had to do 24 hours of revising and editing right before
the due date and person X wasn't there to help all the way to the end.
While I sympathize with this somewhat, there are a lot of things wrong with this problem.
First of all, do not do the majority of the work for the project 48 hours before the due
date.
The majority of the work should be finished at least 4 days or a week ahead of the final
deadline.
This is because it's next to impossible to make sure that everyone in the group has 48
hours before the final deadline completely free to work on the project.
Also, this leaves almost no time to go see TAs and professors if you need extra help,
and it leaves printing and editing to the last minute, and you should never underestimate
the amount of time these tasks will take.
Never ever underestimate the amount of time formatting and editing will take.
Doing everything at the last minute assumes that nothing will go wrong and this is a very
unrealistic assumption.
Set a clear schedule so everyone knows how much time to set aside for the project.
I would suggest having a no all-nighters policy, and what can help with this is to set early
and intermediate deadlines and stick to them.
Make sure your deadlines and schedule have you finishing the project several days ahead
of the due date, there are always setbacks with every project.
Make sure you build time into the schedule to account for them.
In the next lecture we'll discuss another set of common team problems and how to resolve
them.