Believe or not, the group projects have already been an irreplaceable part of our school life since highschool. We have participated into numerous group discussions and encountered different group members. I have probably forgotten most of the project themes, but still can recall some of the best memories with my group members.
The best group experience so far was happened one year ago when I was still in my high school, I was randomly chose to be group four others and made a movie trailers. The reason that I describe it as the best group experience so far was due to several reasons
- No Role Conflict issue and role ambiguity (Ob pg.210)
Five of us all have different skills, we were all assigned to work on our strengths. We were not experiences any disagreement during the stage of assigning individual works. All of us were clear about our own works throughout the whole project.
- Strong Conformity (212)
First, strong conformity was reflected in punctuality. None of us would be late for the meeting more than ten minutes, even though some of the meetings were set on weekend nights. Second, a strong conformity group requires all of the members to complete their individual works on time, and polished those works together.
- Climate of Trust (212)
A group project cannot be done by one person, usually a perfect project compiles all of members’ ideas and wisdom. Thus it’s important to leave enough space and trust for others doing their own individual works. Sharing feedbacks is a great way of impelling the project, but you have to avoid with imposing your own ideas on others.
- Specific Goals (228)
Unlike the individual assignment, the group project requires each member to make agreements with achieving specific goals. Setting goals not only clarify the potential issues, but also holding each other together and unit everyone’s thoughts. Before starting the assignment, we decided to hit A for this big assignment, it was great to see five of us were on the same boat.
- Communication
Successful group projects are marked by a range of different communication behaviors. First, for showing your respect, always hearing and make sense of what your colleagues are saying, the nonverbal languages like sharing eye contacts with each other or nodding your head when you agree with something. Second, always respond to others people before simply pushing your agenda regardless of what anyone says. Third, one thing that I loved my group was we asked people who haven’t spoken what they thought about this issues before moved on to the next page, thus nobody feel left behind in this group. Last but not the least, it’s inevitable having disagreements and conflicts, the strategies that we used was finding middle ground satisfies everyone.
It’s a huge bless when you and your team members are get along with each other, but this luck doesn’t happen on you everytime. Next time, when problems appear, try to apply those OB knowledges on it.
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