I’ve been in many groups over the last 3 years at Cornell University. Some groups worked well and others didn’t. One group that worked really well was my group for intro to Human Computer Interaction. There were four members (including me) in my group, which means that it wasn’t overly difficult to manage and once the project started, all of us were active in the group, leaving no room for slacking and social loafing.
My team had people who were from three different majors, so each of us had different inputs. We each had different skills, viewpoints, knowledge and perspectives to bring to into our project. Each member of the group was fairly vocal; if we didn’t talk to each other face-to-face, we were definitely talking to each other online through email and through AIM and GChat. Our group was able to create a feeling of belonging and synergy through constant contact, which minimized the negative effects of distance. Carroll states that “synergy is important for group effectiveness and it comes about through group joint-ness and cooperation”. Sometimes we experienced difficulty coordinating the group and keeping on task when we weren’t together. Our task could fit into two categories in the McGrath Task Complex, generate (creative) and execute (competitive tasks) because we had to brainstorm an idea for a product and create a “prototype” of that product.
The way communication worked within my group was described by Carroll as a “fully connected structure” where every node (person) is connected to every other node. We also were defined to a particular role based on the skill that we possessed. However, once we were giving the identity of being together and defined as a group, we began to act as a unit in some ways and created group norms. We always sat in the same spot in the room and were always together and always brought our laptops to class.
The output of my group ended being a website. Our group was successful because we met our production goals for the class. Because my group was so efficient, I would have no problem working with the same 3 people on a different project. Because we had such a great group dynamic, we ended going well and everyone in the group got a good grade in the class.
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You mentioned that you experienced difficulty keeping on task when you weren't together, and I find that this almost always happens to me in group situations. Sometimes when I have a very clear goal for my portion of the work (and a strict deadline) it is easier to focus, but many times people just need that pressure of the group members around them. Kiesler and Cummings sum this impact up nicely in "out of sight, out of mind... distributed work that causes people to be out of one another's sight may lead to their comparative inattention to coworkers, a lower level of effort, or an increase in free riding" (63).
ReplyDeleteIt was lucky that you got such a good group! However, that also leads to inefficiency if the group is too close and can't focus even when they are together...
I was also part of this class last year so it's interesting to hear about another group's experiences. It sounds like you were happy with your group and that ended up being true for mine. I find similarities in that they were all very willing to come together and work on the project whenever needed to, in some form or another.
ReplyDeleteI know a complaint about my project (not the group) was how we didn't have the most ideal way of keeping track of the iterations of our project. We essentially got pretty lucky that everything we needed stayed with us in one form or another. Did you guys run across any problems like this or choose a different strategy to deal with this?
Also, I'm curious to know what got done during which sessions. I know with my group, it ended up being that we'd work together on everything that was visual or UI involved, and essentially e-mail each other with updates or meeting places and would talk before/after class as well.