How to Handle Group Projects Effectively? 25 most powerful tips and tricks for success in group work- Know them ALL!

How to Handle Group Projects Effectively?  
25 most powerful tips and tricks for success in group work!

Learning and working effectively as part of a team or group is an extremely important skill, and one that you will refine and use throughout your working life. Group projects should be among the most valuable and rewarding learning experiences. For many students, however, they are also among the most frustrating.

Illustrated some pointers to help you work effectively on your group tasks and assignments. These are mostly general principles that you should apply to group work here, in other courses and in the workplace.

Why we use group learning tasks

Learning in groups means that you need to share your knowledge and ideas with other students. There are two principal ways that you benefit from doing this:

• you need to think carefully about your own ideas in order to explain them to others
• you expand your own awareness by taking account of the knowledge and ideas of others.

When you work as a group on a project or assignment, then you have the opportunity to draw on the different strengths of group members, to produce a more extensive and higher quality project or assignment than you could complete on your own.

To do this effectively you need to learn group work skills, which are an extremely important part of your professional development. In most professions people are required to work in multidisciplinary project teams or teams with a responsibility for a specific task. Many professional organisations and employer groups stress the importance of interpersonal and group skills, such as communication, negotiation, problem solving, and teamwork. These skills can be as important as your subject knowledge in enabling you to be an effective professional.

This kind of group work is actually an ongoing process of generating ideas and planning as a group, working as an individual to carry out parts of that plan and then communicating as a group to draw the individual components together and plan the next step.

Skills needed in group work

Group work requires both interpersonal and process management skills. Group work is included in a course to provide a safe environment in which you can try out new ideas and practices and learn some group skills. Some of the skills you need to develop are outlined here, you will discover some others for yourself.

Interpersonal skills

• Building positive working relationships
• Communicating effectively in meetings
• Negotiating to agree on tasks and resolve conflicts
• Accommodating people with different cultural orientations and work habits

Process management skills

• Identifying group goals and dividing work
• Planning and complying with meeting schedules and deadlines
• Managing time to meet group expectations
• Monitoring group processes and intervening to correct problems

Managing the process in Group Project

Effective group work does not happen by accident. It involves deliberate effort, and because there are many people involved it must not be left up to memory; good note taking is essential. 

Following steps will help you and your group to work effectively together.

1. Have clear objectives. At each stage you should try to agree on goals. These include a timetable for progress on the project as well as more immediate goals (e.g. to agree on an approach to the assignment by Friday). Each meeting or discussion should also begin with a goal in mind (e.g. to come up with a list of tasks that need to be done).
2. Set ground rules. Discussions can become disorderly and can discourage shyer group members from participating if you don't have procedures in place for encouraging discussion, coming to resolution without becoming repetitive, and resolving differences of opinion. Set rules at the outset and modify them as necessary along the way. An interesting rule that one group made was that anybody who missed a meeting would buy the rest of the group a cup of coffee from the coffee shop. Nobody ever missed a meeting after that.
3. Communicate efficiently. Make sure you communicate regularly with group members. Try to be clear and positive in what you say without going on or being repetitive.
4. 
   Build consensus. People work together most effectively when they are working toward a goal that they have agreed to. Ensure that everyone has a say, even if you have to take time to get more withdrawn members to say something. Make sure you listen to everyone's ideas and then try to come to an agreement that everyone shares and has contributed to.
5. Define roles. Split the work to be done into different tasks that make use of individual strengths. Having roles both in the execution of your tasks and in meetings / discussions (e.g. Arani is responsible for summarising discussions, Joseph for ensuring everybody has a say and accepts resolutions etc.) can help to make a happy, effective team. See Sharing and organising work for more information.
6. Clarify. When a decision is made, this must be clarified in such a way that everyone is absolutely clear on what has been agreed, including deadlines.
7. Keep good records. Communicating on the online discussion for your group provides a good record of discussion. Try to summarise face-to-face discussions and especially decisions, and post them to the online discussion so that you can refer back to them. This includes lists of who has agreed to do what.
8. Stick to the plan. If you agreed to do something as part of the plan, then do it. Your group are relying on you to do what you said you would do not what you felt like doing. If you think the plan should be revised, then discuss this.
9. Monitor progress and stick to deadlines. As a group, discuss progress in relation to your timetable and deadlines. Make sure that you personally meet deadlines to avoid letting your group down.

Tips for Effective Group Working

There are various stages that you will go through in a group project to achieve a task. Planning is critical to effective group work and will give you direction and help you coordinate your work in order for efficient task completion. The following guidelines should help you make a start with your task:

1. First of all it is important to establish a set of group guidelines. 
2. Get to know the members in your group, their strengths and preferred ways of working. 
3. Try to recognize that everyone has an opinion and that individuals have different methods of working and learning.
4. It is advisable to appoint a group leader and also a scribe to record the group’s activities.
5. Discuss the group’s task or activity in order to reach a shared understanding.
6. Summarize the shared understanding of the problem on a board or piece of paper.
7. Discuss how you are going to approach the problem. 
8. Brainstorm to create ideas, plans and tasks for your group. 
9. Everyone should be involved in discussion and in agreement on what direction the group is taking and why.
10. Assign roles and responsibilities as ownership to each member
11. Use a project management tool to monitor the project status and contribution by each member.
12. Decide on specific tasks and allocate them to individuals or subgroups. The subdivision of the problem or topic into smaller tasks may already be apparent to some extent by the wording of the question. 
13. It may be necessary for you as coordinator to read around the topic first to facilitate the division of the task and identify particular interests. 
14. Make sure you are clear on everyone else’s tasks in order to prevent duplication.
15. Ensure that each group member has responsibility and accountability for their task with an agreed deadline.
16. Once you have decided on your tasks and roles it is vital that you arrange regular meetings to review your progress.
17. Decide on what direction your work should take next. 
18. Each member should attend these meetings.
19. Consider a time-line for your project, this is particularly important for longer projects: 
20. Set dates for the completion of specific tasks.
21.  Any resources, information or knowledge should be shared.
22.  Allot one task at at a time and you allot other task after completion
23. Lead with gratitude
24. Praise for the work "Well Done"
25. Provide constructive feedback to each one for every tasks

Next time you find yourself working with the same people, you’ve already got a good working relationship to build your project from. Backed with the knowledge of our 25 powerful tips and tricks for working on group projects, I'm sure you'll look at future jobs without the fear of fighting an uphill battle. Share this article with your teams and see the difference? You’ll probably notice that the tips and tricks have begun working to achieve wonderful results. Now advise sign up to other members too for your communication tools, project management software, and time trackers information already articulated to meet up your needs. rest assured to ease out your work, smoothly that too more perfectly at no more time.

you can get all of your tools tips and tricks on this platform. to Streamline your projects, get started today!

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