Group Work: Advantages, Hindrances, and Recommendations

Essay

Working in the group plays an important role in achieving the objective and completing the assessment as it promotes innovation and creativity. Working with people allows pooling different ideas and evaluating the problems from different angles. Sometimes the task required a different type of skills, knowledge, and expertise and it becomes different for the single person to tackle large scale problems (Frandsen & Johansen, 2018, p.100). At that time the combination of the skills, knowledge, and expertise of other people made it easy to complete the complex task in the most effective and efficient way. While working for the team, there are things that went well but at the same time, there are also things that did not go well. This essay will show two aspects of the group process that worked to the group’s advantage and two aspects of the group process that hindered the group in completing the assignment. This essay will also highlight the two recommendations to overcome the aspects that created hindrance in group performance.

The two aspects of the group process that worked to the group’s advantage are first is team charter. The formation of the team charter helped in setting the direction for the team along with establishing the boundaries. Team charter made it easy to set the end result, the path through which the team will achieve its objective, clarifying the responsibilities and roles within the team, establish the accountability, and it also reduces the confusing between the team members in the case where the conflict may arise (Desmidt & George, 2016, p.90). Team charter plays a significant role in making this assessment successful because all the team members are aware of the things they have to do and the timeframe in which they have to complete the given task. This is the main reason why the group is able to complete the assessment on time. There are different elements that the group included in the team charter to ensure the timely completion of the group objectives. These elements are the purpose of the team, time and duration commitment, scope, members of the team, their roles responsibilities and accountability, desired end results, action plan, and supporting reports. Second is conflict management. While completing the assessment there were many times when the views of the group members are different and this leads to the conflict but before the starting of the assessment the group decided the conflict management strategies based on the Thomas Kilmann Model (Marsen, 2020, p.170). According to this model the group had chosen collaborating and compromising strategy. In the case of conflict, the team find the solution that meets the points of the conflicting party through communication and voting on the ideas or find the acceptable solution that partially meets the concerns of the parties that are involved in the conflict. This played a key role in improving the collaboration between the group members.

The two aspects of the group process that hindered the group in completing the assignment are first is the different time zone. After the COVID-19 pandemic, different students went to their homes. In order to make the project successful, the most important thing for the group was meetings and brainstorming sessions in order to develop innovative and creative ideas. While conducting the meetings and brainstorming sessions the biggest challenge that the group faced is the different time zones and because of this sometimes the meetings were conducted on the odd timings such as late night and early morning. Because of the odd timings, some group members face difficulty in concentrating on the meetings and contributing their ideas because either the members are tired or feeling sleepy (Newman et al., 2020, p. 455). This affected the performance and the success rate of the meetings and brainstorming sessions. Sometimes because of this the group could not able to reach the conclusion and the group has to dismiss the meeting. This had a negative impact on the productivity of the group members. The second is the lack of punctuality and discipline. In order to complete the assessment, all the meetings and discussion took place through WhatsApp, conference calls, and Zoom meetings. But there were times when some members are not able to join the meeting or they join late because they were other things. This affected the productivity of the team and sometimes delays the meetings or the group have to repeat the discussion when the members join the meeting late. This wasted a lot of time and leads to conflict as the group members have to wait. The lack of discipline and punctuality of the group members is the biggest hindrance the group faced while completing the assessment (Nordbäck et al., 2017, p.400).

From this essay, it is concluded that in order to complete the complex and large task or to complete it in the most innovative and creative way working in the team is the best option. The main reason for working in the group is that it brings different skills, knowledge, and expertise on the table and the combination of the skills, knowledge, and expertise of other people made it easy to complete the complex task in a most effective and efficient way. However, working in the group is not an easy task as there are things that went well but at the same time, there are also things that did not go well. In order to complete the assessment, the things that went well are team charter and conflict management strategies. The things that did not go well are different time zones and lack of punctuality and discipline. The recommendations to overcome or minimize negative aspects of working are first is the use of the shared calendar. This will help the team to set the timing that is suitable to all. The meeting should be scheduled in such a way that the burden of attending the meeting on the odd timings did not lay on one person. It will also help to keep everyone on the same page. The second is the use of the timer. The timer will inform the group members about the meetings 1 or 2 hours before so that they can complete all the other essential work before the meeting. This ensures that the members are there in the meeting and that too on time.

References

Desmidt, S., & George, B. (2016). Do we see eye to eye? The relationship between internal communication and between-group strategic consensus: A case analysis. Management Communication Quarterly, 30(1), 84-102. DOI: 10.1177/0893318915609406

Frandsen, F., & Johansen, W. (2018). Voices in conflict? The crisis communication of meta-organizations. Management Communication Quarterly, 32(1), 90-120. DOI: 10.1177/0893318917705734

Marsen, S. (2020). Navigating crisis: The role of communication in organizational crisis. International Journal of Business Communication, 57(2), 163-175. DOI: 10.1177/2329488419882981

Newman, S. A., Ford, R. C., & Marshall, G. W. (2020). Virtual team leader communication: Employee perception and organizational reality. International Journal of Business Communication, 57(4), 452-473. DOI: 10.1177/2329488419829895

Nordbäck, E. S., Myers, K. K., & McPhee, R. D. (2017). Workplace flexibility and communication flows: a structurational view. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 45(4), 397-412. DOI: 10.1080/00909882.2017.1355560