Syracuse University

School of Information Studies

IST 654 Information Systems Analysis:

Concepts and Practice

Advice to groups

One very important thing to remember in future is to plan a schedule for the week
beforehand, when everyone is free and can meet and work together. Since using a
flexible time schedule didnt help us a lot, fixing a particular day and timings to
meet, would be a better option.

I had never worked on such a tightly-scheduled school project before. Other classes
assign a group project that only requires one or two meetings. This class project
required weekly meetings at the minimum. Sometime we had numerous weekly
meetings. I learned the importance of communication, cohesiveness, listening, and
doing research prior to meeting in order to know what one is talking about.

I dont like wasting time during the team meeting with talking about unrelated
discussion. I like to work in quiet area. In the future I will work with my group in
quiet area without any noise.

Our group formed, I believe, out of common interest and cordial feelings towards
each other. It might be better to gather people with differing backgrounds and
experiences that bring a different skill set to the group. That way, not only will it
challenge me to interact with others unlike myself but also allow the project to
benefit from its participants bringing a diversity of ideas and abilities.

It is very important to have a healthy working team, and I have realized the
importance of constructive conflicts. There have been multiple times in the team
meetings and brainstorming sessions, when we have had heated discussions and
conflicts about tiny details of a topic. These conflicts and discussions have helped
bring out a lot of new ideas and have helped everybody get a better understanding
of what is going on.

We spent hours and hours getting through assignments, difference in opinions,

convincing each other, etc. This gave us a sort of office environment feel where not
every person would think alike. At times there would be major difference in ideas,
but eventually we learnt to either accept others ideas or arrive at a common solution.

Another thing I will try to do differently in the future is to have my group do more
work together instead of always splitting up and working separately, while I don't
think our work suffered over the semester I also don't think it was enhanced by our
isolation. Projects like this one work better in collaboration and I think there were
some good ideas missed out on simply because there was no one around to talk
them through with. In future projects I'm going to encourage more collaboration and
less work-by-yourself
 For our group project, the most valuable thing I have learnt is that periodical
meeting or online discussion could help to ensure the progress of group work,
Hotmail, Skype and other similar communication tools could be very helpful. I also
learned that every time before you go to group discussion, it is important to get well
prepared about what to do, then you can do the assignment with your group
members efficiently; else, you may feel difficult to catch up with others.

I think that an essential aspect to thriving in a group semester-long project is to find

a topic that motivates and interests you and your teammates otherwise the resulting
assignments can end up being drudgery. Even with a great group, it is inevitable
that the person/and or people who cares the most will get stuck with the brunt of
the work in a group project. In future group projects, I will more actively try to
balance the workload amongst my teammates while still making sure the
assignments meet the academic standards I expect from myself.

The thing I will do in next group project is that a group manager is needed to
supervise project schedule, work quality and communication. I will recommend a
reasonable group size next time. The larger the group, the coordination is more
difficult. To organize group meeting is very hard for busy graduate students.

I learnt the importance of group communication through our project. I now know
how difficult it is to get ideas across to people and how simple misunderstandings
can change the scope of the project. Through a bad experience, I also came to know
how some members of the group do not do their part and leave the work up to the
other members. In the future, I would try to better select members of my team if
possible in order to prevent another occurrence of this event.

Taking too much responsibility or delegating too much responsibility to one person
does not always work & is highly dependent on the team members and I will make
deliberate attempts to make sure neither happens.

Other thing I learned in the group project was delegating the responsibility.
Sometimes, I took too much responsibility on my shoulders. I learned that I was not
efficient in delegating tasks, which was the case with my teammates as well.
Everyone tried to give their best, and sometimes, one team member ended up doing
things more than others. In my next group project I will strive for equal distribution
of work within the teammates.

Some of my team members did not take any initiative in the project and often did
work that had to be re-done. I will ensure that I will flag this issue as soon as it starts
happening in any future team.

One of the biggest things I learned while working with a group during this semester
is that you should always make sure that everyone is working in the same
format/version. On at least two different occasions we had compatibility issues and
issues with people updating different versions of the same document. This only
made things more complicated and took time we could have been spending
working on the actual project instead of making these small corrections. I definitely
learned to check these things ahead of time.
Below is a handout from the "Cultivating Cohesion: Priming Student Work Groups for Success"
workshop given by Professor David R. Neumann from School of Communication, Rochester
Institute of Technology

Small Group Communication Factors Questionnaire

Working in groups is central to our lives. We are members of many groups,

simultaneously. As students and employees we are assigned to task-oriented groups.
We also participate in groups based upon personal interests. All of these groups operate
in different ways.

For this exercise, consider your group for this class. How should your group manage
itself?

Read each statement and circle A for agree or D for disagree

A D 1 The most important goal for a group in this class is to complete the
stated task.

A D 2 Groups are most productive when a leader steps forward to run

meetings, allocate tasks, and reward group members.

A D 3 We should have a high degree of tolerance for group members who

are late to out-of-class meetings or do not attend due to other
obligations.

A D 4 Creating friendships and completing the task are equally important.

A D 5 Criticizing other group members should be avoided.

A D 6 Avoiding smaller conflicts is the best method to reduce conflict

escalation.

A D 7 All of group members should have identical goals and reasons for
being involved.

A D 8 Majority rule will be the best method of group decision-making.

A D 9 If one group member is not pulling his or her weight, the other group
members should confront that person together.

A D 10 Everyone in the group should receive the same grade for group
projects.
1 GROUND RULES

OUR GROUPS RULES

Group name: __________________________________________

Member names e-mails Role in the group: what is

each person main
responsibility?

Means of communication: How are the team members going to communicate to

coordinate their activities?

Means to share files: How are your group members going to exchange materials for the
final paper as well as drafts for the final paper?

Location of meeting:

Times and frequency of meetings:

Decision rule: How are the group members going to make decisions (i.e. consensus,
majority any other)

LEADERSHIP AND CULTURE PROGRAM 1

2 GROUND RULES

Participation: How are you going to ensure that everybody contributes during meeting and
in the work to be done? How are you going to try to prevent one member from dominating?

Deadlines and timeliness to meetings: How is your group going to ensure that everybody
is on time for meeting and with work deadlines?

Conflicts: If your groups faces a conflict how are you going to resolve it?

Enjoyment: How are you going to ensure that the work is fun and enjoyable?

Other rules to ensure success:

LEADERSHIP AND CULTURE PROGRAM 2