Putting Together a Student Research Team
How to Form an Undergraduate Group Project Team for Maximum Marks
Feb 11, 2009
It is important to select the right members. Any research team requires a balance of different talents, and so diversity should be welcomed, but there are certain types of character that can be destructive to a team. These characters should either be avoided in the first place or managed if avoidance is impossible because of, for example, teams being selected by someone else such as a professor.
Avoid Freeloaders
Try to avoid people who are known only want to talk and who dislike doing anything. They will tend either to push work off onto other members of the team and "freeload", or fail to meet deadlines and possibly derail the project completely. The characteristics of a good team are trust, brains, motivation, ability, skills, perseverance, analytical and hardworking. Without these, a research project’s outputs will not be maximised.
Don't Put Friendship at Risk
Ask whether a friendship could be put at risk by working with a closest friend. When things start to get tough on the project, as they may well do, friction can arise, tempers fray and friendships put under severe strain. It is often better to work with people whose characters are known, so that bad traits can be avoided, but not with people who are too close. It may be necessary to criticise colleagues in the group and friendships may be lost as a result.
Identify the Necessary Skills
Identify the skills the project needs for successful completion. It may require good IT skills, good design skills, knowledge of a particular writer, the ability to put together a particular experiment, excellent presentation skills, statistical expertise and so on. As the team is being put together, members should ask themselves whether all the necessary skills are present. If not, it is important to identify where they can be obtained from or the project modified to match the team’s available skills.
Getting to Know the Team Members
Make sure that the team becomes acquainted. Sometimes one member of a team is invited by another. That person must make sure that the other team members are introduced to their invitee. It can be useful to engage in some ice-breaking activities, including sitting down, having a coffee and chatting about common interests, including the research project, in a loose and unstructured way. Make sure all members of the team know a little bit about makes the others tick. That will help motivation.
A Winning Team!
Following these tips will help ensure that the project team gels from the start, undertakes the project as effectively as possible and gets the maximum mark. The success of the project depends very significantly on the thought put into it at the beginning. Planning well means successful project completion.
