Please provide some thoughts/feedback in the post below:

The last group project I was a part of here at Columbus State went very poorly.

This was two semesters ago in an HR Management class.

My 3 pieces of advice for my team to drive higher performance would be: - Set specific, clear, measurable goals for each member for each week - Outline and schedule goals for each team meeting - Communicate needs within the group as well as with the teacher

I think at the root of what happened was communication; Nobody in the group was a self-starter and I waited too long before assigning specific tasks, and the project outline itself did not communicate clear guidelines of what was expected of us. It was very much a "Do whatever you want but I expect it to be spectacular and include specificies that I have not specified in my rubric" type of project. The teacher was very new to teaching and we were very much guinea pigs for this project.

My vision was that we could all brainstorm ideas together, and then I could do an outline of the project and everyone could pick aspects of the project that appealed to them. What actually happened was that 2/3 members brainstormed with me, I did the outline, waited 4 weeks (pestering everyone on Microsoft Teams all the while), and then completed the project almost entirely by myself with feedback from 1.5 of the 3 group members (1.5 because I had one guy who was engaged but very busy, a girl who popped in occasionally and wrote a few sentences that were okay, and a guy who did not do anything except complain and lie about the group project in another class that the girl was in; he claimed he was doing the entire project by himself despite the fact that we did not even hear from him until the end of the 3rd week, he skipped every single group meeting except the last one, and his single contribution was to try and sabotage the completed project at the very last second (end of the 6th week). Luckily, Microsoft Teams has a version control / reset feature).

Our weekly scheduled meetings only lasted a few minutes and they mostly consisted of me explaining what needs to be done and asking if any of it appeals to anyone. Per the textbook, effective scheduled meetings last for 30 minutes to an hour, include the minutes from the previous meeting, and have specified topics. They are not just "Sooo, can we please try to work on it this week? No? Okay :( Well this is what I am going to do this week" over and over again.

If I was able to get a do-over on the project, I would start by assigning specific and measurable tasks/roles to the group members right away and communicate my expectations. I would also communicate with the teacher better, as we did not tell her we were having a problem until shortly before the presentation was due.

There was also little to no trust built within this team, which the textbook says is a major problem and the first barrier to effective teamwork.