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The emergence of the internet has given people the opportunity to become as visible as they want to be. Visibility means people can spill their guts and reveal themselves in so many new ways. We can post our opinions on blogs, update our ‘status’ as often as we want on Facebook, Tweet about things we like or dislike and put up our photo’s for people to rate. Why do we do this? And is it good or bad?

I would say that this desire to be seen online mimics our need to be seen offline. Why do most human beings want to become celebrities? It’s simple, for love and for power. All of us need and want love and many of us want power (to varying degrees). Take for example sites like hotornot.com and soyouthinkyourecool.com which allow you to put up your picture and something about yourself for others to rate. This way strangers can weigh in on whether you’re pretty or cool, but why do we care what strangers say? They don’t know us or impact our lives in any way. Perhaps that’s the key. Since they don’t know us they’re not like our family or friends who have a biased opinion. However while these ratings may be more truthful, they’re totally superficial. This is where the fine line between wanting love and vanity emerges. Seeking social approval from friends and colleagues is natural and healthy (to a certain degree). Seeking approval from strangers over the internet is like a call for help.

In fact in our quest for social approval what seems worse than a good or bad rating, is no rating at all. Having your blog, profile or photos ignored is like being banished into the desert or sitting by yourself in the corner of the classroom. The instances where it’s worse to be poorly rated than ignored is in those unfortunate cases where bullying and ostracism have occurred. In general however we want to maximize the number of comments, ratings and friends we have on Facebook (even if we barely know these ‘friends’). Building our ratings and friends simply to have them is a façade that shows we are important and loved. This again is a call for help.

Of course there are legitimate benefits to social media. The ability to connect with people, share ideas, promote our businesses and so on via social media is great. What is not so great is our society’s obsession with rating and being rated. The internet is a powerful tool and many people in the world are now on it. Therefore we should expect every corner of human thought and behavior to manifest itself there. However we should take care to spend our time and direct our thoughts to positive ideals and not worry about how we’re viewed by people we will never meet.

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In life we tend to study only successful people, companies, governments and so on. Even when we study the lives of these “successes” we tend to gloss over their mistakes, indiscretions and failures. Take for example, Abraham Lincoln who is considered one of America’s greatest presidents. He had a number of failures on his road to the White House (listed here ). He lost numerous political races and even had a nervous breakdown at one point.

So what’s the point? Perhaps we can learn just as much or more from a person’s successes as from their failures. All of us have faced and will face again, both success and failure in school, work or life.  Therefore we need to accept that both will be a part of our lives. Furthermore we need to learn how to take our mistakes and turn them into successes. Take for example Donald Trump, he’s a multi-millionaire who has been enormously successful in business. However, he wasn’t always a success. When the real estate market tanked in the early 90’s, his fortune evaporated and he was left owing over $900 million dollars to banks. He once remarked that he drove past a homeless man one day and said ‘that man is $900 million dollars richer than me!’. He didn’t let his failure become associated with who he was. Instead he kept working and learned from past mistakes. This is something we should all aspire to. This is why I recommend that after every group project that the group gets together and fills out a lessons learned document. This serves to document your successes and mistakes and understand why they occurred.

Finally, this post was motivated by a great speech by J.K. Rowling who was the graduation speaker at Harvard in 2008. Her speech discusses the power of going your own way in life and what failure has to teach us. She certainly would know what both failure and success feel like. She wrote Harry Potter while almost homeless and broke. It is now a billion dollar industry. Please check out her speech;

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When I was in school I never considered my group assignments as ‘projects’. Instead I looked at them as the same type of work I had done before, but now shared with other people. In fact I never really knew what project management was until after I graduated from business school.

I realize now that group assignments can be considered small projects and that they can be completed easier by using some basic tools. In a great little book called ‘Managing Smaller Projects’, Mike Watson discusses small projects and how they require a different mindset. First of all Watson defines projects as having at least 5 characteristics; an objective, start and end dates, a temporary team and milestones and tasks. A small project is one where there are a lot of constraints on time and resources.

Almost all group assignments in school are just small projects since they have both time and size constraints. These constraints force them to be usually a few weeks to months in duration and in groups of 5 or less. Therefore students typically have to get organized and start working quickly if they intend to meet their deadlines.

So what should a group do to ensure that they are working quickly but effectively? Well Watson says that small projects sometimes get derailed because the team wastes time searching for solutions or getting into too much detail for the scope of the project. To help solve this problem groups should write a project outline and have their professor or teacher review at some early point. The project outline is a document which details; the objectives of the project, the way your group will accomplish the objectives, goals, communication plan and finally your milestones. This may sound like a lot, but it really doesn’t have to be. I’ll break down these things one by one.

1. Objectives – You need to clarify what your purpose is and make sure everyone in the group is aware of it. Watson says that objectives should be S.M.A.R.T. which means Stated clearly, Measurable, Agreed upon, Realistic and Time sensitive.
2. Proposed project – What exactly will your project be about? As it becomes clearer, be sure to write down all the details as a group.
3. Communication plan – If you agree on how and when you will communicate, you’re more likely to actually do it. Make sure everyone has each other’s contact details. Using a site like EnterTheGroup.com to keep track of your work and communication can help.
4. Milestones & tasks – Once you decide what your project will look like you then need to think about milestones and tasks. A milestone is a point where your project has completed a certain number of tasks. Groups should create milestones so that there is metaphorical path from beginning to end. For small projects there will only be a few milestones each consisting of a couple of tasks.

Ultimately a group project should follow the same steps as a large project. However the difference is that small projects shouldn’t get bogged down in details. They should write an outline, keep track of tasks and milestones and definitely meet on and offline, but these formalities should be brief and to the point.

Once these steps are mastered, you’ll notice that the formality isn’t a time waster, but instead a time saver. Your projects will definitely come out better if you write and stick to an outline.

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I don’t know about you, but I am the type of person that likes to get things quickly and not spend a lot of time debating or arguing. Case in point, whenever I go shopping I tend to buy things quickly with the goal of getting out of the store as soon as possible. This usually results in my forgetting to purchase a few items or my buying something which is overpriced or doesn’t fit right.

I have realized, the hard way, that whenever I spend a few moments and make a list of things I need to buy my shopping experience is greatly enhanced. When I use a checklist I tend to find what I need faster and almost never have to go back to the grocery store to buy things I had forgotten to earlier. The idea is that writing down what you need to do actually helps you to do it. This concept can be applied to a group project.

The act of writing down something seems to enhance its importance at the same time as helping us remember what to do. Daniel Boorman of Boeing Airplanes has written about the importance of checklists in the operation of commercial Boeing aircraft. According to Boorman, ‘In five years of service …the tool [checklists] has consistently found to prevent errors’[i]. Furthermore, noted surgeon and author Atul Gawande has written an article (which is a must read) that has morphed into a book (called ‘The Checklist Manifesto‘) that really addresses the need for simple checklists in complex places like an intensive care unit. Gawande discusses situations where hospital staffs have been able to treat severely injured people in ICUs, where time and process are extremely important, by using checklists. The checklist in this case is a way of ensuring that all the necessary steps have been followed and that the correct process is being implemented.

To extend the point, Gawande discusses the work of Peter Pronovost who has successfully implemented the use of checklists in hospitals around the world. Pronovost’s work has shown that checklists have reduced the incidence of preventable complications such as infection. By following a simple checklist, doctors and nurses discovered that they were routinely skipping steps in accepted medical practices. The reason wasn’t necessarily because they were poorly trained or lazy, but simply that in the confusion of the moment that they forgot. Furthermore, as was the case at Sinai-Grace hospital in Michigan, the necessary supplies such as certain soaps and gowns weren’t usually available. Hence this was an issue of ensuring that the right steps were documented and could be followed.

From this work I think we can dispel a couple of myths about the use of checklists which are that  they’re only for the chronically forgetful or stupid. As we’ve seen, even doctors, nurses and pilots can skip crucial steps so we can rule out forgetfulness and stupidity. Rather I would suggest that checklists act as both reminders and enforcers. They remind us of the sometimes mundane and they enforce a systematic approach.

Working in group projects also requires a systematic approach in which following certain steps can greatly help your group. At EnterTheGroup.com (a free site for managing group projects) we supply users with a checklist which breaks down a project into 4 phases. The first phase is called ‘Pre-Project’ and asks questions concerning how you will organize your group, if everyone knows the objective of the project and if misunderstandings are being taken care. These are all important steps to think about before you start working on your project. The next phase of the project is called ‘Project Proposal’. This is where your group will start to organize specifically how it wants to tackle the project. It involves making sure you have had an initial meeting, written up a project outline, chosen a project coordinator and so on. The third phase is called ‘Work breakdown’ and it involves making sure that everyone in the group is communicating about their tasks and milestones. The final phase is called ‘Project Wrap-up’ where the project is near completion and everyone should make sure that all the assigned tasks have been completed, the project has been reviewed and a lessons learned document has been filled out.

Following a process when it comes to working on projects is essential and the checklist is one powerful way of ensuring that everything gets done.

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[i] “Safety Benefits of Electronic Checklists: An analysis of Commercial Transport Accidents” by Daniel Boorman, Boeing Airplanes

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Here’s an interesting result from a scientific study – self-control (or lack of it) is infectious! In other words, these studies found that when we affiliate ourselves with people who have a lot (or little) self-control it affects our life decisions.

Maybe this isn’t so shocking after all since we know that group think is very powerful and people tend to conform to the average of the groups to which they belong. This type of conformity can be both a psychological and physiological phenomenon. We see it all the way from the joining of cults to the synchronizations of women’s ovulation cycles.

This idea of conformity exists in the working world as well. Anyone who has worked in a large corporation can attest to the fact that peer (or boss) pressure has significant influence. Finally and the main reason why I posted the link below, is that when it comes to students working together on group projects, conformity can take hold. Groups must encourage dialogue and constructive criticism through open communication. Of course you may reach a point where you want conformity. This will likely be after a lot of thinking and discussion has already occurred.

Here is a link to the research study: http://entertheblog.com/wX

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Have you ever worked on a group project which seemed doomed to failure? I think most of us have been there at least once. At the point where a project gets stalled it’s extremely important to get past whatever obstacle is impeding your project because your morale will suffer and your deadline will soon approach. This article will provide some advice for removing road blocks and getting your project back on track.

To begin with it’s important to identify what types of problems groups typically run into. I would say that most road blocks fall into three broad categories;

1. 1. Arguments over management – These arguments arise from differences in working style, approach to the project or quite simply from different personalities clashing. It can be a serious problem when one (or more) strong headed person(s) want the group to do something because they think its best.

Solutions: This is a problem of communication, each side needs to come to understand and respect each other’s ability, style and ideas. Respect can only emerge when people get to know each other and there is a genuine sense of trust and commitment to the project. A good way to gain respect and trust is for everyone in the group to spend some time getting to know each other on a personal level before starting the project. Set up an informal session where people can grab a coffee together and talk. The group should try to learn how people work, what their schedules are like and more importantly what kind of people they’re going to be dealing with. The group must be upfront about ground rules such as; how much time they will commit to the project, how they will work together, when they will meet and an agreement to compromise.

1. 2. No consensus on project decisions – This problem arises when group members have very different opinions on how the project should be completed. One person thinks it should be a Power Point presentation, while another wants to do a skit and so forth. Furthermore, problems can arise when no one can seem to find ANY good ideas for the project. This can come about when the project is very difficult, the group hasn’t approached the subject properly and/or there is a lack of leadership in the group.

Solutions: In the case where there are strong opinions on which path to take, your group should examine the strengths and weaknesses of each idea and then take a vote. If the democratic method doesn’t make everyone happy then see if you can either combine ideas in some way or make compromises. In the case where no one can think of ideas, or none of the ideas that you came up with seem like winners then you need to get down to basics. First make sure the objective of the project is clear and then do some research on the topic. After that try to get the group together to do some brainstorming. Another useful tool is ‘Mind Mapping’, which is a form of visual notes. In a mind map, the group starts off writing the main subject of the project on a whiteboard and then draws nodes from it which represent related topics. The group continues to draw sub-nodes and further sub-nodes until they have ‘mapped’ all the pertinent ideas surrounding the project subject. The point is to achieve an understanding of the context of your subject and to foster creativity with regard to potential project ideas.

1. 3. A minority of the group is doing the majority of the work – A recurrent scenario in group projects is where you have some members who are very determined to succeed (and very afraid of failure) paired up with members who are willing to ‘go with the flow’. This tends to produce situations where the type ‘A’ personality is allowed to hijack the project because they want to make sure the project is done correctly and on time. While this may seem like a good compromise for both parties it can be a big road block since you may have too few people working on too big a project. Furthermore, the project will end up with the input of a small number of members. The point of a being in a group project is to learn to work with people and how to collaborate.

Solutions: People who obsess with grades tend to be frightened of deadlines. Therefore to persuade them not to take on more work than others they need to be assured that their colleagues are committed to the project and are capable workers. It also helps if everyone agrees to break down the project into tasks and distributes the work evenly. If the problem persists then you need to bring it up at the next group meeting. Remind the group that EVERYONE has a stake in this project therefore everyone has to be involved.

Sometimes when we encounter the roadblocks I’ve described above it may seem that there is no way around them. Our problems are usually never as bad as we envision them at the time so we need to take a step back, remove ourselves from the situation and think about some of the solutions outlined above and things will undoubtedly improve.

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It was not a surprise to me to read this article from the PsyBlog which argues that people in groups tend not to make the best decisions because they don’t share information. From my experience in the money management world I know that people tend to tell you what you want to hear rather than what you ‘need’ to hear. People seek to find the consensus of a group and then quickly join in so as to avoid standing out.

I was aware that stock analysts and portfolio managers follow the herd, but this article cites evidence that even doctors fail to share information when it comes to diagnosing patients (that’s scary). So it would seem that people working in groups, regardless of the industry, tend to fall prey to this phenomenon.

When working on a group project the same issues apply; we have to create an atmosphere of trust where everyone feels safe to share information. We also have to be thorough so that we think about every piece of information that could be relevant to our project.

Check out this great article;http://entertheblog.com/1C

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Many projects require some type of presentation of the final results. Therefore some or all of the members of a group will be required to present their findings or completed project to a group of people. This presentation can perhaps be the most important part of the project since you are communicating your results to your teacher, professor, boss or peers. If there is poor communication and these people don’t understand or aren’t interested in your project, then your final grade will suffer.

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, is known for his over the top presentations. Whenever there is a roll out of new products at the company, he is sure to do a presentation on how cool these products are. However, there is something more to it than just demonstrating Apple products. His presentations bring customers together into a type of community. He has the ability to keep people interested in the company and motivated to follow him. How does he do this? Well according Carmine Gallo, author of the book ‘The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs’, he uses a number of tactics which all of us can afford to emulate.

1. Maintain Eye Contact – Make people feel like you’re talking to them instead of reading from slides or notes.

2. Open Posture – Stand up straight, keep your arms uncrossed and smile.

3. Use Effective Hand Gestures – Use your hands and body language to emphasize or highlight your speech.

4. User Simple bullet points for presentations – If you’re using PowerPoint or something like that, be sure to use simple points which people can peruse and understand quickly. You don’t want them staring at the presentation and reading it.

5. Practice, practice, practice – Make sure you know your presentation inside and out. Practice in front of friends, your family and even the mirror or a camcorder. When you practice be sure to pretend like you’re on-stage and in front of a real group of people. Ask people to provide you with healthy criticism, it will help.

6. Have fun and be energized – If you’re energized and confident about your presentation then this energy will spillover to your audience. An audience that is energized and having fun will more likely listen to you and appreciate what you have to say.

For more details have a look at the Forbes article: http://entertheblog.com/mU .

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We often think that working in a group is at best an inconvenience and at worst a big impediment to our success. However, have you ever considered the possibility that a group can be more effective than working alone? If done properly, a well organized group can spark creativity, enhance IQ, bring more skills to the table and accomplish more work.

In the animal world, many types of individually powerful animals hunt in packs to increase their chances of success. They do this typically because the game they’re hunting is too large for them to attack on their own. By joining a group, these animals (for example wolf packs) can out-maneuver and overpower their prey. Of course by joining forces animals take on some risks as well. They must share any food they kill, even if it is a small amount and they ALL suffer if any of the animals fails to do their job in capturing prey. These risks are worth taking if the pack (or group) is successful. We should think of our groups in group projects in the same way; as potentially being able to achieve much more than individuals, but not without risk.

The Roman army, which was once the most powerful force in the world, was based on the premise of groups. The army was broken into a number of groups of various sizes. The smallest of these groups were called centuries, which were made up of approximately 100 soldiers. These centuries worked as a cohesive unit with one leader, who was called a centurion. The soldiers in these groups operated in a box formation with their shields lined up side by side. By operating in this way the soldiers could defend themselves better while also being able to break through enemy lines. These simple concepts were applied consistently and very precisely, which is one reason why they were so successful in battle.

Centuries working as a group, moving in tandem and all following the same strategy were able to defeat armies across the world. Their enemies were often unorganized and fought as a group of individuals. The difference between the Roman soldiers and their enemies were primarily better training and discipline. Training and discipline will distinguish an individual from his peers or his competition, however; What distinguishes a successful group from an unsuccessful one?

This question can be answered if we first understand why people join groups and what their motivations are. If you’re a student then the answer to the first question of why is obvious, you have no choice! You were given an assignment to do and you must do it. Also if you’re an employee, it’s likely the same answer applies; you’re in a group because you were given a project to complete and you must do it or get fired! It’s fair to say that there is motivation in not failing or not being fired. However, human beings tend to strive for something positive as opposed to avoiding something negative. Isn’t it more likely that you will work hard to achieve a good grade as opposed to working just not to fail? Also, won’t you work harder to get a raise or promotion as opposed to just keeping your job and current status? Quite simply, human beings are motivated when they have the opportunity to achieve significant goals.

If people are given clear goals then they have something to strive for and this gives us purpose, not only in our group projects, but also in life. Therefore, a successful group should have a clear goal of what they intend to achieve and this goal should be meaningful for everyone in the group. In the example of the wolf pack, the goal is to kill their prey and eat. In the example of the Roman centuries, their goal is to win the battle and in the process not only survive, but also bring honor, prestige and wealth to the Roman Empire. Therefore the first rule of a successful group is having a common purpose or goal.

While goals are extremely important, the truth is that they can only be achieved through some form of strategy. A strategy is a method of achieving a goal. An example of this concept would be someone who wanted to travel from point A to point B. This is the person’s goal. Her strategy may be to get in car, consult her GPS and drive there. The strategy of a group is something which needs to be formed by discussing the problem at hand and the various ways of solving it. The methods of solving a problem are going to be based on the skills and number of people available in the group. The formation of an accepted group strategy will be a compromise based on trial and error. Ultimately the group’s strategy should be formed clearly and there should be consensus across the group.

Thus the second rule of a successful group is an accepted and unified approach. Take again the example of the Roman century, if any of the soldiers in the group decided that the Roman approach to battle was wrong and went their own way, what do you think would happen to them? Well if they broke off from the box formation and went off on their own it is likely that one of two things would have happened; they would have been killed in battle or if not, they would be executed by Roman commanders after the battle. In either situation, the result is not desirable. Therefore there is a strong pressure to conform to a group’s strategy once it has been decided upon.

In conclusion, we should overcome any prejudices that we may have regarding the potential power of working in groups. Even if our beliefs are the consequences of negative past experiences we should remember that groups can accomplish more than individuals. Furthermore we should remember that very successful groups can even go so far as conquering the world, turning a company into an industry leader or quite simply achieving top grades.

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