How You Make It Through a Student Team Project

I’m going to share a sad, but honest truth with you: you are not going to make it through your college career without participating in student team projects. And most of these project assignments are going to suck.

The faculty assigning these projects aren’t out to get you, I swear. I know this because I was one of those professors for over 25 years. Most faculty aren’t real thrilled to be doing these team projects themselves, but recruiters — you know the people who hire you — demand that students do teamwork in their courses. They want you to practice collaborative skills so you will know how to work in teams when you enter the workforce.

Plot twist: most students still won't know how.

Why? Because, as I said before, most team projects suck. They’re designed by faculty who are experts in Microbiology, French Literature, or Political Science — not team building. If you want students to learn how to work in teams, get someone who studies teams to design team projects. Someone like . . . me.

The funny thing is, I hated teamwork when I was in school. I mean I loathed it. Half the time, I didn’t get the point of the project (because the professor didn’t bother to tell me what it was). And most of the time, I ended up doing most of the work because one or more of the bozos I was assigned to work with didn’t give a damn about their grade. How I ended up getting a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and becoming a teams researcher is a story too long and boring to go into. But it did give me insights into why team projects are so often terrible and what needs to happen in these projects to prevent them from being such horrible experiences, for students and for faculty.

Here’s the ironic thing: done right, these projects can actually be useful. They can be relevant, meaningful, dare I say, even interesting! So I am going to give you the info that will help you not just survive but actually thrive in a student team project situation.

Remember You’re Learning Two Things

No matter what the team project is about, it’s really about two things. First, there's the course content itself. Let’s say you’re taking a course in American History and you have a team project researching progressivism in the early 20^th century. In that case, you will be expected to learn about progressivism as a team outcome. But this is a team project. So you should also be learning about how to work in a team – how to work collaboratively to reach that team outcome about progressivism.

One project, two learning goals. Even if your professor never mentions the word “collaboration,” make it your priority to know what it means and how to do it well.

What Does It Mean to “Collaborate?”

Collaboration means working together toward a shared goal, sharing ideas and responsibilities, communicating openly, and supporting each other. It's a human process, not just dividing up the work and pasting it together at the end. It's interaction and interdependency, not parallel, separate work.

Start Off on the Right Foot

The very first thing your team should do is have a “forming” meeting. (Yes, it’s as exciting as it sounds, but stick with me here.) In this meeting, you are going to do two really important things: 1) get to know each other a little bit and 2) set some team ground rules for the project.

For the first part, meet somewhere comfortable; a diner, a restaurant, a park. Talk for a few minutes about yourselves and have a fun conversation about nothing important. This is actually a useful thing to do for the project and for collaboration. You are building trust and team cohesion; things you need to make the project go more smoothly. It also helps develop collaborative skills.

Next, turn the conversation to how everyone would like the team to function. This is known as team norms. Is it important to everyone that people show up to meetings on time? What happens if someone doesn’t get work done on time? How quickly should people respond to emails?

Write these rules down on paper and have everyone sign it like it’s a contract. I know it sounds silly, but it helps build accountability.

Communicate

Good collaboration is rooted in good communication. That means you offer ideas, ask questions, and raise concerns. But it also means you listen to what others have to say. In fact, you should listen more than you talk.

Make sure that everyone understands your perspective and that you understand theirs. When in doubt, ask. If someone has an objection, hear them out — don’t dismiss them out of hand. Provide your response as clearly as you can. Don’t rush it. Focus on arriving at a solution that everyone can live with.

Model the Behavior You Want to See

Display the behavior you want others to use. If you want people to email you back quickly, then do that yourself. If you want people to be clear when giving instructions, be clear yourself.

Modeling is especially useful when there is conflict. Be calm and reasonable (even if you don’t feel that way) and others are more likely to be that way themselves. Act confidently and positively when working with your team. Don’t sit around complaining, even though that’s an easy thing to do when you’re working on a team project.

Don’t Wait Until the Last Minute

This is a classic student mistake. No matter how long a professor gives teams to complete a project, teams often wait until the last week — or the night before — to try and do the project, in the mistaken belief that the professor won’t notice. Trust me — we can tell.

That said, you don’t have to start the day it’s assigned either. I’ve worked with people who wanted to get it done in the first week, and they’re as annoying as the ones who procrastinate.

Collaboration involves compromise. Work to people’s strengths and natural rhythms. Some people can work ahead, some can work later, as long as you schedule well. Don’t think of it as everyone doing exactly the same amount of work. Instead, have people do the work that engages them or fits their schedule, while ensuring no one is overburdened. That requires communication and compromise.

It might be worth it to the team to have someone whose primary job is to schedule and monitor what everyone is supposed to be doing.

Your Professor is Your Friend

Whenever I discussed a project at the beginning of the semester with a class, I always told students to come to me if there were any issues within the team. Then I sat back and listened to the crickets. Most of the time, I did not get any visits to my office. Even if I reached out to teams during the course, I was told things were fine.

But it was not uncommon to get a visit after the course was over by a student who wanted to complain about their team (or about one of the people on their team). They were never happy with my response. Coming to me after the project was over was a waste of my time and theirs. At that point, there was nothing I could do to help.

Learning to collaborate means you also learn how to deal with problem teammates and when to go to the supervisor for help. The supervisor in this case is the professor and they should be helpful; if they are not, shame on them. But if you really want to learn collaborative skills —and you do — you should always try to resolve the problem on your own first, like a professional, before running to a supervisor. If you can say you did that, it makes you look good to the “boss.”

Why Shouldn’t I Just Aim for the Grade?

Because the grade isn’t the point. Five years from now, no one — including you — will give a damn what you got on this team project. (Honestly, I don’t think anyone is going to care if you learned about progressivism in the early 20^th century either.)

But if you can walk into a job interview and intelligently talk about the collaborative skills you learned working in a team? That matters. If you resolve conflict or turn out a quality team outcome in your first job? That matters.

So go into these team projects with the right attitude and see if you don’t come out of them not just surviving, but winning.