Why do I have to work in a group?

A sick feeling in the pit of your stomach, a shiver runs down your spine? No wonder you have just been told you have to work in a group for a project.

AAARRRGGGHHH!

Ok now breathe, and know that at certain times in your life you will be required to work in a group situation, co-operating with others to achieve objectives.  

So you would rather eat razor blades than participate in a group project, but they are a necessary evil. So embrace the opportunity to delegate. Take a leadership role, work with productive people, and be prepared for the uncertainty.

Taking what I consider the best  tips from 5 tips for working in a group and 10 tips for working in student teams by Dr. Randall S. Hansen Ph.D. websites, mixing them up, personalising them and making them more my style

WORK SMARTER NOT HARDER

Be smart only choose to work with people who you know can perform, try choosing people that you know and respect. If you’ve only had limited interaction look out for interested people who appear eager and curious. Don't sit back and let the groups form without you. Get with the group who seem they are ready to work.

DELEGATE RESPONSIBILITIES EARLYAs soon as you get your assignment, start dividing up the responsibilities. Just get verbal commitments from your group members, and reconvene when everyone has completed their tasks. There is no need for numerous meetings, swap email addresses and phone numbers within the group and communicate.

DON’T BE AN ENABLER.

If you’ve got somebody who isn’t doing their work, hold them responsible as a group. Everyone needs to do their part.

SCREAM

Things are not  going well, you have a flake in the group! Why do you do next? Breath in Breath out, stay focused on the objective, and the deadline. Limit group meetings, think of the things you need to accomplish.

IF ALL ELSE FAILS, DO EVERYTHING YOURSELF.Some people get bitter when group projects go bad, and the bulk of the work falls on their shoulders. If faced with a worst case scenario (i.e. nobody's doing a darn thing), embrace the opportunity to take control of the project. If you're stuck with incompetent group members, why would you want your grade to be a reflection of their efforts.

If you do everything yourself, you can control the final outcome. Sure it might stink that no one else is helping, but you need to worry about your own grade. It's better to do the project all by yourself, and know that it's excellent. You don't want to have to cross your fingers and hope for the best. Just take control and make sure you succeed.

Website

Five tips for working in a group. 2009. Ezine Articles. [ONLINE] Available at: http://ezinearticles.com/?Five-Tips-For-Working-In-A-Group&id=383548. [Accessed 16 March 11].

Website

Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D.. 2011. 10 Tips for working in student teams. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.mycollegesuccessstory.com/academic-success-tools/student-team-tips.html. [Accessed 11 March 11].

 

  

Media Release

16^th March 2011

Subject: Spectacular first for Swiss aerialist at Perth’s Red Bull Air Races

Kristoff Mathison will be the first ever contestant of the Red Bull Air Races to perform the highly technical yet spectacular half twist loop di loop.

Renowned aerialist, Kristoff hailing from Switzerland appreciates the warm welcome received from locals on the Perth leg of the Red Bull Air Races on the 15^th March 2011.

“I have always heard great things about Perth, being here I can see why” Kristoff was quoted as saying.

Lisia Dos Santos

Publicist

Republication

042158524

 

James Price Point...............

The Kimberley region in northern Western Australia is a globally significant natural and cultural landscape, home to rare and endangered wildlife and a marine wonderland of unrivalled beauty and diversity. The region can only be compared to places like the Amazon, Great Barrier Reef, or the Antarctic in terms of majesty and scale of relatively pristine and healthy functioning natural landscapes.

The Browse basin is a large undersea area off the Kimberley coast contains significant reserves of gas and some oil.  A number of companies hold leases over this region, and are now looking to extract the fossil fuel resource.

With so much interest from companies wanting to process the Kimberley’s huge gas reserves – the Government set up a process to find one location in an attempt to minimise the impacts.

A Government taskforce looked at 40 potential sites along the Kimberley coast but it paid only lip service to assessing sites outside the Kimberley despite the fact the Government had committed to doing so.

Then the State Government changed; Premier Colin Barnett was elected, and the whole process was abandoned. Premier Barnett quickly moved to make a unilateral decision that James Price Point, north of Broome was the best site.

A major industrial complex on the Kimberley coast would be environmentally destructive; compromise the sustainable economic future of the Kimberley (tourism, well managed fisheries etc.) and would act as a ‘thin edge of the wedge’ to trigger many other damaging developments in the Kimberley such as strip mining for bauxite and alumina refineries, and polluting fertiliser or ammonia plants.

We can protect the environment and create jobs through investment in sustainable industries such as ecotourism and improved land management which are not environmentally destructive.

Recent research mapping the world’s oceans placed the Kimberley alongside Antarctica as one of the world’s least impacted marine environments. It is clearly comparable to the Great Barrier Reef in conservation significance and value.

The Kimberley’s clean seas, innumerable islands, coral reefs, mangroves, bays and estuaries are home to an astonishing variety of wildlife including Humpback whales and Dugong, five species of turtles, crocodiles, rare Snub fin dolphins and a coral reef network of global significance. The Kimberley coast also has outstanding cultural values for the region’s many Indigenous peoples.

If the large multinational resource companies have their way however, the pristine Kimberley region is about to change.

The Wilderness Society. 2010. James Price Point FAQs - your questions answered. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/kimberley/kimberley-lng-gas-plant-and-james-price-pointfaq-your-questions-answered. [Accessed 12 March 11].

In my opinion this whole debacle has been totally and irrevocably unethical; how can the Barnett Government possibly claim they have behaved in an ethical way, when the original decision to allow the LNG precinct was made without any consultation of the stakeholders who have an obvious vested interest in this region?

Surely, in a democratic country there should have been some consultation of this project? How can a project that has been collectively panned as a major ecological disaster waiting to happen?, that is unwanted both by the indigenous community who belong to that land, and the locals who choose to make their homes in the Kimberly region be allowed to go ahead, especially with viable alternatives that would suit all interested parties

Adding insult to injury, Colin Barnett is now on the offensive; announcing the process of compulsory acquisition of the land in question.