Working In Teams

Working in teams is something everyone encounters and presents the problems of the size of the teams, the amount of work assigned to the team and how the work will be completed by the team.

            The size of a team can be a problem. If the team is too large, sometimes there is not enough work to be done, and only a few people do the actual work. In my MGT 3500, intro class I was assigned to a group of seven and we were tasked to complete a project, which could have been done individually. This made finding something for everyone to do difficult, and several people in the group did nothing at all.

The amount of work assigned is also a problem faced when working in teams. If not enough work is given for everyone to do, the team begins to make up things for each group member to do and then the team ends up doing more work than necessary.

Completion is another problem faced by working in teams. Getting together to get the work done due to different schedules is difficult for teams. Even if the work is done separately and then emailed to one person to compile, some team members may still not do their share. I worked on a project for a human resources class where each team member did research and then was supposed to write up the results found and email them to me so I could put them in a PowerPoint. While some team members did this, others only sent links to websites or vague notes with no sources.

            Working in teams is not easy and is hindered by the size of the group, the amount of work assigned and how the work will be completed. Thus, working in teams should be avoided when possible and made flexible when teams are necessary.