Keep this in mind if you want to do good teamwork

When it is mandatory to do group work, the process can become a hateful experience or the opposite. Prevention is better than failure. Enjoying group work usually depends on four factors:

1. How interesting the topic is to us.


2. The time we have to do it.


3. The fair distribution of tasks.


4. The relationship with the other team members.

Whether we like group work or not, to get our university eTítulo we are going to have to do quite a few, so let's see how to enjoy them and get the most out of them:

Look for interesting topics for group work

Sometimes, we choose what we are going to talk about in a group work and make sure to look for the topics we like the most, but on other occasions the content is imposed in advance and we are not interested at all. If this is the case, we have two options: either get annoyed and do a boring job or try to focus it on something that we find entertaining. To avoid making our lives bitter by searching for information on a topic that makes us fall asleep, it is good to have an initial meeting with the group where we brainstorm to give a twist to the work. With a little creativity and several brains thinking in unison, we will manage to see some part of the subject that we do feel like investigating and, in addition, we will get more involved and do something different from the rest of the class. This way, in addition to enjoying the process, we will win over the teacher who will surely appreciate our interest and creativity, which will be reflected positively in the work and in our grades.

No rush, please

No matter how exciting the topic of our group work is, if we do it at full speed the day before we have to submit it, it will be unbearable for us. Starting to write pages and pages the night before, with the stress of the deadline approaching and the fear that the work will not be good enough, are situations that make us hate the process of an academic work and that can create a lot of tension within the group. Therefore, it is essential that we have a previous agreement on deadlines and that we can take our time to do the best possible job on our part. Every work is a research process that should be enjoyed, but without the necessary time, it becomes copying without thinking the research of others. Thus, even if we pass, we will not learn anything and we will get very bored.

Divide and conquer

Sometimes it is not about everyone doing the same thing, but about each member of the group taking care of a part or what they are best at: there are people who are great at gathering useful information, others write fast and well, others have a gift for face-to-face interviews, others design the works wonderfully, others are creative when it comes to finding new arguments, etc. If we manage to get each member of the group to do what they do best, we will all be more relaxed and we will do better in the part that corresponds to us. Every skill is valuable and we should not value some more than others, but know how to take advantage of all of them.

Group work and relationships within the group

It is normal for us to tend to join forces with the people we get along best with in class, with our group of friends. And that's fine: working in the company of people we find pleasant is always better than doing it surrounded by people we find unbearable, but, like almost everything, it can have its downside. These are the situations that usually occur with friends:

• They take advantage of trust and let others do the work for them.


• We distract each other with our own things and the work drags on.


• Stress, differences of opinion or the perception that one always works more than the others are tensions that usually arise in group work and that lead to discussions that we do not want to have with friends.

We have all heard that trust is disgusting and, although it is not always true, we must take it into account. A good work team should be made up of colleagues with a cordial or friendly relationship, but who are all equally responsible. If a friend is a burden to us in the work, we should not include them in the group or, if we do not want to create a conflict, we will have to distribute the tasks well and be very demanding with deadlines. Enhancing our social skills and being assertive will help us in these situations. We must give and demand the same work from everyone and discussing everything in advance will help us avoid possible conflicts with the group, like the one this poor girl had with her classmate 😉.