The Sisyphus Comments

Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny and Group Projects

Many of you are aware that my son recently graduated from the University of Virginia (UVA). After five long years of study (long for us – much too short for him) he received his bachelors and master degrees. UVA, like most universities in Virginia, is a wonderful educational institution that strives to prepare our young men and women to successfully enter the workforce. Of course my son also had the added advantage of preparing for college by attending the City of Salem schools from fifth grade on.

In fact, it was during his middle school years that I began to notice an interesting trend that was carried on all the way through college – the group project. I always hated group projects when I was in school because my grade depended on someone else’s performance – or lack thereof. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand the importance of team work in achieving lofty goals. However, I always seemed to get teamed with one person that was more than willing to do what he was told but was incapable of making any type of contribution to the design or development of the project and one guy who just didn’t give a damn. Of course as a young man, my assertiveness skills were not fully developed so I always ended up doing the lion’s share of most of my group projects. I think that may be how one develops assertiveness skills – you get screwed so many times that you finally start standing up for yourself. What really stinks about group projects is the whole group gets the same grade – regardless of how much a given member contributed to the success of the project. Fortunately, life doesn’t work that way in most successful companies. In real life, the doers quickly move up and dullards are quickly moved out.

Another problem that I have with these group projects is the group is supposed to work closely with the teacher. They are encouraged to collectively discuss problems in an effort to arrive at a mutually agreeable solution. In the real life, your problem is – well – your problem. The boss already knows there is a problem and if she had a solution she wouldn’t have assigned the problem to you in the first place. Unlike your college professor, your boss is not getting paid to be an oracle. She has her own balls to try to keep in the air and she has other responsibilities besides serving as a source of wise counsel for you. Your job is to bring her solutions so, oftentimes, the best you can hope for is a passing conversation or a hastily composed e-mail.

As you progress through your career, you will discover that there is one other distinct difference between group projects in school and group projects in life. In real life, there is no such animal as a communal group project and the whole group does not get the same grade. If you are the unfortunate soul that is in charge of an unmotivated group, the penalty for a substandard effort may be unemployment. It usually sounds something like, “If you can’t get your group to perform, I will find someone else who can!” That’s right, in real life those who can do, do – those who can’t will have to go to work elsewhere.

So here is my recommendation for teachers and professors that persist in assigning group projects which we will call the Rule of Threes. Never assign more than three people to group project. If you assign more that three people to a group, at least one of them will try to skate and not contribute anything to the project goals. Next, break the semester into three sections and assign a new group project for each section. If you want to make the projects reflect a real life workplace – add in some unrealistic deadlines that must be met along the way. However, I’ve saved the best recommendation for last – each group member must serve as the project leader for one of the projects. And here is the zinger – unless the group performs at an A or B level, the project leader receives a letter grade that is one below the grade that the group received. So if the group receives a C, the project leader will receive a D. Of course, none of the project grades will be released until the end of semester. This will allow the students to experience the type of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” politics that is so common in the real workplace.

Actually, upon further reflection, let’s just keep things the way they are. Let’s let our kids have a few more years to experience a Utopian view of real life before they realize that things just don’t work that way. Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy and real life – let’s let them believe for as long as possible.