Projects Day

In Projects Day last year, I had to collaborate intensely with 3 group members to create a project. As time went by, I learnt that, in a group, there needs to be teamwork, various talents and abilities, etc,.
At that time, we were Secondary 1 students and did not really know each other well. After we formed our group and submitted the namelist for our project, I realised that I could not seem to get along with any of the group members. Well, I will tell you about the most important person, the group leader.

NJS(Group leader): We trusted him to be the group leader. He seemed to be responsible, but I had got it all wrong. When we went to the library to borrow a laptop to do work, the first thing I saw him do was to check a Facebook game, Mousehunt. He did not really do any work. As a leader, he was supposed to lead, and not be led. In group discussions, there will be many distractions, but it is the job of the group leader to bring the group back to the main topic. There is this saying: Leaders lead their people to where they want to be, great leaders lead their people to where they ought to be but not necessarily the place where they want to be. Group discussions in our group was mostly held in one of the library cubicles where we can practise presenting. A usual group meeting/discussion starts with one or two members arriving at the library and borrowing a laptop, then proceeding to Facebook to play games like Backyard Monsters, Mousehunt, Ghost Trappers, etc,. Then another group member arrives and watches them play the games and starts commenting. Standing by the side, I try to ask them to get down to work,but they seem too engrossed in their games and game discussion to hear me. 1 hour is wasted, when they finally switched off their games, we have to set up the projector. Typical comments:
“**** it! I forgot to save the file last night!”
“I forgot to bring my thumbdrive!”
“Sorry, this is the old file...”
“Here is the new powerpoint slides of mine.”
Guess what? The “new” powerpoint slides done by my project member was just horrible. Everything was back to square one. The background was light blue, the words were in bright yellow, he uses “copy-and-paste”, I see paragraphs in our powerpoint slides! All the advice our seniors gave us, fell on deaf ears. Our group leader could not do anything about that group member who finished the “new” powerpoint slides. I’ll get straight to the point. Our group leader has no control or power over his group members.
BSYH(2nd group member): He is a pretty violent student, and during our group meetings, most of the time he is sitting in a corner either playing games on his handphone or on a laptop borrowed from the library. When the three of us tries to get him to get more focussed, he beats us up and says that we have no right to get him to do so. So, perhaps we shall not allocate him to do any work, just play a minor part in the presentation. Well, his eyes were simply glued to the screen. During Preliminary Rounds, he was not able to present fluently as he wasn’t too familiar with our presentation procedure.
OYK(3rd group member): He was the tallest in the group amongst us 4. He was the quietest in our group and he always looked tired, and exhausted, Singaporeans would call it “sian”. Whenever we ask him to do some work, his reply,”Sian la, fail la!”
Justin(Me): Well, in Secondary One, I would call myself demanding. I was not the group leader yet I was the person who gets the members to work most of the time. Perhaps it was because of my hunger to do well in the project(sorry for sounding arrogant here). I wanted to be able to do well in Independent Studies. I have to admit I am not a muscular person, and BSYH always had a hold over me. Well, perhaps that was what caused the group to not be able to do well. Sigh...

My group members made me stay up till midnight most of the time to see the work(powerpoint slides) which they had done. But when I received their work, things were back at square one. They did not listen to what the seniors had advised us to do. It was all wrong.

I learnt that in a team, we must all have similar views, know how to accept people's ideas, if the whole group wants to slack, they slack together. If they want to commit their all to it. They do it together. Group members also must be able to communicate and get along. Perhaps the lesson learnt is to choose my group members earlier and not wait till the last minute. That time in Secondary 1, I waited till the last minute to choose my group members, thus I had not much of a choice. If we want to do a/the project with the people we can get along well with, we need to start early. It has to be done.