Written by: Dominique Wilmore  |  March 3, 2010

Group projects are something that all college students must endure while in school; it’s part of the college experience… mingling with other majors!  While the content of this website is aimed toward the creative crowd from my past experiences a lot of the group assignments I was forced to participate in occurred in the general academic classes that all majors are bundled into like Humanities, Oral Communications, Health… yes, we had group assignments in Health!  This series is written in good humor to point out the ups and downs of ‘Group Work’.

To start off let’s identify the five types of group members every human soul will encounter in their lifetime:

the Front Runner  - This is the person who naturally takes charge and establishes themselves as the “Group Leader”.  This individual’s motivation is to simply get things done as efficiently as possible.

the Innovator - Hopefully this is you!  The Innovator takes on the creative reigns and pushes the group to be inventive.  Because the Innovator’s agenda is purely about originality they are guaranteed to face some resistance at times.

the Mediator - the Innovator and the Front Runner will often bump heads because while the Innovator’s concerns are well… innovation, the Front Runner is more concerned with the completion of the project.  This is where the Mediator comes in.  The Mediator naturally acts as a liaison between all group members with hopes to displace any major conflict.

the Coaster - the Coaster is the individual with no major input because they usually don’t have any sort of enthusiasm about the project.  The Coaster really just participates with minimal participation… if that makes any sense.  This person does their part with little influence.  Their motivation is to get it done, get the grade, and get out.

the Slacker - Lastly, we are all familiar with the Slacker.  This is the individual who does absolutely NOTHING!  This person rarely shows up to group meetings, is never in class or consistently late, and because of this they have little to no responsibility and usually will end up getting kicked out of the group.

Depending on the assignment, class, and combination of individuals that we have to work with we have all at one time or another taken on at least one of these roles (with the exception of the Slacker I hope!)  So to avoid conflict and frustration it is best if you try to gain a deeper understanding of each individual in your group and make an effort to figure out where they are coming from.  The second part of the Group Work series will focus more on the Innovator and how to best manipulate… err… influence your peers.

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