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"Group projects" at work are completely different from group projects in school. Work generally has managers. If someone isn't pulling their weight in a project

"Group projects" at work are completely different from group projects in school. Work generally has managers. If someone isn't pulling their weight in a project, there's someone you can talk to about it and have something done about it. People have their income on the line. At school, my teachers were almost always explicit about not wanting to manage. "Organize yourselves". There were countless times I had lazy project partners, even in grad level courses in college, that I could do nothing about. The teachers told me to just figure it out myself. They never took action against bums. This meant that lazy people could assume they'd be taken care of by their more disciplined teammates. As a result, I never got any value out of group projects in school - whenever I had a group project, I always assumed I'd have to be doing _way more_ work than I'd have to for individual projects. I've never had to deal with coworkers who acted that way.

Consultant32452 9y ago
You've never had incompetent coworkers? You've never worked at a megacorp where it was basically impossible to get fired? One of the things you could've done for your group projects is be the manager yourself. Assign tasks and divvy up the work load based on skill/knowledge. Obviously, don't give the doofus anything challenging. 99% of the time people are willing to do whatever they're explicitly instructed to do. Track assigned tasks and completion. If someone doesn't pull their weight, don't put their name on the finished project and turn in the assignment tracking with the project to explain why their name was removed.
- thatswrong0 9y ago
  I would never work at a megacorp. That sounds miserable. And why are you assuming I didn't try managing projects? Of course I did. I would always divvy up the work in such a way that'd I'd have the more difficult portion and I'd keep tabs on people. And when I'd tell my teachers that someone wasn't pulling their weight, they'd say it's my problem. I took _one_ class in college where the professors actually took that into account and docked my teammates. Without threats from teachers, students do not give a fuck. Complete waste of my time in school.
  - Consultant32452 9y ago
    Apparently you failed to motivate your classmates. How often did you not put someone's name on the finished project?
VLM 9y ago
Consider bigger companies where the enemies of middle managers are all other internal departments. Technically IT and engineering work for the same company. In practice you're more likely to get cooperation with a competitor company. I'm not exaggerating in that its easier to serve on standards committees than to get an exception to "policy" from another department. The "dog eat dog" happens at middle management not grunt front line level, but it's there...

Consultant32452 9y ago

You've never had incompetent coworkers? You've never worked at a megacorp where it was basically impossible to get fired? One of the things you could've done for your group projects is be the manager yourself. Assign tasks and divvy up the work load based on skill/knowledge. Obviously, don't give the doofus anything challenging. 99% of the time people are willing to do whatever they're explicitly instructed to do. Track assigned tasks and completion. If someone doesn't pull their weight, don't put their name on the finished project and turn in the assignment tracking with the project to explain why their name was removed.

thatswrong0 9y ago
I would never work at a megacorp. That sounds miserable. And why are you assuming I didn't try managing projects? Of course I did. I would always divvy up the work in such a way that'd I'd have the more difficult portion and I'd keep tabs on people. And when I'd tell my teachers that someone wasn't pulling their weight, they'd say it's my problem. I took _one_ class in college where the professors actually took that into account and docked my teammates. Without threats from teachers, students do not give a fuck. Complete waste of my time in school.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  Apparently you failed to motivate your classmates. How often did you not put someone's name on the finished project?

VLM 9y ago

Consider bigger companies where the enemies of middle managers are all other internal departments. Technically IT and engineering work for the same company. In practice you're more likely to get cooperation with a competitor company. I'm not exaggerating in that its easier to serve on standards committees than to get an exception to "policy" from another department. The "dog eat dog" happens at middle management not grunt front line level, but it's there...