Chapter 18

Chapter 18 focuses on collaboration within technical communication.   The chapter cites that up to 70% of U.S. firms conduct groupwork, so there is immense value in understanding how to work well in a team.  The chapter highlights that smaller groups are normally more productive than larger groups, and I certainly agree.  From my experience, the ideal group size is approximately 3-5.  In college, and specifically in business classes, group projects are a normal requirement.  Just as the chapter cites “social loafing” (free-riding) as an issue in professional workplaces, it is also an issue in college classes.  One of the more challenging aspects of group projects is that team members can hold different expectations for what quality of work is “acceptable.”  An employee wanting to get noticed for a promotion will likely have higher standards for the project than an employee who is not interested in advancement. Likewise, students wanting an A in class will be willing to put forth more effort than a student looking to be a “social loafer” and get a C.   Although group projects can be frustrating for those students putting forward greater individual effort to elevate the group’s grade, group projects can be outstanding when each member of the team holds the same goal.  In this course, for example, each member of my service learning project group held the goal of producing quality material for the Burkhart Center that was deserving of a high grade.  Since we each held that goal, we could take individual efforts and be fairly confident that each of us was pulling our own weight.  Although I do not have much experience with groupwork in corporate settings, it is logical that if a team follows a common vision they could be far more successful than any one contributor could individually.  This leads to the idea that “the whole could be greater than the sum of its parts.”