How to lead a project in university’s group assignments

Our little group project. Created a computer game that is playable here.

The upcoming bullet list of advice is based on my experience and might not work for you as they did for me. So let’s begin.

  • When you accept the role as a group leader, you need to know that it becomes with some extra burden and liability.
  • Form a team by selecting people who you know are conscientious and do not procrastinate their duties to the last minute. When possible, look out for extreme gamers that say, “I do not have the time”. But when watching on Discord, you see that they are playing. Also, keep an eye on people who are always late with their homework. If you have good group of people, then there is more probability that your group will succeed in group project.
  •  Be polite even if the emotions get hot. Because if even one member starts swearing, it becomes harder to work on the project as a whole. Try to keep people calm. People tend to work slower and with less quality while under intens stress or people they do not like.
  • Analyze the project and turn it into goals and goals into smaller tasks. Assign the tasks to people and set deadlines a whole lot earlier that it is needed. If someone passes the deadline and their task is still in progress, then ask what is the issue and offer your help to overcome it.
  • When you have some upcoming deadlines, for example 3 days before the date, then create somewhat a routine. Start asking how are tasks working out. I saw that people tend to answer those questions well if you tag people or ask by name. For example, in facebook messenger, if I asked people, “how are the tasks going” then mostly nobody answered, everyone only “seen”-ed. If I saw that some tasks were not complete and the due date was tomorrow, then I asked on the lunch. What is the current situation about the tasks. So everyone had always the burden ticking on their head “to get it done”. If the date exceeded, then set another date and notify the assignee (situations like these is why you need to set the first deadline few weeks earlier). I remember that managing group like this gave some members even somekind of confident and motivation to do their tasks as they all saw that their leader was active and interested working on the project. In following group projects, I even remembered that many of the previouse members even wanted to hook up again because they knew that they were in good hands. Because, group that was well managed was everyone’s dream in university.
  • To keep project away from development hells, I recommend to ask the group every week (even at the start of the project). So set some day, which fits the members the most and set your own reminder on Google Calendar or somewhere to remind others. 
  • Try to get some things moving in the first few weeks. 
  • Jira is a very good project management software. It is free to use to some extend. I remember we even paid for it for a while in university in one of the bigger group projects. But we all chipped in therefore it was cheap. I highly recommend it!
  • Another software I used was Google Calendar, I frequently set events to remind me on to certain dates to what to remind to people and so on. 
  • Consider people abilities and assign tasks accordingly. Some people will handle project better if tasks are given one-by-one, others many tasks at the time. You will need to know your members more throughly to execute it fairly well. But I am certain you will get the hang of it pretty quick. πŸ˜‰
  • When someone is unable to complete their task, then offer help. If physical meeting is off the table, use Google Meet. For example, screenshare the assignment and co-work on the task. Atleast when you work as pair, you get the task done. Another step closed to finished the project! I recommend to give advice one by one, let the other member do the thing. Then speak how your thought process is going, what are you considering and so on. Then give instructions again how to proceed if the other member have not suggested any ideas their own. Next time they will have more overview about the topic and are more likely to complete their task.
  • Tell in the first group meeting that you are always available to help if anyone has a need for it.
  • People tend to have problems to initiate information searching. If you are good at it and know that most of the work is done from reading some webpages but the webpages themselves are easy to find to yourself then I highly recommend to look those links up and post them under the tasks. So the assigned person can get right into the action and working.

I think that is all from me but feel free to comment down below your advice for group projects! πŸ™‚

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