Reflections on the midterm

I have to confess I don't like this assignment where I am asked to rate fellow team members - but since I don't have a choice I will try and do my very best in assessing all of us honestly.  First I must say that I believe as a group we performed good even though we had some obstacles to overcome.  We could have been better prepared if we had communicated more effectively prior to our presentation, but we did work very diligently in class to fix our mistakes.  I do have to give the most kudos to my fellow team mates Chane and Amber for their stellar presentations and would grade me as effective.  Although we were not as prepared as we should have been, we chose to overcome by gathering some additional information before our presentation.  I give us credit in resolving our mistakes by making the best of a stressful  situation, and not just throwing in the towel.  I would rate myself as a 6 in this group dynamic.  At this time I would not want to remove or add a member to our group because we have been together from the beginning and to do so would be disruptive, to say the least. The article I chose to demonstrate our group dynamic was from author Scott Johnson who used a 1967 Science article where ecologist Garrett Hardin discussed a group of cattle ranchers shared land for grazing their cattle called "tragedy of the commons".  The basis for this article is that each rancher could add as many cattle they wanted to graze, but each additional cow would deplete resources for all ranchers.  In this study it was found that the smaller the group of people involved in this business venture would be at risk the most for losing money, and would be less willing to add additional cows to graze.  The larger group encountered less risk as it was shared by more investors - some with more resources - so would be willing to graze more cows - no matter the risks to the other investors.

Our group is comparable to the smaller investor in that we have such a small group dynamic, and much more risks if we do not work together to complete our tasks.  We depend on each other more than a larger group because there are less of us to get the job done. And finally I will rate the basic workplace rules important in our group as follows:

A. Showing up on time - 9
B  Doing our fair share - 8
C. Being on time - 7
D. Responding timely to email and communicating effectively with other members - 6
E. Handling conflict among group members - 5
F.  Being present in the group -not distracted by outside cell phone calls or text messages when the group is meeting - 10

Lastly I would like to say I enjoy being in this group and look forward in spending the next few weeks with all of you.  Thanks everyone!

Link:http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/06/group-dynamics-key-to-avoiding-tragedy-of-the-commons.ars