When asked to recall past group projects and how they had worked and not worked and whatever else, the first thing that came to mind was a renewable energy project I did in primary school where we created some kind of hydroelectricity. One person in the group, however, decided that bringing some Barbies as the test dummies was enough of a contribution. Maybe this can be used as some kind of analogy; contribution does not include merely turning up on the day with something you already had, with no extra effort whatsoever. Of course, there is not always going to be that one ‘Barbie bringer’ in the group, and the pros of group work outweighs the cons.

Good

• diverse ideas
• inspiration
• rigour
• support
• speed
• sharing the workload
• ability to tackle bigger projects

Bad

• inability to listen to others
• imbalance of work and credit
• let down by people
• discomfort of opinion
• no compromise