I’ll just start off by saying that the latter “problem” will never happen outside of college. People simply do not have the time, effort, or motivation to do other people’s work when they have their own job they’re supposed to be doing. As rwallace astutely pointed out, college projects are way too small. When you are working, you will find that you (and everyone else) will always have more work to do than time to do it, so you (and everyone else) will not do others’s work.
Your problem with the first group seems to boil down to the problem that people have different motivations. The sad truth is that this is going to be true in every setting, throughout your whole life. People always have different expectations of what they need to put in, and what they want to get out of a project.. What you need to do is learn to acknowledge that fact, and work with it. There are several ways of doing this. One of the easiest, though perhaps least fair, is (as was already suggested) to assign the work based on how much each person is likely to do. The problem with this is twofold: how much motivation someone has is is fairly hard to judge accurately, and it can foster feelings of resentment in those who have to do most of the work towards those who are (relatively) coasting.
One thing I liked to do with groups in college, which admittedly is not for everyone, was to have periodic meetings. At the end of each meeting we would decide what we wanted done by the end of the next meeting. We would then partition the work that remained (not just that which we wanted done by the next meeting) among the group members. Everyone was encouraged to do as much of their assigned work as they had time to, but there was no penalty except the ire of the rest of the group if they didn’t.
So far this sound like how almost everyone does projects, but here’s the catch: we made a deal that no one could leave a meeting until the work that was expected to be done by the end of that meeting was done. If everyone did their assigned work, then meetings were short. If no one did it (as happened sometimes) meetings would go into the wee hours of the morning.
This system worked well for us for a few reasons.
1) Everyone got to do as much work (individually) as they wanted.
2) Everyone ended up doing a portion of the work. Those who had difficulty motivating themselves to work on their own got to do their work with others there to goad them into getting it done.
3) Since everyone ended up working together on large portions of the project, no one felt like anyone else was free-loading, as we all saw everyone else doing at least some work.
4) It was very easy to consult with other group members if there was a part you didn’t understand, or had difficulty with. This also lent our documents some flow, as they ended up being done mostly in the same style.
5) Most importantly, the work always ended up getting done.
I’m not saying I’ve solved the problem, that this is the be-all end-all solution to how every group should work. The point of this post (if there is one) is to say that every group needs to acknowledge the fact that motivations differ among group members, and to find a system to deal with that. If my solution is the one you feel would work best for your team feel free to use it, but if not, get to work developing your own. If you and your team acknowledge and work around the problem, your teamwork will be much more harmonious, and will produce results of much higher quality.
I’ll just start off by saying that the latter “problem” will never happen outside of college. People simply do not have the time, effort, or motivation to do other people’s work when they have their own job they’re supposed to be doing. As rwallace astutely pointed out, college projects are way too small. When you are working, you will find that you (and everyone else) will always have more work to do than time to do it, so you (and everyone else) will not do others’s work.
Your problem with the first group seems to boil down to the problem that people have different motivations. The sad truth is that this is going to be true in every setting, throughout your whole life. People always have different expectations of what they need to put in, and what they want to get out of a project.. What you need to do is learn to acknowledge that fact, and work with it. There are several ways of doing this. One of the easiest, though perhaps least fair, is (as was already suggested) to assign the work based on how much each person is likely to do. The problem with this is twofold: how much motivation someone has is is fairly hard to judge accurately, and it can foster feelings of resentment in those who have to do most of the work towards those who are (relatively) coasting.
One thing I liked to do with groups in college, which admittedly is not for everyone, was to have periodic meetings. At the end of each meeting we would decide what we wanted done by the end of the next meeting. We would then partition the work that remained (not just that which we wanted done by the next meeting) among the group members. Everyone was encouraged to do as much of their assigned work as they had time to, but there was no penalty except the ire of the rest of the group if they didn’t.
So far this sound like how almost everyone does projects, but here’s the catch: we made a deal that no one could leave a meeting until the work that was expected to be done by the end of that meeting was done. If everyone did their assigned work, then meetings were short. If no one did it (as happened sometimes) meetings would go into the wee hours of the morning.
This system worked well for us for a few reasons.
1) Everyone got to do as much work (individually) as they wanted. 2) Everyone ended up doing a portion of the work. Those who had difficulty motivating themselves to work on their own got to do their work with others there to goad them into getting it done. 3) Since everyone ended up working together on large portions of the project, no one felt like anyone else was free-loading, as we all saw everyone else doing at least some work. 4) It was very easy to consult with other group members if there was a part you didn’t understand, or had difficulty with. This also lent our documents some flow, as they ended up being done mostly in the same style. 5) Most importantly, the work always ended up getting done.
I’m not saying I’ve solved the problem, that this is the be-all end-all solution to how every group should work. The point of this post (if there is one) is to say that every group needs to acknowledge the fact that motivations differ among group members, and to find a system to deal with that. If my solution is the one you feel would work best for your team feel free to use it, but if not, get to work developing your own. If you and your team acknowledge and work around the problem, your teamwork will be much more harmonious, and will produce results of much higher quality.