A set of case studies to discuss potential challenges of working in teams.
01 - Prince Not So
Charming
Sam thinks he's God's gift to women everywhere
and fancies himself a smooth and charming lothario. At every meeting
he's flirty with the girls in the group, quipping clever innuendos and double entendres.
Jeff, the only other guy in the group doesn't see an issue and says Sam is
harmless. The rest of the members of the team find Sam's behaviour off-putting.
Teammate Sarah laughs at Sam's jokes and smiles about it in meetings but privately
admits that Sam makes her very uncomfortable. What do you do?
02 - Trouble in
Paradise
Jeff and Sarah were secretly dating before the
group project began and at the first meeting everything was fine. At the second
meeting the two lovebirds are arguing about everything. After the meeting,
Sarah confides to her teammate Sam that she and Jeff broke up. Sarah says the
breakup with Jeff was very rancorous and now they can't
stand to be in the same room together. Sarah begs Sam not to tell the rest of
the team as the whole thing is personal and he agrees. At the
next meeting, Jeff is rude to Sarah, talking over her suggestions and
ignoring her the rest of the time. The rest of the team is baffled by the
conflict and Sarah won't say anything. What do you do?
03 - Calamity Jane
Jane is a nice student and always contributes to
group discussions. At the second meeting Jane has no progress to show on her
tasks and tells the team she's dealing with some personal problems. She assures
everyone that she'll be caught up by next meeting. At the third meeting a week
later, Jane show up late and tells everyone she's unwell and needs to see a
doctor after the meeting. When Sarah asks Jane when her tasks will be finished,
Jane bursts into tears and leaves the meeting. Jane later emails the team and
apologizes profusely, explaining that her cat is also really sick and she's
just super stressed out. Jane assures everyone that she'll get caught up by
next meeting. What do you do?
04 - The Perfectionist
Jeff is a straight A student and he works very hard
at all his classes. Everyone is excited to have such a talented artist on the
team. Everything goes well at the first meeting and Jeff even volunteers to
take on an extra task to help out the team. At the second meeting everyone
shows their work and Jeff's stuff is excellent. Sam hands in a model that is a
bit rough but Sarah is responsible for rigging it by next meeting so the team
agrees to work with Sam's model as-is. The next day, Jeff privately emails a
file to Sarah. It's Sam's model, fixed to perfection and even fully rigged.
Jeff tells Sarah to just tell everyone that she did the work. Before the next
meeting Sarah tells Jane about this and Jane admits that Jeff also sent her
revised storyboards that he ‘fixed’. Sarah is conflicted because the
storyboards were assigned to another team member, but Jeff's work was better.
What do you do?
05 - What Exactly Do
You Do Here?
Sarah loves to talk and has lots of great ideas for
the team project. When tasks are assigned, Sarah asks Jeff to work with her on
the environment model because it is a larger task than one person can complete.
At the next meeting Sarah volunteers to take on another big task working with
Jane and the team agrees that it makes sense. Before the third meeting, Jeff
and Jane are talking and they discover that in both cases, Sarah didn't
actually contribute anything to the task. Both Jeff and Jane had to do the work
on their own while Sarah talked the whole time and offered suggestions. When
the meeting starts, Sarah suggests that she and Sam take on a larger task
together. What do you do?
06 - Bossy-pants
At the first meeting Jeff volunteers to
take notes and facilitate the meeting. At first, its helpful because it keeps
things moving along. By the end of the meeting, Jeff is giving orders to
everyone and keeps insisting that 'someone needs to be in charge'. The second
meeting is worse. Jeff takes control of the meeting and starts demanding
explanations from the team on their progress. Jeff also reads a list of notes
that he insists need to be addressed by next meeting. Afterward, when Jeff
leaves, the team chats informally and everyone agrees that his bossy behaviour
isn't welcome. Sarah volunteers to talk to Jeff about it. Sam says the team
should just boot Jeff off the project. What do you do?
