Team membership

Membership of your group may be decided by your tutor. If, however, you can choose your group members, bear in mind the following guidance.

Group size

• A team with three or four members can:
  
  
  • work quickly
  • co-ordinate work easily
  
  
  
  It may, however:
  
  
  • lack a range of knowledge and skills
  • be affected if someone falls ill, drops out, or fails to co-operate.
    
    
• A team with six to eight members can:
  
  
  • cope with larger projects
  • generate more ideas
  • get more work done
  • cover for missing or unco-operative members.
  
  
  
  It may, however:
  
  
• be difficult to organise
• need more structure, formal meetings, etc
• result in difficulty pulling together material for a team report or presentation.

A team with more than eight members needs excellent team management in order to stay focused and use limited time effectively.

Group members

When choosing team members, bear in mind:

• individual strengths and weaknesses.

  Effective teams contain a balanced range of types whose different strengths complement one another. It's no good having a team full of creative people but no one who's good at research, or a team of very bright people who are poor at co-operating!

• practicalities of meeting up, eg individuals' availability and proximity to one another
  
  
• if you're considering working with friends, remember that it can be too 'cosy', with individuals feeling that they can't challenge one another or try out unfamiliar roles.