Group Dynamics

We're going to try to explicitly address the question of how to create good group dynamics. For background, all students should read the NY Times article on how Google studied the effectiveness of groups. This reading must be completed before your first group meeting.

Once the groups are selected for each project, you should schedule a one hour group meeting right away with the following agenda:

The purpose of explicitly identifying these norms up front is to create shared expectations among group members. Here are some sample norms, which may or may not match the inclination of your group. Some of these were created by past class participants. Some of these norms are mutually inconsistent, so be selective about what your group chooses as its norms. The list below is merely illustrative, and far from comprehensive, so you should not feel limited by this list. Also feel free to try different styles for different projects, e.g., individual coding for one project and team coding for another. These norms should not be seen as restrictive: if the group decides to adjust its norms part way through, that's ok.

Ken Ross 2024-09-09