Work Contract
Group Contract
To collaborate with others can be both rewarding and challenging. During your academic path you certainly have had good and bad experiences of working in groups. While some groups work perfectly, others stumble upon many problems and conflicts.
Some group conflict, often generated by members having different ideas and opinions, is natural and even necessary for the development of the work. However, when the conflict escalates it is difficult to focus and the work gets significantly impaired.
Why a group contract?
This group contract aims to give you and your group members the opportunity to discuss and reflect on the team goals, agree upon ground rules and expectations, clarify roles and responsibilities, and establish good ways of communicating.
When should we do the group contract?
The group contract is to be filled in by all members, before the first supervision session. In the first supervision meeting you are to discuss with the supervisor any problems that may have occurred during the elaboration of the contract.
The signed group contract is to be submitted together with the rest of the work.
What are the parts of the group contract?
Download the group contract here. The contract contains the following parts:
- Names and Contact of the Group Members
- Goals: What are the team goals? What skills do you want to acquire and develop? What do you want to accomplish in terms of learning outcomes? And what is the ambition of the team in terms of grade?
- Time Plan: Discuss a time plan and establish deadlines for the main tasks. Remember that the time plan should fit with scheduled seminars and supervision sessions and with other parallel tasks of the course.
- Ground Rules and Expectations: What do you and your group members consider to be crucial ground rules for harmonious and instructive teamwork? It helps if you discuss and reflect on your previous experiences of working in groups (the good and bad ones). Focus on rules and behaviors that are expected from everyone and that are necessary for reaching the goals of the team. Aim for, at least, five-to-seven ground rules.
- Roles and Responsibilities: Here you should reflect on roles and responsibilities and on the assignment of specific tasks. Reflect about which parts of the work can be divided and which parts need to be done by everyone.
- Communication: How will the group communicate during the process (Canvas page, Google Doc, etc.)? Agree upon a method for providing updates about the ongoing work and feedback to each other.
- Problem Solving: Outline routines for dealing with unmet expectations and other problems that might arise.
- Signature: A place for each group member to sign, indicating their agreement to the contract.
- Author Contribution: Once the work is completed, the members write who did what. Each member signs the document as an indication that all group members contributed as expected and, therefore, earn the grade.
- Here, you can see some examples of the points above. They are just examples that you may consider adopting, but you are very welcome to come up with new ground rules and expectations.
Hopefully this group contract will minimize the likelihood of conflicts escalating, and it will help everyone to keep on track!