Q7. Who were the low and high participating members of the group?

How did the group

manage the high/low participators?

A7. In hindsight, there were no consistent high and low participating members in the group.
The group was composed of people who were disciplined and committed to the task at hand.
But owing to the grind of the schedule, the participation level was dictated by the tasks or
prior commitments an individual member had during the duration of the particular
assignment.

The management of the high/low participators was fair and governed by the situation of the
said participator(s). The high participators tended to be those who had to take on the
responsibility of their own or forced volition due to the other members commitments or due
to their level of interest in the assignment. On the contrary low participators tended to be
those who had other commitments or were unavailable or had low interest in the assignment
subject. The treatment that was meted out to both these extremes was the reciprocation of
responsibilities. The high participators were asked to kick back on the next assignment
leading to either no contribution or minimal contribution or contribution arising solely out of
the participators interest. But this rule did not apply when the assignment was fairly
enormous or the deadline was nearly upon the group. On the other extreme, the low
participator(s) had to take on majority of the responsibility or if their participation level or
contribution had cumulatively been low then the participator was expected to complete the
whole task by him/herself. This allocation of responsibility acted as a deterrent to any
participant who wanted to be a social loafer. The allocation of the proportion of
responsibilities to the low participator would also be governed by the capacity of the
participator to handle the assignment and to work; if the scope of the assignment was large
then the assignment would invite contribution from other members out of necessity or their
own interest.

The afore-mentioned responsibilities did not solely include the execution of the work
assigned but also various other tasks such as coordination, taking on the toughest question or
part, scheduling meeting, ensuring the work was done before time, reviewing the work,
ensuring the submission of the assignment on time etc.

8. What are the dysfunctional processes that were experienced by your group? How did your
group manage these processes?
8. The very concept of a group takes into assumption that there are bound to be some
dysfunctional processes that will be faced by the group and the members, sometimes at an
individual level. Our group facilitated constructive interaction and smooth exchange of ideas,
feedbacks and suggestions regarding other members inputs.
The group members generally tended to take these criticisms and suggestions in a positive
manner, employing them when the given input was deemed as an improvement or added to
the value of the existing work. This does not rule out the possibility that such criticisms were
taken personally and ignited any ill-will among the members. There may have been rather
there are bound to be such instances, but as there were no outbursts or expressions of the
same, such instances cannot be delved into with great detail. This begs the question of
whether such behaviour of the members beneficial or detrimental to the group? As there were
no documented examples that can be analysed, the question cannot be answered with much
success.
This smooth conduct was not ingrained from day one. During the initial stages of group
activities some members were difficult to gauge or their style of working was not understood
by the rest. To illustrate this statement an example of member(s) not attending majority of the
meetings can be mentioned, this behaviour was consistently demonstrated by Himanshu Jain
even though he was an active participant in the electronic discussions that took place leading
to him being aware of the meeting place and time. After some meetings this was a behaviour
that was expected of him. Shrey Singh used to attend the meetings but was a passive
participant in the discussions, be it face-to-face or electronic. These behaviours were
ingrained into the groups style of functioning after some time and did not impede either
these two members from completing their work or the group as a whole.
The groups management of individual idiosyncrasies was very mature and stemmed from the
understanding nature and industry experience of the other members viz. Kalingiri Gowtham
Kumar, K. Uma Prasanthi, Raushan Mishra, Shalija Raheja and Shashank Shekhar.
Incorporation of such peculiarities (which could ignite potential conflicts) demonstrated the
ability of the group to overcome small setbacks in order to fulfil the primary goal.