Working in a team

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Working in teams can add significant value to a project process. When dealing with challenges such as complex theory that may be difficult to grasp, troubleshooting of annoying problems or even the motivation to work on the project, you are not alone and you will be able to rely on the resources and competences of your team colleague(s).

Team work requires a professional approach from the team members though. You are inherently different by nature which influence your way of working, your problem solving approaches in terms of both technical and team work problems etc. It is important that the team work is capable of supporting this.

The question if you should conduct your project on your own or in a team is far from trivial. You should discuss this with your supervisor even if you are more or less convinced about one or the other, as there may be issues that you have not yet considered. After a thorough assessment the decision is on yours alone.

If you choose to work in a team the following tools are recommended:

• When working in a project team it is a good idea to establish a contract between the team members. Team contract page proposes a method on how to write such a contract.

• When submitting the project report it is recommended to include an appendix which details the contributions of each team member. A structured and efficient way to document this is using a table with a column for each team member and a row for each project task. The table should then be filled with the approximate contribution of each team member to the individual tasks.