Q & A — Peer Review & How to be a successful Team

Q & A — How to be a successful Team

You all, within your group, review each other for the respective week of work.
These peer reviews are not meant to put pressure on your team or to punish you. They are simply a tool you use within your team, to make sure that everybody does their best to contribute to the success of the team each week!

The point of the peer reviews is to hold each other accountable within your team.
Note that there won’t always be an equal amount of work done by everyone in the team. Research might take longer than writing project documents. Designing an interface might be more work than interviewing a user. Sometimes you will work more one week than the next. That is all normal and expected.
Also, keep in mind that peer reviews are not meant to punish each other. You, as a team, review each other for every week's contribution. Fairly, honestly, and transparently.
The point of this is that you and your team communicate with one another and agree upon who is doing what work and establish deadlines for the group submission each week.
The peer review allows your group to hold each other accountable for whether or not the work was completed on time.
The peer reviews are meant to prevent having teams where some members `freeload' on the group effort.

Communicate with your team and essentially, don't let your team down.
If you can't deliver your specific contribution in a specific week, don't tell your team on Sunday at 10 PM about it. Let the team know as quickly as possible and work with them to find a solution.
If you have an emergency or can't make a meeting, ask for a recap and alternative work.
If (for some reason?) you don’t have much work for the given week, make sure to still offer to help and check-in with your team to make sure that you have no deliverables or responsibilities you are unaware of or might have forgotten.
Be straightforward about your skills, your schedule, what you can and maybe can not contribute ahead of time to the respective weeks group submission
Agree on timelines and deadlines. Have regular meetings and show up.
It might be the case that you will not get a full peer review from your team. Don't worry! Embrace the feedback, talk with your team about it and try to improve in the next submission. We have 7 larger group submissions with peer reviews this semester. One bad peer review will certainly bring your grade down but it is something you can recover from.

Communicate and meet, regularly, either asynchronously (Microsoft Teams, email, etc.) or live (zoom, Google Hangouts).
Stay positive, even when things don't go smoothly and are challenging at times.
Have a schedule, assign tasks and deadlines and adapt to different team members' strengths and weaknesses.
Make full use of collaborative tools (Google, doodle, Microsoft Teams).

The opposite of good teams :)
Do not organize.
Look at the weekly group submission 24 hours before the deadline.
Do not communicate regularly, do not update each other, do not have meetings, and do work in silos.
Avoid this!

If you feel that you are or have been reviewed unfairly for whatever reason, please reach out to me. It’s rare that this happens, but it might, and if it does, don't hesitate to reach out. But first, try to communicate with your team and resolve the issue with them.