I am a student right now. Recently, I am working in a project as a leader with t
ID: 639190 • Letter: I
Question
I am a student right now. Recently, I am working in a project as a leader with three other students. Due to the lack of experience, our project is progressing slowly and our members are frustrated. They do not feel sense of accomplishment in the project. I am pressured and frustrated, too. But as a team leader, I think I need to push them. But I do not know how to do. Do I help them solve coding problem or just encouragement? But if I pay too much attention on it, it would slow down my own progress.
It is a not technical question, but it is very common in software development. I hope veteran programmers would give me some suggestions.
Explanation / Answer
If you actually want the other students to help you in writing the project, it's going to be a lot of work. As other answerers have suggested, sometimes it really is just easier to do the project yourself. I've been in this situation throughout my college career, and it's never fun or easy.
If you want to actually get all of them involved in the project you're going to have to:
Try to get each team member's perspective. Learn where they're coming from, what abilities they have, what motivation they have, and what roadblocks are preventing them from helping with the project
Do a lot of work WITH your team members--get everyone involved in the thought process behind your project and do a lot of explanation.
Don't expect your under-motivated teammates to pop up with questions--they will stay silent if they don't understand. You will need to anticipate their questions and concerns and bring them up for them--or at least try to get them to ask what's on their mind.
Find tasks for each member to do. Even if it's an incredibly simple task that would take you 10% of the time they will spend on it, you need to get them started working on part of the project. The more significant the task (and less busy-work-ish it is), the better.
I can't say I have the best advice, but these are the sorts of things I do that help the most.
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