In this NeBCC international programme, I’ve been in to several groups for doing group assignments or labs. I could identify several specific issues I encountered in becoming members of these groups, namely:
- Language
- Tools
- Communication (and Team Work)
Language
We use English to communicate as all of us are required to be able to use English. In a team in which not every member use English as their primary language, this can pose difficulties. To really express what you mean can be quite difficult. And also, several members, in the middle of a discussion, can suddenly speak their other language, their mother language for example, to each other and then, in some occasions, laugh or continue as if there was nothing happen. They happen usually because some people in the team come from the same country/area or just happen to speak the same non-English language. These events happen to me sometimes, and I find it quite rude actually. I bet this is how it feels when, in Indonesia, some people in a discussion, were joking using Javanese (my traditional language) when not everyone understand it.
Tools
Well, this is probably because I use a Mac. Yes, seriously. I use different tools (ie: word processor, development tools, etc) than the others (I only saw one girl back in Reading in my class who also uses Mac, and she was not in NeBCC programme) and it somehow promote several problems in several of my group assignments.
In my first group assignment, I was quite unsatisfied with the formatting style of the final document (ie: the bullets and numbering, font size, headings and subheadings, indentation, etc) because all of us use different styles and, probably makes things worse, I use different tools that was not completely compatible with others’ tool. And of course the one who merged it can not be blamed because the problem was not caused by him/her. And no, I don’t want the final document to be flashy with beautiful fonts and flashy colours or all that, but I just want it to have consistent style, and unfortunately it’s hard to do when we use different tools.
This problem repeated when in my second group assignment, in which I had the job to merge (merely because I finished my part last), and had a little time to do that. The formatting of the document went haywire and it was frustrating to even make indentation and numbering consistent. In my third and fourth group assignment, I also became the one who merged the final document. Sometime I just had to leave several parts not exactly as I wanted them to be (I could be too picky, you know).
In development tools part, well let’s just say that because everyone in the NeBCC class but me uses Microsoft Windows (although several have multiple-boot systems, usually with Ubuntu), I had to try harder to find several tools that unfortunately difficult to find in Mac world. I’ll tell you more about this later (no promise though :p). In the up side, I don’t have to install anything to compile C code and execute the binaries or do an XML transformation using XSL with xsltproc tool.
Communication (and Team Work)
Still related to first part, but this is more than what language we use. Some people can be really angry when they were interrupted, even when they are telling the exactly wrong thing (not their fault though, their opinion should still be acknowledged and heard). Some people can be so bossy and telling everyone else to do as they wish (my guilty conscience tells me that I do this some time). Some people can be so agnostic and, especially in a big team, “choose” to do nothing. It’s also hard when the team had an agreement and suddenly the agreement was broken and the team still quarrelled when they were supposed to prepare their final presentation. Team work can also be quite difficult when the work flows are coming from only from one member because he/she had “explored everything” related to the assignment, and felt that his/her way is the best way. Similarly, it’s tough when a member did most of the job his/herself, for example because he/she managed to spare a lot more time (significantly) to do the assignment compared to other members. Yes, the last thing is quite an irony, because all of us have 24 hours in a day.
This post is not meant to provide any solution, but rather just to show what might happen in an international group. It’s true, however, that to some extent, these issues happen in non-international groups. But I would argue that the intensity in an international group is higher.