Surviving Group Projects

With few exceptions, at some point in your university life you will have to form a group with others to complete some massive project. If you're in more of the academic subjects -- english and history come to mind -- you may be able to avoid this fate, but for the rest of us, having other random people you don't know from a hole in the ground determining at least in part your success is an unfortunate reality of university. And, it turns out, the working world.

Group projects are easy when you have a solid core of people who all contribute to the project, or when the project is small enough that one or two decent people can do it all even if most of the group is useless. But what do you do when you've got a huge project and some clear underperfomers to contend with?

Read my blog, that's what. I'm here to help. Here's 13 guidelines for surviving a group project when it's all on your head to do a good job.

1. Exchange contact information. This includes specifying a preferred method of contact (likely email) and an expectation of how soon responses will be given. Make sure there is a penalty (most group projects have a peer evaluation component) for late responses to queries. A good rule of thumb is to forfeit 2% the grade if a group member does not respond within two business days.



2. Divide up the project by tasks, not pages. Make sure that "writing the report" is its own task, unless the report is so long that each section should be written individually. If you divide up a report by pages, it doesn't flow well and sounds like it was made by many different people writing in many different styles.



3. Hand in hand with point 2, don't worry about being exactly fair in the division of labour. Maybe someone has to do a bit more, but you'll have a better project if people (or maybe a smaller team of 2 or 3 people) handle a specific area. One area might be more work than the other, but it's better to have a little unfairness and a solid product than a poorer project that had the labour divided exactly equal among group members.



4. Set up expectations for deadlines, as well as the marks lost if those are missed.



5. Once you've identified underperfomers, focus them like a laser beam on whatever you hate to do. I hate market research, so I tried to focus my Marketing group on getting that done for me. I still had to do some (after all, they are underperformers) but it took the pressure off where I wanted it off the most.



6. Set up collaboration tools. Especially Word's "track changes" feature. If multiple people are editing a report (and they should, even if one person wrote it), then you can easily have four or five version of the thing floating around. Compiling that can be a nightmare. So at the minimum, track changes. At best, slap the report (or lab, or database, or whatever) on a server like Google docs and allow for multi-person edits to the same document.



7. Don't get mad; shame people. I find it more effective to go to someone who hasn't been pulling their weight with some of their work already done and a request that they finish it.



8. Unless someone is a total slacker, it's best to not fight very much about lost marks due to work quality. If it's measurable (such as not responding to e-mails or missing deadlines), then by all means dock them marks, but even then it's better not to get into a war over it. All you'll do is gain an enemy, and you won't have what you really want: sleep, and that person's part of the project done.



9. Don't be afraid to take a leadership position, especially if you're doing all the work anyways. Some people aren't really underperformers, they just need someone to tell them exactly what to do. If they are legitimately a bunch of slackers, then you're probably going to be up until 2 am finishing the stupid project anyways, and that makes your word law.



10. If you do take a leadership position, always explain why you think your ideas are best. Accept criticism. Just because someone is an underperformer doesn't mean they don't have good ideas. If any arise, don't be too prideful to use them.



11. For the love of God, don't do everything yourself. Just because you're surrounded by slackers doesn't mean you can't use their stuff. Keep it as a base, and shore it up with the grammer/research/wording/effort it requires to shine.



12. Have face-to-face meetings as often as you need. If it has to be at 6 pm on a Saturday, do it. You often can't replicate that input over email.



13. Make sure meetings are on task. Establish a rotating chair for the meeting, and make it that persons job to set the agenda and keep things on task. Everyone has better things to do than meetings, so keep them short, sweet and to the point.

Finally, I should stress that you should still be a team player throughout all of this. Never criticize people, just their actions (i.e. do not say "you're an idiot". Instead say "I don't think this section has been properly cited/researched/whatever", and then say why you think that.) Remember, the goal here is not to do everything yourself, but to get as much out of your underperforming group so you don't have to kill yourself doing everything to make the deadline. And finally, remember that not all groups are populated by slackers, and that people do have other things going on in their lives than the project -- so take that into consideration before you give into the urge to blow up at them.

Here on the other side of November...

Wow, it's been awhile since my last post. November is project month at university, and since I'm taking business and that means almost every class has a group project. Most of them, naturally enough, are due sometime in November. However, the biggest of them, my Marketing project, has been mostly retired and this has given me something akin to breathing room.

Which is why I'm going to take the opportunity to blog about technology.

Has anyone here seen IBM's Lotus Symphony? My opinion is best summed up by: high hopes. Based on Open Office, the premier office suite available for the Linux desktop, Symphony gives the office suite on Linux more developers, and God willing, a better interface and functionality.

Open Office is a fine product, especially given it's price. But it's not nearly as good as MS Office, especially the 2007 version. This is more of a problem than with other apps, since the fact is people were not typing out documents on Wordpad before switching to Linux. For example, most people have not bought Adobe Illustrator, and therefore an equivalent if less feature-full program being available for free on Linux (Inkscape) is a selling point. But most people have been using some version of MS Office before switching, and therefore the higher cost of that program is considered sunk. So having a less feature-full program available for free becomes a liability, not an asset.

Just looking at the screenshots for Symphony though, it's looking like the interface is improving, and more importantly, moving away from being a simple MS Office clone. Spreadsheets needs some attention: optimization, anyone? Or how's about reminding me about formula syntax as I write them? Also, presentations needs some serious love. The key here it a) make more templates and b) hire decent graphics designers so they're slick. Oh, and would it kill anyone to make a "handouts" layout that includes lines for notes?

More than Symphony, though, I'm looking forward to KDE 4 making an appearance on the Linux desktop. Eventually.

I tried out what they're calling "Release Candidate 1", though the system is clearly not ready for production use. Having said that, I see enormous potential for KDE 4. The widgets, the smooth animations that are scattered throughout the system, the icon theme -- all look very slick and very professional. Assuming some non-KDE technologies can be easily integrated into the system, or ported over for KDE equivalents, I think that the Linux desktop will begin to match or surpass the offerings from private companies, though we'll still lack in 3rd party apps.

The non-KDE technologies I'm thinking of here are PulseAudio, Avant Window Navigator and Compiz Fusion: the most exciting Gnome-based technologies out there. I know Kwin now does compositing, but I'd like the zoom, desktop cube and tab windows features from Compiz (some of the visual flash would be nice too, but not necessary) as I find those rather handy for windows management. As far as AWN goes, it's the best damn dock going. Period. With some KDE-specific plugins, I think it could feel right at home. Finally, I don't know much about PulseAudio, but being able to control sound on an app-by-app basis sounds very, very cool.

NaNoWriMo!

It's that time of year again!

Yes, it's officially National Novel Writing Month, so naturally that means I'm already 2 days behind in my writing. Still, this year is my year: 50 000 words by November 30th or bust baby!

(And in true Geek fashion, I'm gonna craft the thing entirely in FOSS -- most likely KWord, since I'm a bit of a KDE fanboy. For awhile I was contemplating writing the thing in Vim using Dvorak, but then I realized even I have my limits.)

Alberta Advantage?

So, here in Alberta we've been having a debate about energy royalties. If you're not from around here, allow me to sum up the history of the argument:

1. In the beginning, Alberta had no money. Then we discovered oil. And for a time it was good.


2. Now Alberta has lots of money. So do the oil companies. We regularly post billion-dollar surpluses, they regularly post billion-dollar profits.


3. Recently, there has been a feeling that oil companies are getting too much money for what, by rights, is a public resource. So, a panel was commissioned to review the issue, and found Alberta could up its' resource take by 2 billion. The industry protested. After reviewing the panels' recommendations, the government raised its' take by 1.4 billion. The industry continues to protest. Now times are less than good.

My take on the whole issue is that I can support raising energy royalties in principle IF that money is then reinvested in growing Alberta's economy in other sectors. As it currently stands, Alberta has one industry driving the economy: oil. I don't see anything wrong with expanding the number of industries propelling us forward out a bit.

But I don't support increasing royalties. Why? Because it's not going to be used for growing our economy. It'll go where most of the budget goes: to various peoples' pet causes. Someone will say "it's a crime that in a province as rich as Alberta we can't afford [more health care, better roads, more schools, whatever]" and the government will then fund it.

There's nothing wrong with any of those things I mentioned as pet causes, and these are things the government must address... but the economy comes first. And if the economy suffers, by taking money out of revenue-producing industries and placing it into things that do not produce revenue, then ultimately revenue will drop and we still won't have any funding. If jobs are lost, projects shut down, junior companies can't viably explore, the whole thing falls apart.

I really get the sense that people are thinking about this issue with their hearts not their heads. They look at executive compensation and say "that's not fair! I want some of that!" And so when they get the chance, they tell the government they want to put the thumbscrews to the oil industry. That's an emotional reaction, not a logical one.

Because logic would point out the thumb in the screws is the same one attached to the hand that feeds.

Diversity Downsides

So Mozilla has recently mentioned that system integration is a key goal for Firefox 3. Rather predictably, they don't talk about integrating with Linux at all, just OS X and Vista. Judging by the comments to the blog post, Linux users appear to be miffed about this.

Which is odd, since this is a hole the Linux community has dug themselves. Listen, I know that software diversity is a strength in many ways, but the fact is it comes with some downsides. Even whittled down to the major ones, Mozilla would still be looking at integrating into 5 or so distros, some of whom have 2 (or more) desktop environments for a user to choose from. Oh, and they're supposed to do this for a tiny fraction of the desktop market.

Bottom line? Saying that the Linux market can't justify the investment, and that in any event even if they did make a theme it couldn't possibly fit every Linux anyways is perfectly valid. And to act like they've somehow dropped the ball because they aren't willing to spend money to develop styles/themes for you to use for free makes the community sound a little spoiled, doesn't it?

Improve True Type Font Rendering on Feisty

As a student, I get assigned written reports with a fair amount of regularity. It's not uncommon, when going over the instructions, to read that the assignment must be X pages long, be double spaced, have 1-inch margins, and yes, use Times New Roman. Turns out that teachers are now wise to the formatting tricks we've been using to slip in under page counts, so formatting has been more-or-less standardized.

Long story short, even if I'm on Linux, I have to be using Microsofts' True Type fonts anyways. Given that, I suppose I may as well make them look pretty.

The first order of business is to install the fonts. From a terminal type:

sudo aptitude install msttcorefonts

Now, open up your apt sources list:

kdesu kwrite /etc/apt/sources.list

Ok, scroll to the end, add the following to the file and save:

deb http://www.telemail.fi/mlind/ubuntu feisty fonts

Now type:

wget http://www.telemail.fi/mlind/ubuntu/937215FF.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Install the new rendering packages:

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude install libfreetype6 libcairo2 libxft2

sudo dpkg-reconfigure fontconfig-config
(When prompted choose Native, Always, No bitmapped fonts, in that order)

Finally, download the package from here:

http://www.osresources.com/files/centos-windows-fonts/fontconfig.tbz

and install it with:

sudo tar xvjpf fontconfig.tbz -C /etc/fonts/

Personally, I've enabled KDE's anti-aliasing settings (found under System Settings --> Appearances --> Fonts). They're using full subpixel hinting, but are excluding the range from 0.0 to 8.0. So far, that seems to make TrueType fonts look more or less as they do on Windows.

Improve Ubuntu Boot time and Responsiveness

Whether or not these changes will have any effect depends largely on your specific hardware setup. Still, I doubt this would actually harm anything.

First, are you using a dual-core or other processor that supports hyperthreading (also called multithreading)? If so, open up /etc/init.d/rc:

kdesu kwrite /etc/init.d/rc

Now, find the line that says "CONCURRENCY" and make it read "CONCURRENCY=shell".

Secondly, do you have a lot of RAM? If so, you probably don't need your computer to touch your swap file much. Open up /etc/sysctl.conf:

kdesu kwrite /etc/sysctl.conf

Now, scroll to the bottom and add the line "vm.swappiness=0" to the file. Save, and exit.

Are you using broadband? Open up /etc/sysctl.conf again:

kdesu kwrite /etc/sysctl.conf

Now, scroll to the bottom and add the following to the file:

net.core.rmem_default = 524288
net.core.rmem_max = 524288
net.core.wmem_default = 524288
net.core.wmem_max = 524288
net.ipv4.tcp_wmem = 4096 87380 524288
net.ipv4.tcp_rmem = 4096 87380 524288
net.ipv4.tcp_mem = 524288 524288 524288
net.ipv4.tcp_rfc1337 = 1
net.ipv4.ip_no_pmtu_disc = 0
net.ipv4.tcp_sack = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_fack = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_timestamps = 1
net.ipv4.tcp_ecn = 0
net.ipv4.route.flush = 1

Save and exit. Type:

sudo sysctl -p

and you're done.

Finally, since you made a bunch of changes, it's best to reprofile your boot-up sequence. You can read more about it here. Basically the system reads all the files it needs to boot up, puts them in order, and saves the list so it can boot faster the next time. Here's how you do it:

1. At the bootup menu (GRUB), select your default kernel. You may need to press ESC to see this menu.


2. Press e for edit.


3. Choose the first line (it should start with "kernel"). Press e again.


4. Move to the end of the line, then add the word profile. Press enter.


5. Press b to boot.


6. Let the system boot to the login screen, and wait for all disk activity to stop


7. Reboot your system, and enjoy the results

It's a good idea to reprofile:

• After you install Ubuntu and get the system set up the way you like,
  After doing a major upgrade, such as to the next version of Ubuntu. No need to do it for regular updates, etc.


• After setting up prelink (if you use it), since that could cause bootup files to change locations on your hard drive


• After restoring your entire system from backups, as that would change locations of files on your hard drive.