How to Cooperate in a Group

1) Basic things about Cooperation in a Group:
When we are recruited to work in a group, we obviously need to use our soft skills to become an organic part of a sole team, being a respected and valued team member who thoroughly contributes into common success. When we work in a group we need to keep in mind that achievement of our group’s objectives is the highest priority, and it is what we need to approve our suitability for.

The work in a group is not for professional or personal self-assertion and not for making friends, but first of all it is for pursuing shared goals, respecting others and for providing your qualification and expertise to teammates and organization which employed you. In other words, when working in a group we need to think of how to effectively collaborate with teammates, but not about what they might think of us on personal level.

What elements Cooperation comprises?

• Communications: All kinds of appointments and instruments which help us to make contacts, including phone sessions, face-to-face meetings, group meetings, video-teleconferencing, and so on. Once technology facilitates some areas of communication, a physical meeting still is the best way to contact with anyone you needs to co-operate with, so don’t neglect opportunities for real meetings if possible.

• Collaborative Procedure: It is better to have a good procedure on how you are going to work together. Since you agreed upon some definite way which you will use to co-operate with each other, you will face much less questions, problems and misunderstandings in future. Defining such a procedure is the first and fundamental step in establishing your interpersonal cooperation.

• Shared Plan: Co-operating individuals need a plan which they can work according, performing their roles and tasks provided by this plan. Once people have agreed upon their shared goals and working plans to follow, as well as got their activities coordinated, they are united by a single purpose that will drive their further cooperation.

• Personal Exterior: Well-groomed and pleasant appearance is a significant part of your positive body language. Being clean, accurate and mildly perfumed is a fine way to express your sincere respect to people whom you work with. Pleasantly looking person always adds certain benefits to his or her communicational skills.

• Polite Manners and Speech: It is the fact that a sincere politeness may help to approach even the toughest persons. Interpersonal politeness is a basis for mutual respect, while clear speech is a basis for mutual understanding. It is not necessary for you to be a kind of Cicero, but the better and clearer you can explain your thoughts, the better people would know your mind.

2) Action plan on how to cooperate with members of your group:

1. Make sure you have identified everyone whom you strongly need to co-operate with;
2. Make sure you have appropriate appearance and understanding of your objectives;
3. Initiate contacts with all persons whom you are going to cooperate with;
4. Introduce yourself (if yet necessary) in terms of personal details, qualifications and expertise;
5. If necessary, schedule a particular meeting to discuss your cooperation pattern and plan;
6. Explain your visions of cooperative procedure to each other and share your ideas on this;
7. Elaborate a suitable solution that fits interests of everyone;
8. Reach a common understanding of working process and goals lying ahead;
9. Find out how everyone of you can contribute with his/her own competence and capabilities;
10. Divide the job into smaller tasks, agree upon personal assignments and responsibilities;
11. Get a longer outlook of your collaboration to foresee specific needs which may arise;
12. Agree upon communicational tools you will use to keep contact with each other;
13. Schedule regular purposeful meetings that will be associated with certain work milestones;
14. Agree to maintain frequent communication through telephone calls and e-mail;
15. Approve your shared plans with your supervisors and managers to get their managerial support;
16. Recognize each other’s leadership in certain questions;
17. Stay devoted to the plan, and provide feedback to each other’s accomplishments;
18. Develop your shared vision and coordinate your activities to prevent issues;
19. Keep updating the progress via shared representation of the plan (for example via software);
20. Keep the upper management in touch with the results of your cooperation;

3) A way to cooperate with group members with VIP Task Manager:

VIP Task Manager is a product that stands for collaboration between managers and employees, as well as between cooperating peers, so it enables multiple employees to cooperate with each other in terms of their particular tasks and goals. Let’s consider simple step-by-step instructions to cooperate with people using this product:

Instruments to be used:

• Permissions;
• Task Tree mode;
• Task List mode;

Task Tree mode actions (to prepare cooperation):

1. Make sure you have effective work breakdown structure in terms of task groups and tasks;
2. Adjust Permissions at “Permissions Panel” to allow several Resources “View” and “Edit” tasks that they (Resources) are intended to cooperate at;
3. Make sure people are assigned to each of tasks they concern (are selected in “Resources” tab), so they can get instant task change Notifications;
4. Set Priorities to put the most important tasks to the top of each task group;
5. Use “Comments” section of each task to maintain communications and send feedbacks;

Task List mode actions (to review and report cooperative tasks):

1. Select appropriate Task Groups in respective interface panel to filter tasks by;
2. Use Filters panel (“Assignment” field) to filter tasks by appropriate employees;
3. Group tasks by their Priorities or Due dates;
4. Report tasks by changing their Statuses;
5. Add feedbacks to tasks of your collaborators (“Comments” panel);

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