[game_edu] Group project team formation

[Ian Schreiber]

Similar to the problem of team formation during game jams, so talk to any jam organizer about how they do this :). One simple solution is to just say "no one gets to leave the room until everyone is on a team" and let the students decide how to divide the stragglers. If the leftovers form their own team and the team fits your constraints (mainly, has the skills to make their game) then fine; if not, then they'll need to either take on others to fill the gaps, or else disperse and get absorbed into other teams.
A lot depends on how well the students all know each other by reputation before the class starts. If everyone knows everyone else already, then icebreaker-type activities won't work that well. If you have a few friends taking the class together but generally most students don't know their classmates, might be worth having each student introduce themselves and their skill sets on the first day so that everyone can get a feel for who they want to work with. You could go even further with this, for example:
* Mandatory class game jam over the first weekend of the semester. Not during class hours. Let the students see what everyone is capable of.* In the first week or two, each student works on their own small-scale individual project (like an extended game jam, would be ideal if it can line up with one of the Ludum Dares or something). This gives them an opportunity to show off their strengths to the class, and everyone starts with a prototype of their own idea that others can rally around.* On day one, give students a survey to fill out listing their (game AND non-game) interests. See what kinds of things students can cluster around - for example, are there a bunch of students who are big into social justice issues, or who are all musicians, or something. Then give a set of constraints and let each individual choose which one they'd like to work on, each constraint gets its own team.
Beyond that, I'd be tempted to take things on a case-by-case basis. Is one student a "lone wolf" type that HATES group work, and they're choosing to isolate themselves? Have a talk with them about their career goals; lone indie devs are rare but do exist, but if they want someone to pay them, learning to play well with others is useful, and maybe they can be incentivized to choose a team if their career is on the line. Is there a student who has a reputation for being a poor performer, and no team wants to get saddled with deadwood? Have a frank talk with them about their rep and its impact on their future, not just as a student but as a professional (in one of my classes, I actually asked each student to pick out the others in the class that they know they WOULD or WOULD NOT want to work with again, and also what they thought others would say about them; and then tallied and summarized the results and had a chat with each student about whether they have a realistic picture of where they stand; that alone caused some of the bottom performers to noticeably put in more effort when they realized that they didn't WANT to be thought of as mediocre). Got a student who is just shy? Overcoming that can be really useful if, say, they ever want to attend GDC and actually meet the people who might hire them... so they can be told to think of this as an opportunity to try out other personas in a safe space; and also an opportunity for the rest of the class to realize that the one person on the team who's just silently watching their conversation is probably sitting on the best ideas because they're putting their brainpower into listening and processing and analyzing, not just talking :). For language barriers, you get better in a hurry with practice when you have to, so some encouragement can help, as well as pointing them to the ESL resources on campus; it's also a wonderful opportunity for their teammates to deal with these kinds of barriers, because odds are they'll probably be working with some people who are from different cultures from time to time (I'm having vivid flashbacks right now to an outsourced QA team from India, and the interesting miscommunications we had when dealing with them).
- Ian

      From: Malcolm Ryan <malcolmr at cse.unsw.edu.au>
 To: IGDA Game Education Listserv <game_edu at igda.org> 
 Sent: Monday, July 13, 2015 2:02 AM
 Subject: [game_edu] Group project team formation
   
A question for other educators:

I am running class which involved a semester-long group game development project. There are about 30 students and I want them to work in groups of 3 or 4. I need a way to assign groups. There are a couple of constraints:

1) Each group needs to have a vision holder
2) Each group needs to have an appropriate set of skills to make their game.
3) Some students come wanting to work together and I would prefer not to break them up unless necessary.
4) Some students are quiet, shy or have language difficulties which mean it is difficult to get them to seek out groups of their own initiative.

In the past I have let the students organise as they see fit. This has mostly worked, but there are always a small number of students at the end of the process who haven’t found a team. Putting these people together in a group has typically been a bad idea, especially if there is no-one with strong design or strong organisations skills in that group.

Has anyone else faced this problem? Have you come up with any clever solutions? 

Malcolm
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