Last week I posted about doing a group project and learning how to work quickly.  If you missed the post, you can read it here.

I'm writing today because I learned some more after all was said and done.  I had learned how to take shortcuts, how to think on my feet when obstacles arose, and how much I enjoyed not stressing out about every detail in the project.  All of these lessons were great, as I noted in my original post.

I realized after the fact, however, that I had enjoyed these lessons a little too much.  In the process of learning how to work with super-speed, I managed to forget my whole style of working. My style tends to be obsessional and detail-oriented, probably to a fault.  I work on details for a long time, then can get behind time-wise as a result.  During the course of the project, I was so taken by the new speediness I was being introduced to that I think I assumed my slower pace was incompatible with the speed.  I went along for the ride. Problem was, I also failed to read the instructions for the project thoroughly or correctly, and ended up having to do more work on the project on the back end and having to feel like I had blown it.

So, in order to prevent readers from having whiplash following the trail of my errors, I thought I'd turn this into a “lessons learned”-type of post.  I learned:

• it is always worth the time to make sure you are comfortable with the pace of a project
• be careful when you begin to assume other people's work styles are superior to your own
• details do matter
• taking time to ensure the quality of your work is worthwhile (when it is not excessive)

In group projects in particular, it is easy for lines of action and purpose to get criss-crossed.  Whether in a solo or a group project, when you make an error, I feel it's always good to make note of the error, to apologize for it, and to correct it promptly and completely.  Then the people you are working with and working for end up learning a lesson about you too.

How do you handle group projects?  Do you have difficulty maintaining your sense of balance when working with people with different styles than you?