Arctic Survival – From Success to Failure

Contrary to the outcome exhibited by most other groups during the Arctic Survival exercise, our team score (34) was lower than my individual score (64). This is not to suggest that group collaboration is detrimental; in fact, our outcome was unique among the class and of great surprise to the professor and entire class section. To be sure, pooling resources, elaboration of material, and support and motivation, while perhaps more time consuming, typically offer improved results. In theory, this model implies that a team’s collective knowledge can maximize utility and ensure the best outcome given the available information and perspectives. In our case, our group dynamics were such that we did not effectively utilize the resources we had, and consequently pooled a very limited amount of information. Rather than minimizing our risk, we increased it.
I attribute much of our group’s failure at this simulation to process loss, which is defined as the problems that arise from lack of effective coordination among group members. A number of factors at play could explain the process loss which led to our counterintuitive results. First and foremost, one must consider the way in which group dynamics impact the overall productivity of group collaboration. Our team consisted of K, R, W, J and myself. K and W were quite opinionated, and in contrast, both R and J were quiet – I did not have a sense of what their true opinions were. K dominated the group by putting forth an idea and adhering to that idea in spite of other opinions. Both K and W were vocal in reiterating what they thought were the most important elements of survival. In our case, we took no measures to counteract the impact of clashing personalities. Subsequently, a lack of civil discussion led to uncoordinated efforts with regards to how we should begin to approach a