Project loafing in Projects

Abstract: Collective work, collaboration, and the exchange between individuals are inherent in our society. Those relations are important in all aspects of life: social and professional; and at an early age, people learn the importance of teamwork. Most companies and institutions rely on teamwork and team effort. Most of the time, this strategy is highly successful, but why do so many people don’t like group working? One of the biggest reasons could be a phenomenon called social loafing. Social loafing is the tendency of people to make less effort when working in a group than when working individually (Latane et al., 1979). There are many reasons why this happens, one example is that individuals tend to loaf when their performance cannot be evaluated (Harkins, 1987). Many experiments were made during the past decades to investigate why, and in which circumstances social loafing occurs. It is a big challenge to project leaders to avoid this behavior in their teams. How to keep a team motivated? How to make people work collectively keeping up the high efficiency and quality of the work delivered? The article will go through some of the experiments made to investigate social loafing, such as the simple rope-pulling task made by Ringelmann in 1913, to a more complex task that requires concentration from the participants; possible causes why individuals don’t give their best when working in a group; and to conclude, some measurements and actions to prevent social loafing to occur. Avoiding social loafing has big importance to project management because this tendency can be detrimental to a project’s success.