Planning process:

We started to plan our Trip with five people to the local area around Jegersberg and Barnehei. It was a three day trip including two nights in a tent. After we planned the trip we realized that we weren´t really motivated to go on a trip to the local Jegersberg and Barnehei. We faced two problems, a lack of motivation to do a Trip to the local area and the need to improve our skills in cross country skiing to be prepared for the mountain-safety-trip. In the end we decided to cancel the trip to the local area and go to another area where we can improve our ski technique. Even though we didn’t succeed in doing our trip, it was interesting to analyse our situation and realize the reasons why our first planning process failed.

Reasons for the lack of effectiveness

We found out that it is really important to integrate all ideas and suggestions of all group members when planning a trip, especially in the beginning. I think in our case we might have overlooked some skills in the planning process.  For example, some of us did not express our ideas, which is a signs for an ineffective group (outdoor leadership p.138). As a result we discovered the phenomenon of the social loafing in which reduced the motivation and effort to plan a trip to the local areas (Latané, 1986).

Reasons for the social loafing in the planning process:

Group size:

– The group size could be a reason for a social loafing process as groups get bigger they have more trouble coordinating their efforts (social loafing ppt 2009, p.15). In our case we were five people which might have influenced coordinating the trip or different interest levels but in our case it wasn´t a big issue.

Group norms:

–  “A norm is a parameter that defines acceptable behaviour in the group (outdoor leadership:137)”. In our case we didn´t talk about our norms and were not good influences on each other to reach our goals.  Poor communication about goals, expectations, and norms, led to our ineffective group performance and the failing of our planning process.

Other reasons were problems in the decision making aspect of the planning process. For effective decision making we have to make sure that the resources of the group are fully utilized, time is well used, the decision is of high quality, the decision is fully implemented by all group members and the group problem-solving ability is enhanced (outdoor leadership, p. 137). In our case the decisions were not fully implemented and in the end we wasted a lot of time with planning a trip we didn´t do.

Conclusions

Next time we will make sure that all members are motivated and participate in the planning process. If not we will try to find out the reasons and discuss them. For that we have to make sure that everyone can argue their perspective and that we don´t have barriers (physical barriers, attitudes or personal distractions) to communication (in our case the wish to improve cross country ski technique for the mountain safety trip) (outdoor leadership, p.137).

We further should talk about our own behaviour to find a common norm. In some parts of the planning process we need a leader that leads the planning process in an autocratic way, but especially in the beginning of the planning the leader has to be democratic and take every group member serious especially in making decisions.

For our next planning process we have to talk about our motivation and ask our self some simple questions to structure our process:

– What do we want to do? (includes every idea even though it’s unrealistic)

– What is possible (make sure it is not too far away, the route is challenging for all group members, check the needed gear for the trip)

At the start of our planning process, if every member in our group was on the same page as far as: transport, gear, distances, rout, emergency exits etc. then our trip would have been a success.