Miscommunication

I have been in many situations where there have been lapses in communication. Often this will happen when I am working on a group project with people I otherwise would not know. In this type of situation, people are worried about being portrayed as overly aggressive if they assign roles and tasks for others in the group. Unfortunately, this is often what is needed in a group setting. I remember working on a group project where we decided what needed to be done before the next meeting, but it was unclear as to who was going to do what task. Fortunately, we worked out the problem and got our work done, but it did take several emails between group members to sort it all out. The aftermath of this miscommunication was that it took way longer to complete the task than it would have taken if we took the time to go over our individual responsibilities. A miscommunication like this can be avoided by being organized from the start of the project and delegating who would do what task.