Social Loafing
As an undergrad at the University of Michigan, I took a great course in organizational behavior that focused on team building and team performance. It had a significant impact on the design of our pro bono program.
It was in that class that I was introduced to the concept of "social loafing." The idea is that on many teams there are members who don't carry their weight, which builds resentment and risks the success of the endeavor.
This has been a widely studied phenomenon and there are now understood ways to build teams to minimize the likelihood of loafing (love that word). We have adopted many of these practices, but the one that stands out to me is the practice of creating clearly differentiated roles.
If you have a team where multiple people can accomplish the same tasks, it is common for one of these people to loaf, as they know that the slack can be picked up by another member of the team. On the other hand, if each role is distinct and requires skills that are unique to that individual, all team members know that if they don't play their part, the project will not get done.
For example, in building a website, the HTML developer knows that he or she is the only one who can build the site. The copywriter can't do it. The marketing manager can't do it. The graphic designer can't do it. There is clear responsibility, accountability and sense of purpose (and therefore reward). Similarly, the graphic designer is the only one who can do the design.
That is as elegant a differentiation in roles as you can get. Even on that team, roles like copywriter and marketing manager can lead to social loafing as others think they can also do marketing and writing. So, if the copywriter is not performing, other members of the team may step in and hack some copy, and therefore let the writer off the hook.
So, in pro bono work, where generous volunteers are trying to fit service into their busy schedules, the likelihood of loafing is very high. As you are managing and staffing pro bono projects, take time to think about how to scope and staff the project to create clearly differentiated roles that will increase the odds of a successful project.
For more on social loafing and how to minimize its impact, check out this resource:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Managing_Groups_and_Teams/Social_Loafing
