A constructed scenario for discussion. The names are fictional; the dynamic is composite — assembled from patterns common in graduate team projects, not drawn from any single real case.
A three-person team is four weeks into a six-week course project. They have submitted two interim deliverables and have one major submission left. The team is meeting with their advisor on Monday morning.
It is Sunday evening. Jordan has just texted Sam: “We need to talk about Alex before tomorrow. They’re not pulling their weight.”
Alex has attended every meeting. Their Zoom video has been off more often than at the start of the semester. They’ve completed the sections assigned to them on time, but the sections are shorter than what was originally agreed on, and Jordan and Sam have ended up rewriting parts of them. Three weeks ago, when Jordan asked at the start of a meeting how everyone was doing, Alex said briefly that “things have been a lot lately.” No one followed up.
Jordan has been informally tracking who does what. By their accounting, they and Sam have each been contributing roughly 40 percent of the work, while Alex has been contributing 20 percent. Jordan is irritated. The project quality matters: their advisor will read the final submission, and Jordan is hoping for a strong recommendation when applying for a fellowship next year.
Sam sees Alex’s work differently. They notice that Alex catches errors in shared documents that the others miss, and that Alex asks the most precise questions when the team meets with the advisor. Sam thinks Jordan is judging contribution by quantity and missing the qualitative dimension. Sam is also uncomfortable with the framing of Jordan’s text — “we need to talk about Alex” sounds, to Sam, like the start of a conversation that should not happen without Alex in the room.
What evidence would help you decide whether Alex is free-riding? What evidence should you not seek? How do you know the difference?
CATME’s five dimensions — Contributing to the Team’s Work, Interacting with Teammates, Keeping the Team on Track, Expecting Quality, and Having Relevant Knowledge/Skills — walk through how Alex might be rated on each based only on what is in this scenario. Do all five dimensions point in the same direction? If not, what does that tell you?
Jordan’s text proposes a private conversation between two teammates about a third. Compare this move with Field Guide Case Study 23 and Chapter 11’s “When It’s Not Working” indicators concerning indirect communication, side conversations, and gossip. Which ideas apply directly, which require interpretation, and what additional information would you need?
If you were Sam, what would you reply to Jordan? What would you say to Alex? What’s the difference between those two conversations, and why does the order matter?
Step back from the specific case. When you form your team next week, what norms would you want in your Team Charter that would help your future team navigate this situation if it arose? Be specific: what behavior would you commit to, and what behavior would you explicitly not commit to?
In the CATME Rater Practice, you rated hypothetical teammates against five dimensions, with behavioral anchors at each level. You were pushed to be more discriminating than students typically are.
Apply that practice here. If you were rating Alex on the five dimensions today, based only on what is in this scenario, what rating would you give on each one? Notice what you have to assume to give any rating at all — and which assumptions are doing the most work in your decision.
This scenario is meant for discussion, not solution. The pedagogical point is not to identify whether Alex is “really” free-riding. It is to surface the difficulty of making that determination from the outside, and to identify which team practices reduce that difficulty before it becomes a crisis.