The first meeting needs to lay the ground rules for the enterprise. Conflicts and disagreements will happen -- in fact, you want them to occur, because they make your final product better -- but without personal attacks or inappropriate comments about other people. If such issues do arise, the discussion stops until the members involved solve the problem. The Colorado State Writing Lab website emphasizes the importance of creating rules for meeting attendance and deadlines, as well as consequences for insufficient performance. Also, all group members must share their relevant experiences and strengths in terms of the project.
Litemind.com suggests starting your work with a "brainwriting" session, to explore all possible aspects of the idea. Brainwriting overcomes some of the problems with brainstorming, which has one person at a time submit ideas to be recorded on a board or chart. Brain storming, the website argues, discourages shy people, risks the loss of an idea while waiting your turn and may "harden" the project's focus before people can suggest more creative, off-the-wall ideas.
In brainwriting, each person has a piece of paper with the project topic written at the top or in the middle. All members take a few minutes to write down some ideas, then they exchange papers with another member and write at least three ideas on each sheet. By the time the sheets make it through the entire group, each paper contains a wealth of idea and approaches from which to choose.
Once the group defines the creative direction of the project, they need to delegate the work load. In an academic or training setting, all members usually write part of the final document, with negotiations that determine which members bring to the next meeting specific research or writing to support the project. Alternatively, some groups agree to work on research separately, and use their meeting time to sit together and write, which does take longer and requires more meetings.
In the draft stages, group members should explicitly agree not to worry about writing mechanics and spelling, to get a free flow of written work. Copy editing occurs in the last stage. Once the group has a final draft, "read aloud" sessions can serve as one of the best editing tools, as members work together to edit their writing.