I think I may have post this story once before. I went back to school when I was 28 to get another degree. By this point I had about 6 solid years working in consulting of which 3-4 were in project management.
One of the classes I took was industrial/organizational psych because I enjoyed it the first time I took it and I wanted a fun elective that was also relevant to my career. A large part of the grade is a pretty substantial group project. The class was about 80 people—or maybe 60, it was bigger than usual but not intro to polisci huge—and we were divided up into groups of ten. Each group was assigned some theory of organizational management to present at the end of the year. This project is obviously a case in point.
I meet after my group after class and we schedule the first real meeting for the following week. Over email we divvy up a few minor research tasks so we have some material to discuss when we meet.
The following week eight of us meet. Two are MIA. Of the eight, I and three others actually do the tasks. They others just blew it off and gave various excuses. During the discussion and task assignment the lazy four didn't participate much. After the conclusion of this meeting I emailed the other three individuals who actually did the work and proposed the idea that the other six individuals are probably just boat anchors and relying on them will only lead to disappointment and last minute scrambling to finish the work. We needed to address this now because no body wants this kind of stress at the end of a semester. The others agreed and after a bit of discussion we decided to simply remove them from the "task force". I sent the other six an email informing them that their effort and participation were no longer necessary. Their only obligation was to read their prepared script the night before our assigned day and to be present for the presentation.
I get emails back over the week from all but one agreeing. Some seem very excited that they're not expected to do anything. The project went pretty smoothly. There was really not as much work involved as we had feared and I think most of the challenge came from coordinating such a large group. We had just approached the problem by making the group lean rather than trying to find a role for everyone.
There were two minor hiccups: 1) one of the individuals who made it to the first meeting but didn't do their task wanted to make a few additions. She emailed me at 11ish the night before. I replied with a "no". 2) one of the members simply not showing up. He or she (I have no idea) was one of the people who no-showed the first meeting. I have never met them. I don't even know if they were still in the class. This was fine too, their part was just read by someone else.