This has been the story of every group project i had ever done, from school through to two different degrees. I only managed to make it work once, on the last group project i had to do.
It was a 9 member group for the usual crappy random University project. We had to do extensive literature searches on a topic, then present the information in a PowerPoint presentation. From the moment the project was announced i knew it would be the usual clusterfuck, so i took steps to remedy it. It helps that I am now in my late 30s, and have some experience with workplace projects.
In the first group meeting I told everyone I had a plan to ensure we got it done without having to do any real work. We would do this by each doing a tiny little part of the whole (like a group project should be done). The first two people would do literature searches on one different subtopic each, and select the most important 5 references each while making sure they were brief and to the point. Members 3 and 4 would read those references and type up or highlight the relevant facts. The next person would take the relevant facts in bullet point format and draft a speech/presentation. Member 6 would edit the presentation text to a polished product that could be read in the correct amount of time. Number 7 was to create PowerPoint slides to match the presentation transcript, and annotate each slide with what parts of the transcript should be read out on each slide, but would not bother with the exact formatting. The next person would add in images into the PowerPoint, pretty up the formatting, and make sure every image and source was referenced. Both 7 and 8 would make sure the presentation ran to time. Person 9 did nothing but present, and had a choice of rehearsing or just reading from the transcript on the day.
Each person in the chain was expected to put in no more than a few hours work, and each person had an allocated time in which to complete their task. We made sure to allocate 25% of the time as slack in expectation of laziness or delays. The agreement was that if one person didn't bother doing their part, that we would all report them as a non contributing member.
The only thing left to do in the first meeting was to brainstorm a rough structure of the finished presentation, so that each person would have some rough idea of the overall plan as they went. We each volunteered for roles based on our preferences or skill sets. The lazy people could do the easiest tasks and still feel like they were important. Result was one of the best presentations in the class, and everyone did a minimal amount of work. We never even organised a second meeting. I showed up to assessment day not even knowing what our final product would look like, so i got to be pleasantly surprised along with everyone else.
tl;dr - treat it like you would any project in a real workplace and don't try to micromanage every step.