Group work experience

I had group work opportunities in Eng150 course. The one that was successful was about Iowa flood in 2008. We had four people in our group, so we divided the whole project into 4 parts. We made powerpoint sides of our own parts separately at home and combined them before presentation. I think it very important to divide the project into parts and assign to each group members. In this way, every group member can contribute to the group.
I had one group work experience last semester with a bad apple in my group. We had four people in our group. Because it was close to the final, everyone was very busy. We appointed with each others to meet in the library to do the project, however, he didn't come for some reason. Without a group member, we could not get the project done during our first meet. So we decided to meet a second time, however, the second meet was at the weekend right before the dead week, and two of us miss the meeting that time. In the end, we finished the project by emailing each other, but its quality was very low.
I think every one should come to the group meeting with no excuses. However, as a group, we need to determine a group meeting time which works for everyone so that we could hear that he or she guarantee that he or she will come.