Team Development: 4 Stages Every Team Experiences

Bring the team together for a one-day meeting with a clear purpose. You and your teammates trust each other enough to get a little creative and innovative, while still delivering top-notch work on time. Managers and project leads need to keep their eyes open, but be mostly hands-off so the team can build muscle around working independently. Remove obstacles by coordinating tightly with adjacent and upstream teams. Validate your assumptions about what your customers need, then proactively decide what you’re not doing right now so you don’t get distracted. When you start to sense that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing, you’ve made it into the “norming” stage.

They begin sharing their ideas and giving feedback to one another, increasing the group’s overall creativity. After all, their ability to overcome obstacles and achieve their goals is a reflection of a management job well done. As you learn about their progress, you ask them questions about their processes and notice how they collaboratively provide constructive answers. As you communicate with them you notice how confidently they articulate their ideas. You book 1-on-1 meetings with team members to learn about each of their experiences. As you do this, you recognize clear and consistent points with each team member and the benefits of hosting a team retrospective.

Storm To Perform: The 4 Stages Of Team Productivity

You will know your team has made it out of the storm and into the norm when the clouds of discontent and conflict have cleared. Relationships should have improved, disagreements caused by differences in behavioral styles clarified and interactions should be respectful. Your team members should be playing what are the four stages of group development to their strengths and showing commitment to the team’s goals. As with any new situation, most people are on their best behavior. They are polite and a little reserved and may not share their true feelings or concerns. Trying to figure out how they fit into the situation can cause anxiety.

The performing stage is a point where team members start to feel satisfaction in their progress. They have an appreciation for each team member’s strengths and weaknesses. It might not be possible to plan an in-person meet-up, especially if your projects have short turnaround times.

Processes and Steps

This last stage is known as mourning or termination (Business, n.d). This model explains how the team develops maturity and ability, establishes relationships among the members, and the changes of the leader when it comes to the leadership styles. It begins with a directing style, then to coaching and participation and in the finishing stage, the delegation stage (Bruce Tuckman’s 1965, n.d.). Tuckman’s model is an explanation and understanding of how a team develops. As well, it helps to train people in group work enabling them to accomplish their full potential (Bruce Tuckman’s 1965, n.d.). As the name implies, the Storming stage of team development involves some conflict.

• Tuckman’s model has shown great results across many different businesses and for many different leaders.
• Boost motivation by helping your employees understand why their work matters.
• About 10 years after Tuckman created his original 4-stage model, he then added a fifth stage, which is Adjourning.
• Engineering management, leadership, software architecture, high-performing teams, professional growth.

It can be a great benchmark to both know where your team might have some dysfunction as well as where your team is at in the stages of development. Having this knowledge will better equip teams to meet their goals. Performing is the stage of team development when team members have productive relationships and are able to communicate and coordinate effectively and efficiently.

Learning Outcomes

Chances are, you’ll uncover some false assumptions as well – especially if your team had been cruising along in the “norming” or “performing” stage until recently. While those people are still available when we need them, we usually don’t. Most teams today work according to the principles of the agile movement. You don’t wait to be told how to do your job – you determine the best way to meet your objectives and get on with it. At the Performing Stage, managers can expect the team to start delivering predictable results and meeting deadlines. They can delegate more responsibilities to the team and focus on more strategic work.

During the storming phase, all members have an increased need for clarification before they are able to move on to the next stage. During the norming phase, team members begin to work as a cohesive unit again and the strengths of each member are realized. The team should focus on completing the remainder of the work, evaluating the overall process and celebrating accomplishments.

Signs and questions to look out for in the forming stage

The reason this stage is important is because it can be used as an opportunity to debrief on the project and discuss what went well, and what didn’t go well, so that improvements can be made in the future. Gallup have been studying relationships at work for over thirty years and their research has consistently found that having a best friend at work leads to better performance. Tasks can be assigned to team members, departments, and also dates to ensure your project stays on track.

If you have ever been on a team, you’ve probably seen its fair share of ups and downs. All teams go through their high periods and low periods– it’s part of the natural progression and development of teams. It can be hard to let go, but great teammates never assume that someone else will handle a problem or catch a mistake.

Conflict Resolution

The second stage of team development is usually the most tumultuous, hence the name. But don’t panic, not all teams go through this period of storming. The forming stage can be most compared to the first day of school or the first day at a new job. The setting is unfamiliar and uncertain to each team member as they learn about their fellow peers. https://globalcloudteam.com/ The first meeting between a team often consists of introductions, stating the purpose of the group, and outlining deadlines and task assignments. This stage can be difficult for some, but members are encouraged to take what they learn from each group they are part of to aid future groups in the progression towards the performing stage.