All the stages of team development begin with a single stage and that is the forming stage. These companies are investigating how to begin their digital-transformation journeys. They need help to identify the full value that Industry 4.0 can bring to their business and to develop a network-wide strategy and deployment road map. ✉️ What are your thoughts on the 5 stages of group development, and do you plan to implement this framework in your work or life? Drop us a line at for a chance to be featured in this or one of our future articles.
A helpful template in this stage is the Idea Management Portal to source ideas and prompt reflection and ideas. At the core, team development is a process that grooms different individuals working independently to cooperate and work together to execute goals and responsibilities cohesively. Team learning is often necessary to execute healthy team development and providing your team with the tools they need to thrive is good for them and your organization. These tools may include team development discussions, training, or workshops. Some teams adjourn with silence, some with celebration, and others with sadness. Regardless of the length or success of a project, each team deserves a hearty affirmation of its concerted efforts.
Stage #4 — The Performing Stage
Not only are you proud of the team development they’ve exemplified, but you’re also proud of their individual capacity to stay in integrity with the quality of their work. This is a concept that psychologist Bruce Tuckman came up with to properly understand the progress of various teams and the development of key contributors. stages of team development with examples Ultimately, helping your team grow and develop will be more of a process than a one-time event. When everyone knows what their role is and how each person contributes to the team, it makes it easier to work together and achieve their goals. This applies to businesses and highlights the need for team development.
Using our tool, you and your employees can seamlessly work through the stages of team development through effective team meetings and one-on-ones, meaningful feedback, and progress tracking. Storming is the most difficult and unproductive of the five stages of development, but it is nevertheless vital to the team development process. When team members are upset with themselves, the task, or each other, they learn what causes the most dysfunction. With this information, the team can begin aspiring to a better team dynamic. As the real work kicks in, the project may present both technical and interpersonal challenges.
Building a Company Intranet Your Employees Will Love (and Use)
A large part of moving from Norming to Performing is empowering the members of your team to do work that excites and engages them individually as well as a group. Even when a team is performing at a high standard, there are often opportunities for individual action and proactivity that can help maintain growth and keep everyone in a group happy. Remember that a group is strengthened as its individual members do more of what matters to them and are engaged in creating the change they want to see. This is a structured process designed for teams to explore the way they work together. The tight structure supports team members to be open and honest in their assessment. After reflecting as individuals, the team builds a collective map which can serve as the basis for further discussions and actions.
Brier Cook is a seasoned communications expert with a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Carleton University. As an Engagement Strategy Advisor for Carleton University, she leverages creative marketing to address business challenges. Her multifaceted experiences enrich her content, making it both insightful and engaging.
How to Help Your Team Progress Through the Stages of Group Development
I like to play a game I call “Pin the Tail on the Tuckman” to uncover those differences in perception and align on where a team is at. 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. You’re not sure who is doing what, or how to break this epic project into smaller components. However, remember that the team’s success was also dependent on the collective efforts of all team members. Now, their anxiety has been fully satisfied and they are pleased with themselves and the progress of the team generally.
- In the performing stage, teams are in sync and work more efficiently together than at any previous stage.
- With this information, the team can begin aspiring to a better team dynamic.
- A workshop for a team to reflect on past conflicts, and use them to generate guidelines for effective conflict handling.
- Check out our e-book, The Art of The One-on-One Meeting, to see a detailed guide on how you can build a culture of trust with regular one-on-ones.
- The learnings from this activity can then be used to resolve issues, strengthen the group and help move the team from Norming to Performing.
Tuckman’s model of group development can help you understand how a team might theoretically grow, but alone it isn’t sufficient to help your team succeed and meaningfully develop. Being conscious of the process is a great place to start, but it’s worth remembering that reaching the performing stage isn’t a given and many teams get stuck early on. The end of a project is naturally a great time to reflect, collect final learning points and think about what you might improve or do differently in the future. For an adjourning team, this can be an important step in enabling further growth and supercharging future projects and ensuring everyone is well positioned for whatever they do next. Crucially, you and your team should find some way to share learning points through reflection and then document them effectively. In this stage, groups often become more comfortable asking for what they need in a productive manner and offering feedback on team and leadership performance.
solutions
It is highly likely that at any given moment individuals on the team will be experiencing different emotions about the team’s ending. Have you employed Tuckman’s stages of team development model when working with your own team? We’d love to hear about how you helped your team grow and what methods you employed while doing so! Get in touch in the comments section below and share your experiences with the community.
They don’t know each other well enough to depend on each other for their specific expertise or knowledge. Often called Tuckman’s stages of group development, or the Tuckman model, this framework has, over time, been beneficial for both individuals and organizations. It might not be possible to plan an in-person meet-up, especially if your projects have short turnaround times. Create an agenda and establish a document to track ideas and comments during the meeting.
Key actions to support Performing
For instance, if the team develops a new work process for improving the customer experience, members may be asked to oversee the new and improved process. It’s also known as the transforming process and happens after the team accomplishes what it set out to do. Afterward, it starts to dismantle itself in readiness for other tasks. Mourning because team members are paring after forging deep relationships during the project and celebration for a job well done.
Team learning is a behavioral process of seeking, gathering, discussing, and implementing methods of team success. Whether through training, group initiative, or innovative leadership, team learning is an action step that ensures healthy team development. This paper became the groundwork for the stages of group development. Tuckman’s foundation helps team leaders understand how team dynamics change as a project progresses. By understanding the five stages of group development, you can support your team as they’re getting to know one another to quickly enable collaboration and effective teamwork. Having fun together can be an often overlooked element of team development.
Why are 5 Stages of Team Development Essential?
A communication plan is an outline of how your team is going to communicate important information to key stakeholders. Clarity on the various avenues of communication allows team members to effectively get work done, understand their roles, and know where to find the information they need about work. Establishing a communication plan can help you do all of these things in a way that’s easy for your team to follow. Establishing group collaboration early on can help reduce the impact of—or even prevent—this stage of group development. So when conflicts do arise, it’s important to resolve them with effective problem-solving as they come instead of avoiding them. Having a team with already existing collaborative skills can help resolve conflicts more easily and faster.