Using the Stages of Team Development MIT Human Resources

It becomes important to encourage them in order to feel comfortable with each other and with systems. If it’s not a project-based team, the adjourning stage may never occur. For example, the adjourning phase could only be reached by an employee who has decided to leave the team for a new role. Or another employee might make the decision to leave the company altogether. Generally, employees feel accomplished, proud, and excited to have reached their end goal.

One of the great tools that help in the team development journey is the Tuckman team development model. Tuckman model is an approach to team development that helps teams understand their current state and develop strategies to move towards their goals. Tuckman identified four stages of team development, including Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. Storming can be a difficult to manage part of the process, as it’s often where conflict, differences of opinion, and accepted norms can be challenged. At this stage, the group may begin to understand the largeness of a project or task at hand and become disheartened.

Provide opportunities for employees to stretch their skill sets and use new muscles to learn and grow. This phase occurs when new members join an existing team or organization. During this period, individuals are still learning about their roles on the team. In most cases, it can take several months before people feel comfortable with one another.

It’s best to set clear expectations at every stage so that the team has seamless alignment when proceeding to the next. Although members understand each other, conflicts may still arise at the norming stage of team development. Nonetheless, the conflicts can’t spiral into dysfunction because the team has gelled. Members have a more profound commitment to each other and the project’s completion, so it’s easier to handle conflicts.

Stage 1. Forming

A team’s effectiveness gets enhanced by a commitment to ongoing growth and development. That’s particularly for new teams because members need to get acquainted with each other first before they start to work towards the common goal. As the team members already know about everyone’s individual skills and background, they must now start searching for a way to collaborate and progress. In this stage, it is common for teams to have several divided groups, each of them with its own informal leader. Such groups are normally formed around different methods of working or different overall goals. However, the whole team must find a consensus on both to progress further.

At this point, relationships are formed and there is a clear and stable structure. The team is mature, organised and has a sense of consensus and cooperation. Problems and conflict, of course, do still arise, but they are dealt with effectively. The prime focus of the team is on problem solving and meeting goals; effectiveness is at its peak. Forming is the first stage of team development and is where a team first comes together, gets to know one another, and becomes oriented with the goals and purpose of the team. Navigating through the five stages of group development isn’t a walk in the park.

Do teams always follow the team development cycle?

Team members might turn their attention to ensuring that they deliver a Done, usable increment more frequently. They may also take on more self-management activities and may look for ways to improve their skills. The Tuckman model describes the phases that groups of individuals forming team development go through when they first begin working together as a team. In the first phase, Forming, teams are uncertain about the team goals and how to work together. In the second phase, Storming, teams challenge boundaries and get to know each other and how to work together.

• Like any form of development, it takes time and dedication to be effective.
• Each stage is distinct with its own set of feelings and behaviors.
• According to Tuckman, when new teams are in the Forming stage, members can be unsure of the team’s purpose, how they fit in, and how everyone will work together.
• Forming is the first stage of team development and begins as soon as a team is created.
• When it comes to building effective teams, there’s both an art and a science to doing it well.
• A team’s effectiveness gets enhanced by a commitment to ongoing growth and development.
• At this point, everyone is working together towards a common goal and producing predictable results on a regular basis.

They might detail such things as how members agree to handle conflict as well as standards for managing the Product and Sprint Backlogs. For example, it might outline where to house the Product Backlog, how to know when each item is ready for development and to close. Team agreements help teams move out of the forming stage faster because they reduce role confusion and clarify responsibilities. When your marketing team is remote, you can hire the most talented people regardless of where they’re located geographically. But you have to find a way to make sure team members are aligned and on the same page.

Scrum Values

A critical rule to emphasize is that team members should always listen to each other and feel free to consult and raise concerns. No idea is too stupid to raise, and no question is too silly to ask. That can only happen if a solid foundation gets laid and communication channels are kept open. Help your team in the Storming stage by letting everyone have a say. Listen to all sides of each conflict and facilitate a middle ground that allows the team to move forward.

But it’s critically important for leaders to help team members effectively handle conflict. The leader’s role will be to help alleviate the pain points team members may feel and clarify any misunderstanding. Yet, it’s also important for leaders and team members alike to value and appreciate their differences. Developed in the 1960s, Bruce Tuckman outlined five stages of team development that continue to prove useful, if not comprehensive. Each stage is distinct with its own set of feelings and behaviors. Mary has trained more than 1,000 people in Agile, Scrum and Kanban.

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But it’s more complex than simply assembling individual members into one group and giving the team a project or goal. News & Press Read the buzz about BetterUp Leadership Team Meet the leadership that’s passionate about empowering your workforce. Growth & Transformation Build leaders that accelerate team performance and engagement.

The performing stage is critical to the team, and reaching it usually portends the success that’s to come. It also precipitates team learning, which is the process of gathering, discussing, and rolling out the strategies for team success. Team learning can happen through group initiatives, innovative leadership, and training and is essential in ensuring healthy team development.

Set individual roles and expectations

This stage is marked by conflict and competition as personalities and working styles begin to evolve and the members of the team are unfamiliar on how to communicate with each other. Teams may also disagree on goals and subgroups or cliques may form. Many teams often fail at this stage so it is important to reduce and address this conflict so that problems do not occur later on. This is the first stage of a team coming together; a group of people have come together to accomplish a shared purpose and the results can be unpredictable. At the beginning, anxiety is high, people are uncertain and they are overly polite and pleasant. One of the stumbling blocks many individuals and groups face when making change is knowing how to start while also being intimidated by the potential largeness of the task.

As groups work together, conflicts in thinking, approach, or working practices can and will arise. To truly get to know your colleagues and build strong relationships requires honest self-appraisal, deeper sharing, and clear communication. This activity is a great way of quickly and efficiently helping a team share themselves with the group and go beyond the scope of some standard activities. In this guide, we’ll not only explore the stages of team development but also explore how you can move your team through them productively with practical tips, activities, and exercises. Most teams get to the adjourning stage at some point but that’s not always the case. Some teams get created for projects with endpoints, while others are ongoing.

Adjourning — Success! You made it

Learn more about proactive work management in this infographic, review this guide to asynchronous communication, or see how you can use Teamhood for remote team management. Help your team navigate this transition by appropriately marking this stage. Consider holding an event or at least a short meeting to gather everyone from the team one last time and thank them for the job that has been done. By doing this, you will send them onto new projects with new energy and motivation.

Encourage a growth mindset

If teams get through the storming stage, conflict is resolved and some degree of unity emerges. In the norming stage, consensus develops around who the leader or leaders are, and individual member’s roles. Interpersonal differences begin to be resolved, and a sense of cohesion and unity emerges. Team performance increases during this stage as members learn to cooperate and begin to focus on team goals. However, the harmony is precarious, and if disagreements re-emerge the team can slide back into storming.

Organize the agenda so that each team member has five to ten minutes to talk through their insights and ideas. Allow extra time to review the ideas the team shares and to answer questions. For your team to work collaboratively with few interruptions, they need tools that operate intuitively and will save them time. Find tools that don’t require hours of training and automate basic functions to get the job done.

This stage is a great time to introduce a teambuilding activity. You can run ‘teambuilding activity example’ through Google and receive many great examples. The activity I often use is a “Lost at Sea” teambuilding activity that takes ~30 minutes of class time in a class of 30 students. In the Performing stage of team development, members feel satisfaction in the team’s progress. They share insights into personal and group process and are aware of their own (and each other’s) strengths and weaknesses. Members feel attached to the team as something “greater than the sum of its parts” and feel satisfaction in the team’s effectiveness.

But they’ve also built strong personal and working relationships over this period of time. Employees might also feel a sense of disappointment and sadness now that the experience is over. As a leader, it’s important to be aware of your team’s stages as you continue to develop. If you want your employees to thrive, a growth mindset is a necessity.

During the Ending Stage, some team members may become less focussed on the team’s tasks and their productivity may drop. Alternatively, some team members may find focussing on the task at hand is an effective response to their sadness or sense of loss. Some teams do come to an end, when their work is completed or when the organization’s needs change. While https://globalcloudteam.com/ not part of Tuckman’s original model, it is important for any team to pay attention to the end or termination process. For leaders, it’s important to make sure any buried conflict isn’t simmering without a concerted effort to resolve it. It’s also important for leaders to stay close to the project updates and communicate expectations and deliverables.