The 5 Stages of Team Development

This is a crucial point in team development where leaders can pinpoint bottlenecks, areas of improvement and couple them with team strengths to build forward momentum. This way, you can prepare for conversations that build trust while supporting your team and leading through each team development stage. Team members are able to prevent or solve problems in the team’s process or in the team’s progress. Roles on the team may have become more fluid, with members taking on various roles and responsibilities as needed. Differences among members are appreciated and used to enhance the team’s performance.

Arguments and disagreements take place as leaders and peers present different ideas. Norming is the third stage of group development, representing a time when the group becomes a cohesive unit and morale remains high. Performing follows the norming stage and is a time characterized by high productivity and unity between group members. The purpose of the group is fulfilled at the end of the performing stage. The final stage of group development is adjourning, which is when the group disbands following the successful or unsuccessful completion of its goal. Adjourning is used to provide closure and wrap up final group activities.

Scenario: You’re leading your team through the storming stage

During this stage, members focus mainly on how they fit into the group, as they try to gain acceptance within the team. Because of this, there might be a lot of individual what are the four stages of team development insecurity at the beginning. Members want their teammates to see them as competent and deserving individuals and as someone who can make a real impact on the team.

They can begin working toward fixing any current issues or decide if they are ready to move on to the next stage of development . Group work is often critical to the success of a larger operation or organizational goal within a business. Groups provide a business with multiple levels of insight and excel from the strengths that each member of the group maintains. However, groups are not meant to be completely successful from the time of their conception. Group development relates to the predictable stages of growth and change experienced by every group over time.

The 4 stages of team development: Where are you?

If the team is focused on their planned tasks, these changes should occur smoothly. However, some teams may not reach this level of interdependence and flexibility. If that is the case, the leader may need to step in to assist the team through these changes.

• Each stage emphasizes commonly experienced behaviours that are consistently present in the group and team dynamics (Stein, as cited in McShane et al., 2018).
• Project scheduling is a critical and crucial part of project management and planning.
• In addition to focusing on the scope of the team’s purpose and how to approach it, individuals in the formation stage are also gathering information and impressions about each other.
• During this closure or mourning phase, the group dissolves or disbands following the successful completion of their main objective.
• This is especially true in our current hybrid work environment – exacerbated by the turnover tsunami that is on the horizon.

At this initial stage, the team is essentially a collection of individuals beginning to think about the project and the role they’ll fill. Each person is operating from their personal vantage point, focused on the “what’s in it for me” reasons for joining the team. If the previous step “storming” is completed well and with minimal repercussions from any negative conflicts, the norming step will be a simple settling down of members and finding their groove. If “storming” is not done properly, however, “norming” can involve many team members checking out mentally or finding apathy for a project.

In addition to keeping communication flowing, it’s also extremely helpful to ensure that everyone knows what part of the project they are responsible for. This can reduce misunderstandings and help work to progress smoothly. 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. Disagreements are unavoidable on teams, especially when each person on the team has a different perspective on how to approach the issues the team encounters. When you all work in the same location, it can be easier to hash out problems quickly.

Here are a few leadership tips for each stage:

There may be regret as the team ends, so a ceremonial acknowledgement of the work and success of the team can be helpful. If the team is a standing committee with ongoing responsibility, members may be replaced by new people and the team can go back to a forming or storming stage and repeat the development process. With a thoughtful look at each stage of team development, you can solve challenges before they derail the success and progress of the team. You cannot treat a team the same way at each stage of its development because the stages dictate different support actions. These interventions, taken at the right time, will allow your teams to develop and successfully meet their common goals. This is why it is important to understand the fact that teams develop and mature over a period of time.

If managed correctly, the storming phase can actually make teams stronger when they come out of it. 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.

Team members may not like the work style of their new colleagues, challenge the emerging team norms and resist control. Managers must ensure that the team norms are discussed, accepted, and followed by each team member. In agile software development, high-performance teams will exhibit a swarm behavior as they come together, collaborate, and focus on solving a single problem.

Resources created by teachers for teachers

Sales professionals begin to fight for cherry accounts, posture for target rich territories, argue for origination fees and so on. They become more focused on their own stuff and their problems rather than on the company’s goals. You, as the sales manager, now need to utilize leadership and help create a common vision or goal. Show the team that by working together they can thrive, and not just survive. Tuckman’s model for group development is known and widely taught among business owners.

When you can identify which development phase your teams are in, it’s much easier to provide exactly the direction they need so they feel more focused and connected. The team meets and learns about the opportunities and challenges, and then agrees on goals and begins to tackle the tasks. They may be motivated but are usually relatively uninformed of the issues and objectives of the team.

For example, the seven-member executive team at Whole Foods spends time together outside of work. According to co-CEO John Mackey, they have developed a high degree of trust that results in better https://globalcloudteam.com/ communication and a willingness to work out problems and disagreements when they occur. Our discussion so far has focused mostly on a team as an entity, not on the individuals inside the team.

Find tools that don’t require hours of training and automate basic functions to get the job done. For example, if the project includes updating social media, sending email marketing campaigns, or even creating lead magnets, a tool like HubSpot is great for this level of marketing automation. Before committing to a tool, give your team some time to work with it and test it out to make sure it fits their needs.

The Norming Stage

The team, which will potentially remain the same in a smaller company or startup, can now move on to the next project. A fundamental component of both Human Resources Management and Project Management is the development of high-performing teams. Building teams that are cohesive, goal-focused, and possess both specialized and complementary skills to fall under the domain of both professions (Abudi, 2020; SHRM, n.d.).

Stage 4: Performing At Peak Productivity

After the storming phase, the norming stage of group development begins. The norming stage is characterized by cooperation and integration as a result of group members finally receiving clarity in their goals and addresses to their concerns. Norming represents a time when the group returns to being a cohesive unit and the morale needed to complete group tasks remains high. Group members acknowledge the talents, strengths, and skills of other members on the team, leading to a sense of community and motivation to work towards the group’s ultimate goal. Leadership is often shared, production increases overall, information flows easily between members, and group members become more flexible towards the ideas of others. Performing is where the team members have learned to efficiently coordinate and resolve conflicts.

Stage 3: Norming

Mr. Marcus sees Rina in the break room sixty days into the project and casually asks how things are going with the team and the Banisher. Rina reports that things have settled down and she feels like the team is working well together. She says that she met with each team member individually and explained their role in the project and gave them a chance to share any concerns they had. After the individual meetings, she had Jada from human resources come to a team meeting and conduct some team-building exercises and engaging teamwork activities. The result of the session with Jada was a Bug Banisher Team vision statement that everyone agreed upon.

During this stage some members lose focus and reduce productivity and they focus the tasks in three sections – completion of deliverables, evaluation and closing ( Stein, as cited in McShane et al., 2018). The second stage of team development is usually the most tumultuous, hence the name. These 5 stages of team development are still relevant today – perhaps now more than ever as more businesses work remotely. However, when teams reach the Performing stage, they do not necessarily stay there. Teams can often cycle back through, especially if conflicts arise, sending them back to Storming. If teams want to stay in the Performing stage, they have to continuously work on building trust and improving communication.