The 4 stages of team development: storming or performing? Officevibe

Team development guarantees the team’s long-term viability. The norming stage of team development is the calm after the storm. In this stage of team development, team members fall into a rhythm as a cohesive taskforce. The skills of each member are validated and utilized to execute the necessary tasks. While conflict may still arise in this stage, it no longer spirals into dysfunction. The team can handle conflict and proceed with the project successfully.

Getting through the storming stage signifies the resolution of conflicts and the emergence of unity among the members. In norming stage roles of individual members are decided, and a consensus is reached on who should be the leader or leaders. This leads to an increase in team performance as members learn to collaborate and focus on team objectives.

Stages of Group Development

Behaviors during the Storming stage may be less polite than during the Forming stage, with frustration or disagreements about goals, expectations, roles and responsibilities being openly expressed. During the Storming stage, team members may argue or become critical of the team’s original mission or goals. It is this methodology that underpinned the approach taken by the industrial company mentioned earlier. Following its lighthouse success, the business needed to understand how and where to invest to maximize returns across its network. By performing a network scan on a subset of its manufacturing value streams across more than a dozen sites, it identified five sites that together represented around 80 percent of the value at stake.

Clarity as to what success looks like at each milestone will give your team a much-needed confidence boost. Sounds great in theory, but putting it into practice can feel daunting. With a structured approach, you can improve your team’s performance at each stage of development. Your team members are taking themselves and each other seriously. They have moved beyond understanding differences to valuing them and leveraging individual strengths.

How Can Leaders Initiate Team Development?

And at the same time, team members may feel a sense of deep satisfaction at the accomplishments of the team. Individual members might feel all of these things at the same time, or may cycle through feelings of loss followed by feelings of satisfaction. Given these conflicting feelings, individual and team morale may rise or fall throughout the ending stage. It is highly likely that at any given moment individuals on the team will be experiencing different emotions about the team’s ending. In the Performing stage, the team makes significant progress towards its goals. Commitment to the team’s mission is high and the competence of team members is also high.

Without strong leadership, teams may struggle reaching the performing stage. By developing your own leadership skills, you can model collaboration best practices and help your team reach their fullest potential. As you build a new team, keep the stages of team development in mind so you can help individual team members reach their full potential and collaborate together effectively.

More Resources on Team Development

Meetings and other interactions will generally involve cautious attempts to get acquainted and discussions of big-picture concepts, as members determine norms and, in some cases, form cliques. Every team has different needs when it comes to their development. Which means, you may experience these stages in sequential order, or find yourself in a loop with one or more of the stages outlined above. 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. 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.

• In this free ebook, learn how to create a shared sense of purpose on your team.
• Some teams will never develop past this stage; however, disagreements within the team can make members stronger, more versatile, and able to work more effectively together.
• It’s the time where your team learns about upcoming projects and structures.
• It includes features such as centralized data management, activity snapshots, real-time keyboard recordings, and innovative visualizations for assessing staff performance.
• Norms result from the interaction of team members during the development process.
• The norming stage of team development is the calm after the storm.

This is the second stage of team development, where the group starts to sort itself out and gain each others’ trust. This stage often starts when they voice their opinions; conflict may arise between team members as power and status are assigned. At this stage there is often a positive and polite atmosphere, people are pleasant to each other, and they may have feelings of excitement, eagerness and positiveness. The leader of the team will then describe the tasks to the group, describe the different behaviours to the group and how to deal and handle complaints. Tolerance of each team member and their differences should be emphasized; without tolerance and patience the team will fail.

Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development

All the team members are very excited about their accomplishments. The team groups like ideas together and define their top five ideas. She reminds the team that all responses are valuable to the process. Chris thanks Julie for honestly sharing her thoughts and states this is why she’s a valuable member.

Goals should not be set too aggressively and focus should be on small victories and celebrating success. Explore the possibility to hire a dedicated R&D team that helps your company to scale product development. Everyone should try their best, but nobody will get it right on the first try or every time. Each team you are a part of is another chance to learn how you work with others and what kind of person you work best with. “Storming” can be thought of as “weathering the trying times that will come with the stresses of a project.” The latter doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue – so storming is efficient.

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

They simplify the sequence and group the forming-storming-norming stages together as the “transforming” phase, which they equate with the initial performance level. This is then followed by a “performing” phase that leads to a new performance level which they call the “reforming” phase. “With group norms and roles established, group members focus on achieving common goals, often reaching an unexpectedly high level of success.”[4] By this time, they are motivated and knowledgeable. The team members are now competent, autonomous and able to handle the decision-making process without supervision. Dissent is expected and allowed as long as it is channelled through means acceptable to the team. A strong team leader is the backbone of every high-performing team.

They try to conform to norms because they want to maintain their relationships in the team and they want to meet team expectations. Teams with strong performance norms and high cohesiveness are high performing. In addition 4 phases of team development to establishing your team’s mission or goal, it’s also important to set roles for individual team members. As you add people to the team, pay attention to what qualities and skills you’ll need to complete the project.

What is Team Development?

During the formation stage, team members discuss team goals, individual roles, strategies, and group norms. A new team’s members are unsure about the team’s goals, where they fit in, and whether or not they will get along. Learning how to work successfully with others is known as team development. Team members must cooperate with each other and work collectively to achieve a better result for their team. This, however, does not occur by itself; it evolves as the team collaborates.