To properly and clearly identify these in group form, we use the 4 stages of team development. When forming a team, leaders need to build trust, set expectations and encourage involvement. Creating a team charter is a great tool to help your team, as is conducting different kinds of «get to know you» activities.
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. 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. Whereas performing was a blissful phase, the adjourning stage is comparatively melancholy, so much so that you might find yourself longing for the oft-detestable storming phase.
Adjourning Stage
It results in creating a mission, vision, values, and priorities. Kimberly Douglas, CEO of FireFly Facilitation and expert facilitator in strategic planning, can guide your organization through its strategic review and planning session. In this newsletter, she identifies deliverables and 3 key points that will maximize the ROI of everyone’s time. Also in this newsletter is what are the four stages of team development a free download of her Strategic Planning e-book where she recommends 5 key changes every team should make to their next annual strategic planning session. Kimberly Douglas shares her fascinating discussion with the artificial intelligence program Chat GPT on the important topic of team effectiveness. Don’t rely on your own perspective; get a broader view of the situation.
Many team members are more productive in norming as are the majority of teams. Given the increase in individual and group production, you may discover that your team needs to redistribute assignments and adjust its processes. With the work your team is doing only getting more challenging every day, those changes may create conflict and force your group to retreat back into the storming phase. The storming stage is arguably the most critical of all the team-making phases, but it’s also the most difficult one for teams to get through.
Scenario: Youre Leading Your Team Through The Norming Stage
Team members feel an increasing acceptance of others on the team, recognizing that the variety of opinions and experiences makes the team stronger and its product richer. Members start to feel part of a team and can take pleasure from the increased group cohesion. Timothy Biggs suggested that an additional stage be added of «norming» after «forming» and renaming the traditional norming stage «re-norming».
As roles solidify, it’s important to make those responsibilities clear and distinct so that everyone knows who is doing what by when. If you haven’t already, consider creating a RACI chart to let each team member know who’s responsible, accountable, contributing, and informed for a specific initiative. Have you ever wondered why it takes some time for a new team to hit peak performance? In this article, we discuss the different stages of team development and how leaders can guide their team through those stages to increase collaboration.
High-Performing Teams
We discuss more about how to get your team to this point below. As a team leader, it’s your goal to support and empower your team to help get their highest-impact work done. When your team members feel comfortable with each other, it’s easier to collaborate and work together. Alternatively, if your team is having challenges meshing, it may take them longer to get work done. To guide your team as it develops, it helps to understand the stages of group development. While working on a high-performing team may be a truly pleasurable and growthful experience, it is not the end of team development.
The forming stage of team development is the first step in team bonding. In this initial stage, group members gather and learn more about each other. Though some people might refer to the forming stage as “the honeymoon stage” of team building, it more closely resembles a first date. Teammates meet, discover https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ group member strengths and weaknesses, explore the basics of the project, and form group goals. Group members designate roles and delegate responsibilities with help from team leaders. This is the second stage of team development, where the group starts to sort itself out and gain each others’ trust.
Forming — Getting projects started
Tolerance of each team member and their differences should be emphasized; without tolerance and patience the team will fail. This phase can become destructive to the team and will lower motivation if allowed to get out of control. 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. Supervisors during this phase may be more accessible, but tend to remain directive in their guidance of decision-making and professional behaviour. The team members will therefore resolve their differences and members will be able to participate with one another more comfortably.
The meeting environment also plays an important role to model the initial behavior of each individual. Members attempt to become oriented to the tasks as well as to one another. This is also the stage in which group members test boundaries, create ground rules, and define organizational standards. Discussion centers on defining the scope of the task, how to approach it, and similar concerns. To grow from this stage to the next, each member must relinquish the comfort of non-threatening topics and risk the possibility of conflict.
Norming stage
Learning how to handle dissonance early strengthens a team and readies teammates to overcome more complex challenges with grace. Skipping this crucial development stage can stunt a team’s growth and delay true harmony. Understanding the team building stages helps a leader guide groups through the team development process.
- They’ll look to you for guidance and support, and when you establish a trusting two-way conversation, you’ll pave the way towards their professional growth.
- Discover all templates Made to solve challenges quickly and build stronger relationships with your team.
- To get through this stage, members must work to overcome obstacles, to accept individual differences, and to work through conflicting ideas on team tasks and goals.
- Alignment Get your people in the same mindset with OKR goals and 1-on-1 meetings.
Getting a team to gel, so to speak, takes time, effort, compromise, and the commitment to overcome what may seem impossible at the start at least. Any insights should be shared in a public forum so everyone in the company can learn. Strategic Planning is a critical part of an organization’s success.
Storming — It’s inevitable, there’s going to be conflict
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. Share a link to these meeting notes afterwards so that everyone has access and can review it later.