Four Stages of Team Development

Revision as of 21:03, 21 November 2014

Self-managed work teams need considerable time to show up its real aptitudes. What a group is capable of achieving depends in part on its stage of development. The team’s effectiveness can be improved if its members are committed to evaluate their work and receive feedback. However, the most important aspect is that every team member understands their development as a team.

Although every group’s development over time is unique, researchers have identified some stages of team development that many groups seem to pass through. The most famous model is the Four Stages of Team Development, developed by the psychology professor Bruce Tuckman in 1965. Tuckman proposed that all teams start somehow unproductive when they are first formed, and then they grow into a self-sufficient unit.

Although there have been other written variations from many authors, Tuckman’s stages of development – Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing – are a helpful technique to recognize the team’s behaviour and feelings during the process. Identifying and understanding why changes occur is a key component of the self-evaluation process. This can help the team reach the state of high-performance.

Introduction to the Model

Dr. Bruce Tuckman developed the Forming Storming Norming Performing model, which describes the way most teams approach high performance. In 1965, he published this theory in his article Developmental Sequence in Small Groups.

Tuckman’s theory provides an explanation to the development and behaviour of a team, how new relationships are created as it generates maturity and capability, and how the lider modifies his way to lead.

As time goes by, teams experience different changes. Because of this, Tuckman demonstrated that there are three key points that determine the team’s effectiveness. These are content, which relates to the work the team does, process, that focuses on how the team deals with its objectives, and feelings, which is oriented to relationships between team members. Tuckman’s analysis advises that most groups centralize only on the content part. He exposed that even really solid teams can have low efficiency because of ignorance to the process and feelings parts.

Tuckman proposed that there are four stages which describe the team’s life-cycle. The group dynamics change from low efficient and troubled to highly productive where the hard work leads to good resolution of the problems that arise. Tuckman’s theory states that these four stages are needed and crucial for a constantly growing group to confront new threats, deal with the upcoming issues, search for solutions, organize the work and bring up results. The stages are briefly explained in the next table.

[Reference 1]

Forming

Stage 1: Immature group

In the first stage, Forming, members try to get to know each other and search for agreement about what the group is seeking for and how should each one behave. This is also a situation in which it can be observed how each member works individually under pressure. In general, people’s behaviour is motivated by the desire of being accepted by the rest members of the group, without generating conflicts and trying that everything works as planned.

• Feelings
  During the Forming stage, team members are enthusiastic about becoming part of the group and anxious towards the future work. It is also important to have in mind that they may be concerned about how well they will integrate the group and if their knowledge will be useful for the team.

• Process
  Many behaviours can be observed during this stage. These mostly include members questions related to the teams interests and the uncertainty about which position they have inside the team. Members are highly motivated and behave adequately, but tend to work quite independently. They are more focused on themselves and usually this leads to ignorance of the problems and objectives of the team. For this reason, supervisors should manage the team during this stage.

• Content
  The team focuses on defining how the team will work, which the structure is and which goals they will seek. This is extremely important in order to orient the members during the development process.

In this stage, some serious issues are avoided because the members only focus on aspects related to the team organization such as work distribution or group meetings. Also each member starts gathering the information necessary about the group task. Although it is really easy to stay in this state, avoiding the conflicts does not lead to “get the job done”. Anyway, it is an important phase for the team’s development because the team starts to agree on the goals and to undertake the jobs.

Storming

Stage 2: Fractional group

In the second stage, Storming, it is observed that team members start to disagree about different aspects because they do not wish to proceed as the others want them to. These conflicts between members will derive on the rising of the most appropriate team leader although at first it might not be accepted by all members. During this stage, groups use to be especially susceptible.

• Feelings
  As the team work progresses to reaching the goals, members realize that their expectations were too optimistic. This may bring feelings of frustration towards the methods used until that moment. During this stage, members open up to each other and share their opinions, but feel that the rest judge them. This may lead to competence for consideration of different ideas. Team members will try to deal with conflicts in the best way they can and will observe how each one of them reacts to the opinions of the rest.

• Process
  Throughout this stage, it is possible to observe that people’s attitudes will be poor comparing to the first stage. This is due to disagreements about objectives, project expectations or responsibilities of each member. Members may express their displeasure regarding the team’s limitations and other member’s way to work, as well as the team’s goals and organizing model. Some members will fix their attention to trivial issues to avoid fronting the real problems.

• Content
  The team tasks during this stage are to be reconsidered. They should focus on the problems that are most important to find solution for. A good procedure should be divide big goals into smaller ones in order to achieve them step by step. Some other tasks, such as member skills or organizational conflicts, should be developed. In addition, the confusion experienced can be eradicated if the goals, tasks and roles are well defined.

Some teams find it extremely difficult to leave this stage because members do not try their best to solve their discrepancies. A negative aspect is that the initial motivation is lowered and the conflictive situation can be destructive for the team. The group should reach a minimum level of maturity to be able to move on to the next stage. As well, they should establish a leadership model and accept it. This way, every team member will feel comfortable to participate in its development.

Norming

Stage 3: Sharing group

• Feelings
  

• Process
  

• Content
  

Performing

Stage 4: Effective group

• Feelings
  

• Process
  

• Content
  

Further Development

Adjourning

Stage 5: Disbanding group

• Feelings
  

• Process
  

• Content
  

References

1. Bruce Tuckman’s Team Development Model, Rebecca Nestor for Aurora, 2013,