Tuckman Model of Team Development: A Detailed Blueprint to Build Awesome Teams

Norms result from the interaction of team members during the development process. Initially, during the forming and storming stages, norms focus on expectations for attendance and commitment. Later, during the norming and performing stages, norms focus on relationships and levels of performance.

She holds a bachelor’s in English Creative Writing and Communication Studies and lives in Denver, Colorado. In her spare time, she’s usually somewhere outside — and enjoys poetry and fiction. If you’re a leader looking for ways to retain your team , here are 6 tactics to consider.

tactics to develop your team

Accomplishments in team process or progress are measured and celebrated. Team effectiveness is enhanced by a team’s commitment to reflection and on-going evaluation. In addition to evaluating accomplishments in terms of meeting specific goals, for teams to be high-performing it is essential for them to understand their development as a team.

Your team has reached the norming phase if employees begin to recognize one another’s strengths. In this phase, employees will also begin to understand each other’s roles and become more comfortable working together. If you’re looking to develop your team or assemble a new team, consider the role of the leader.

For example, teams might add testing steps at this phase or require including a certain amount of detail for each Product Backlog Item. It’s easy for everyone — including you — to get in a tunnel and focus on their own lists of tasks. Make sure everyone steps back each day or week to take a look at the larger picture. Any insights should be shared in a public forum so everyone in the company can learn.

Conflicts are usually minimal since members are too newly acquainted to have any. As the name suggests, team development entails training and supporting a group of individuals so that they work as a cohesive unit to realize the intended outcome. An excellent example of team development is when colleagues from different departments forming team development partner to work on a project. Getting everyone on the same wavelength sounds easy on paper, but that isn’t the case. It’s challenging to balance common and individual goals within a team especially during moments of discord, failure, or stress. A team comprises individuals brought together to fulfill a common goal.

During forming, the Scrum Master might choose to facilitate a self-organization session. This session often happens when there are enough team members to potentially form more than one Scrum Team in support of the product. At the self-organization session, the Scrum Team determines how best to organize themselves to support the Product Goal and whether multiple cross-functional teams make sense. In a recent class, a student asked, “What are the common difficulties teams face when starting with Agile? ” To answer this question, I refer to the Tuckman Model of group development, shown below. 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.

The Stages of Group Formation, and how they Aid Your Teams Success

An activity to support a group to get to know each other through a set of questions that they create themselves. The activity gets participants moving around and meeting each other one-on-one. It’s useful in the early stages of https://globalcloudteam.com/ team development and/or for groups to reconnect with each other after a period of time apart. While most teams progress through the stages of the Tuckman model of team development in a linear fashion, it is not inevitable.

• Initially, they might not understand each other’s expectations and roles.
• If a team is poorly managed, have changing team members, or is disbanded early in the process, they will never go through all of the 5 stages.
• Developed in the 1960s, Bruce Tuckman outlined five stages of team development that continue to prove useful, if not comprehensive.
• Whether through training, group initiative, or innovative leadership, team learning is an action step that ensures healthy team development.

It’s a great time to celebrate the team and encourage teammates to celebrate one another. This could be a great phase to introduce mentorship or coaching opportunities. With personalized support, you’ll continue to see your team flourish and grow. Inclusive leadership also results in 54% lower employee turnover.

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Most high-performing teams go through five stages of team development. This is where groups begin to settle into a working pattern, appreciate one another’s strengths and become more effective as a team. Such conflicts can hinder progress and even grind everything to a halt. Thankfully, you can deploy some strategies to ensure your team navigates the stages without issues. For instance, outlining the team’s purpose and mission at the forming stage and retaliating during subsequent stages ensures no one loses sight of the common goal. If you’re a team leader, it’s best to remember that an overlap between the storming and norming stages may appear.

During the first meeting, team members also learn their roles and what’s expected of them as they work towards attaining the shared goal. Ground rules that will govern the team get outlined at the forming stage. Team leaders need to facilitate introductions and highlight each member’s background and skills. In any team, members can’t work in tandem if there’s no chemistry between.

This combination of internal and external reflection strengthens communication, productivity, and well-being within the team. By establishing clear roles and responsibilities, you’ll empower ownership over your team. With clear expectations and clearly communicated goals, you’ll set your team up for success.

There will be a higher chance of realizing the project goals within the timelines set at the forming stage. At the adjourning stage, team members will be eager to collaborate again on other projects. The adjourning stage is an excellent opportunity for team leaders to encourage long-term relationships, celebrate the project’s closing, and reflect on the team’s progress and efforts. In an organization, the adjourning stage could translate into a change in employees’ job responsibilities. For instance, if the team develops a new work process for improving the customer experience, members may be asked to oversee the new and improved process.

Team is Storming

People become familiar with others’ strengths and weaknesses and learn how best to use them. At this point, there should be fewer arguments between teammates because everyone understands their role on the team. 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. The Scrum Master’s job is to get the team through the Forming stage as quickly as possible. For Agile teams, the goal of the Scrum Master or Agile coach is to get teams through the first three phases as quickly as possible so that the team can get to Performing.

Being conscious of the process is a great place to start, but it’s worth remembering that reaching the performing stage isn’t a given and many teams get stuck early on. Most teams are comprised of people from different disciplines, backgrounds, and skill sets. Particularly when people with vastly different roles work together, expectations around needs, dependencies, and how to ask for help can be very different. Where this exercise also excels is in giving everyone in the group room to respond and find better ways to work together in practical terms. All teams are made up of individuals with varying skill sets, perspectives, and needs.

Give the group room to grow

This doesn’t mean your team won’t see additional challenges or that there won’t be opportunities to improve. The first version is for teams who want to get to know each other better. The second version is for teams who want to explore how they are working together as a team. To run a great meeting, keep the team aligned, and the agenda short, specific, and action-oriented. At one point or another, every team reaches the end point and enters the Adjourning stage. Madeline is a writer, communicator, and storyteller who is passionate about using words to help drive positive change.

If new issues arise and the team fails to solve them, they can go back to the Storming stage and thus reduce their productivity once more. Once the team members get to know each other, they move onto the second stage. Storming is the most difficult of the five stages, as the team has to learn how to work together despite their individual personalities.

Storming

In this stage, it’s common that employees may feel a mixture of excitement and nervousness. Regardless of where you are in your team-building journey, there are steps you need to take to effectively develop your team. At BetterUp, we’ve studied the science behind what makes teams — and individuals —find their purpose, clarity, and passion. We know leaders are looking for ways to make their organizations more innovative and productive. During the storming phase, I expect the team to refer to their team agreements frequently and possibly update them based on conflicts that arise.

Challenges have a minimal impact on team performance and morale because members have strategies for resolving them without compromising project timelines and progress. A team’s performance is at peak capacity at this stage because everyone has learned to identify and leverage each other’s strengths for the common good. During the forming stage, team members are often optimistic and enthusiastic about getting started.

Some need only a little guidance; others require extensive coaching. The important thing is to identify which style suits your current situation. When a team focuses on the balance between all three, it can elevate performance.