What Are the Stages of Group Development?

If you are the leader, remind members that disagreements are normal. But, because this stage focuses more on the people than on the work, your team probably won’t be very productive yet. (Although, it does make the stages easier to remember.) Each is aptly named and plays a vital part in building a high-functioning team. In this case, the adjourning stage can be used to reflect on how well the team has done and what skills the team members will take with them on their future endeavours. Even if you will no longer be managing this team, it is wise to make sure to end things on a strong note.

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. The high performing team is largely autonomous and a good leader will now be delegating, developing team members and maintaining a visioning role. In addition, the leader may need to step into a more directive role to ensure the team remains professional, and resolves conflict in a non-judgemental and healthy way.

Well, truth be told, some teams may skip this step altogether, all in the hope that they’ll avoid unpleasant conflict and the clash of ideas. At this initial stage, a glimpse of a future project leader may emerge, as the person who possesses the largest knowledge about the project’s subject takes unofficial charge. Team roles are established as well as ground rules for how the team operates (i.e. how things are done around here). Create open lines of communication between leadership and team members. At the forming stage, there is a substantial degree of nervousness and uncertainty among the team. Team members tend to approach each other and their duties cautiously, so there is usually a lack of conflict and almost no risk taking.

Resources to stay productive and profitable

Whether through training, group initiative, or innovative leadership, team learning is an action step that ensures healthy team development. Some teams reach a stage of development in which they thrive at their individual and collective tasks. The skills of each member are fully optimized, supervision is almost never needed, and members feel a strong sense of trust in one another. It’s also known as the transforming process and happens after the team accomplishes what it set out to do. Afterward, it starts to dismantle itself in readiness for other tasks.

Provide constructive feedback to all team members to ensure continuous growth and alignment with team objectives. Here’s the thing, the line between certain stages can get blurred since team members evolve at different times. How they trust each other to remain accountable for their tasks without dropping the ball. In fact, momentum doesn’t only seem high, it feels favourable.

It is highly likely that at any given moment individuals on the team will be experiencing different emotions about the team’s ending. Strong team cohesion lets people work at their full potential, not getting distracted by technical issues and interpersonal conflicts. Pursuing the same goal and being able to solve problems by themselves, without the leader’s help, teams demonstrate high performance.

Learn

AnalyticsGain insight about your company’s meeting frequency, productivity, and feedback culture. StreamsStreams are digital notepads to help you organize projects, share OKRs, and whatever else you dream up. Make sure team members have access to the team’s final product and any other documentation stages of team building or materials they need. Acknowledge the hard work and dedication that your team has put in. This will help to motivate them to continue to produce high-quality work. Let them know that you have faith in their abilities and that you are confident they can handle the task at hand.

The danger here is that members may be so focused on preventing conflict that they are reluctant to share controversial ideas. By gaining a better understanding of the 5 stages of team development, you should have the tools you need to help your team collaborate more efficiently and productively. The fourth stage of team development is usually where teams reach their peak performance. This is because the level of cohesion and trust between team members has steadily increased over the three previous stages.

How to help your team through the stages of group development

At the end of the day, when your team implements the five stages of team development, it sets up everyone in all roles for success. And, when all is said and done, going through all five stages of team development sets the team up for success. There’s an increased chance of reaching the product goal within the timeline originally set during the forming stage.

Trust builds, productivity rises and the team begins working together toward the common goal. At this point, the leader should draw out the opinions of all members and leverage the diversity of the team. As conflicts arise, the leader must take quick action to deal with the issue and maintain the positive climate. The team seamlessly trusts, collaborates with, and supports one another.

Encourage all ideas and provide positive feedback when an idea is presented. When teams are forming, they are just getting to know each other. To advance from this stage to the next stage, each member must relinquish the comfort zone of non-threatening topics and risk the possibility of conflict. Use a collaboration tool like Teamwork Spaces to organize and store your documentation.

Do the five stages of team building always occur in the same order?

While all phases of team building are important, many leaders consider storming to be the most important stage of team development. During the storming stage, team members encounter initial obstacles and master conflict resolution. This is one of the most crucial points for building trust and forming resilient relationships. 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.

• Speaking of ends, the Adjourning Stage is the bittersweet cherry on the top of each team and project, and it will happen whether you want it or not.
• In the performing stage, there’s a sense of focus, purpose, and alignment from everyone on the team, no matter their role.
• The team can be considered “senior” at the performing stage.
• Be prepared to step in and help ease people’s anxieties about the project.
• Ultimately, the goal is to make sure you can provide psychological safety as a baseline, evaluate team patterns of behaviour and notice when you’re in a negative cycle.

Anxious with uncertainty, you are super polite and afraid of making the wrong move, as it could lead to unexpected consequences. By guiding your team through the stages of group development, you also reduce bottlenecks and other hold-ups that might be caused by poor group dynamics. Track the time you spend on individual tasks, to build daily and weekly reports of the time you spend on the project. You can then further analyze your reports to see how much time you need to finish individual project tasks and whether there is room for improvement in that time. Many teams will continue to have bouts of “Storming” from time-to-time, for example, after an organisational change.

Establish your team’s mission early

The team has a strong sense of identity, morale is high, and team loyalty is intense. Individual team member behaviour can vary greatly during this stage. You may find that some team members are openly hostile and attempt to dominate the group, while others withdraw and remain silent. Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

#3 Norming Stage

After the storming stage, they recognize behavioural patterns, strengths and develop foresight for upcoming roadblocks. You approach your team to learn about their bottlenecks, roadblocks and concerns. You come to realize that, by involving yourself, they’re burdened by an apprehension to speak up and would rather spend time rectifying the situation. While originally things had been going according to plan, roadblocks crop up during this stage.

How to facilitate group development

Now, if the team members have grown close over time, and grown accustomed to working with each other, they may mourn the fact that it’s now time to move on and work with other people. They get together once or twice a week to discuss their progress with the garden and chat about their lives. They’ve grown much closer since the day when they first decided to start the gardening project, and not a day goes by without at least two of them meeting. In order to understand how and when each of them spends time working in the garden, they track their time.

In agile software development, high-performance teams will exhibit a swarm behavior as they come together, collaborate, and focus on solving a single problem. Swarming is a sometime behavior, in contrast to mob programming, which can be thought of as swarming all the time. 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.

The adjourning stage is a time for both mourning and celebration. Mourning because team members are paring after forging deep relationships during the project and celebration for a job well done. In the adjourning stage, most of the team’s goals have been accomplished.