The 4 stages of team development: Where are you?

As a team leader your job is to help your team reach and sustain high-performance.  Here's a checklist to make sure you're progressing your team through the stages of forming, storming, norming and performing. The Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing model of group development was first proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965, who maintained that these phases are all necessary and inevitable in order for the team to grow, to face up to challenges, to tackle problems, to find solutions, to plan work, and to deliver results. Today Public Health Departments are employing the teaming concept on a regular basis to make quality improvements to their critical processes. Team leaders and managers need to understand how teams mature and when to intervene when things are not progressing as desired. This Teamwork Observation Check List (√) is designed to help observe a team to determine how they are maturing, where some problems might exits, and some tips to overcome them.

The forming, storming, norming and performing model of team development.

Stage 1: Forming

Characteristics Displayed By Team Members	Observed	Not Observed
Signs of excitement, anticipation and optimism for the project
Anxiety about the task
Gathering information on who is on the team and why
Hesitant Participation – everyone at best behavior
Testing behavioral expectations
Watching appointed leader for guidance and direction
Process starting to be established
Avoidance of conflict
Information gathering - Interested in the why of the team, when we meet, how long will this last, what are roles, etc
Other(s)

Tips to facilitate a move to the next stage:

• Distribute a clear AIM Statement to all team members
• Let team members openly express concerns
• Discover common ground – use a Jo Hari Window
• Define what is appropriate team behavior
• Orient the team to scope of their task
• Clearly define what is to expected of each team member
• Introduce and train the team on the problem solving model to be used

Stage 2: Storming

Characteristics Displayed By Team Members	Observed	Not Observed
Decision making is difficult - ideas compete for consideration
Challenging the rules
Defined problem solving process introduced
Listening to others is a problem
Conflict is evident in group interaction - defensiveness or competitiveness
Some tension arises people trying to dominate – some attempt to establish themselves – power struggle
Minimal task accomplishment
Leader being challenged
Some trust being built
Clarity of purpose increases but plenty of uncertainties persist
Other(s)

Tips to facilitate a move to next stage:

• Constructive feedback on what is and is not working
• Even work load distribution
• Focus on the problem
• Develop ground rules
• Get the team away from conflict on competing ideas and get them to debate them constructively
• Different ideas compete for consideration; team members open up to each other and confront each other's ideas and perspectives.
• Do not let team members focus on minutiae to evade real issues.
• Start utilizing  the problem solving model
• Help the team build its trust level

Stage 3: Norming

Characteristics Displayed By Team Members	Observed	Not Observed
Positive feeling towards the leader emerge
Decisions are being reached through consensus
Members accept their roles and responsibilities
Commitment to the task is high
Comfortable and productive as a team
Follow a defined problem solving process
Team starts to become independent
Team leader can delegate tasks to sub groups
Other(s)?

Tips to facilitate a move to next stage:

• Reinforce ground rules at the start of each team meeting
• Follow the problem solving model
• Use Brainstorming to get ideas flowing
• Get team members use to using data to resolve conflicts
• Confront destructive behaviors when they occur

Stage 4: Performing

Characteristics Displayed By Team Members	Observed	Not Observed
Team clearly knows what it is doing – shared vision
Leader facilitates rather than leads
Team is focused on its improvement goals
Disagreements are resolved with data
Team functions with a high degree of independence
Team makes decisions easily
Team members understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses and use them to achieve their goals
Other(s)?

Tips to facilitate a move to next stage:

• Do not rest – finish the solving and fixing the problem
• Develop a hand off strategy – who will continue on the work of the team
• Conduct a lessons learned session on how we could have matured quicker to help other teams starting out

Summary:

Being part of a high-performance team can be a rewarding experience for those on the team. But if the team does not reach the high performing stage it can be extremely frustrating for team members. Being a high performing team requires time and commitment on the part of all on the team to get to that stage.

As a team leader your job is to help your team reach and sustain high-performance.  The Four Stages of Teamwork Observation Check List (√) was designed to help you be aware of the challenges the team will encounter.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman's_stages_of_group_development, accessed 5/19/2013