What is team development?
Team development is the process by which teams come together and organise themselves to achieve their objectives through progressing tasks and developing effective relationships both within and outside the team. A well-used team development model was defined by American psychologist Bruce Tuckman. His work describes the stages of team development that a team typically experiences:
- Forming: Where team members are focused on learning about the objectives of the team, tasks, processes, rules and ways of operating and getting to know each other. People may be unwilling to share their real opinions for fear of offending others or disrupting progress. Productivity and conflict are often both low as team members explore how to work together.
- Storming: As team members become more familiar with one another, their work and the expectations, their confidence and willingness to challenge increases. They may begin to challenge the way things are done, objectives, leadership and one another. Conflict can emerge as people share opinions, assert themselves and feel more able to disagree with one another. During this period, employee turnover may increase, and productivity and performance may be negatively impacted.
- Norming: Here the team works together, collaborating to reach common understanding and agreement on goals, roles and how work is done. Interpersonal relationships improve, and there is greater openness between people. Productivity and performance improve.
- Performing: Characterised by high levels of commitment, a performing team is stable, organised and efficient in the way it works. Consensus is easily achieved through a shared understanding of goals and motivations, and when conflict emerges, it is dealt with effectively. High levels of engagement are mirrored in high productivity and performance, and employee retention and talent attraction are easy.
This process is not linear, and the pace at which teams move through each phase of team development can be affected by many factors such as the size of team, the culture in which it operates and familiarity with the task. Teams that are norming or even performing can revert back to storming when faced with a significant change such as new joiners (especially the leader), a shift in objectives/expectations of the team, the tasks it is working on and/or factors outside the team, such as organisational culture, political, social or economic issues. Targeted team development activities, such as team building events, team planning sessions, the use of psychometrics to develop awareness and understanding of self and others, can all help accelerate the rate at which teams progress towards the performing stage.
