5 Stages of Team Development: Helping Your Team Thrive

With remote teams, it’s easy to run on assumptions until you’re almost up against a deadline — and then you discover that you didn’t get the outcome you needed. Help your team check in with each other by holding daily stand-up meetings or mid-week progress reports to see if everyone is on track and has the materials they need. 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.

This final part of the team building process grants teammates closure and provides a chance to reflect on the experience. The forming stage of team development is the first step in team bonding. In this initial stage, group members gather and learn more about each other. Though some people might refer to the forming stage as “the honeymoon stage” of team building, it more closely resembles a first date.

Storming stage

At this stage, the group may begin to understand the largeness of a project or task at hand and become disheartened. Additionally, misalignment on goals and working practices can come up, creating clashes of personalities. Tensions may run high at stage two, so leaders can guide their team through this time by scheduling exciting team-building activities that foster understanding. During the storming stage, have employees take personality tests that recognize skills and identify shortcomings.

• There is no point in zeroing in on an idea that is not technically feasible to build.
• Having an agreed-upon method of raising concerns and discussing them productively is a great way to ensure that your group is prepared to handle such difficulties when they come up.
• The group development process is important because the system allows leaders to identify the correct stage of development and accurately assess the level of teamwork.
• Check out our e-book, The Art of The One-on-One Meeting, to see a detailed guide on how you can build a culture of trust with regular one-on-ones.
• Rina reports that things have settled down and she feels like the team is working well together.
• ✉️ What are your thoughts on the 5 stages of group development, and do you plan to implement this framework in your work or life?

The goal should be to generate many worthy ideas that can form the foundation for the New Product Development strategy. The major focus for stage 1 should be to arrange brainstorming sessions where solving customer problems is given precedence. The secret sauce for new product development’s idea success is simple — focus on product discovery and address the pain points of the target audience. This is why it is essential to gather customer insights through customer surveys, interviews, monitoring social media interactions, and ethnographic research.

Adjourning Stage tips

Now that remote work is gaining traction, webinars are an even more effective way to reach a target audience. Talk about the product, describe its features, and witness a positive impact on the bottom line. They chose to market their unique selling point instead of marketing and promoting the entire product. The New Product Development starts with developing the prototype followed by MVP. Here, the initial production cost is added to the markup percentage to come up with the new product’s final price. Marketing strategy is all about drafting a way to reach out to the targeted audience.

LogRocket simplifies workflows by allowing Engineering, Product, UX, and Design teams to work from the same data as you, eliminating any confusion about what needs to be done. If you become too absent during the phases of team development forming or storming stages, the team will struggle to progress. Conversely, if you’re too present and directive during norming, they won’t develop the sense of ownership needed for the team to truly perform.

Storming

A workshop to support teams to reflect on and ultimately increase their alignment with purpose/goals and team member autonomy. Use this workshop to strengthen a culture of personal responsibility and build your team’s ability to adapt quickly and navigate change. During this stage, team members can often be excited, anxious, or uncertain of their place within a team and will try to figure out their role in the group.

Without a clear understanding of what role each individual plays on the team, relationships can get tumultuous as team members struggle to find a role that’s right for them. The storming stage is the most difficult and critical stage to pass through. It is a period marked by conflict and competition as individual personalities emerge. Team performance may actually decrease in this stage because energy is put into unproductive activities. Members may disagree on team goals, and subgroups and cliques may form around strong personalities or areas of agreement. To get through this stage, members must work to overcome obstacles, to accept individual differences, and to work through conflicting ideas on team tasks and goals.

Forming

Leaders can motivate employees in stage four by celebrating their accomplishments and tracking team progress. At the norming stage, teams set norms and expectations for the group based on the team’s true potential identified in stages one and two. Team members might feel more relaxed now that they understand their colleagues and their day-to-day work, and may be more willing to share their true thoughts and feelings. The norming stage is also when team members resolve any issues that surfaced in phase two. Leaders can capitalize on this new camaraderie within the team and use this stage to refocus on previously established priorities and processes.

Last but not least, the Adjourning Stage — often called the Mourning Stage for obvious reasons — ends the whole project cycle. Depending on the leader of the group, the Adjourning Stage can either be a leeway into future endeavors or it could impact future collaboration. Since the Storming Stage can be infused with power struggles, I sat down with a leadership coach, Alexis Haselberger, to dive deeper. She told me that we must do our best to name the problems and address them properly — especially at this point, where we risk getting stuck in this stage. In fact, the Chief Marketing Officer at SplitMetrics.com, Olga Noha, told me that navigating the 5 stages of group development can pose tremendous challenges. But she said that we should try to be open to whatever’s coming our way.

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Furthermore, Rebecca Stroud Stasel cites that people have natural, deeply seated tendencies for either leadership or following leaders. Learn more about proactive work management in this infographic, review this guide to asynchronous communication, or see how you can use Teamhood for remote team management. Therefore, consider holding an event or at least a short meeting to gather everyone from the team one last time and thank them for the job that has been done. By doing this, you will send them onto new projects with new energy and motivation. As the team works out the majority or all of their issues, they form a sense of unity and a common goal, thus entering the Norming stage.

Take the time to reflect on your achievements and remind your team why they’re doing what they do. This is also a great opportunity to recognize and praise the talents of specific team members. Explore Agency Life and learn how to scale your agency, straight from agency leaders.

Stage 1: Forming stage

Conversely, team development acquaints each member with the talents and roles of other members. This combination of internal and external reflection strengthens communication, productivity, and well-being within the team. A team is a group of individuals who work together toward a common goal. Each member of a team is valuable to the common goal in their own way, using a unique set of skills to fulfill a team role.