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Stages of Team Development

Stage 1: Forming
Forming is the word used to describe the first stage of the team’s development. In this stage, the group is first coming together with the goal of becoming a team. Team members’ behaviors, prompted by their feelings of excitement, anxiety, and dependence, raise certain issues, which must be resolved if the team is to mature.

Members may feel:

• Excited. They may be eager to participate and look forward to a new undertaking.
• Anxious. They may feel some anxiety about what the team will accomplish, about working in a team setting, or about working with people they don’t know.
• Dependent. They may feel uneasy about relying on others for success or unsure about what they can contribute.

These feelings may bring up the following issues:

• Testing authority. How do members balance the desire to test authority figures with their dependence on these same figures to help the team get started?
• Inclusion. How do members feel about fitting in and meeting other team members’ expectations?
• Trust. How does the team get members to feel comfortable and develop trust in their fellow team members, their leader, and the process?

Because of all the turmoil at the group process level, teams in this stage usually do not make much progress on their charter assignment. The team must address these issues openly and honestly. If there are significant problems, these need to be resolved. During this stage, the team manager’s guidance is tested and it’s up to the manager to channel the team’s energy productively.

Leaders can help by:

• Adding structure. It is important during the forming stage to hold structured meetings, which help to focus discussions, clarify tasking, and define roles.
• Encouraging learning. Members need to ask each other questions to find out about expertise within the group and differences or similarities in how each individual works. It may be helpful to put this information in the context of defined personality types, such as the Keirsy-Bates or Myers-Briggs categories.
• Balancing participation. Balanced participation is an important aspect of effective teamwork. A team leader should set the pace for balancing participation by encouraging everyone to participate and by discouraging dominant behavior, especially in the first few meetings.

Stage 2: Storming
Now let’s look at Stage 2 of the team’s development, called storming. Team members begin to realize the amount of work that lies ahead and begin to panic. They may flail about like people who think they are drowning.

During this stage members realize the task is more complicated than anticipated. They see a disparity between the hopes they felt for the team when it was first formed and the reality of the work ahead of them. The aptness of the weather analogy implicit in the term storming will become apparent as we describe the characteristics of this stage.

Members may feel:

• Incompetent and confused. They may not be sure they have the skills to do their task. They may be confused about how to proceed.
• Frustrated. They may feel frustrated by the requirements of the team situation, the time it takes to get things done, and other factors.
• Negative. They may have negative feelings about the leader and other team members.

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