The Four Phases of Teamwork

Individual members might feel all of these things at the same time, or may cycle through feelings of loss followed by feelings of satisfaction. Given these conflicting feelings, individual and team morale may rise or fall throughout the ending stage. It is highly likely that at any given moment individuals on the team will be experiencing different emotions about the team’s ending.

As a result, you’ll establish yourself as a leader of a team rooted in transparency and trust while you communicate clear expectations and team principles. When your team learns more context about what’s required of them in this stage, they’ll feel more confident. Understand your people’s needs and make team management your greatest strength.

Signs and questions to look out for in the norming stage

Managers need to support each team member and ensure they can contribute and their peers are not blocking them. Frequent 1–1s allow managers to help their team members cope with issues and find a place in the team. 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. 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.

As you can see from the graphic below, at each stage the team experiences changes in level of trust, knowledge sharing, and ultimately their level of cohesiveness and effectiveness. Double down on building personal connections among teammates. When it’s time to celebrate meeting a milestone, consider indulging in a team dinner or day out doing something fun together. And, now that you’ve figured out established practices that help you collaborate effectively, share those with other teams. Maybe your team is humming along in the “performing” stage, then a new person joins. Likewise, a strategic pivot for the company sends your team back to the “storming” phase.

Why Experienced Programmers Fail Coding Interviews

The team members will therefore resolve their differences and members will be able to participate with one another more comfortably. The ideal is that they will not feel that they are being judged, and will therefore share their opinions and views. While working on a high-performing team may be a truly pleasurable and growthful experience, it is not the end of team development.

During the storming stage members begin to share ideas about what to do and how to do it that compete for consideration. Team members start to open up and confront one another’s ideas and perspectives. Older, well-established teams can also cycle back through the stages as their circumstances change. Engineering management, leadership, software architecture, high-performing teams, professional growth. Each stage of team development doesn’t necessarily take just as much time as the one that comes after it, nor the one before it. In the performing stage, you’ll notice fluidity with communication and overall conversations.