How to Recognize the 5 Stages of Group Development

Psychologist Bruce Tuckman developed his group development model in 1965 to explain how healthy teams cohere over time. Tuckman’s model identifies the five stages through which groups progress: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Each of the five stages of team development represents a step on the team-building ladder. As the group members climb the ladder, they morph from a random assembly of strangers into a high-performing team that can work toward a common goal. Here are Tuckman’s five stages of group development explained in detail:

1. 1. The forming stage of group development: The forming stage is the first stage in Tuckman’s stages of group development and is a similar experience to your first day on a new job or at a new school. In this phase, most group members are overly polite and are still extremely excited about what their future may hold. Since the group dynamics and team roles aren’t yet established, the team leader will often take charge to direct the individual members. During Tuckman’s forming phase, new team members may discuss team goals, ground rules, and individual roles, but since this stage of development prioritizes people over the actual work, it’s unlikely the team will be high-performing at this time.
2. 2. The storming stage of group development: The storming phase is like when you reach that point with a new roommate where you begin to notice their small idiosyncrasies that get on your nerves. For teams, the conflict often arises due to clashing working styles between team members. Some people may start to even doubt the team’s goals discussed in the earlier stage and will stop performing their necessary jobs altogether. This has a negative and stressful effect on those who keep up the hard work since the pre-established group processes no longer function smoothly. Some project teams think they can skip this stage, but it’s better to acknowledge conflicts now and work them out rather than avoiding them until they explode.
3. 3. The norming stage of group development: The next of Tuckman’s stages is the norming phase. This is when the team moves past their previous quarrels and begins to recognize and value their teammates’ strengths. During this stage, team members increasingly respect those who are in leadership roles. Now that everyone has begun to bond and familiarize themselves with the team processes, teammates feel comfortable giving each other constructive feedback as they work toward accomplishing new tasks. Since these new tasks often come with a high degree of difficulty, it is not uncommon for groups to regress back into the storming phase. Even if a group slides back into old behavior, members’ new decision-making skills will make conflicts easier to resolve than they were during the initial storming phase.
4. 4. The performing stage of group development: The performing phase is the happiest of all the stages of development. In this stage, your team performance is at an all-time high. This high-performance level means all team members are self-reliant and confident enough in their own problem-solving skills that they can function without oversight from the leaders. Everyone is working like a well-oiled machine, free of conflict and moving in sync toward the same end goal.
5. 5. The adjourning stage of group development: The fifth stage of Tuckman’s development sequence is the adjourning phase. This final stage actually wasn’t added to the Tuckman model until 1977, and it is the most melancholy of all the stages of team formation. The adjourning phase assumes that project teams only exist for a set period of time; once the team’s mission is accomplished, the team itself dissolves. You can equate this stage to a breakup since team members often find it difficult to separate from people with whom they’ve formed close bonds. In fact, this phase is also sometimes known as the “mourning phase” because it is common for team members to experience a feeling of loss when the group is disbanded.

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