This is a great time to reflect on what makes a high-performing team able to accomplish tasks and move through obstacles. Identifying each of the 4 stages of team development helps you underscore your team’s needs during each one. The key to moving through this stage is to make things as simple as possible.
Having a way to identify and understand causes for changes in the team behaviors can help the team maximize its process and its productivity. This is better than the waterfall approach as it allows for to-and-fro movement across the product development cycle as new user requirements emerge. Though the development stages of Waterfall and Agile are similar, these software development methodologies differ. Now that you understand where the stages originated let us go into the 4 stages of team development and discuss the specifics of each step and what they signify for your team. This is the hardest stage in the development of any team, and undoubtedly your team will be at its least effective here. This stage is marked by conflict and competition as personalities and working styles begin to evolve and the group members of your team are unfamiliar on how to communicate with each other.
Build relationships
In this activity from Hyper Island, group members create their own questions on post-its and trade them with other group members as they mingle and break the ice. 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. The role of the team leader is especially vital during Forming, as group members will look to them for guidance, direction, and leadership. The norming stage is more harmonious since teams understand why it’s important to ask for help, and how to come to you with questions when they need guidance.
Contact us to find your next developer to join your high-performing team today. Tight bonds start to emerge, and members develop empathy for others as they build a strong, collaborative work ethic. This can be indicative of their engagement with the project or their uncertainty about their role. When teams are initially formed, there is often a sense of excitement or anticipation. New team members may be eager to start work, although some may also feel anxiety about fitting into the team and whether they are up to the task.
Why Are the 5 Stages of Team Development Important?
For more advice, check out these lists of team building books and team building tips. Which means, you may experience these stages in sequential order, or find yourself in a loop with one or more of the stages outlined above. Your team is new and excited to learn about upcoming projects as well as about each other. You outline the work, as well as key milestones, deliverables and objectives.

Teammates move beyond the introductory forming stage and start putting plans into action. At this point, teammates have built up enough trust to feel safe sharing honest opinions with the others. In terms of the dating metaphor, this stage is akin to a couple’s first fight, a disagreement over something silly like a comment over a movie or a mess in the sink.
What are the five stages of team building?
Record and store the meeting in Teamwork.com so that team members can revisit it at any time if they need a reminder of the discussion. Choose a project management software that lets you plan the entire project and assign deadlines and responsibilities so everyone can see what tasks need to be accomplished. During the Norming stage, members shift their energy to the team’s goals and show an increase in productivity, in both individual and collective work. The team may find that this is an appropriate time for an evaluation of team processes and productivity.

They need to establish an effective communication style that represents the brand in the best manner. The best way to approach New Product Development is to rely on Agile Product Development that focuses on incremental and iterative development while promoting collaboration and communication. This focuses on working on the user stories in Agile for the New Product that will set it apart from others. Once the design, development, and testing are done, the MVP is launched in the market with minimal features. Once the value proposition is ready, it is time to present it to the set of selected customers.
Stage 1. Forming
Later, when the number of conflicts subsides, it is a sign that the storming stage ends, and the norming team formation phase begins. It is the moment when team members find the best ways to work together regardless of all the differences at play. At this point, people in the group should recognize the contributions others make. When guided correctly, this reignites the excitement of the first team development stage and makes people committed to shared objectives. Let’s take a deeper dive into understanding the phenomenon of team formation and explore 5 team development stages ensuring team cohesion that delivers real results. After all, this report by Deloitte suggests that high-performing teams are 1.9 times more likely to bring profits.
- Zoom, however, does this differently by also enabling the conducting of webinars.
- The adjourning stage of team development is when the team’s project is coming to an end.
- As a team leader, during the performing team formation stage, you need to remind team members to check with one another regularly.
- 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.
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. By taking these steps, leaders can help their teams progress through the stages of group development and achieve their goals. It’s important to remember that not all teams will linearly go through these stages, and it’s okay for teams to revisit earlier stages as needed.
Stage 4: Market Strategy/Business Analysis
EmpMonitor is a cloud-based employee monitoring and team management software that allows you to analyze, measure, and improve the productivity of your staff. It includes features such as centralized data management, activity snapshots, real-time keyboard recordings, and innovative visualizations for assessing staff performance. Learning stages of team development how to work successfully with others is known as team development. Team members must cooperate with each other and work collectively to achieve a better result for their team. This, however, does not occur by itself; it evolves as the team collaborates. It is more crucial than ever to bring your employees together as a productive team.

The adjourning stage is the last stage of team development which signifies that the team is ready for dismissal. Every member of the team is well-conversant with the team’s goals and objectives, the team structure visibly is clear, and individual team members know their specific roles and responsibilities. Do all these and your team is prepared for the next stage of team development which is the dream stage of all teams. But this doesn’t split a team which is at the norming stage of team development. These are the direct representations of what happens in the norming stage of team development. These are the two values that define the norming stage of team development.
Learn
Roles on the team may have become more fluid, with members taking on various roles and responsibilities as needed. Differences among members are appreciated and used to enhance the team’s performance. The most commonly used framework for a team’s stages of development was developed in the mid-1960s by Bruce W. Tuckman.