The 5 Stages of Team Building With Activities for Each of Them
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This is also the stage in which group members test boundaries, create ground rules, and define organizational standards. Discussion centers on defining the scope of the task, how to approach it, and similar concerns. To grow from this stage to the next, each member must relinquish the comfort of non-threatening topics and risk the possibility of conflict.
After all, when we interact regularly with individuals, those folks are likely to act in our best interests to maintain the bond. Also, forming relationships means recognizing different personality facets and understanding our colleagues on a deeper level. 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.
Team kick-off events are an important part of the start-up process. Kick-off events enable the team to articulate and understand the goals, mission and structure. A well-planned kick-off can increase team productivity and build team momentum. A formalized start-up activity will help the team define its mission, deliverables, roles & responsibilities, and success factors. The individual strengths each member brings establishes a sense of teamwork, as everybody plays a part. If you notice a few team members not participating, the easiest thing to do is to prompt them for their thoughts and ideas.
What is the team building process?
Acknowledging headway re-energizes and motivates the team and helps prevent burnout. By recognizing that your hard work produces results, you inspire your employees towards continued excellence. However, you need to praise the achievements in a timely manner so that employees can feel the full benefits. As you progress through the team building process, you should periodically measure your team’s growth.
Hopefully, the above performing stage activities can help you guide your teams. At Team Tactics we provide a large selection of team activities suitable for all groups. From events requiring strong technical and analytical skills to those requiring optimum creativity, there is an event for everyone.
The use of fun and engaging team building activities outside the team’s work environment can create a strong bond and ensure they can work together more affectively. When new teams are formed, it is more important than ever to start implementing the four stages from the very beginning with team building stages the forming stage. 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.
Our discussion so far has focused mostly on a team as an entity, not on the individuals inside the team. This is like describing a car by its model and color without considering what is under the hood. External characteristics are what we see and interact with, but internal characteristics are what make it work.
Adaptations for Project Management
You can promote acknowledgement by starting rituals like team kudos, where each team member shares a compliment about a colleague via anonymous post-it-note or shout-out on a team chat. But understanding, managing, and communicating about finances can improve the quality of your life and relationships. These webinars will help you take charge of your budget, financial short-term and long-range planning, as well as estate and retirement planning. Here the group just disbands as it has either finished the task or some of its members have moved on. Before a team disbands, its members would think about the time they spent together.
- It’s up to you to provide clarity, ensure team alignment and employee motivation.
- You can also engage in relationship-building team building activities such as storytelling workshops and common traits.
- Needs to review the security of your connection before proceeding.
- As you build a new team, keep the stages of team development in mind so you can help individual team members reach their full potential and collaborate together effectively.
- Though a team leader’s first instinct may be to play peacekeeper and sidestep an argument, navigating conflict resolution is an essential step in a team’s growth.
- For more challenge and extra creative thinking, throw in random words that people must include in the story.
It’s the yellow-brick-road that, when followed, will lead you to the gleaming project closure right on time. Every team has different needs when it comes to their development. 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.
Team Building Stages: 5 Steps
Many long-standing teams go through these cycles many times as they react to changing circumstances. For example, a change in leadership may cause the team to revert to storming as the new people challenge the existing norms and dynamics of the team. In addition to establishing your team’s mission or goal, it’s also important to set roles for individual team members. As you add people to the team, pay attention to what qualities and skills you’ll need to complete the project.
During the Storming stage, members are trying to see how the team will respond to differences and how it will handle conflict. During the Forming stage of team development, team members are usually excited to be part of the team and eager about the work ahead. Members often have high positive expectations for the team experience. At the same time, they may also feel some anxiety, wondering how they will fit in to the team and if their performance will measure up. Having a way to identify and understand causes for changes in the team behaviors can help the team maximize its process and its productivity. During this stage, employees focus on cooperation, group thinking, and teamwork.
Then, the participants should respond to each word by moving forward if it induces a positive response or backward if it induces a negative response. In this activity, the participants need to plan a trip with the help of available resources. For this, you need to provide them a map of any location and also a list of information such as type of car, price of fuel, etc. Then, the teams need to come up with a wonderful plan that fits their budget. This is one of the interesting activities to strengthen the bond between colleagues. In this activity, each person needs to discuss a bad experience that they had in their personal life or at work.
Signs and questions to look out for in the norming stage
Teams usually develop norms that guide the activities of team members. Team norms set a standard for behavior, attitude, and performance that all team members are expected to follow. Instead, all the team members implicitly understand them.
Psychologist Bruce Tuckman shared the team development process with the world in 1965. The process consists of five stages that teams progress through from the time a leader assigns a project and creates a team, to the point the team completes the assignment and disbands. Tuckman asserted that each of these phases was necessary in order for a team to learn, grow, and deliver results of the highest quality. Literally, successful completion of tasks requires great performance and strong cooperation among your employees. So, your role as a leader is crucial during the performing stage. For this reason, make sure that your employees are highly engaged, collaborative, and motivated during this stage.
What are the stages of team development?
Here you can try various retreat activities, outings, and other celebrations. However, there might be resistance to change among several individuals. This usually happens when a team is about to disband forever or its members will have to work on a different group for the next project. In such cases, change management exercises are desirable.
White-Fairhurst TPR model
This is the stage in which employees actually work together as a team and get the job done. Literally, the three key terms in this stage are teamwork, performance, and goal achievement. The reason is overall goals are accomplished by a team through teamwork. In this stage, the group members try to share their individual goals and expectations. Additionally, some people resist control, and they try to oppose others. As a result, conflicts, unwanted confrontations, and misunderstandings arise during this stage.
As a leader, you should acclimate your crew to a teamwork culture. Some of your employees may have always acted alone, and may need time to get used to depending on other group members. During the Ending Stage, some team members may become less focussed on the team’s tasks and their productivity may drop. Alternatively, some team members may find focussing on the task at hand is an effective response to their sadness or sense of loss. The most commonly used framework for a team’s stages of development was developed in the mid-1960s by Bruce W. Tuckman.
Team Building Exercises for the Forming Stage
For more challenge and extra creative thinking, throw in random words that people must include in the story. To ramp up the challenge, create a rule that members can’t throw the ball to the same person twice in a row. Icebreakers are essential for both in-house and distributed teams.
You want to minimize but not necessarily eliminate conflict. Teams that clash and bicker will make little progress, while teams that never disagree may fail to examine matters from multiple perspectives. Remember that your teams do not need to be perfect right out of the gate. Team building takes time and practice, but can improve your team’s dynamics. Team activities alone may not fix teams with incompatible skill levels and dispositions, so better to select the right members for your team from the get go.
