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Leadership and Management Development

Team Development Guide

Contents:

o Why is Team Development important?

o Forming

o Storming

o Norming

o Performing

o Adjourning

Introduction: Why is team development important? 

Over time, teams must go through distinctive stages of group development marked by transition points. Tuckman (1965) identified these stages as Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing and Adjourning. This guide provides a clear description and indicators of each of the stages of group development to help you identify where your team might currently be, how to support them, and ideas of group activities mapped to each stage of the stages of group development to support leaders to help their teams to form interpersonal relationships and grow together.

Team development offers numerous benefits that can significantly enhance the performance and cohesion of a group. Here are some key advantages:

What are the Stages of Group Development?

Table on Stages of Group Development by Tuckman.

This table outlines the stages of group development as proposed by Bruce Tuckman. It includes:

  1. Forming: Team members get to know each other and establish ground rules.
  2. Storming: Conflicts arise as members assert their opinions and challenge the group's direction.
  3. Norming: The team starts to resolve conflicts, establish norms, and develop cohesion.
  4. Performing: The team operates efficiently towards achieving its goals.

  5. Adjourning: The team disbands after achieving its goals.



Selecting an Activity

To select a suitable activity for each stage, click on the hyperlink in the final column. Each activity has its own short synopsis to share what behaviours it targets. You may wish to take some time to reflect on which stage your team has reached, and which activities may be most suitable for your team.

The following stages of Group Development is aimed to guide and help managers effectively support their teams through each stage of development.

Stage of Group Development

Forming: 

Brief description of stage

The first forming stage centres around putting together the structure of the team.

Team members may feel anxious, and conflict is typically avoided at all costs due to the need to be accepted into the group.

Team members look to a group leader for direction and guidance.

To advance from this stage, each member must risk the possibility of conflict to learn to effectively challenge one another.

Observable behaviours, feelings, and thoughts

  • Politeness
  • Avoiding controversy
  • Cliques may begin to form
  • Need for safety and approval
  • Attempts to define tasks, processes and how it will be decided
  • Discussion of problems not relevant to the task
  • Many feel excited, optimistic and full of anticipation
  • Others may feel suspicious, fearful and anxious working with others
  • 'What is expected of me?'
  • Uncertainty and apprehension

Team needs and leadership required

  • Establish a Team Mission and Vision
  • Establish goals and tasks
  • Identify roles and responsibilities of team members
  • Establish ways of working in a team
  • Understand team member expectations
  • Operational guidelines for team
  • Effective in-person and/or virtual meetings
  • Provide structure and task direction
  • Allow time for getting acquainted
  • Create an atmosphere of confidence and optimism
  • Active involvement
  • Team members believe an appointed leader is necessary to make decisions
  • One-way communication approach from leader to team members
  • 'Mentor approach' from leader. This enables role modelling of desired attitude, behaviours and values.

Activities

Team Canvas Activity:

-Team size: 2-20 team members.

-Total run time: 90-120 minutes

This is a group activity that enables you as a team to establish clarity over team roles, expectations, goals and the teams purpose/vision

Alignment and Autonomy:

This activity enables the team to focus on defining where their tasks sit within the team and University strategy and where prehaps they could take more ownership in delivering their goals

Kolb's Cycle of Learning:

-Team size: 1+

-Total time: 10-20 mins

Is a good activity that enables a team to reflect on past learning experiences

Storming: 

Brief description of stage

This stage begins to occur as the process of organising tasks and processes surface interpersonal conflicts. Leadership, power, and structural issues dominate this stage.

To progress to the norming stage, group members must move from a “testing and proving” mentality to a problem-solving mentality.

The most important trait in helping a team move to the next stage is the ability of team members to listen to their colleagues.

Observable behaviours, feelings, and thoughts

  • Disagreement among team members
  • Differences in points of view and personal styles are clear
  • Lack of role clarity
  • Power struggles and clashes
  • Lack of progress
  • Lack of consensus- seeking behaviour
  • Concern over excessive work
  • Feeling defensive
  • Confusion - can cause a loss of interest
  • Resistance to tasks
  • Fluctuations in attitude about the team
  • Unsure if they agree with teams mission and purpose
  • 'Were not getting anywhere'
  • Unsure about personal influence and freedom in the team
  • Question the wisdom of other team members

Team needs and leadership required

  • Interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships
  • Identify personal differences
  • Effective listening
  • Giving and receiving feedback
  • Conflict resolution
  • Clarify and understand the teams purpose
  • Re-establish roles and ground rules
  • Reinforcing the University's Values and behaviours
  • Members will need to receive feedback from team leader, supervisor or manager
  • Acknowledge conflict
  • Suggest consensus to team
  • Instruct members to assume more task responsibility
  • Concept of shared leadership appears
  • Share conflict resolution methods (see Dealing Effectively with Conflict LinkedIn Learning pathway)
  • Offer support and praise
  • Actively involved team members begin consulting one another, shared leadership emerging but have difficulty making decisions

Activities:

Conflict resolution:

This activity invites team members to consider past team conflict's they have experienced, ranking how they handled these conflicts. Then, based on past experiences, team members will work together to create conflict guidelines for the team.

Ugli Oranges Exercise:

This is a practical activity that provides team members with an opportunity to simulate conflict and how they might handle this. This activity enlightens team members by showing them that understanding more than one perspective is needed when dealing with conflict.

Heard, Seen, Respected:

This activity provides team members with an opportunity to increase their empathy for their colleagues past experiences of conflict with the aim to improve interpersonal relationships between team members.

Norming:

Brief description of stage

In this stage, team members are creating new ways of doing things and being together. As the group develops cohesion, leadership changes from 'one' colleague in charge to shared leadership. Team members learn they must trust one another for shared leadership to be effective.

The most important aspect of stage three is for team members to collaborate, share feelings and ideas, give and receive feedback to one another autonomously and explore actions related to the teams tasks. Collaboration and creativity are high when the team members begin to fear the inevitable future breakup of the team; they may resit change of any sort.

Observable behaviours, feelings and thoughts

  • Processes and procedures are agreed upon
  • Comfortable with interpersonal relationships
  • Focus and energy is on tasks
  • Effective conflict resolution skills
  • Sincere attempt to make consensual decisions
  • Balanced influence, shared problem solving
  • Develop team routines
  • Sets and achieves task milestones
  • Sense of belonging as a team
  • Confidence is high
  • Team members feel a new ability to express feedback constructively
  • Acceptance of all members in the team
  • General sense of trust
  • Freedom to express and contribute

Team needs and leadership required

  • Develop a decision -making process
  • Be prepared to offer ideas and suggestions
  • Problem solving is shared
  • Using all resources to support the team effort
  • Team members take responsibility in shared leadership skills
  • Shared leadership is required
  • Allow for less structure, more autonomy
  • Promote team interaction
  • Ask for contribution form all team members
  • Collaboration becomes clearer

Activities

Appreciations exercise:

This is a quick fire exercise that any leader can use to allow team members to share what they value about one another in confidential manner. The aim is to identify one another's strengths.

Circles of influence:

This is a useful exercise to allow team members to consider what is in their full control, what is under their influence and what is outside of their control and influence. This is a tactic to re-focus energy towards the factors we can influence or control, rather than spend time on those we cannot control.

Team self-assessment:

An activity that allows teams to access current progress against goals, celebrate successes and focus energy and time on things that could be working better.

Appreciative inquiry:

An opportunity for team members to reflect on difficult challenges in the past and how they managed to overcome these. The aim is to appreciate the strengths shown in the face of adversity.

Performing:

Brief description of stage

True interdependence occurs in this stage of group development. The team is more flexible, as individuals are more adept at meeting the needs of other team members. This is a highly productive stage both personally and professionally. At this point in the stages of group development, group members capacity, range and depth of personal relations expand to true interdependence. In this stage people can work independently in subgroups or as a total unit with equal competencies.

Observable behaviours, feelings and thoughts

  • Fully functional teams
  • Roles are clearer
  • Team develops independence
  • Team can organise itself
  • Team members are more flexible, functioning well individually, in subgroups or as team
  • Better understanding of each others strengths and weaknesses and insights into group processes
  • Empathy for one another
  • High commitment
  • Begin understanding collaborative work ethic
  • Tight bonds appear
  • Fun and excitement
  • Lots of personal development and creativity
  • General sense of satisfaction
  • Continual discovery of how to sustain feelings of momentum and enthusiasm

Team needs and leadership required

  • Team leader, supervisor or manager ensures team is moving in collaborative direction
  • Maintain team flexibility
  • Evaluate knowledge within the team
  • Provide information
  • Giving and receiving feedback
  • Shared leadership being practiced
  • Observing, inquiring, fulfilling team needs
  • Facilitative/coaching approach
  • Collaborative efforts among team members
  • Team members offer positive reinforcement and support
  • Share new information

Activities

I used to think...but now i think:

An activity that enables team members to reflect following an activity or an event that led to new beliefs.

For virtual teams: Guess the desk:

A fun activity that gets all the team involved in an online team meeting to guess whose desk belongs to who based on a photo thye have submitted to the team lead. An effective way to begin a team meeting.

Adjourning:

Brief description of stage

Often this is seen when project teams who were brought together for a particular deliverable may adjourn upon completion of that project . In this stage, typically team members are ready to leave causing significant change to the purpose. While the group may continue to perform productively, they also require time to manage their feelings of change and transition. The final stage, adjourning, involves the termination of tasks, behaviours and diengagment from relationships. A planned conculsion usually includes recognition for participation and achievements. Concluding a group can create some apprehension, in effect, a minor crisis. Ending the group is a step backward, moving from losing control to losing inclusion.

Observable behaviours, feelings and thoughts

  • Visible signs of grief
  • Momentum slows down
  • Restless behaviour
  • Bursts of extreme energy usually followed by lack of energy
  • Sadness
  • Humour (to outside observers, could appear cruel)
  • Glad it's over - relief

Team needs and leadership required

  • Evaluate the efforts of the team
  • Tie up loose ends and tasks
  • Recognise and reward team efforts
  • Team leader, supervisor or manager helps team develop options for termination
  • Good listening
  • Reflection and carry forth collaborative learning to next opportunity

Activities

History map:

This activity allows team members to reflect on the milestones the group has made in their time together. Draw a timeline and allow team members to represent key events with imagery.

Bus trip:

An activity that allows team members to share something positive about one another in rapid quick-fire method.

List of activities:

Underneath each heading for the Stages of Group development are session plans for the activities you want to run with your teams. These session plans include timings, instructions on how to facilitate the activity and any recommendations for materials to use. You may wish to familiarise yourself with the content of your activity before facilitating it with your team.

Team Canvas Activity

  • Team size: 2-20 team members
  • Total run time: 90-120 minutes
  • Link to Team Canvas download: Team Canvas 1:0

Aim:

To empower your team members to share their roles, understand the team’s ways of working and clarify individual and group goals.

Materials:

·Print-out of Team Canvas on A3 or recreated on a whiteboard.

·Variety of coloured-sticky notes.

·Flipchart pens or coloured pens.

Instructions:

Provide a high-level overview of the Team Canvas tool and the aim to align the team in understanding goals, individual roles, and responsibilities, and clarify the teams purpose and values.

Move through the segments on the Team Canvas template. Underneath, there is a layout of how you may wish to facilitate this session starting with People and Roles. During each phase, ask the team questions to answer and contribute to each segment. They can do this by writing their answers on sticky-notes and then placing these sticky notes under the segment you are working on. By the end of the activity, you will have received a multitude of responses allowing you to wrap the session up with commitments towards a common goal.

Facilitator notes: There are 5 segments which should be worked on as a group to ensure fair and equal opportunity for each team member to be heard. These are 1. People and roles; 2. Goals; 4. Purpose; 5. Values; 9 Rules and culture.

 

Step 1: People and Roles (5 minutes)

Ask your team to place their names on sticky notes and to include their roles. If a person has multiple roles, use separate post-its.

Questions:

·What are our names?

·What are the roles we have in the team?

·What are you responsible for?

 Step 2: Common goals (10 minutes)

Ask the team to agree on common goals.

Questions:

·What do we as a team aim to achieve?

·What is our key goal that is feasible, measurable, and time-bounded?

 

Step 3: Personal goals (10 minutes)

Ask the team members about the individual goals they are working towards.

Questions:

·What are our individual personal goals that you are working towards?

 

Step 4: Purpose (10 minutes)

Ask the team to go one step beyond their common goal, and ask them why they do what they do?

Questions:

·Why are we doing what are doing in the first place?

·What is something more important, which makes us pursue our common goal?

·How do we fit into the University Strategy? (Flash the Strategy on screen to clarify.)

 

Step 5: Values (10 minutes)

Ask the team what their core values are – the most important principles – that they want to share as a team. The team should agree on values, so everyone accepts the final set. Allow 1 minute of individual thinking, then place members into pairs or small groups to share their thoughts. Finally, share as a team in a small debrief and agree on a consensus. Share Warwick’s Values and Behaviours to find common ground with the University strategy.

Questions:

·What do we stand for?

·What are our guiding principles?

·What our own personal values?

·What are the common values that we want to be at the core of our team?

 

Step 6: Strengths & Assets (15 minutes)

Ask the team to share the key pieces of skills (both hard and soft skills) and assets available within the team. Do not dismiss ‘insignificant’ stuff. You might find that the team has the capacity for martial arts, running marathons or persuading people. There are core skills in hobbies or activities that team members can utilise in a workplace. For example, someone who coaches a sports team has experience in mentoring and training. Encourage team members to share something about themselves, as well as noting important qualities they see in their team members.

Questions:

·What are the skills we have in the team that will help us to achieve our goals?

·What are interpersonal/soft skills that we have?

·What are we good at, individually and as a team?

Examples:

·Coding (iOS/Python etc.)

·Design

·Being devoted and driven

·Being creative

·Energy

·Sales and pitching

 

Step 7: Development Areas (15 minutes)

This is an opportunity to consider any pitfalls in the current ways of working and how to improve on these. This is not an opportunity to pile on other team members with opinions. Remain objective for example, a lack of communication slows down progress towards a goal. Team members may wish to share their own personal development areas i.e. new to a particular system. The aim is to identify weaknesses and plan to adapt and improve. Advise that you want the team to grow together.

Questions:

·What are the development areas we have, individually and as a team?

·What should our team members know about us?

·What are some obstacles we see ahead of us that we are likely to face?

 

Step 8: Needs & Expectations (10 minutes)

Ask the team to express the needs they have in order to be successful. This is a follow-up of the two previous sections. As team members have expressed both their own strengths and areas for development, this is an opportunity to capture how to amplify strengths in the team and tackle pitfalls. This can enable more team collaboration and sharing strengths and skills.

Questions:

·What does each member of the team require to be successful?

·How could the team help each member with their needs?

 

Step 9: Rules & Activities (10 minutes)

Ask the team to agree on common rules and activities. Think of this as an outcome of the previous sections: a concrete set of rules and activities they want to implement.

Questions:

·What are the rules we want to introduce after this session?

·How shall we communicate and keep everyone up to date?

·How do we execute and evaluate what we do?

 

 Wrap-up (5 minutes)

This is an opportunity to consolidate learning taken from the session. Ask team members to consider one insight they have gained from doing this session. Ask them to consider one thing they are going to commit too, following the session. This is an opportunity for you as a manager or leader to gain insight on what ‘stuck’ with your team. Finally, wrap up by confirming your commitment to action and how long this may take.

 

Tips for running this activity online

  • Pick an online whiteboard tool that allows to use a large, zoomable canvas.
  • Set up each topic at a different area of the board, spread them out just like you would do it on the walls of a room.
  • Invite participants to zoom in and visit each section and add their ideas.

 

Alignment and Autonomy
Team size: 2-20.

Total time: 60-120 mins.

Aim:

If your team needs to get to grips with their roles and responsibilities, Alignment and Autonomy is a good activity that enables you to engage your group as individuals on where they feel they have been productive and where they need more support or autonomy to reach their goals. This activity requires honesty, no judgement or bias, and offers you as a leader with a chance to clarify how the team should be operating.

Pre-work:

If your team does not have a clearly defined purpose, culture and working routines, you may wish to consider beginning with ‘Team Canvas’ activity before running the Alignment and Autonomy Activity.

You may wish to familiarise yourself with the content of this framework. Consider how you would define these 3 key areas:

1.Set parameters for what is an acceptable level of autonomy for your team.

2.Alignment: Define what it is that you want each team member to align around. This is around the University’s goals, purpose, culture, strategy etc…

3.Personal responsibility/Autonomy: Define what it means in this team for everyone to take Personal Responsibility. This is defined as ‘each member follows through on their tasks and their agreements.’ Sticking to agreed processes (like check-ins, feedback, reflection, communication, self-directed, following through, taking ownership, being curious).

Finally, prepare the Alignment and Autonomy model on a flip chart before your team session. Copy of the grid below:

Materials:

Use A3 paper/flipchart paper/a whiteboard to draw out the grid.

Sticky notes.

Flipchart/whiteboard pens.

If virtual use Mural or Microsoft Whiteboard.

 

Instructions:

Step 1: (15-20 Mins)

Invite your team to reflect on the past 3-6 months of the team’s work.

Building on the shared understanding of the model, ask them to think about moments when they felt:

·Highly aligned, highly autonomous

·Highly aligned, not so autonomous

·Not so aligned, highly autonomous,

·Not so aligned OR autonomous

It is fine if members of the team cannot think of a moment for each one but encourage them to reflect deeply and explore their own relationship to the team and the organisation. Encourage members to make notes as they reflect.

Once everyone has had time to think, ask them to pair up and share ideas. After 5-10 minutes, ask each pair to feedback ideas for each section.

It could be helpful to setup a timeline for the last 3-6 months and allow team members to apply their thoughts to the timeline.

 

 

Step 2: (20 Mins)

Now ask the team to reflect as individuals on the following questions:

·What would support me to be more aligned with the team’s purpose and goals?

·What is hindering my alignment?

·What would support me to be more autonomous?

·What is hindering my autonomy?

Encourage members to be as open and honest as they feel comfortable to be. Encourage them to be specific about what hinders them and what would support them.

Ask them to share responses one-by-one. If confidentiality is preferred, then ask them to write ideas down on sticky notes and create a pile to be read out by you.

As the manager/leader facilitating this activity, it is your responsibility to ensure that you address any misconceptions or misunderstandings. Ensure to clarify what level of autonomy is available.

 

Step 3: (10-15 Mins)

Finally, invite the team to suggest tangible actions that the team could take to increase alignment and autonomy.

Each team member can be given an opportunity to write their thoughts on sticky notes and placing them on a wall. Once suggestions have been made, review them and decide together how to proceed with each.

 

Step 4: (5-10 Mins)

Wrap-up the session with a quick ‘check-out.’ Invite team members to consider one key takeaway from the session.

 

Kolb’s Cycle of Learning

Team size: 1+


Total time: 10-20 mins

Aim:

This activity is best used as an opportunity to reflect on an activity, event or learning experience, pulling out what has been successful, and to encourage new modes of working. This enables your team to try new things, learn from these experiences and build a culture of continuous improvement.

A four-stage learning cycle: (10-15 Mins)

 

Concrete Experience – the learner encounters a concrete experience. This might be a new experience or situation, or a reinterpretation of existing experience in the light of new concepts.

Reflective Observation of the New Experience – the learner reflects on the new experience in the light of their existing knowledge. Of particular importance are any inconsistencies between experience and understanding.

Abstract Conceptualization – reflection gives rise to a new idea, or a modification of an existing abstract concept (the person has learned from their experience).

Active Experimentation – the newly created or modified concepts give rise to experimentation. The learner applies their idea(s) to the world around them to see what happens.

Explain each stage of the model to team members before providing them with time to reflect on their learning, whilst planning on next steps to take. This style of learning can be applied following any activity in this guide.

Good to Know

Planning for team development:

Resources:

Each activity in the page above has materials listed in them. However, consider what works best for your team and what is sustainable. If you are choosing to use flipcharts, consider where you may store these to refer to in future. Ensure you have plenty of pens, sticky notes and sticker sets to use. It is useful to plan before each activity and ensure you have the necessary resource to complete the activity.

Accessibility:

You may want to consider if any team members require accessibility accommodations. It is important to take the necessary time to plan how to include all team members in your meetings. For more information on supporting your team, visit Social Inclusion’s webpages.

Room bookings:

You can use Scientia Enterprise Logon to book rooms for your meetings. Consider the size and space of the room that is needed and the activities you are completing. Visit Centrally Timetabled Room Information to take a look inside the room you wish to book.

Catering:

You may wish to book catering for your team development sessions. You can order through Warwick Food & Drink. If you do not need use of Warwick’s catering, consider bringing along some biscuits, cakes, or snacks. This is a straightforward way to boost the mood of your team members and a cost-effective method to show appreciation for the work they are doing. Just be sure to know if any of your team have dietary requirements or allergies.