When you put together a Six Sigma team, you want to merge individuals into a cohesive team that will work together. Understanding team growth stages can help you fast-track that process and keep it from derailing.

Summary of the Stages of Team Growth

According to Bruce Tuckman, there are five basic stages in a team’s evolution:

• Forming: Team members get to know each other and look for roles within the team.
• Storming: The team gets used to each other and starts to disagree and have conflicts.
• Norming: Team members accept their roles and begin to feel like a cohesive team.
• Performing: The team can reach a consensus and act on that consensus as a group.
• Transforming: The team is breaking up because the project is nearly or completely ended.

It’s important to realize that progression through these stages of team growth is not guaranteed. While you might think the social aspect of the stages unimportant compared to responsibilities, it can profoundly affect team interactions.

Stages of Team Growth – Videos

Love this illustration of the concept via movie excerpts! Plus, my friend’s dad was on this team (reality was a much different story, but still a good flick!)

Forming

Team members don’t really know each other or how they’ll work together. They lack direction and clear roles within the team: both on a social and project level. All members could be highly-experienced professionals, but they lack an understanding of how their skills overlap or dovetail with others on the team.

Leadership roles are up for grabs, even where management has designated a team lead. Members will tend to be hesitant about participating fully in discussions and meetings. They’re still ‘taking in the lie of the land’ to understand how everyone else works. Team members don’t trust each other yet.

With this lack of cohesiveness, you basically have a bunch of individuals trying to go in the same direction. If you’ve heard the phrase ‘herding cats,’ that makes a pretty good overall description of this stage. Team members are doing their own thing or working hesitantly because they’re not confident about their direction. Because of these issues, the team will often struggle to prioritize or estimate tasks. You often won’t see much conflict at this stage–members still feel each other out.

During this stage of team growth, the team is asking questions like:

• Why am I on this team, and how will I fit into it?
• How will I benefit from working on this team?
• Are the team’s goals the same as mine?

Storming

The honeymoon is over! Team members have some understanding of their roles and responsibilities. However, they’re still trying to clarify their collective goals, values, and norms. Positions in the social order are still somewhat fluid. Team members came into the project with expectations, and they found out where they were wrong.

All of these processes can lead to a stack of disagreements and conflicts. It might be overt or covert. But you’ll see team members pushing boundaries–each others’ and management’s–to understand what they can and can’t do. Have you ever seen a three-legged race? This is where the participants who are tied together start yelling at each other to keep up already.

Leaders and strong personalities (not always the same thing) emerge at this point. If you have more than one, they’ll tend to clash during this stage of team growth. Team members try to pull in the same direction but disagree on the best ways to achieve their goals. They don’t yet trust each other enough to seek each others’ opinions. They’re working slowly because they’re diverting a lot of energy to power struggles, and each member’s efforts aren’t always aligned with the direction the team needs to be moving in. The entire team can feel overwhelmed by the amount of work required.

A lot of teams get stuck in this stage. If they don’t address the conflicts and work out how to pull together, they can’t reach the next stage.

Team members might be asking questions like:

• How can I estimate my tasks better?
• How can I contribute to the team?

Norming

The team settles down to work together. They’re aware of each other’s talents and skills. They’ve figured out how to communicate effectively. Leaders have been acknowledged. Each member knows and understands their role in the team. This allows them to cooperate when working on the project.

You’ll find that team members are more tolerant of each others’ foibles and less likely to trample boundaries. They accept that each has different perspectives, which can have some value. They’re compromising with each other on a basic level.

Teams in the norming stage are usually more efficient than those in the forming or storming stages. The entire team is working in a similar direction, and they’re interacting on tasks rather than leaving them to individuals. However, they’re also prone to slipping back into the storming stage, as any changes or challenges can upset the still-fragile team framework they’ve set up.

Team members might be asking questions like:

• How can I work better with other team members?

Performing

Success! The team has matured. It’s productive and at its most efficient. Each member fully knows and accepts their role in the team. Everyone is focused on the needs and goals of the group rather than individual goals. The team leader doesn’t have to arbitrate many decisions. The team is discussing and making those decisions well.

As everyone knows each other’s strengths, weaknesses, and skills, the team is good at estimating tasks. Conflicts still arise at times, and they’re handled constructively. When issues occur, the entire team figures out how to solve them. Recap meetings are most useful in this stage.

Team members might be asking questions like:

• What is the ideal way for our group to function most effectively?
• How can we best measure progress toward our goals?

Transforming

Also known as the Adjourning stage, this stage marks either an end or a big change. It’s not always included in ‘stages of team growth’ content and questions. At the end of a large project, the team might be disbanded. In that case, team members must come to terms with the idea that their cohesive team will break apart. They need to adjust back to pursuing individual goals or to a new team. Regret and sadness might be part of the emotional mix.

Alternatively, large changes might be occurring for or in the team. For example, the project they’re working on might end, and the next project requires different skill sets. This can cause upheaval as team dynamics shift – new people act as subject matter experts and leaders. Its environment might change – whether that be a physical environment or the framework on which projects are managed. For example, a switch from Waterfall to Agile methodologies. New people could be joining the team, shaking up the status quo.

In this stage, productivity often dips. Because of the uncertainty inherent in changes, members often engage in less productive (in terms of the project) team behaviors.

Team members often ask questions like:

• What will happen next?
• How will this affect me?

Question: “Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing” are terms that describe(Taken from ASQ sample Black Belt exam.)

(A) process variation reduction and improvement phases
(B) root cause identification and corrective action
(C) stages of team growth
(D) steps of the brainstorming process

Answer:

C: This is an easy answer to stages of team growth. None of the other 3 make sense.