1.1 Tuckman’s model of team formation
There are common points in the way that teams develop and this week you are going to be looking at one of the most widely known models of team formation and development – Tuckman’s model, sometimes known as the FSNPA model.
Bruce Tuckman (1965) first described the different stages of team development as: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing, but by the 1970s, he had added in ‘Adjourning’, a final stage to describe the ending of a group.
First watch this video which describes the different stages a team passes through before functioning successfully. Note that the ‘Adjourning’ stage is not covered in the discussion.
Now read the following case study of Mark and his team experience in France.
Case study 1: Mark
When I was at college and learning to speak French we had a one-week residential in France as part of the course. One of the tasks we had to complete one afternoon was to interview French people in the street asking their thoughts on the town in order to practise our vocabulary. We then had to record their answers and put together a presentation on this later in the day to present to the rest of the group. We had a limited time to do this and worked in small groups of three people. In class, I was put in a group with Sam and Ahmed, and we met in a café later that day.
In a sense there were three parts to this team exercise and to be honest each of them came with their own issues.
The first thing we had to do was to put together a list of questions we would ask people. We had a lot of disagreement over this as Sam was very good at coming up with ideas, but in my opinion she was not very good at thinking through whether these would actually work in the time we had. I mainly took the role of proofreading the questions and discounting those that would not work or reframing them so that they would get to use the vocabulary we needed to use. Ahmed did the recording of the questions as Sam came up with them and kept us on track so that we didn’t waste the entire afternoon discussing this and not actually getting anything done.
The next problem we had was in finding people who were willing to be recorded. Again time was against us and we needed to get at least five recordings to use for the presentation. We had a rather ‘lively discussion’ about the way to go about this as Sam was quite happy to just approach anyone and see if they would answer it whereas I thought this was going to waste too much time. I felt we should have a strategy here and consider what kind of person we wanted to speak to and how we could best identify those most likely to give us what we needed.
I must admit this got quite heated and I think without Ahmed there to smooth things out and keep things focused we may have ended up wasting our time squabbling about this. As it turned out we did use a bit of both approaches and while I was sometimes right in the people I suggested, if it hadn’t been for Sam’s willingness to approach people and her lively manner I am not sure we would have got the five interviews done at all.
The last part of this task was putting together the presentation. We all felt like we should contribute something as we were all sharing the mark. We each took one of the interviews which left us with two more to present. I must admit I was a bit nervous doing this part in case I let the group down and Ahmed suggested Sam present the other two as she really seemed to really enjoy this part. I must admit her style of presenting was the best. We agreed that Ahmed and I would work on the visual presentations we were going to prepare in advance as this is what we were more confident with.
Thankfully we did manage to get the project completed in time and, while there were definitely some pinch points and we did clash a bit, the outcome was a great success. We got an excellent mark for the group and we all felt that no one had done more than someone else. I think we actually worked really well as a team as it turns out and I am not sure we could have done this quite as well if we had had to do it without any one of us being part of this.
Activity 1 Identifying the different team stages
Can you identify the different stages of team development that Mark and his team went through, and when, in reaching their goal? Note your ideas in the table below.
| Stage | What they were doing | Why you identify them to be at this stage |
|---|---|---|
| Forming | ||
| Storming | ||
| Norming | ||
| Performing |
Comment
| Stage | What they were doing | Why you identify them to be at this stage |
|---|---|---|
| Forming | Put together in class and arranging to meet in the café later that day | Mark describes feeling uncomfortable when they first met as they didn’t really know each other. |
| Storming | Deciding on the questions to ask and the people to ask when out interviewing people |
Lots of disagreement as they were putting together the questions. Trying to decide who would do what role. Wasting a lot of time with disagreements and difficulty in keeping focus on the task. Lively discussion about who to approach. Heated arguments and squabbling. |
| Norming | Carrying out the interviews | Ahmed calmed down the heated debates and a way forward was agreed. The different approaches used by Sam and Mark were used and seen to be effective. Recognition of the strengths in both perspectives. |
| Performing | Putting together the presentation | All able to contribute. Able to use natural strengths in the team. Everyone pulled their weight and the job got done. |
You may have identified different points for these stages, as there is in reality a fluidity between each of them. You may have felt that the group actually started Norming only when they got to the point of putting the presentations together, or agree with the feedback that the start of them Norming was when they were carrying out the interviews and individuals strengths were recognised. You may have identified Norming as happening at a much earlier point when it was decided which questions would be asked.
There is not necessarily a right or wrong answer here and all of these perspectives could be argued to be correct. The important point is to recognise that the team passed through a process of development which ran from when they were first put together and felt uncomfortable, to the point when they were celebrating the success of the team effort and the end of the task. You can see that their competence as a team grew as they developed and they were not performing at their best until the end of the task.
Next you will look at how these stages of team formation can be displayed as an S-curve.