10 Summary

This week you have learned about Tuckman’s work that identified five stages encompassing the life of a team. You have seen that in the ideal case, these stages can be correlated with increasing cohesion and competence on the part of the team. This is represented graphically in the S-curve of Lipnack and Stamp. Real teams often depart from this ideal, with many going intermittently backwards as well as forwards. Some, alas, never reach a happy conclusion.

You have learned how to identify your team’s position on the S-curve and how to diagnose the problems that may arise at each stage, so that you can improve your chances of completing the traverse of the S-curve and finishing the task.

You should now be able to:

• identify Tuckman’s stages of team development
• understand why it is helpful to identify the stages if group development
• reflect on an example of teamwork and identify stages of development
• consider what you can do to help a team successfully navigate each of the stages.

In Week 4 you will consider the vital issue of communication within the team and its importance for building consensus and resolving disagreement.

You can now go to Week 4 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .