Bruce Tuckman's Team Development Model

As a Project Manager (PM), developing high performance teams helps me deliver projects successfully. Team members are like family; you don’t get to choose them. I have enjoyed my share of, being part of great teams, under great leaders. But in my 10 years of Project Management experience, being a leader and building productive teams of individuals with varying skills, gender, age, culture and work ethic has been my biggest challenge.

One of the most quoted team development models was proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1960. The sequence of the five developmental steps is: Forming; Storming; Norming, Performing and Adjourning. In this paper, I have used this model to reflect on my experience with the MBA student team and share some experiences

The last project team I worked with had an extended stay in the “Storming” stage. The project was delayed and we were going through an expensive re-planning. To help move my team to the next stage, I initiated an exercise for the team to share their “Strengths Finder” results with each other. This helped the team better understand each other’s strengths and how they can work well together. As the leader of the team, I used “Situational Leadership” to understand the individual’s commitment and competency and set them up for success in the project. Using these tools we as a team were able to better engage each other based on our strengths, commitment and competency.

Stage 3- Norming: When team adjusts and working together becomes normal:

During the preparation phase of our exercise, we came up with a couple of designs. We agreed that one team member will work on a prototype to gain height using the cups and the rest of us would work on other aspects of the structure. After 10 minutes, we as a team, decided that the prototype was not a viable solution. We were norming and making decisions as a team. The team member who was working on the prototype was not offended. He agreed with the team to move on, for the success of the team.

Whenever I am part of a team in the norming stage, I have noticed trust levels being high among team members. I have experienced visible improvement in engagement, communication, collaboration, understanding and sharing of information. Team members are seen working together more than they do