A group of people that come together to form a team evolves as the team members go through the stages of team development. American Society for Management, Inc. helps your company understand the five stages of project team evolution. These stages are:

Forming
The forming stage is considered as the initial entry of project team members, where they experience a discovery phase. They begin to identify with each other and define the rules of the group. In this stage, awareness, orientation, and dependence take place.

Storming
The group members enter the emotional and tension phase where conflict, resistance, frustration, hostility, and infighting occur. The group members begin to discover and understand one another's styles and needs. In the storming stage, the group members must resolve their differences and issues before moving on to the next stage.

Norming
In the norming stage, cooperation between team members improves, communication channels are opened, and the cohesion level increases. Members begin to collaborate and focus on project deliverables while adding some humor and fun to work environment. The norming stage is considered the first step toward migrating from a group structure to a team structure.

Performing
In this stage, the group evolves to become a well functioning team where members reach the bonding phase. They are able to deal with complex tasks and handle disagreements in a mature manner. The main characteristics of this stage are productivity, problem solving and interdependence.

Adjourning
In this stage, the work is accomplished and the team is able to disband. This stage is characterized by separation, termination and disengagement.

Each stage of the team life cycle has different challenges. Issues and concerns must be resolved in each stage before the team can move to the next stage. Many experts affirm that no team goes directly from forming to performing. Struggle and adaptation are difficult and critical, but necessary for team development.

In a constructive fashion, the Project Team Management Workshop provides your company with the necessary understanding of project team evolution including group development, team building, and leadership skills (transactional and transformational) vital for the success of the project.

To inquire more about ASFM's Project Team Management Workshop, please contact an ASFM associate.