Tag Archives: group development

How to support group processes as a tutor

In my last post, I talked about a model for stages of group development. Today I want to talk about how you can use this model when you are trying to make a group work together well.

First, it is important to recognize that every team will go through most of the phases. Except for the ones that get stuck in the storming phase, but then once we recognize that we are stuck in the storming phase (rather than despair that the group just won’t work well together ever), we can support them to get to the next stage.

So what kind of support might the groups need from their tutor at different stages?

1. Forming

During the forming stage, since participants don’t know each other, it is important that the tutor provides the structure in which the team will operate, and helps participants feel comfortable in the situation. It is helpful to make sure participants getting to know each other. Depending on how long the team will work together, how well participants know each other already, on group size and on personal preferences, a tutor might want to do sociometry or some other game to introduce participants to each other. Pretty similar to what you might want to do at any first day of class.

Group stage no 1: Forming.

2. Storming

This is the most difficult phase, both for the tutor and for participants. Since there is so much conflict on so many different levels, it is very important that the the tutor models the behavior he or she wants. Be trustworthy, communicate openly, above all, stay constructive and positive.

Also, let participants know that this is an important phase. It is necessary to openly talk about conflicting interests, different preferences in how a group works, or different ideas of what the goal should be.

If there is conflict but it isn’t really clear what it is about, it is important to figure out whether it is something personal or where it is coming from, and then address it.

If this phase is skipped, even though the team might have a nicely structured hierarchy with clear roles, not everybody might be happy with his or her role, meaning that the conflict is going to erupt at some later stage and become destructive if not addressed properly.

It is helpful to remember – and to remind participants of – the rules for good feedback to solve the conflict constructively.

Group stage no 2: Storming.

3. Norming

When a group reaches this phase, the tutor can start to withdraw and only intervene occasionally, or, of course, provide support on the topic or methodological advice. But the group process is on a good way now and it is important that they find rules that work for them. If they think it’s cool to work all night once a week and then not at all over the next week, the tutor should let them be. They need to take ownership of how their group works and what their goal is, otherwise they won’t be as invested.

Group stage no 3: Norming.

4. Performing

Now the tutor should leave the team to work as independently as possible, only giving advice (advice! Not the solution!) when asked.

Except for when the tutor notices conflict – maybe the group has slipped back into the storming stage. Then it is important to address the conflict and go through a new norming phase, too, before continuing working on the task. Ignoring that a group has slipped back into the storming phase will only prolong that unproductive phase and maybe let a relatively minor conflict blow out of proportion just because nobody addressed it.

Group stage no 4.: Performing.

5. Adjourning

Here the tutor can participate in celebrations and even initiate them. But it is important to recognize that participants might be very sad to be leaving a team that worked well together and where they had a lot of fun together. So it is always helpful to have a couple of ideas at hand how either this team can come back together to work on new tasks, or where similar experiences can be had with other teams.

Group stage no 5.: Adjourning

Happy group working! :-)

Stages of group development

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Last weekend I had the chance to fill in for a colleague and help run a training course for student tutors. One of the topics was what kind of group processes they should be prepared to encounter and how to deal with them.

Here is more or less what I told them about Tucker’s 1956 model of stages of group development.

There are a couple of stages that occur with every group.

1. Forming

The forming stage occurs when a new group first meets. Everybody is a little unsure of what to expect, people are very polite and don’t quite open up. Everybody is trying to figure out what is going to happen. Trust needs to be established.

Group stage no 1: Forming.

2. Storming

This is the conflict phase in the team. People start staking claims — both in terms of leadership, topics, loyalties. During this stage emotions are high, the mood of the team can change dramatically over short periods of time. The team recognizes that the task they are supposed to be working on might be harder than they thought initially, and less well defined.

Group stage no 2: Storming.

3. Norming

When a group reaches this phase, everybody is working towards defining a common goal. Group rules are negotiated, roles filled. The group finds compromises that everybody is happy with and team members take on responsibilities for tasks.

Group stage no 3: Norming.

4. Performing

After all the previous stages have been lived through, a team can reach the performing stage. Now work runs smoothly, roles are filled confidently but also flexibly. Most decisions are made within the team and there is no need for external guidance.

Group stage no 4.: Performing.

5. Adjourning

The task is completed and the team members are moving on to new tasks with new teams. Now it is time to celebrate the achievement! But especially if the team worked really well together, team members might be sad to be leaving.

Group stage no 5.: Adjourning

But the thing is: These stages aren’t just passed through once. And there is no rule for how long each of the phases typically lasts.

A team that has reached the performing stage won’t necessarily perform well until the task is finished, quite often it “falls back” into a storming phase. This can happen for many different reasons. A new member might join the team, or an old one leave, opening up a role that someone else wants to claim. To get back to performing, this team now needs to go through a full storming and a full norming phase.

Another time might never leave the storming phase at all. Especially if there are personal of work style conflicts that are not adequately addressed it might be really difficult to leave this phase.

Yet, ideally we want to spend most of the time in the performing phase.

So what can a tutor do to move a group to the performing stage? That we’ll talk about in a later post! :-)

Stages of group development

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Why you need a good storm in order to perform with a group.

We’ve all made the experience of having to work in groups. Sometimes it is fun, sometimes it is less fun. But you can actually influence how well group work is going to work out, and a first step is understanding that there are a couple on inevitable phases in group work that every group goes through before it reaches productive working mode. I’m going to talk you through the stages of Tuckman’s model of group development and point out the challenges and chances of individual phases.

Stages of group development, loosely adapted from the Tuckman model.

Forming

When a new group comes together for the first time, they enter into the “forming” phase. In this phase, participants get to know each other and trust needs to be established. It is important for participants to feel accepted and liked, so everybody is on their best behavior and conflicts are avoided.

Storming

In this phase, participants are comfortable around each other, so they start expressing disagreements. Conflicts can develop, and power struggles emerge. Some teams never make it past this phase, which means that the team work basically fails. To overcome this phase, team leaders need to deal with conflicts and help participants resolve it.

Norming

Now the team manages to identify common goals and establish norms on how they will work together and what is acceptable behavior. Compromises are found and participants take on responsibilities for tasks.

Performing

Performing teams can fall back into earlier stages if, for example, new participants join the group and challenge existing norms or roles. The team then goes back into the storming phase and needs to go through it, and the norming phase, before it is back to good performance.

The original model has later been expanded to include two more stages: dorming and adjourning.

Dorming

In this stage, the team gradually slides into a mode where it is satisfied by what has been achieved already and where new challenges are missing or not taken on head-on.

Adjourning

At the end of projects when a team dissolves, a sense of loss is experienced by team members who mourn the loss of their roles, the group, their tasks.

So how does it help to know about these stages of group development? Well, firstly if you are aware that they are part of the normal process, you might not be too shocked to find that your super nice team suddenly starts struggling when, for example, it moves from the forming to the storming phase. And once you are able to diagnose that, for example, after a period of very successful group work you have slipped into the dorming phase, you realize that this means that you might need new challenges to mix things up and come back into the performing stage. Also, conflicts are much easier to bear if everybody is aware that they are not personal, but that they are a necessary part of a group finding their working mode, and if they can therefore be used constructively to reach the working mode even earlier.

And these stages of group development do not only occur when you have a student group work on a project, or when you and your colleague form a working group on a new topic, they also occur in your lectures. Think about it – at first, students are curious about what is going to happen. Then they start testing you. If things work well, you establish ground rules together and move on to working productively together. If not, this is the phase where many lectures remain for most of the semester. So realizing they are testing you and it is possible to move on from there might help overcome the frustration that comes with the storming phase.