Samuli Heljo | From norming to performing

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From norming to performing

published November 26, 2009

Bruce Tuckman’s small group theory “Forming, storming, norming and performing” is a group development model created in the 1960s. It tries to model group behavior and small group development while group is doing something e.g. solving a problem.

I have seen group development in action many times and while there are other theories, I think Tuckman’s model is close to what I have experienced. Somehow I just feel when a team enters the norming stage and especially when it enters the performing stage. In the early stages, it just feels that things could be done much, much better. In order to reach high performance state, it is critical to keep building the team day by day. Usually it will pay off and finally the team will knit together and function very well. Sometimes, unfortunately, the team will not reach performing stage.

It is a shame that performing stage is often reached close to the end of a project. This is why I feel it is effective to try to move whole team to a next project as a unit. They will automatically produce more value from the start of the next project as they have bypassed the forming and the storming stages earlier. Of course, it is not that simple that once a group has reached the performing stage, it will maintain it forever. A highly productive team may revert to storming in some cases.

Anyways, it is a very pleasant feeling to be a part of a high performance team.

Samuli @ 19:51 (One Comment)

tags: Group dynamics, Social psychology