What is a Team Effectiveness Model?

What is an effective team? It consists of members who have the skills necessary to accomplish their own and group goals.

They should know everything about open communication, active listening, team collaboration tools and responding. They trust and support one another.

Any known team effectiveness model helps product managers, business owners or team leaders recognize the strengths and weaknesses of their team members and optimize team spirit.

Choosing the best approaches for team effectiveness is the issue that managers have been trying to figure out for a long time. Some models are focused on communication aspects, some of them focus more on a company’s culture or individuals’ talents. How to choose the best team effectiveness model?

The author of Hygger blog defines 6 powerful models for team effectiveness. Here we share one of the most interesting and popular models – Bruce Tuckman’s model.

Tuckman’s model

The team and group development model was presented by Bruce Tuckman in 1965. This unique model has formed the basis of many future effectiveness approaches. It helps business owners, managers and team leaders all over the world.

The author outlined 4 stages that are necessary for teams to develop and grow:

• Forming is about how people get to know each other. At this stage team members try to avoid conflicts and play a clear game because they want to be accepted into the group.
• Storming – the stage, where people begin to feel safer. They push the boundaries, however, the conflicts may still appear. Irritations and resentments may erupt and negatively affect the team’s performance. The aim of the team is to decide how to move forward and solve the challenges.
• Norming is the stage where all the team members agree on the plan, timelines and define who should contribute what to the plan. They begin to clearly see others’ strengths and weaknesses.
• Performing. At this stage, the team is successfully performing. It is stable and the goals are clear. Everyone develops processes that work for the team and people follow them.

Later, Tuckman added 5th stage – Mourning. It is about wrapping up the objectives and the team breaking up. Sometimes it can be as difficult as a real mourning.

What do you think about this model? Can it be useful for team effectiveness?