Group development from Tuckman

The stages that are specified in the classic model of group development from Tuckman:

• forming, 
• storming, 
• norming, 
• and performing 

(Tuckman, 1965). A fifth stage – adjourning – was later added to the model, but is about the exit stage of a team and is of less relevance for this course.

Tuckman’s model is widely recognized in organizational literature and has proved useful in practice. It describes how people work together, and provides a common language to discuss and explore team dynamics.

Some scholars state that teams go through the stages one by one. However, the most common idea is that teams:

• “travel” back and forth between stages,
• can go through two stages at the same time,
• skip stages, or
• fall back into a previous stage.