Most teams never reach their potential because leaders don’t know where they stand in the development cycle. Here’s how to diagnose your team’s stage and make the right moves.
Picture a high-stakes product launch at a tech company. The team includes brilliant engineers who built the last three successful platforms, data scientists who’ve cracked growth algorithms, and product managers who understand customer needs intimately. On paper, it’s a dream team. In reality, it’s three months behind schedule, meetings run in circles, and everyone’s polite frustration is starting to crack.
Sound familiar? The gap between talent and results isn’t about hiring better people or implementing new processes. It’s about understanding a fundamental truth: groups don’t become teams by accident—they evolve through predictable stages, each with its own conflicts, breakthroughs, and leadership requirements.
American psychologist Bruce Tuckman discovered this pattern while studying group dynamics at the U.S. Naval Medical Research Institute in the 1960s. His research revealed that teams move through five distinct phases: forming (initial assembly), storming (conflict and boundary-testing), norming (agreement on working methods), performing (autonomous high performance), and adjourning (project conclusion).
The difference between struggling groups and high-performing teams? Skilled leaders know exactly where their group stands and what moves to make next.
Our hypothetical product team begins like most: talented people thrown together with ambitious goals but unclear roles. Engineers who built the company’s last platform sit next to data scientists from different divisions, working alongside product managers with conflicting priorities, all wondering who’s really in charge of what.
This initial assembly phase feels electric with possibility and thick with anxiety. Members ask plenty of questions but hold back strong opinions. They’re sizing each other up while trying to decode expectations that nobody has made explicit.
The leader’s job is to remove the guesswork from the equation. Run a focused kickoff that answers five fundamentals: why the team exists, what outcome you’ll deliver, who makes which decisions, how work will flow, and when progress gets reviewed. Capture this in a one-page charter covering purpose, scope, early risks, and the first major milestone.
Keep teams small and make ownership obvious. Amazon’s two-pizza rule limits team size to what two pizzas can feed—typically six to eight people. They also assign single-threaded leaders who own outcomes end-to-end, eliminating confusion about accountability. To build rapport, pair people for short, low-risk tasks in week one.
Three months into the product development cycle, initial harmony shatters. Engineers blame data scientists for unrealistic algorithm requirements. Data scientists point fingers at product managers for constantly shifting priorities. Product managers insist both teams are missing user needs. Meetings become battlegrounds over tools, quality standards, and who has authority to make changes.
This can be the toughest stage for leaders. But it’s okay to experience discomfort—provided you take a methodical approach and use visible decision rules and timeboxes to keep the heat productive.
Disagreements about responsibilities, quality standards, and workflows are normal and necessary. Your role is making debates productive rather than destructive.
Write options where everyone can see them, clarify who makes the final call, and set time limits for decisions. Pixar’s creative teams hold regular feedback sessions where peers offer brutal honesty while directors retain final authority. The key is psychological safety within clear boundaries.
Consider the cautionary tale of Theranos, where founder Elizabeth Holmes systematically avoided storming by siloing teams and punishing dissent. What looked like smooth collaboration was actually a collection of isolated groups working on incompatible solutions. When reality finally intruded, the company collapsed—partly because it never built the trust and shared understanding that comes from surviving productive conflict together.
The storming phase builds the foundation for everything that follows. Teams that avoid conflict often struggle with hidden resentments and unclear expectations later.
By month six, the product team starts finding their groove. Engineers learn to flag scalability concerns before data scientists build complex models. Data scientists begin designing experiments with engineering constraints in mind. Product managers start translating user feedback into technical requirements both teams can act on. Cross-functional standups replace blame-shifting sessions.
This is when your group starts feeling like a team. Members understand their responsibilities and how their work connects. Trust builds as people consistently deliver on commitments. As norms take hold, good leaders shift from directing to coaching; guarding the cadence rather than trying to micro-manage every decision.
Document how work actually happens so these emerging habits survive growth and turnover. Use shared agendas, regular updates, and decision logs to reduce ambiguity. New members should decode expectations quickly rather than learning through trial and error.
GitLab operates with publicly accessible handbooks that capture everything from meeting formats to decision-making processes. While your team may not need that level of documentation, clear agreements prevent backsliding when pressure mounts.
The product team hits performing stage just as launch deadlines approach. Team members help across role boundaries without being asked. When user research reveals unexpected behavior patterns, engineers proactively suggest algorithm adjustments while data scientists redesign experiments using available development resources. The product team catches usability issues before they reach engineering. Performance becomes sustainable rather than heroic.
In this stage, members anticipate problems and solve them without waiting for direction. They challenge each other’s ideas respectfully and course-correct quickly when plans meet reality.
It’s critical to protect the two conditions that enable peak performance. First, psychological safety—people must feel secure taking smart risks and admitting mistakes. Google’s research identified this as one of the strongest predictors of team effectiveness. Second, maintain clear structure around goals, roles, and processes so judgment has guardrails.
Ask what risks your team isn’t taking and why. Check that goals, responsibilities, and plans align in everyone’s minds. Share context liberally so people can make good decisions independently.
Not every group reaches performing. The Fyre Festival’s organizing team looked impressive on paper: experienced event planners, marketing experts, logistics coordinators. But they never moved beyond forming. Team members worked in silos, each assuming others were handling critical details. When reality hit the Bahamian beach, there was no shared foundation to fall back on as everything collapsed.
The product team eventually disbands as the launch succeeds and members move to new challenges. Some feel pride in shipping something users love. Others worry about finding equally collaborative teams. All carry lessons that will shape their next projects.
Close with learning and clean handoffs. Run a brief retrospective to capture what worked, what didn’t, and what to try differently next time. Focus on specific improvements with owners and timelines.
Adopt a blameless approach so people can describe problems honestly without fear of punishment. The goal is organizational learning, not individual accountability for past mistakes.
Teams with varied backgrounds and skills cover each other’s blind spots and challenge biased thinking. What one member lacks, another can provide.
Connect daily work to clear, shared goals. Check alignment regularly as projects evolve and circumstances change.
Give direction during forming, manage conflict in storming, establish routines in norming, remove obstacles during performing, and capture learning in adjourning.
High-performing teams aren’t built overnight. They develop through consistent, stage-appropriate actions that meet groups where they are. Use Tuckman’s framework to time your interventions, keep your moves concrete and visible, and trust the process. Over several cycles, your collection of individual contributors will transform into a unified team that delivers more than the sum of its parts.
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