Dr. Bruce Tuckman's Four Stages Of Group Work

A group can come about for a variety of reasons. Working in a group promotes collaboration and cooperation. Members of the group develop communication and teamwork skills. Group work also allows for shared experience and knowledge. Each member comes to the group with a different skill set and knowledge base.
The model of the stages of group development were developed by Dr. Bruce Tuckman The four stages that he came up with were forming, storming, norming and performing. A fifth stage, adjourning, was added in later years (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2014, p. 204). In the forming stage of group development, the members of the group get to know each other. The purpose and goals for the group are unclear. The second stage, storming, marks a time of
202). There are many ways to make group work more effective. Diane Baylis, a Clinical Risk Manager, notes that “Staff who feel that they have organisational support generally have a greater sense of commitment to their role” (Baylis, 2014). This means that the group has to be organized in order for the members to provide meaningful input. If everyone is doing working on parts of the given task without proper communication with the group, it can lead to issues, such as member confusion, duplicate ideas, etc. These can then cause further issues that can lead to further communication breakdown and potentially group dissolution. To make group work more effective, it is important to establish a set of group guidelines. Knowing each other’s strengths and their methods to working and learning can make things run smoothly. Appointing a group leader is also a great way to make sure everyone has an assigned role in the group and that important tasks are being done (University of Birmingham, n.d.). Strategies to promote goal achievement would be making sure to share ideas with one another, completing your given tasks on time, attending meetings that your group has set up to work on the tasks, and contributing to group discussions (Orlando, 2017).
I typically have a positive experience when it comes to group work. I get to meet new people and collaborate to come up with new and creative ideas. A con I have with group work is that it can be hard to communicate. Everyone has different schedules and interest levels when it comes to the task or assignment that we have been given. It can be hard to get everyone on the same page to accomplish something. These pros and cons are supported in the literature. They are talked about throughout the groupwork