MGT 3100 Project 2

Atalie’s Section - 5 Stages Psychologist Bruce Tuckman originated the phrase "forming, storming, norming, and performing" in his 1965 article, "Developmental Sequence in Small Groups." In reflection on the development of our group and the roles that were played, I feel that the sequential process Tuckman describes is strikingly similar to what our group experienced. The original stage of team building is the forming stage. In this stage our group was not exactly sure what this project would entail and what work was ahead of us. We were all polite and on our best behavior making contact with the rest of the group. There was a positive and high expectation that we would be successful and develop an outstanding service learning project. In this stage our roles were not clearly defined. This lead to us mostly working independently and gaining an understanding for the project and what to expect for ourselves. The storming phase of our team development was simply caused by the difficult time we had getting our project proposal approved. This lead to frustration because the project was not meeting our earlier expectations. Our team became worried that we were not going to be able to meet our goal as we began to express our concerns to each other. I do not believe this frustration was targeted to any members of the group or to the management process its self but simply to the expectations of the assignment. In this stage we had to challenge each others ideas since these ideas were ultimately competing for consideration. However, I think this confrontation was handled well and was ultimately healthy for the group and for the outcome of the project.

Our team finally went through the norming phase after a long process of submitting project proposals and finally developing an idea we could agree on and be successful with. In this stage we knew each other a little better than before and the roles that we defined began to naturally arise. Now that the idea was accepted