What Is Team Development? Definition, Stages, and More | Coursera

Learn about team development and why organizations use it to improve team efficiency. Discover the stages of team development, how teams may cycle through these stages, and what interventions may be helpful to mature growing teams.
An organization uses the team development process to improve the efficiency and progress of a team working toward a common goal or mission.
Tuckman’s five stages of team development are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.
Team development helps organizations assess and improve a team’s efficiency, progress, and overall performance as the team works toward a common objective or mission.
You can teach conflict resolution methods to team members during the storming stage of team development.
Learn more about team development, including why it's important, its stages, and how to implement it in your workplace. Then, explore how Coursera for Business can help your organization excel at change management, boost productivity, and learn to use GenAI in your workplace to drive innovation.
Team development is an intentional, ongoing process by an organization to improve the efficiency and progress of a team working toward a common goal or mission. Many team development goals focus on improving the working relationship of team members through improved methods of conflict resolution and communication skills, so that everyone feels understood and valued.
Team development is helpful for organizations that want to improve, maintain, or grow a team. Some organizations implement team development via a team development action plan, which details goals, tasks, activities, strategies, and more for improving and supporting team performance and efficiency.
Team development helps organizations evaluate and improve a team’s efficiency, progress, and overall performance as the team works toward a common goal or mission.
Organizations often use team development concepts to save time, money, or both. The main goal is to leverage and maximize the efforts of a team to complete a task more efficiently than one individual may be able to do alone. In effect, team development recognizes the individual and the team as a whole to improve aspects of teamwork, including communication, conflict resolution, problem-solving, accountability, and motivation.
Read more: Improve Teamwork with These Simple Steps
Organizations can use team development for multiple purposes, depending on the team's goal or mission. For example, an organization may use team development to improve a failing team, maintain an emerging one, or grow a more mature one.
Some common reasons for team development include:
Clarify roles within a team to reduce the ambiguity of roles and responsibilities.
Improve relationships among team members.
Create solutions for problems within the team.
Improve team motivation.
Identify issues impeding team progress.
Create an opportunity for open communication, constructive criticism, and sharing.
Promote individual and team independence and confidence.
Better align the actions of the team to a central goal.
Organizations of varying sizes and industries that use teams to complete tasks may use team development to improve teams’ functionality and performance. From online shoe retailers to massive tech companies, team development is essential to evaluating team performance and providing support where needed.
In the 1960s, Professor Bruce W. Tuckman identified four main stages of team development. Later, a fifth one was added, and today, these stages are most commonly known as “Tuckman’s Five Stages of Team Development.” These stages are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Also referred to as team development models, these phases or stages of team development can support team members as they work to achieve tasks individually and as a group.
Teams can use these stages to reflect and amend their structure when necessary. These stages also act as a roadmap to the end goal or mission. The speed at which teams move through these stages depends on many factors, including the expectations of team members, individuals on the team, leadership, and the team's overall goal.
Explore each of these stages in more depth:
Being the initial stage in team development, team members can expect excitement and uncertainty as the team forms and begins to set its general structure, tasks, goals, roles, and responsibilities. During this stage, team members work together to create a mission and develop expectations among individuals within the team. Team leaders must create a safe, non-threatening environment for the team to progress to the next stage. Active leadership with structure and direction is critical in the forming stage.
During this stage, the team may:
Engage in “icebreakers” to get to know one another.
Take quizzes on work styles or personality types so each team member can better understand how they and others work.
Set and communicate team goals, expectations, rules, and other guidelines for the team.
Develop a timeline for the project.
After developing foundational elements of the team, such as goals and roles, the team may move into a more volatile phase called storming. During the storming stage, team members may begin to question the team's direction or decisions and express concerns that might create conflict among members.
Some team members may become critical of leadership or others as they work to resolve conflicts, reflect on the team's goals and mission, and refocus the team's direction as needed. Necessary leadership during this stage should include teaching team members appropriate conflict resolution methods while praising and supporting the team through this challenging stage.
During this stage, the team may:
Clarify team roles with written job descriptions.
Engage in healthy and appropriate conflict resolution activities or discussions.
Trust among team members builds as a result of healthy conflict.
Rely on other team members to help with specific task