How long before the group becomes a team?
Calling a group of people a team doesn’t automatically make them a team, it takes time for the levels of trust and understanding to grow, and for individual quirks, nuances, strengths and weaknesses to be accepted and embraced.
I don’t think that you ever “finish” growing as a team, but I do think that there’s a point where a team is distinctly operating at a higher level, and the ‘magic’ starts to happen and they work together much more collaboratively, and are truly working as a well-oiled machine. They are noticeably and truly greater than the sum of their parts.
How long, from your experience, does this process take for a new team? For me, it’s almost always been at least 6 months, but I’d be fascinated to know if others find it to be more or less.
I agree, at least 6 months for the best and sometimes, it takes ages !
Ramsay, are you familiar with Tuckman's 4 stages of team development?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_group_development
Posted By Timothy Baffa on 27 Oct 2015 05:25 PM
Ramsay, are you familiar with Tuckman's 4 stages of team development?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_group_development
Yes - it's essentially a 'typical' time for a team to progress to 'performing' that I am interested in. It will vary a lot which I accept, but I'd imagine that there is a 'rule of thumb'.
It's a bit like running a marathon -- a "typical" time is hard to pin down, but it's probably about 3.5-4.5 hours for most people. Some will be faster, others slower, but it sets the ballpark.
The reason I ask is somebody suggested to me last week that people should rotate teams every 6 months to prevent knowledge silos and maintain innovation, which got me thinking whether such teams would ever actually "perform" (ignoring the impact that this could have on their sense of ownership, etc. as well).
Maybe you can find ways to maintain innovation without disturbing the teams ?
Posted By Olivier LEDRU on 28 Oct 2015 08:21 AM
Maybe you can find ways to maintain innovation without disturbing the teams ?
I agree -- to re-iterate, this isn't something I'm proposing myself.
Ramsay,
Perhaps your struggle with this question is that you are asking for a typical time around a very atypical process.
The community will tell you that the time it takes teams to move through team-forming stages vary widely, and are influenced by a multitude of factors.
Therefore, I would agree with Olivier's sentiment. The question of "why" needs to be asked in regards to rotating team rosters every 6 months.
- What is the goal?
- What other ways can the goal be achieved?
- What if a team is able to move to norming or performing within 6 months? Is shaking up the team roster at that point worth the drop in productivity and morale?
Just my observation of course, but it seems you're at a point where questions need to be asked, and options vetted, instead of building evidence to counter the proposal being made.
Hi Timothy
Appreciate the reply but I think you’re over-thinking my question a little (in hindsight providing more detail has added undue complexity to my question). As other have answered already - c. 6 months, maybe more, maybe less, is broadly reasonable.
It will vary from team to team, no doubt, but in the same way that you can give an approximate time to run a marathon you can also place a ‘ball park’ figure on how quickly a team might settle in and start working well. The general magnitude is far more significant in this instance than an absolute number. If the answers were akin to “15 minutes” or “within a Sprint or two” I would be sitting down for a serious re-think, but as has been demonstrated, it takes a while (probably > 6 months) which is all I really wanted to affirm.
I also agree with Oliver’s sentiment. This isn’t something that I would do or encourage and my first reaction is all the questions suggested in this thread. It simply triggered another train of thought regarding how long a team might take to work well, and whether such a regime would, as I suspected, kill off many teams before they reach their peak.
Thanks all :)
Many teams are not teams at all but merely workgroups, in so far as its members operate in skill silos and do not truly collaborate. The evidence of a team lies in its teamwork.
People do not have to be completely cross trained to constitute a team. However, as long as even one member operates in a silo it is hard to say that a team exists.