TEAM DEVELOPMENT

Tuckman and Jensen's Team Development Stages



Tuckman and Jensen's Team Development

Team Management by Objectives for Team Development

As suggested earlier, there is a complementarily between the concepts of management by objectives and the view of team or group development proposed by Tuckman and Jensen. This complementarily can be seen when Drucker (1954) asked the question: "What should the objectives of a manager be?" He argued from the "big boss" down that objectives need to be clearly spelled out.

Drawing upon this emphasis on fostering improved performance through teamwork, we argue that management by objectives can be usefully linked to the stages of team development proffered by Tuckman and Jensen. More specifically, team performance can be improved through the manager's selective involvement in the development of the team at each of its stages, guided by the principles comprising management by objectives. Given its focus on team management, we call this concept team management by objectives (or TMBO) and illustrate its application to team development (Banks, 2006).

Forming Stage: Assign the Right People to the Right Team

A key responsibility of the manager in the forming stage is to ensure that the right people are assigned to the team. Who are the right people? A recent literature review on virtual teams suggests that teams (both conventional and virtual) should be comprised of members with expertise (e.g., skills in sales) particular to the work of the team (Rasmussen, 2007).

Storming Stage: Mitigate by Anticipating Unforeseen Events that Lead to Conflict

At this stage, the manager can help the team to successfully pass through the storming stage by anticipating unforeseen events that can lead to conflict. As noted previously, seeds for these conflicts can take the form of differences in priorities, ideas, and ways of working, which cannot necessarily all be adopted by the team. Events may occur that ...