5 Stages Within My Life - 1000 word blog post

Image by Kaci Burden (me) (all rights belong to me)

Collaboration online is something we see all the time but never really notice. Collaboration is online along with in person. Whether it's a sports team, gaming online and in person, a project worked on in school or in a workplace has become a powerful role in today's society. The biggest projects, creations, events, and creations are typically worked on with many people because not one person can do everything alone. One person's mind and talent can only contribute so much.

Tuckman's 5 stages of Group Development is something many people use without really knowing. Stage 1 is forming. The forming stage takes place when a team is first formed. The team members are introduced and share information on their backgrounds. They discuss their goals or the direction they want to take with the project. I can relate because being on a sports team; I was a sophomore on the varsity basketball team. All the teams I had in middle school and my freshman year of high school were filled with the same exact girls. This was a very new experience for me playing with not only older girls but with different people. The girl that was captain was already committed to Yale for basketball but was trying to make me comfortable with the other girls but asking me to do stuff with them outside the sport for team growth. Online an example would be within gaming. When playing a game such as a sports game online with other people you have to connect to the game and join teams with random people. It requires a headset so you can first people the other people within your game and begin playing.

The second stage is storming. The storming stage is unavoidable. This is where the team begins to develop. Everyone is finding their place within the team or group; along with everyone trying to get acceptance of their ideas. Everyone has their own ideas and opinions to compete for status. The team or group leader has guidance of the problems and function of the group. The team leader also settles the roles and responsibilities for the team. I had this issue within my team. I was the odd one out of the group being the youngest and the biggest threat of my basketball team. The girls expected me to be taking their spots and playing time which caused issues between myself and them. The captain helped with this immensely. By having meetings outside the group and everyone figuring out their place helped me make friends and not be left out of the group. I found myself contributing a lot within practice by challenging the other girls for what they would be playing against in games. Everyone slowly had their role on the team being different roles even if they didn’t have playing time. Online gaming the roles play out a little differently. When playing a game such as football on XBOX; the team leader is the person giving the direction and making plays in order to win on the game. Everyone else finds their role as they begin playing the game. Some people don't speak and many help out the leader.

The third stage is norming. This is when everyone is starting to become a team. It is no longer about individual goals it is focused on developing a way of working together. Every values the differences of others ideas. Along with working together begins to become more natural. The team is able to work together and solve conflicts along with knowing which tools and processes they need to get to a resolution. I have experienced this many times within teams. This stage is one of the most important especially if you are new to a team. Being the youngest on my basketball team, this was one of the most important stages for me me. Everyone began to expect the fact that I was on the team to stay and everything began to become normal. Everyone began to listen to the ideas I had to improve our game during the first game. We were all working together instead of for ourselves. Passing the ball and doing plays that showed all of our weaknesses and after that we were almost always successful. During a video game with many people involved not till after a few minutes or half through the game the team starts to norm. The team starts to become comfortable with each other to share their ideas to be successful. People begin to realize what will depending on the skill set of others on the team.  

The performing stage is a special stage within the group. Its when the hard work begins to pay off. The team is functioning at a high level. The team is now completely comfortable with each other and trust one another. The goal is reaching success as a group. It is when the group has the same goal and has the motivation to complete it. This happened within my team. We had the goal of being conference champions. It was a goal as a whole to be the best in years. We were winning many games and we were top in the conference alongside another team. We were performing on and off the court becoming very good friends and it turned into the number one goal with all of us. The performing stage within a game is when the team is doing good overall together. The team is playing their roles and accomplishing them. The team has a lot of good plays and their ideas are starting to flow as one. Problems are being solved quickly and efficiently.

The last and final stage is adjoining. Adjourning is when the project is coming to an end and the members are moving into different directions. This is the stage when the team is looking at the perspective of the well-being of the team rather than managing the team through the four stages before. It is time to celebrate success and take away lessons they have learned. When getting to this final stage it is very hard. When I went through this stage with my team members, I knew we were all moving on to bigger and better places. The seniors were off to college and some were continuing their basketball careers but a lot were ending them. It was taking the bigger picture from the whole situation we had for the past months. We all learned lessons with basketball but also working in a group situation even if it wasn’t in a sport. It taught us ways to handle group situations and how to be successful. Within a game, these are lessons you learn from working with a group of strangers. It is lessons to take to the next game you participate in or even groups outside the video game.

Image by: Leo Jiménez via Wikimedia Commons