{"id":1238,"date":"2025-05-20T14:08:30","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T12:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/?p=1238"},"modified":"2026-02-19T18:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:58:13","slug":"15-whats-up-with-the-team-right-now-tuckman-and-glasl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/15-whats-up-with-the-team-right-now-tuckman-and-glasl\/","title":{"rendered":"15. What\u2019s up with the team right now? \u2013 Tuckman (and Glasl)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[This post is part of Corinna’s Guide to Facilitating Retrospectives<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hi beautiful!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, we talked about why you might want to vary activities in a retrospective<\/a> (or decide against it). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week, I present a concept from the 1960s that can help you pick activities that will support the current team mood. Bruce Tuckman posed that all newly formed teams go through similar stages<\/a>, before they can perform well together:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The original four stages are Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing<\/strong>. Tuckman himself later added a final stage: Adjourning<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The stages are not strictly linear. Some teams skip a stage, others fluctuate e.g. because of changes in team membership, leadership, tasks, \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much later (in the 2010s), Heidi Helfand<\/a> suggested a stage between \u201cPerforming\u201d and \u201cAdjourning\u201d. She called it \u201cStagnating\u201d. This stage highlights the trade-off between keeping teams stable (you don\u2019t have to go through the stages again) and too stable (no fresh ideas).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I plan a retrospective, I find it useful to think about what is currently going on for the team and pick activities accordingly. Check out the free Retromat Quick Ref<\/a> for pointers on which Tuckman stage an activity is well suited for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Important addition: Later research suggests that the stages are not as clear-cut as laid out by Tuckman<\/strong>. Instead, a team can be in several stages at the same time<\/strong> \u2013 the stage depends on the topic. So, they might be performing<\/em> in writing code<\/em> and still storming<\/em> about how to best test <\/em>this code. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me, the phases are still a useful model just more granular than previously thought. It comes in handy, especially when you want to devote a retrospective to a single topic. Consider the Tuckman stage for this topic. A team that\u2019s storming needs very different support (help them share their perspectives and agree) from one that\u2019s stagnating regarding this topic (shake things up). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take a minute:
<\/strong>What stages do you observe with your team for which topic?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So long and have a great week, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corinna<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PS: Regarding storming and conflict<\/strong> in general: Conflict can be very productive and healthy as long as all involved respect each other. When I started out as a facilitator, facilitation was my main tool and I had a gut feeling about its limitations but I could not have put it into words. Luckily Glasl did it for me. Some situations cannot be helped by facilitation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n


Check out Glasl\u2019s Stages of Conflict Escalation to get a feeling for when facilitation and retrospectives can help and when they are doomed to fail and you need to bring reinforcements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PS: If you'd rather read this Guide as an ebook, click here.<\/a> Or go all in and get it as part of the Retromat eBook Bundle<\/a> at a discount. A purchase also supports Retromat as a whole \ud83d\ude42<\/strong><\/h3><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is part of Corinna’s Guide to Facilitating Retrospectives] Hi beautiful! Last week, we talked about why you might want to vary activities in a retrospective (or decide against it).  This week, I present a concept from the 1960s that can help you pick activities that will support the current team mood. Bruce Tuckman … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “15. What\u2019s up with the team right now? \u2013 Tuckman (and Glasl)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1238"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1344,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238\/revisions\/1344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}