A Review of Tuckman’s Small Group Development Model

Introduction
Over the past two decades, it seems that teamwork has become increasingly important and more companies have formed different teams and groups for various purposes (Samson & Daft, 2012). Teamwork often means more innovative ideas and greater diversity of experience, perspectives, and knowledge on the coming problems at work (Gummer, 1996). Another significant benefit of teamwork is that teams are often capable to manage significant cross-disciplinary concerns (Gummer, 1996). Although it is proved that good teams can be highly productive, not every team is successful (Samson & Daft, 2012). Forming a team can be time consuming and there are many problems related to teamwork, for …show more content…
As described by Miller (2003), it is “the most predominantly referred to and most widely recognized (theory) in organization literature”. For example, when I watched the movie Guardians of the Galaxy produced by Marvel Studios, I found the story could be summarized as the story of how team was developed and Tuckman’s model would be perfectly applicable in this case. The whole story can be segmented into five stages: team forming when the five heroes met; storming when they were testing their friendship and having conflicts; norming when they reached an agreement to work together to kill the boss; performing when they faced the problems together and finished their goal; lastly, adjourning after the mission was accomplished. This is just one of the many examples of how the five-stage model widely works. It may be recognized in many cases because it is “a simple means of discussing and exploring team dynamics” (Rickards and Moger, 2000). It is also noted by Cassidy (2007) that this model still remained one of the most commonly cited group development models. From another perspective, the model is also helpful for graduate students in understanding group dynamics (Maples, …show more content…
In addition, two critical questions concerning with task performance are raised by Rickards and Moger (2010). The first refers to the possibility of failure in achieving expected performance, which has not been discussed in Tuckman’s theory, being similar to the limitation mentioned above. The other question is that no approach to effective performance is provided, and no effect of creativity in outstanding performance is explained. In the other model proposed by Rickards and Moger (2010), there are two kinds of barriers: weak and strong behavioral barrier. Majority teams can pass the weak behavioral barrier and they usually produce similar performances of ideas and behaviors, while only a few teams pass through the strong barriers by creative performance (Rickards & Moger, 2010). Tuckman’s model, however, does not involve this concern in the performing stage. In many cases, teams with extraordinary performances are much different from those with ordinary performances, and it would be more useful and practical to take the factors contributing to higher-quality-performing stage into