How Our Team developed during the Pandemic - Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing.

It has been almost 2 years since I had the privilege to take over the management role of the newly formed Strategy & Business Operations Team of SAP's global IT organization Intelligent Enterprise Solutions. The experience from the definitely unexpected pandemic situation combined with our team results of the recent SAP People Survey inspired me to write down my personal thoughts about our example of team development in this article.

Tuckman's Model of Group Development

When thinking about the different phases that we went through as a team, Bruce Tuckman's "Forming–Storming–Norming–Performing Model of Group Development" comes immediately to my mind. Tuckman proposed this model in 1965 and it still nicely describes all necessary and inevitable phases that a team has to go through - Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing - and through which we went to ultimately become a performing team.

Phase 1: Forming - Come gather 'round people wherever you roam…

Our team was formed from scratch with colleagues who had previously worked in different teams and for different managers, most of them based in Germany but also in the United States. Some of us had known each other and worked together for years, others in the team met each other for the first time during our Team Kickoff Workshop, one of the few occasions to meet personally before the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 made us a completely remote Home Office-based team like so many other teams all over the world. We went through the typical elements of the Forming phase: Getting to know each other, discussing new ideas, agreeing on goals and responsibilities… all while keeping daily operations up and running.

From an analytical measurement perspective, the closest data point for this phase are the results of the People Survey, SAP's global employees satisfaction survey, conducted a few weeks before the team was formed. Not surprisingly, the results were mixed and mediocre reflecting the insecurity among the colleagues and emphasizing the need to setup a clear team structure to provide a strategic direction and guidance for employees.

Phase 2: Storming - Sailing through the storm in the midst of a global pandemic

The next phase of Storming is typically a challenging stage in team development characterized by tension, disagreements and personality clashes. Even though it is difficult to define the exact start and end dates of each phase, I believe our Forming phase coincided exactly with the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic and the "First Wave" with lockdowns from March to June 2020.

During this phase, managers and supervisors should be more accessible, which of course was difficult during the lockdown and not surprisingly we faced all kinds of personal challenges during this crisis. However, challenges and disagreements within the team can make members stronger, more versatile, and able to work more effectively together.

Following the Tuckman model, it became obvious that during the Storming phase the majority of the team was too busy and distracted to participate in the People Survey which resulted in no survey data to analyze during this phase.

Phase 3: Norming - The machine is up and running like a clockwork…

After we made it through the Storming phase, the team setup stabilized during the Norming phase: A few new colleagues got integrated and the remote onboarding worked quite well. Norms, routines and rituals were established, we enjoyed regular virtual team gatherings and celebrated a virtual Christmas Party.

Our team machine started to run like a clockwork and the next iteration of the People Survey showed much higher participation, improvement in almost all dimensions and a very high engagement level above 90%.

Phase 4: Performing - Time to reap the benefits…

Hard to say when exactly we entered the Performing stage of the Tuckman model since the team performed already throughout all previous stages. However, I would say latest beginning of 2021 and a bit more than a year after its inception, our team became a truly high-performing team and developed also the self-confidence and self-perception as a functioning team that represents more than just the sum of its pieces.

?"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships."

- Michael Jordan -

In spring 2021, the results of the People Survey also confirmed our journey along the team development process with a consistently positive trend, many survey values above corporate average and an employee engagement level of 98%. Interestingly and after some data analysis, our employee engagement levels of the past surveys fit quite precisely to the typical "Tuckman Team Curve" as shown above - and predicted by Tuckman more than 50 years ago.

Keep going and don't stop performing…

The pandemic might have added some unforeseen challenges and slowed things down a bit along the development process, but we pulled this off together as a team and now it is time to keep performing. While this might sound like a stable situation, there are constantly changing parameters within the team and in its surrounding. So a bit of Forming, Storming and Norming is constantly needed to adjust accordingly and be able to keep Performing as a team.

This is a good time and opportunity for a big Thank You to everyone who made this journey possible: Our team members, other teams and individuals that we collaborate with, my manager and the entire management team around us. Of course, not to forget our families and our personal environment who sometimes had to suffer or sacrifice based on the various stages of team development and the impact it had on us as a team and on our social environment.

In summary, I see this as a nice example how we experienced a well-established theoretical model of team development in real life creating a sense of happiness, pride and humility.

“Coming together is a beginning.

Keeping together is progress.

Working together is success.”

- Henry Ford -

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