PMO Focus | The Impacts of the Team Lifecycle by Margo Rabchenuk

Oftentimes, when an organization looks at the lifecycle of a project, they may see it in the stages that relate to the work being accomplished as a traditional project regardless of the methodology used to manage it. The inception of a project would include a kickoff and the team begins work. The project concludes and either enters into a maintenance cadence or a new project is begun for the next phase of the work.

For enterprises looking to foster agile project management as part of their digital modernization and transformation journeys, those activities are then wrapped into the agile process and is modified as the team needs. It is important to remember that over the course of a project’s lifecycle the team will also experience some changes and adjustments of their own as they learn to work together which may not correspond directly to a project timeline. 

Psychologist Bruce Tuckman uses five stages of team development that focuses on these areas of movement that a team will experience: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. For the purposes of understanding the project as it begins and starts to reach velocity, we will focus on the first two of those stages and what impacts the team’s stage will have for agile projects.

Forming

The Forming stage refers to any time a team is learning how to work together. Even seasoned team members will have time within a project where they may have new workflows, tools, roles within the project, or even changes to who is working with them on the team. This will be a calibration (or recalibration) time for the team to learn how to work with each other.

Changes to the team and process can come at any time during a project, and the agile methodology allows for this change to be as seamless as it could be. Since communication is the foundation of any agile team, it is unlikely that all change will come without some prior indicator of its impact to the team. Teams can spend some refinement meetings planning for this change and adjusting sprints to accommodate whatever is necessary. This may include adding additional tasks to prepare for a new team member and their onboarding needs into the project, or even testing of a new technology to use in a future sprint. Velocity will slow down during this stage, and is to be expected – even in the middle of a project. This stage takes as long as it needs to, and the duration is determined by the type of change and the team involved. It will be tempting to put a timeline on it, but pressure will only cause more risk. The best path for a quick exit out of the Forming stage is to be as communicative and collaborative as possible.

Norming

There is a part of the Norming stage where the team may not have realized they have entered it, and it will feel as if they are getting their training wheels off their first bicycle and being a bit unsteady. With the Forming stage, this stage will also will exhibit a slower velocity, but the team will start to pick up and move faster as they settle into a pattern. Teams will experience some stops and starts, and if more change is introduced, the team can stay in this stage for a long time. It is not uncommon for the team to nearly split the stages, where some team members are back to the Forming stage and others still comfortably in the Norming stage – especially if they work in different areas of a project (such as design versus development).

Projects that are in the midst of complex development with firm timelines or other constraints will want to mitigate these stages as much as possible with careful planning and support. Both Forming and Norming stages are extremely risky and taxing on a team’s morale and ability to become high performing teams in the later stages. It is not easy for a team to absorb a lot of change at once. Change is welcomed in Agile, however it should be introduced with purpose and as much planning as necessary. By keeping communication around any potential adjustment or requirement open and honest, it will help teams figure out the best way to integrate the change in a way that has minimal impact to the team.

Unrealistic expectations around velocity during the Forming and Norming stages will only provide a source of stress for the team and risk the overall work product. Support and empathy during times of change are key parts of success for any team in organizations going through a transformation. Leadership should pay attention to the changes being introduced into critical projects and keep bi-directional lines of communication open with the impacted teams while provide as much strategic direction as possible.