By far the most popular post on this blog over the last few weeks has been my recent one on team development and forming-storming-norming-performing. 
I’ve been involved in hundreds of teams and, in my opinion, the most important factor in the effectiveness of these teams has been the formation phase.
If a child isn’t given the right food in its early years its growth will be stunted and it will never reach its full potential. This is the same for teams that aren’t given the right start in life.
What is the right start though?
I mainly work on technical teams and there are, from personal experience, a number of things that, if done right, put the team on a firm foundation:
Early Face-to-Face Meeting
There might not be any tangible benefits to an initial meeting, but there are a lot of intangible benefits. These intangible benefits are very important for good ongoing development.
At a good face-to-face meeting the team will start to build a rapport that will be vital in the storming phase.
We don’t have any technology, yet, that replaces the power of face-to-face meetings.
An Openness to Communicate
Secrets are a huge problem for team development. Hidden agendas are very destructive. In order to overcome these issue people need to communicate.
A Lack of Pre-conceived Ideas and an Abundance of Open Minds.
I have been in many a team where someone (sometimes me) believed that they had all of the answers and all that anyone needed to do was to get on with what they said. This might produce a quick result, but isn’t likely to produce the best result.
Where members of a team have had a previous bad experience of working together this can add to the problem.
Focussing on the Solution
Some people will always look on the bright side of life, and others will look on the opposite, negative side. Where members of a team focus, quickly, on the possible solutions the team formation is a good one.
Working Beyond the Boundaries
People are normally part of a team because they have a role, or a skill, or a position. If they only do the job that they are their to do, the team is likely to remain as a set of parts and not become a unit.
Valuing Diversity
Different members of the team will have different skills and insights. An openness to recognising and valuing these differences will let the team form more quickly.
I’m sure that there are all sorts of things that I’ve forgotten but these will do for now. Do you have some that you think are vital?
Graham Chastney 