Forming
Polite, cautious, low conflict. People are figuring out who's who, what the work is, what the social rules are. Output: low. Mistakes are over-interpreted because no one has context yet. PMs do most of the talking and direction-giving.
Storming
Conflict surfaces. People test boundaries, push for influence, disagree about how things should be done. This stage is uncomfortable but necessary — teams that skip storming haven't actually established trust, they've just suppressed disagreement. PMs facilitate, don't avoid.
Norming
Working agreements emerge. Roles clarify. Conflict reduces because there's a shared sense of how the team operates. The team can disagree productively. Output rises.
Performing
High output, high trust, low overhead. The team can take on ambiguous problems and self-organize. Decisions happen quickly because shared context is high. Most teams never reach this stage; the ones that do don't stay there forever — any team change resets the cycle.
↳ in the wild