Two Team Models for Different Management Questions
Tuckman VS Belbin team models are often introduced together because both help managers think about teams. They are not, however, competing models. Tuckman explains how a team may develop over time; Belbin examines the behavioural contributions that people may bring to a team. One is principally about team development and maturity. The other is principally about team composition and interaction.
The practical answer: use Tuckman when the management question is, “Where is this team in its development, and what leadership support does it need now?” Use Belbin when the question is, “What contributions, working preferences or behavioural gaps are affecting how this team works?”
A manager who confuses the models may apply the wrong intervention. A team experiencing conflict during a new project may need clearer goals, facilitation and time to establish working norms; that is a Tuckman question. A stable team that lacks follow-through, challenge or external relationship-building may need to reflect on contribution balance; that is a Belbin question.
Tuckman VS Belbin team models at a glance
| Dimension | Tuckman’s stages of team development | Belbin Team Roles |
| Central question | How is the team developing over time? | What behavioural contributions are present, underused or in tension within the team? |
| Primary focus | Team maturity, relationships, autonomy and group process | Team composition, contribution patterns and collaborative behaviour |
| Core concepts | Forming, storming, norming, performing; later work also included adjourning | Nine Team Roles across thinking, action and people-oriented contributions |
| Useful management response | Adapt leadership, clarify purpose, manage conflict, build norms and increase autonomy appropriately | Improve self-awareness, role allocation, collaboration and team balance |
| What it does not do well | It does not identify each member’s preferred contribution or technical capability | It does not describe a predictable sequence through which every team develops |
CMI presents the distinction clearly in practice. It describes Tuckman as a progression through forming, storming, norming and performing, with leadership adapting as the team gains capability and autonomy. It presents Belbin as a framework of behavioural contributions, each with strengths and potential allowable weaknesses (CMI, 2020).
What Tuckman’s model explains
Bruce Tuckman’s original 1965 model identified four stages of small-group development: forming, storming, norming and performing. Tuckman and Jensen later added adjourning to account for teams that complete a task or disband (Tuckman, 1965; Tuckman and Jensen, 1977). The model has endured because it gives managers a straightforward language for recognising that uncertainty and conflict can be normal features of early team development rather than immediate evidence of failure.
Forming: orientation and dependence
At the forming stage, members are working out why the team exists, what success means, who has authority and how they are expected to contribute. Roles may be unclear and people may rely on the leader for direction. The manager’s task is to establish purpose, outcomes, boundaries, decision rights, ways of working and access to essential information. It is also a moment to create psychological safety: people need to be able to ask questions and clarify assumptions without being penalised for uncertainty.
Storming: difference, conflict and negotiation
Storming occurs as members begin to test goals, priorities, influence and working preferences. CMI notes that this stage can involve power struggles and conflict as roles become more defined (CMI, 2020). Conflict is not automatically destructive. It can reveal unclear priorities, unequal workload, unspoken concerns or different professional assumptions. The relevant management response is not to suppress every disagreement. It is to distinguish productive task disagreement from personal conflict, create fair processes for resolving issues and return the team to shared outcomes.
Norming: trust and shared practice
At the norming stage, the team develops clearer working agreements, stronger trust and greater commitment to common goals. This does not mean that disagreement disappears. It means the team has more constructive ways to handle it. The leader can increasingly share responsibility, support peer accountability and reinforce behaviours that improve collaboration.
Performing: autonomy and adaptive delivery
Performing describes a team that can focus on delivery with greater autonomy. CMI characterises this stage as one in which the leader can step back as the team aligns around strategic goals and gains independence (CMI, 2020). Leaders still have a role: they protect the team from avoidable barriers, maintain strategic alignment, provide resources and ensure that performance is sustainable rather than dependent on overwork.
Adjourning: closure, learning and transition
Where a team or project ends, adjourning involves closure, review, recognition, knowledge transfer and transition. This stage is especially relevant for temporary projects, transformation teams, programme work and time-limited cross-functional groups. It creates an opportunity to capture learning before people move to new roles or priorities.
| Tuckman stage | Typical management question | Helpful leadership response |
| Forming | Do people understand the purpose, task, roles and decision rules? | Set direction, establish working agreements and create a safe orientation process |
| Storming | What is the conflict telling us about priorities, power, workload or assumptions? | Facilitate dialogue, clarify boundaries and address behaviour that damages trust |
| Norming | Are shared practices, trust and peer accountability becoming stronger? | Reinforce collaboration, delegate appropriately and make norms visible |
| Performing | Does the team have the autonomy and resources to deliver strategically? | Remove obstacles, monitor outcomes and support continuous improvement |
| Adjourning | What should be learned, recognised and transferred before the team changes or ends? | Close responsibly, capture knowledge and support transition |
What Belbin Team Roles explain
Belbin Team Roles are a behavioural framework developed from research into team performance. Belbin defines a Team Role as a tendency to behave, contribute and relate with others in a particular way. This is important: the framework is about observed or preferred behaviour in a team context, not a fixed personality label or a hierarchy of human worth (Belbin, n.d.).
Belbin groups the nine roles into three broad categories. Thinking-oriented contributions bring ideas, evaluation and specialist knowledge. People-oriented contributions help teams coordinate, investigate external opportunities and maintain cohesion. Action-oriented contributions help teams drive progress, organise implementation and complete work to a high standard.
| Category | Belbin Team Roles | Potential contribution |
| Thinking-oriented | Plant, Monitor Evaluator, Specialist | Generating ideas, evaluating options and providing expert knowledge |
| People-oriented | Coordinator, Resource Investigator, Teamworker | Clarifying goals, building external connections and supporting collaboration |
| Action-oriented | Shaper, Implementer, Completer Finisher | Creating momentum, turning decisions into action and protecting quality/detail |
The model can help a manager move beyond vague statements such as “the team is not working well”. If a team generates strong ideas but repeatedly misses delivery dates, it may need to consider whether implementation, prioritisation or completion behaviours are supported. If a team is technically capable but fails to understand customer needs or partner requirements, it may need to strengthen external relationship-building. The point is not to assign one person permanently to each role. Individuals may contribute more than one role, and the contribution that matters will depend on the task, context, experience and team membership.
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The crucial difference: team development versus team composition
The most useful way to compare the models is through the management decision they support. Tuckman is a process model. It encourages the manager to ask how the team’s relationships, autonomy and shared practices are evolving. Belbin is a contribution model. It encourages the team to reflect on how its members behave and what forms of contribution may be absent, overused or misunderstood.
A newly formed cross-functional team may be in the forming stage regardless of whether it contains a broad range of Belbin contributions. Conversely, a mature team may be performing well while still having an unhealthy pattern of behaviour, such as an overreliance on one dominant coordinator or a lack of critical evaluation before decisions are made. The models address different dimensions of team effectiveness.
| Situation | Tuckman lens | Belbin lens | Better management action |
| A new team is polite but unclear about responsibilities | Forming: purpose, roles and decision rules may be underdeveloped | Contribution patterns are not yet the primary issue | Clarify mandate, roles, milestones and ways of working |
| A project team is experiencing intense disagreement over priorities | Storming: conflict may reflect unresolved goals or influence | Identify whether different contribution styles are being misread as personal opposition | Facilitate constructive debate, agree criteria and use varied perspectives deliberately |
| A technically expert team creates options but fails to execute | The team may be stuck between norming and performing if accountability is weak | Action-oriented contributions may be underrepresented or poorly enabled | Strengthen implementation ownership, decision deadlines and completion discipline |
| A stable team delivers reliably but misses external opportunities | The team may be mature operationally | Resource-investigation or strategic challenge behaviours may be limited | Create external scanning, customer insight and partnership responsibilities |
| A temporary team is closing a complex project | Adjourning: closure and learning are needed | Consider which knowledge and relationships must be retained or handed over | Capture learning, recognise contribution and plan transition |
Can Tuckman and Belbin be used together?
Yes, provided the models are not treated as diagnostic tests that produce automatic answers. Tuckman can help a manager understand the timing and developmental needs of a team. Belbin can help the team discuss the behavioural contribution and collaboration needed at that point.
For example, a team in storming may benefit from discussing how different members approach challenge, detail, relationship management and decision-making. A Monitor Evaluator’s caution may be valuable, while a Shaper’s urgency may drive progress; difficulty arises when either contribution is interpreted as personal obstruction. Belbin language can make those differences discussable. Tuckman helps the manager see that such tension may be part of a normal stage of development and requires facilitation rather than avoidance.
The models should be used alongside other evidence: performance data, team goals, workload, role clarity, employee voice, customer feedback, technical competence, inclusion and organisational constraints. A workshop cannot compensate for an unrealistic workload, unclear strategy or harmful management behaviour.
An original workplace application
Consider a fictional organisation, Atlas Community Systems, which is introducing a new digital case-management platform across housing, customer-service and field-maintenance teams. It creates a twelve-person implementation team including operational managers, data specialists, customer advisers, technicians and a project lead.
During the first month, the group is courteous but waits for the project lead to make decisions. A Tuckman analysis suggests that it is in forming. The immediate priorities are to clarify the project’s customer outcomes, define decision rights, agree meeting practices and explain how operational concerns will be escalated.
In the following month, disagreement rises. Technicians worry that the technology will increase administration; data specialists want consistent process standards; customer advisers argue that the proposed workflows ignore complex customer cases. Rather than treating this as evidence that the team is dysfunctional, the project lead recognises storming. She uses structured problem-solving sessions and agrees criteria for evaluating process changes: customer impact, safety, regulatory compliance, staff workload and data quality.
A Belbin conversation then adds a different insight. The group has strong specialist and idea-generation behaviour but weak ownership of follow-through between meetings. The lead does not label individuals or move people out of the team. Instead, she establishes rotating implementation ownership, identifies a clear completion check for each decision and gives a team member with strong external engagement responsibility for testing proposed changes with frontline users. As the project matures, the team develops working norms and greater autonomy. The combined use of the models has supported reflection and action without assuming that either model provides a complete explanation.
Limitations and responsible use
Tuckman’s stages should not be understood as a universal, linear route that every team follows once. Teams can return to earlier patterns when membership changes, deadlines intensify, work becomes remote or the task shifts. A team may display elements of more than one stage at once. The value of the model lies in prompting observation and appropriate leadership response, not in forcing a team into a rigid sequence.
Belbin also has limitations. Team Role language can encourage stereotypes if managers treat it as a personality assessment, use it to decide who should be recruited, or assume that people cannot develop new behaviours. Belbin itself distinguishes behavioural contribution from personality (Belbin, n.d.). The framework should support inclusive reflection, not justify exclusion, restrict opportunity or excuse poor performance. Technical competence, organisational knowledge, lived experience and professional judgement remain essential.
| Risk of misuse | Responsible practice |
| Treating Tuckman as a fixed timetable | Use stages as a discussion prompt and reassess when task, membership or context changes |
| Assuming conflict is always “storming” | Investigate workload, power, discrimination, unclear strategy or harmful behaviour rather than normalising every conflict |
| Labelling people permanently through Belbin | Frame roles as context-dependent behavioural contributions that can be developed and shared |
| Using Belbin to make recruitment or promotion decisions | Use valid role and capability evidence for employment decisions; team-role reflection is not a substitute |
| Focusing on models instead of work conditions | Combine model insight with role clarity, resources, workload, inclusion, employee voice and performance evidence |
CMI 503 and CMI 526 relevance
Tuckman and Belbin are relevant to CMI 503: Principles of Managing and Leading Individuals and Teams to Achieve Success, where managers must understand approaches to leading teams and responding to team challenges. They are also relevant to CMI 526: Principles of Leadership Practice, particularly when leaders reflect on influence, trust, empowerment and context-sensitive practice.
For a unit-specific illustrative resource, see the CMI 503 Managing and Leading Individuals and Teams example. Readers exploring leadership practice can also consult the CMI 526 Principles of Leadership Practice example. This guide is intentionally narrower: it compares two team models and explains when each is useful in workplace management.
Frequently asked questions
Is Tuckman better than Belbin?
Does every team go through forming, storming, norming and performing?
Are Belbin Team Roles personality types?
Can one person have more than one Belbin Team Role?
References
Belbin (n.d.) Belbin Team Roles. Available at: https://www.belbin.com/about/belbin-team-roles (Accessed: 18 August 2026).
Chartered Management Institute (CMI) (2020) Here’s how to get to know your team better. Available at: https://www.managers.org.uk/knowledge-and-insights/article/heres-how-to-get-to-know-your-team-better/ (Accessed: 18 August 2026).
Tuckman, B.W. (1965) ‘Developmental sequence in small groups’, Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), pp. 384–399.
Tuckman, B.W. and Jensen, M.A.C. (1977) ‘Stages of small-group development revisited’, Group & Organization Studies, 2(4), pp. 419–427.