Forming, Storming and Norming, Oh My!

"...it often feels like the majority of teams spend most of their time storming." -Dr. Tharon Howard

I must say that it is a pleasure to read a textbook from an author that you have access to in an academic setting. Dr. Tharon Howard's Design to Thrive is a well written, easy to follow and informative text for students and professionals alike -- anyone who is or who will be a designer or architect of online communities. According to the heavy digital and social culture we live in, most professionals could be included in the rhetorical audience for this text.

As indicated by this week's quote above, I would like to focus on Tuchman's Stages of Team Development. Having worked as a professional in journalism and public relations, I could apply Tuchman's stages to my real life experiences and past mistakes. It is true that people are often thrown together to constitue a team without the benefit of shared professional focus. The more theoretical approach of applying an epistemic lens to the formation of communities is brilliant and, coupled with Tuchman, can help ensure effectiveness, productivity and positive ethos in an online or actual setting.

While I can see how most groups don't move past the Storming stage, I personally was most fascinated by the Forming stage where "members of the team begin to get to know each other and use rules of polite society to communicate." (33) I spent the earlier part of this year investigating politeness theory, so the use of the word "polite" immediately caught my attention. I would be interested in studying this more closely, observing rhetorical appeals and Burke's theory of Identification in the Forming stages of team development. How do individuals in a group move from turn-taking and tact, which are tenets of politeness, and evolve into the Storming phase? What generally happens to move a team from the 'honeymoon' phase of Forming to the 'post-honeymoon' stage of Storming? How do personalities evolve and how are roles determined when everyone begins at the same stage? And, what effect does an epistemic approach to creating communities have on the evolution/formation of personalities and roles?

I also appreciate the structure of Design to Thrive and it's use of color and layout to promote a non-threatening user experience. While it's clear that the author is an expert on the topic, I would feel comfortable sharing this text with members of my former pr staff (neither of whom had an advanced degree in this field ) for them to read and for us to discuss as a team.

This week's reading of Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody is a good complement to Design to Thrive. Shirky's opening anecdote tells a powerful story of the new world we live in, thanks to the abilities of the individual through technology. The use of the Internet to form and inform communities transforms all aspects of our lives. Or, as Shirky aptly puts it, "When we change the way we communicate, we change society."

What I am confused about is Shirky's rhetorical decision with concept of his book. I do not understand his decision to house information about new modes of organizing and societal behaviors in a book that looks and reads like a traditional paperback novel. Perhaps it was a cost-saving effort (which I appreciate). Still, I want something more innovative in its presentation and less 'vanilla.'