Finally, Performing is the end-result where the group works effectively as a cohesive whole.
How would you compare the process of developing a virtual work team to developing a team of people who all work together in one place?
An offline encounter may have been more helpful since virtual encounters make it harder for the people to communicate, and communicating online often leads to misinterpretation and miscommunication. In an offline encounter too, the manager or a mediator can have the individual people sit around the table and communicate to one another. In fact all 4 stages - forming, storming, norming, and performing- are far more difficult to operate online than they are offline and therefore it is more important that the Storming stage (where factions may form and conflicts result) be avoided at any cost and that all potential differences are brought up and worked through at the Forming stage.
In an online environment, the Forming stage takes on major importance and the better this is accomplished the better the last stage, that of Performing eventuates. On the other hand, Tuckman's...
Working through potential conflict in the Forming stage is important in all situations and particularly so when the group is multicultural.
Another difference between the online and offline team environment is the Tennanbaum and Schmidt continuum (Chapman, n.d.) that states that management style tends to become more liberal as the group matures. This is likely to be more true in the offline environment than in the online scenario where given the limited opportunity of the group to be more authentically together, the manager is more likely to have less influence and to be more often absent.
References
Blair, G., Groups that work, Retrieved July 27, 2010 at: http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art0.html?http://oldeee.see. ed.ac.uk/~gerard/Management/art0.html
Chapman, A. (nd). Tuckman's 1965 "Forming Storming Norming Performing" Team-Development Model. Retrieved July 27, 2010 at: http://www.businessballs.com/tuckmanformingstormingnormingperforming.ht m
