Editing Structuring Teams (section)

== Team Stages ==
Teams aren’t created as perfect, fully-functioning snowflakes. Rather, they go through different phases of growth and learning, and inevitably experience growing pains along the way. You can use the descriptions below to assess the state of your team and get ideas for next steps.

'''Phase 1: Potential''' - At this stage, a person is interested in organizing around an issue. To build a team, they will network and recruit within their community by scheduling 1:1 meetings. The organizer will organize events to meet potential new team members.

'''Phase 2: Team Formation''' - At this stage, the organizer has identified a few individuals that are interested in getting more involved in the campaign, but there are no official roles on the team. The team leader has to work to start recruiting team members and solidifying roles on the team. Note: this phase usually takes the longest.

'''Phase 3: Team''' - At this stage, everyone who is interested in getting involved in the campaign has made a commitment to do so. The organizer has held a core team meeting to identify the team’s purpose and norms and place people into roles. Now, the team is official and it needs to grow to increase its potential. As more people attend events and join the team, the team grows as the leadership tryouts are conducted, leaders develop, and make hard asks. The challenge for organizers in this phase is to grow sustainably – that is, without growing too quickly and neglecting members of the existing team. In this phase, you must continue to invest time and resources into developing individuals that deliver. In other words, don’t get hung up on people who don’t show up; focus on those that do.

'''Phase 4: Developed Team''' - At this stage, there is a core leadership team and distributed leadership teams. If the team follows the pyramid of engagement approach, it will grow into a bigger and more efficient snowflake over time.

'''Phase 5: Team Transformation''' - At this stage, the team has grown to its fullest potential and can multiply into more teams. Organizers may start training existing team members to start new teams in other geographic areas (neighbourhoods or regions, also known as “turfs”) or to perform new tasks (adding a team that supports a tactic that is new to your team). Teams may split in two, with one half moving into new turf to start a team there. Organizers must be intentional and thoughtful in supporting the transformation process, as this can be a complicated time for teams and strong emotions amongst team members could come up.

<gallery>
File:Phase 1.png|Phase 1
File:Phase 2.png|Phase 2
File:Phase 3.png|Phase 3
File:Phase 4.png|Phase 4
File:Phase 5.png|Phase 5
</gallery>Above all, remember that effective teams are bolstered by strong relationships, and that in the snowflake model, leadership is distributed, and organizers are committed to developing the leadership capacity of others.

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=== Further Reading ===
Freeman, J. (1971). “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm