The Adjourning Stage of Group Development

Inevitably, all groups must come come to an end or adjourn when their task is accomplished.  The last major group that I was involved in was a committee designed to improve the nutrition of our food options for our children.  The group originally spent a lot of time in the storming stage because we were not clear about our goals or how we should work together.  Some members of our group even felt attacked personally because they thought the purpose of our group was to make them do our jobs better.  However, over time we were able to eventually define our vision and learn how to be a team. As a team were ultimately successful, because our goal was accomplished.  If we could have worked together better from the start I believe that we could have worked together better.  The adjourning stage was somewhat difficult because after we "bought in" to the vision we all enjoyed meeting together and performing our jobs.  I also think that we got to know each other pretty well because we did spend a lot of time in argument at the beginning, which also made the team kind of difficult to leave.  Maybe teams that argue the most have the most passion, although it may be misdirected.