Marking Time: Predictable Transitions in Task Groups

Abstract

A new model of group development suggests that groups' attention to time and pacing is an important catalyst of their progress through creative projects. In this laboratory study, groups were videotaped as they produced creative products and then interviewed about replays of selected portions of the tapes. Participants' efforts to pace themselves were explored in depth, with special focus on a key feature of the model, a major transition in groups' approach toward their work at the midpoint of their allotted time. The appropriateness of laboratory simulation for studying midpoint transitions was also assessed. The laboratory results mirrored and extended the field-based model; they showed how groups make deliberate attentional shifts at their temporal midpoints, what differences exist between pacing patterns in the first and second halves of groups' life spans, and what happens when transitions fail. Implications are drawn for theory, practice, and research.