The Phases of a Team As a professional in corporate America, working as part of a team or leading a team is inevitable. Many great achievements come from teams. For a leader it is necessary to build a team and understand the stages of its development. The stages of team development are forming, storming, norming, executing, and upgrading (Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnelly, & Konopeske, 2009). This article explores these five stages of developing the teamwork experience assigned to solve the printing problem at Children's Hospital of Colorado. Working in a Team While working in the information technology department at Children's Hospital in Aurora, Colorado, I was asked by my boss to take over a technical problem from my colleague and lead a team of employees to solve a problem. The problem was that printing throughout the hospital was unreliable, and doctors and clinical staff were frustrated because they had sporadic problems printing documents, prescriptions, and patient handout information. Another director was in charge of the press and had not addressed the problem for over six months. The problem continued to worsen to the point that the chief medical director of research threatened to hire an outside company to fix the problem. I knew this would be a politically charged project, and there would also be some animosity from the team for not addressing the issue. I was prepared for the five phases of a team; however, some were not as easy as others. The first phase of my team's development was the training phase, which is when teams begin to break the ice, try new behaviors, and team members get to know each other (Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnelly, & Konopeske, 2009). This was a delicate moment... halfway... They learned to work together as a team, to share ideas and think outside the box. As the leader of the entire effort, I also met with team members who did not remain engaged with the team to understand what I or the team could have done differently to make them feel closeness or cohesion with others. Conclusion When teams are united to solve a problem, they must learn to work together to ensure they can act effectively. To help the team succeed, leaders should understand the five stages of team development. The stages of team development are forming, storming, norming, executing, and upgrading (Gibson, Ivancevich, Donnelly, & Konopeske, 2009). The resolution of the printing problem at Children's Hospital Colorado was successful thanks to the developed team, its cohesion and its performance.