MARKING TIME: PREDICTABLE TRANSITIONS IN TASK GROUPS.

TLDR

A new group‑development model posits that a group’s focus on time and pacing drives progress in creative projects. The study aimed to examine how groups pace themselves, especially the key transition at the temporal midpoint, and to evaluate the suitability of laboratory simulation for this purpose. Groups were videotaped while producing creative products, then interviewed about selected tape segments to analyze pacing and transition dynamics. Results confirmed and extended the model, revealing deliberate attentional shifts at midpoints, distinct pacing patterns across the first and second halves, and the consequences of failed transitions, with implications for theory, practice, and future research.

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.