norming and storming

This phrase, created by a psychologist Bruce Tuckman, an American psychologist who came up with the theory of group behaviour in 1965, is often shortened to just norming and storming. 

 Norming and storming is a short name for a theory of group dynamics in which the group is first brought together with a leader establishing contacts and goals (forming). This is followed by a period in which the members of the group work out how they are going to operate with each other and with the whole group, usually relying on non-verbal cues (norming).  The next stage, storming, is one where various people contest the norms that have just been established, querying the leadership structure, the worth of members of the group, the goals that have been established. Then everyone calms down and gets on with the job (performing). Some people argue that storming should come before norming. Others suggest that people move in and out of the norming/storming stages. Others that norming comes before storming, but then there is a re-norming when the storming is done.