Drexler-Sibbet Team Performance Model

A team-development framework by Allan Drexler and David Sibbet that describes seven areas from orientation through renewal. It provides a shared language for examining how a group forms, coordinates work, and adapts over time.

The Drexler/Sibbet Team Performance Model describes seven areas in a team’s development: orientation, trust building, goal clarification, commitment, implementation, high performance, and renewal. It offers language for asking what a group needs to work together, from understanding its purpose through coordinating action and revisiting how it works.

Use the areas as prompts for a specific difficulty rather than assigning the team a permanent level. New members, changed goals, or a disruption may reopen questions that seemed settled. A discussion about execution might reveal an unclear goal; an apparent lack of commitment might reflect unrealistic resource assumptions. The model helps generate these possibilities, while observations and conversation determine which ones fit.

When to use it

When a team forms, changes membership or purpose, struggles to coordinate, or needs to reconsider established working arrangements.

How it can help

Helps distinguish different possible needs behind a coordination problem instead of responding to every difficulty with more task tracking.