The Drexler–Sibbet Team Performance Model offers a practical roadmap for building and sustaining effective project teams. It maps seven predictable stages that teams move through – from initial orientation to high performance and renewal – each centred on a core question that the team must answer well before it can progress. For established researchers, who assemble new teams from scratch for specific grants or projects, often across institutional boundaries and with people who have not worked together before, the model is particularly valuable because it makes visible the work that typically goes undone: establishing shared purpose, building trust, and agreeing how decisions will be made, before the real delivery pressure begins.

The seven stages and their central questions are:

• Orientation – Why are we here? Establishing shared purpose, scope, and expectations from the outset
• Trust Building – Who are you? Creating the conditions for candour and mutual confidence across institutional boundaries
• Goal Clarification – What are we doing? Translating the project mandate into clear, shared outcomes and priorities
• Commitment – How will we do it? Agreeing roles, decision rights, and resources
• Implementation – Who does what, when, where? Establishing the operating rhythms that keep distributed work on track
• High Performance -Sustaining momentum, cross-institutional learning, and resilience as the project matures.
• Renewal – Why continue? Reflecting, recalibrating, and closing well — capturing learning before the team disperses.

The model is also useful as a diagnostic when a project team is struggling: it helps identify whether the underlying problem is unresolved purpose, lack of trust, unclear roles, or something else entirely – each of which requires a different response.