My first experience with structured team building occurred in b-school. In the first-year curriculum, we were assigned to the same team for the whole year, starting on day one of orientation week. All of our assignments were team assignments, and our individual grades, except for exams and a few specific projects, were based on the team's grades. The first year was intended to be a mini team-building laboratory.

According to our Organizational Behavior professors, the four phases of building effective teams were Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. This was the mid-90's and my memory is fuzzy, so I don't know how valid that model is today.

The idea was that for teams to function effectively, they had to go through all four phases. You cannot skip a phase and expect to create an effective team. One of the most important phases was Storming. A certain amount of conflict is good, since it leads to Norming, where each team member begins to develop/understand/accept his/her role, as well as other team members' roles. Of course, if you drill deeper into each phase, you will find many of the issues discussed in this thread. This process was also iterative, and a team would often re-cycle through different phases throughout its lifetime.

During orientation week, we were given assignments designed to force us to go through each phase, hopefully resulting in a team prepared to perform throughout the academic year. I remember a lot of fighting and wheel-spinning during that week. Eventually, we did normalize, and worked well together for the rest of the year. Our roles changed often throughout the year, often preceded and followed by more storming. I don't know if it was because the process worked, or we just realized that we were stuck with each other for the year, so we might as well make it work. It surely helped that there was a big Krispy Kreme factory nearby, and often a couple boxes of donuts helped to soothe hurt feelings and grease the skids.

There were six of us, including me. One was a JD/MBA, another was an MD/MBA, and the rest of us were MBA candidates. Today, I still keep in touch with three of my former first-year teammates. I found one of them recently via LinkedIn. Once we connected, he sent me an email with just one line, "You're a f*cking lawyer now???" :D