How do departments link to groups? Are there formalized meeting times?

I see no natural linkage among groups of a single department-simply an arrangement for administrative convenience that 4 people are easier to coordinate with than 12. --Bob

Departments should establish regular meeting times.  The risk for departments is that they do not have objectives as clearly stated as those of the groups, yet they have ranking responsibility (rank within the department) and compete against each other (effort or rank among groups).  I try to get the departments to focus on their names and to get them to get other members to really do what the names imply, especially in the learning cycle.  Also, they should set departmental goals (associated both with the names and with the groups' functions) because the first time they rank-order their efforts, they will complain that it is just a beauty contest because they had no objectives.

The linkages among the groups are semi-loose. 

Planning and control are ways of taking responsibility for a result. 

The Doing group manages processes.

The Observing groups (plus Informal in its group development mode) really does process observation and specific observation of behavior. 

And Formal, Informal (with its new introduction), and Management Theory really do try to get participants to think about observations in the context of theory.  They should help each other out within departments (although as individuals they are also competing against each other).