Writing language training materials is challenging. Writing language training materials with someone else is a different kind of challenge and writing materials with a group of people poses a different kind of challenge again. When we wrote 'Develop EAP: A Sustainable Academic Skills Course' in 2017, we built a framework to support students through a collaborative essay writing assignment and it encouraged us to reflect on how we work and what it is like to develop materials with other people. Based on our experiences in various materials development teams across different contexts, there are some steps or strategies recommended in this paper to help lead to a successful collaboration, where the sum of the parts is greater than anything an individual could achieve alone. The particular focus is on advice for the earliest stage of team development, the storming stage, which sets the course for the whole materials development project.