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Conflict Management
What is conflict management? Conflict is inevitable in a project environment, because there are many sources of conflict.
Sources of conflict can include: scarce resources, scheduling priorities and personal work styles – there are many things that people have to change as well as the change coming through from the project itself, and that drives conflict.
The success of a project manager often depends on their ability to resolve that conflict, and that’s where conflict management comes into it. There are five general techniques used for resolving conflict and you will see these on the PMP exam. Each technique has its place and its use.
We have withdraw or avoid, smooth and accommodate, compromise and reconcile, force or direct, and collaborate and problem-solve. Let’s look at them in a bit more detail.
If we’re withdrawing or avoiding the situation, we’re retreating from an actual or potential conflict situation – postponing that issue to be better prepared or to be better resolved by others. We’re not actually facing that particular issue at this time – maybe we want to face it later maybe, we want someone else to face it, but we are withdrawing or avoiding the situation.
Smoothing and accommodating for conflict is when we’re emphasizing areas of agreement rather than areas of difference. For example, “This is where we agree, isn’t that wonderful, oh and we’ve got one thing that we disagree on, can we work together on this?” Often we are conceding our position to the needs of others to maintain harmony and relationships. Sometimes we do need to smooth or accommodate, we need to give a little in order to get a little for this particular method.
Compromising and reconciling is when we’re searching for solutions that bring some degree of satisfaction to all parties in order to temporarily or partially partially resolve the conflict. This approach occasionally results in a lose-lose situation. It sounds nice, after all we’re compromising, however we’re giving up a little bit and someone else is giving up a little bit as well so you know maybe we’re not all winning here at all – we’re actually both losing a little bit that’s why it’s called a lose-lose situation. This is a good example where it sounds like a nice thing – we might say this is a positive thing on the exam however it can result in that lose-lose situation. So we have to be aware.
Forcing or directing is when we’re pushing one’s viewpoint at the expense of others, offering only win-lose solutions. We only want to win and we don’t care what happens to someone else – it doesn’t matter what requirements they want or or what they need from the project, so it’s usually enforced through a power position and they have to do it because you’re the manager for example. Or to resolve an emergency. This approach often results in that win-lose situation, again something to know for your PMP exam.
Collaborating and problem-solving is where we’re incorporating multiple viewpoints and insights from differing perspectives. It requires a cooperative attitude and an open dialogue. Typically this leads to a consensus and commitment from everyone involved, and this approach can result in a win-win situation – not always, but it’s one of the most common where problem-solving for everyone can result in that win-win situation.
There are lots of different factors that influence conflict and bring conflict. There is the importance and intensity of it, the time pressure, the relative power of people involved (so are we dealing with executive managers or people who we have to make sure that they are happy as part of this, or the project sponsor for example), the importance of maintaining a good relationship with people, and the motivation to resolve the conflict on a long-term or a short term basis. Maybe we have a short-term solution, and maybe we have a long-term solution for example and we can work within those boundaries.
Lastly things that can help conflict include our team ground rules, group norms and solid project management practices. This is very helpful – is there a process involved?
Communication planning, role definition and all of those also reduce the amount of conflict.
If the conflict escalates one thing that you may come across in the PMP exam and definitely in your project management career – conflicts should be addressed early and usually in private, using a direct and collaborative approach. So again we’re problem-solving here, trying for that win-win, collaborating with the other party but using a direct approach. We’re not hinting or you know going around in circles, we need to go directly to what the source of the problem is, go there and use a collaborative approach. And that is the approach recommended by the PMBOK guide.
And that is the idea of conflict management in your project.
– David McLachlan