By: Ray Myers, Jr., PMP

Does your project team have difficulties getting along?  There are at least 10 ways to resolve conflict.  Here’s a brief summary: 

Avoidance: it is possible to avoid conflict without resolving the underlying dispute.  The parties may agree to disagree and that no further action is required.

Compromise: involves working out a middle ground that satisfies all parties to some degree. This can be called the win-win approach.

Confrontation: this approach focuses on identifying the underlying problem and choosing solutions that allows the involved parties to work through the disagreement.

Smoothing: de-emphasizes the differences between the points of view and focuses on commonalities.

Withdrawal: involves avoiding or retreating from the conflict or potential conflict and allows the involved parties to work out the conflict on their own.

Force: requires one of the parties to yield to the point of view of another.  It is called the win-lose approach and can increase conflict.

Conciliation: intervention by a third party who has no power to compel the opposing parties to reach an agreement.  Relies on persuasion.

Mediation: an informal, but structured negotiation with an independent and neutral third party, the mediator, facilitating the process.

Arbitration: a neutral third party directs the negotiation process and renders a “fair” solution to the conflict.  It is similar to a court proceeding and results in a binding arbitration award.  Usually a private proceeding and the results are not public.

Litigation: the justice system is engaged to render a solution to the conflict.  The result is binding and enforced by law.

 Copyright © 2009 Ray Myers, Jr. – All rights reserved
This article may be freely copied and distributed, provided that: this copyright notice is included, the entire body of text is included, and the textual content of this document is unchanged.

---

About the Author: Ray Myers, Jr. is a PMP certified project manager with over 2o years experience planning and managing technology projects.   Contact Ray at wwwpmservicesnw.com

Article source: www.pmservicesnw.com

Tags: conflict resolution, conflict resolution strategies

This entry was posted on September 3, 2010 at 4:08 pm and is filed under Negotiation, Teams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.