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Conflict Resolution Plan Step One: Set the Scene Make sure that people understand that the conflict may be a mutual problem, which may be best resolved through discussion and negotiation rather than through raw aggression. If you are involved in the conflict, emphasize the fact that you are presenting your perception of the problem. Use active listening skills to ensure you hear and understand other’s positions and perceptions. * Restate * Paraphrase * Summarize
And make sure that when you talk, you’re using an adult, assertive approach rather than a submissive or aggressive style. Step Two: Gather Information Here you are trying to get to the underlying interests, needs, and concerns. Ask for the other person’s viewpoint and confirm that you respect his or her opinion and need his or her cooperation to solve the problem. Try to understand his or her motivations and goals, and see how your actions may be affecting these. Also, try to understand the conflict in objective terms: Is it affecting work performance? amaging the delivery to the client? disrupting team work? hampering decision-making? or so on. Be sure to focus on work issues and leave personalities out of the discussion. * Listen with empathy and see the conflict from the other person’s point of view. * Identify issues clearly and concisely. * Use “I” statements. * Remain flexible. * Clarify feelings. Step Three: Agree the Problem This sounds like an obvious step, but often different underlying needs, interests and goals can cause people to perceive problems very differently.
You’ll need to agree the problems that you are trying to solve before you’ll find a mutually acceptable solution. Sometimes different people will see different but interlocking problems – if you can’t reach a common perception of the problem, then at the very least, you need to understand what the other person sees as the problem. Step Four: Brainstorm Possible Solutions If everyone is going to feel satisfied with the resolution, it will help if everyone has had fair input in generating solutions.
Brainstorm possible solutions, and be open to all ideas, including ones you never considered before. Step Five: Negotiate a Solution By this stage, the conflict may be resolved: Both sides may better understand the position of the other, and a mutually satisfactory solution may be clear to all. However you may also have uncovered real differences between your positions. This is where a technique like win-win negotiation can be useful to find a solution that, at least to some extent, satisfies everyone. There are three guiding principles here: Be Calm, Be Patient, Have Respect…
Project communication documents [Use the Project communication table to identify the communication documents needed for your project, the recipients of the documents, the persons responsible for creating and updating the documents, and how often the documents need to be updated. ] Project communication table Document| Recipients| Responsibilities| Update frequency| Executive status report| | | | Risk management document| | | | Issue management document| | | | Change control document| | | | Project schedule| | | | | | | | | | | | Team structure Identify the key roles of members of your marketing team and the normal patterns of communication between roles. You can create a diagram or table to illustrate communication relationships. ] Team goals [List your team’s quality goals. ] Team assignments [Use the following table to outline the project’s marketing teams, team goals, team leads, and team roles. ] project team| Name of team| Team goals| Team leads| Team roles| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Team roles and responsibilities [Identify the responsibilities assigned to each of the team roles. ]
Risks and issues management Potential exceptions and problems [List all potential problems that might arise during the project, and list their causes, symptoms, consequences, and possible solutions. ] Appropriate corrective measures [For each issue, identify the optimal way to resolve the issue and then identify the steps that your team needs to take in order to implement the resolution. ] Tracking risks and issues [In the following table, track the risks and issues that you identified. ] Date recorded| Risk description| Probability| Impact| Mitigation plan| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Change management process Change management process steps [Describe the process that your team will follow to document and approve changes to the project. If your team uses a change control document, identify how and when team members should fill it out. ] Change management process flow [Create a flow diagram of your change process. ] Change control board (CCB) [Identify who will serve on the CCB, which determines whether issues are within the current project scope and whether they should be addressed. ]