1. Project Management BBA & MBA
Lecture
Project Initiation
Conflict Management and Negotiation
Course Lecturer: Farhan Mir

2. Peopleware Sep 11 Process Monitoring Kuhn Reassess Recommit Harmonize
Criteria
Triage
Stakeholders
Dot-bomb
Peopleware
GO!
Priorities
Churn
Networks
Ambiguity
Ethics
IEEE
ACM
Guessing
Sep 11
Games
Tools
QUALITY
Negotiations
Chameleon
Alert
Time-frame
Process
Non-linear DM
Monitoring
Security
Unpredictability
Tools
Risk
Infrastructure
SLIM
Agile
K’PLAN
Good-enuf
COCOMO
O-V
Users
Risks
Differences
Compression
Criteria
Reviews
Pressure
Authority
Risk
Schedule
Documentation $$
Testing
Staff

3. Managing Project Definition: What does “success” mean?
Many projects succeed or fail at the very beginning, before any technical work is done.
Fundamental requirement: identifying who has the right to declare “success” — owner, shareholder, etc, etc.
Fundamental elements of “success”
finishing on time
staying within budget
delivering the required functionality
providing “good enough” level of quality
getting the next round of VC funding, or launching the IPO
The combination of these constraints may prove impossible to achieve — so the pragmatic aspect of success often depends on agreement as to which areas can be compromised or satisfied.
Biggest risk: lack of realistic triage at beginning of project

4. Conflict
Conflict: the process which begins when one party perceives that the other has frustrated some concern of his

6. Three Fundamental Categories of Conflict
Groups may have different goals and expectations
Considerable uncertainty about the authority to make decisions
Interpersonal conflicts between parties-at-interest
Differ in objectives and technical judgment expectation, costs and rewards, schedules, priorities
Project manager vs. functional manager
Chapter 6 Conflict & Negotiation

7. Categories of Conflict
Conflicts regarding
Schedule
Priorities
Human resource (labour)
Technical matters
Administrative procedures
Costs
Personality
Chapter 6 Conflict & Negotiation

8. Conflict Areas in Project Management

9. Conflict and Project Life Cycle
Four stage model – project formation, buildup, main program and phase out
Conceptualization, planning, execution and termination
First stage (initial planning) – adopt objectives, set scope
Second stage – detailed planning, budgeting, scheduling and aggregation of resources
Chapter 6 Conflict & Negotiation

10. Project Formation
Conflict centers around the confusion of starting a new project
Many of the policies and procedures have not yet been formed
The objectives of the project are not yet finalized
Conflict cannot be avoided at this phase
In fact, much of this conflict is good conflict

11. Handling Project Formation Conflict
Technical objectives must be set
Senior management and line managers must commit to the project
The priority for the project must be set
Organizational structure of the project must be established

12. Project Buildup Conflicts tend to be technical in nature
Conflicts between the PM and the functional areas tend to predominate

13. Main Program Schedules are a major source of conflict
Some tasks will be late and the schedule should be adjusted or the time made up
The more complex the project, the more difficult it is to trace the sources of conflict
There are also technical conflicts

14. Project Phase-Out Deadlines are a major source of conflict
Technical problems are rare
Personality conflicts will be a big deal due to time pressures

15. Chapter 6 Conflict & Negotiation

17. Conflict Management in Projects

19. Negotiations
Mutual discussions for the purpose of arriving at the terms of a transaction or agreement

20. The Nature of Negotiation
The process through which two or more parties seek an acceptable rate of exchange for items they own or control
Parties to a negotiation often see themselves as opponents
“If they win, I lose”
Project manager must avoid this on projects as all stakeholders are interrelated

21. Project Negotiations Beware the temptation to give up... e.g.,
“We have no idea how long this project will really take, and it doesn’t matter, since they’ve already told us the deadline...
...so we’ll just work 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, until we drop from exhaustion. They can whip us and beat us, but we can’t do any more than that...”

22. Negotiating strategies
Don’t get tricked into making an “instant estimate” — ask for time to think about (a week, a day, even an hour)
State the estimate in terms of confidence levels, or ± ranges, etc.
Jim McCarthy (formerly of Microsoft, author of Dynamics of Software Development): make the customer, or other members of the organization, share some of the uncertainty.
Project manager: “I don’t know precisely when we’ll finish — but I’m more likely to be able to figure it out than anyone else in the organization. I promise that as soon as I have a more precise estimate, I’ll tell you right away.”
Do some reading and research to become better at this area, e.g.:
Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiating Strategies for Reasonable People, by G. Richard Shell (reissue edition, Penguin Books, June 2000)
Getting Past No: Negotiating Your Way from Confrontation to Cooperation, by William Ury (Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1993)

23. Win - Win Negotiations
“Negotiations in which both parties come away winners and both parties are committed to upholding their ends of the agreement” (The Win-Win Negotiator) •