Icfai P. A. Project Negotiation

Project Negotiation Introduction: The favored technique for resolving conflict is negotiation. • Wall (1985) defines negotiation as “ the process through which two or more parties seek an acceptable rate of exchange for items they own or control.” • Cohen says that “Negotiation is a field of knowledge and endeavor that focuses on gaining the favor of people from whom we want things.” • Pareto-optimal solution: The general objective of negotiation is to find a solution such that no party can be better off without making another party worse off by the same amount or more. • During the negotiation process, an ethical situation often arises that is worth mentioning. The ethics of the situation require that each party in the negotiation be honest with each other, even in situations where it is clear there will not be further work between the two.

Project Partnering: It is a method of transforming contractual relationships into a cohesive, cooperative project team with a single set goals and established procedures for resolving in a timely and effective manner. Project Chartering: A project chartering is simply a written agreement between the project manager and senior management and the functional managers who are committing resources and/or people to the project. The various members of the partnering team sign a commitment to: • Meet design intent • Complete contract without need for litigation • Finish project on schedule: - Timely resolution of issues - Manage joint schedule - Cost resolution of issues • Keep cost growth to less than 2 percent.

Scope Change: No matter how carefully a project is planned, it is almost certain to be changed before completion. No matter how carefully defined at the start, the scope of most projects is subject to considerable uncertainty. There are three basic issues: • Some change results as planners erred in their choice of the proper goal for the project. • Other changes result because the client/user or project team learns more about the nature of the project deliverable or about the setting in which it is to be used. • A third source of change is the mandate. This is a change in the environment in which the project is being conducted. As such, it cannot be controlled by the Project Manager. Categories of Conflict: The conflicts fall into three fundamental different categories: 1. Groups working on the project may have different goals

and expectations. 2. There is a considerable uncertainty about who has the authority to make decisions. 3. There are interpersonal conflicts between people who are parties-at-interest in the project. (refer the figure below) Project Conflicts by Category and Parties-at-Interest Categories of Conflicts Parties-at-Interest

Goals

Authority

Interpersonal

Project team

Schedules Priorities

Technical

Personality

Client

Schedules Priorities

Technical

Functional and senior management

Schedules Priorities Labor Cost

Technical Personality Administrative

Project Formation:  In the initial stage of the project life cycle, most of the conflict centers around the inherent confusion of setting up a project in the environment of matrix organization.  Even the project’s technical objectives, not clearly defined or established, are apt to be understood only in the most general sense.  Moving from this state of semi-chaos to the relatively ordered world of the buildup stage is difficult. To make this transition, four fundamental issues must be handled, although not necessarily in the order presented here. 1. The technical objectives of the project must be specified to a degree that will allow the detailed planning of the buildup stage to be accomplished. 2. Commitment of resources to the project must be forthcoming from senior management and from functional managers. 3. The priority of the project, relative to the priorities of the

parent organization’s other projects, must be set and communicated. 4. The organizational structure of the project must be established to an extent sufficient for the Work Before Schedule (WBS) and a linear responsibility chart, or its equivalent, to be prepared during the stage of the life cycle Some Requirements and Principles of Negotiation • The word “negotiation” evokes many images. But as we noted none of the usual images is strictly appropriate for the project manager who must resolve the sorts of conflicts, we have considered in the previous section. • The key to understanding the nature of negotiation as it applies to project management is the realization that few of the conflicts arising in projects have to do with whether or not a task will be undertaken or a deliverable produced. • One requirement for the conflict reduction/resolution methods used by the PM is that:

•

•

•

they must allow the conflict to be settled without irreparable harm to the project’s objectives. It is a requirement of all conflicting parties to seek solutions to the conflict that not only satisfy the needs of other parties to the conflicts, as well as the needs of the parent organization. In the language of negotiation, this is called a win-win solution. Fisher and Ury have developed a negotiation technique that tends to maintain three requirements. They call it “principled negotiation,” that is, win-win. The method is straightforward; it is defined by four points 1. Separate the people from the problem 2. Focus on interests, not positions 3. Before trying to reach agreement, invent options for mutual gain. 4. Insist on using objective criteria. Fisher and Ury have had some success with their approach “principled negotiation,” in the Harvard Negotiation Project

Summary:  Negotiation within the firm should be directed at obtaining the best outcome for the organization, not winning.  There are three traditional categories of conflict: goal-oriented, authority-based, and interpersonal.  There are three traditional sources of conflict. They are the project team itself, the client and functional and senior management. We added the problem/discipline-orientation of people working on the project.  Critical issues to handle in the project formation stages are delimiting technical objectives, getting management commitment, setting the project’s relative priority, and selecting the project organizational structure.  The total level of conflicts is highest during the project buildup stage.  Scheduling and technical conflicts are most frequent and serious buildup and main program stages, and scheduling conflicts in particular during the phase-out stage.

 project negotiation requirements are that conflicts must be settled without permanent damage, the methodology must foster honesty, and the solution must satisfy both individuals’ and the organizations/s needs.  One promising approach to meeting the requirements of project negotiation is called principled negotiation.