** Special announcement: Sign-up for my free PMP course now > http://bit.ly/freepmpcourse This presentation talks about the 6 effective ways a project manager must understand of effectively managing conflicts on the project. This topic is part of PMBOK (Tools and Technique of Manage Project Team process from Project Human Resources Management knowledge area) and is helpful in your preparation for PMP or CAPM certification exams. Or you can use this to understand more about project management. For more detailed study notes visit www.PMExamSmartNotes.com. Thank you and good luck!

1. A guide to passing PMP® exam! series..
6 Effective Ways of
Managing Conflicts
Based on the PMBOK® book
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2. Conflict

3. Conflictis unavoidable in any situation
involving people, and a project team is no
exception.
Success of a project manager depends a great
deal in their ability to resolve conflict on the
project.

4. Defining Conflict
Although there is no single definition
of Conflict, one of the accepted
definitions is "a situation in which one
party perceives that its interests are
being opposed or negatively affected
by another party".

7. Criteria for Conflict Resolution
Strategies
• Organization learning and effectiveness - the strategy
should encourage critical and innovative thinking to
learn the process of diagnosis and intervention.
• Needs of stakeholders - the challenge will be involving
all parties to have an open mind and participate in
conflict management activities, hence their needs are to
be kept in mind.
• Ethics - people involved should be ethical in their
dealings, especially the leader should be open for new
information discovered during the conflict management
exercise and behave in unbiased manner.

8. "Without understanding
ethics, conflict cannot be
handled"
- Batcheldor, 2000

9. Managing Conflict
In their book titled "Leading in
the heat of conflict", Michael
Maccoby and Tim Scudder write
about 5 steps to manage
conflict. They are -

10. 1. Anticipate - be on the lookout for and collect relevant
information about a brewing conflict
2. Prevent - try to employ preventive strategies even
before conflict surfaces
3. Identify - most damage happens when conflict is
interpersonal or due to breaking of a set procedure;
move in quickly if this is the case.
4. Manage - see the emotional side involved in the
conflict and tread with caution. Try to keep emotions
in check because usually emotions replace logic.
5. Resolve - react without blaming any of the involved
parties, try to reason out a resolution through
constructive dialog.

11. Conflict Resolution Model
Dual Concern model of conflict resolution
assumes that an individual's preferred method
of dealing with conflict is based on
– Concern for self (assertiveness)
– Concern for others (empathy)
People tend to stay at the intersection of these
two concerns (win-win) and resolve conflicts.

12. Conflict Resolution Styles
There are 6 conflict resolution styles in general. For
any specific situation of conflict one or more of
these styles tend to be suitable.
Project managers tend to have a certain individual
style of resolving conflict. However, it is useful to
understand each of these styles, analyze the conflict
scenario better and apply the most suitable one to
resolve it.
Sometimes it may be necessary to try multiple
styles based on the nature of conflict.

13. Style 1: Withdrawing/Avoiding
• In this style the manager just retreats from the
conflict situation (either for short term or
permanently). Some of the conflicts do get
resolved this way, either depending on involved
parties' level of maturity and/or changing
environmental conditions.
• While this method gives you time to think or
gather information and come back to resolve
using one of the other methods, this delay may
aggravate the conflict situation.

14. Style 2: Smoothing/Accommodating
• This style focuses more on areas where there
is an agreement between parties, and it tends
to highlight benefits in order to help parties
accept a resolution.
• This may be a short term solution but it gives
people involved a chance to go back, inspect
their positions and rethink about the issue.

15. Style 3: Compromising
• This creates a win-win situation for both the
parties while both agree to let go some of their
expectations of benefits. This method is useful
when goal involved is moderate and stronger
methods such as Forcing or Collaborating are not
necessary.
• This might also be used when other methods
have failed, and parties are ready for a
compromise. Involved parties may not get ALL of
what they wanted, but there will be something
everyone to cheer about.

16. Style 4: Forcing
• This is more of a win-lose situation where
one's views are quashed and verdict is given in
other's favor. While this brings a quicker
resolution to the conflict it may have negative
implications in the long run.

17. Style 5: Collaborating
• Viewpoints, inputs and reasoning are heard
from all parties involved in the conflict, and it
is resolved by collaboration and cooperation.
This style is required when there are many
parties involved in the conflict.
• This style of resolution can take more time
and efforts to resolve conflict. Hence this
method may not be useful when conflict is
time sensitive a quick resolution is required.

18. Style 6: Confronting/Problem Solving
• Do not get mislead by the name ‘Confronting’.
This is about confronting the conflict and not the
people involved in it!
• This is about looking at alternatives (as if treating
a problem), assessing their pros and cons and
choosing the one that resolves conflict with least
amount of damage to anyone involved.
• Both Compromising and Confronting techniques
require people to have an open mindset and
exhibit give-and-take attitude.

19. While having ground rules, group
norms and getting mature people
at key positions can reduce
possibilities of conflicts on a team,
a project manager must
understand various styles of
conflict resolution and practice
them.

20. PMI is a registered trademark and service mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.
PMP is a registered certification mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.
PMBOK is a registered trademark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.
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