Conflict Management Lessons Learned from a DOD Case Study[1] If you have to choose one individual in the case study as most responsible for the termination of LAMP-H project, whom would you choose and why? As it has been mentioned in the case study, the Project management within the United States Department of Defense (DOD) has been aptly described as the one of the world’s most complicated processes due to the fact that various stakeholders involved from above and below are likely to besiege the project manager. Hence, there were various factors which led to organizational conflicts amongst project stakeholders which finally resulted in termination of the project. Failures on the part of different stakeholders can be …show more content…
Do you agree with the approaches suggested by authors for the three types of conflicts – interpersonal-based, task-based and process-based? All the types of organizational conflicts that occurred throughout the LAMP-H project resulted cost overrun in terms of people, plan, and process deviations. Approaches suggested by authors for the three types of conflicts are as under: 1. Interpersonal-based conflict: • Compromise or Collaboration Strategy so that the project manager and the project sponsor are in full agreement about all details regarding the project if a successful outcome is desired. 2. Task-based conflict: • Competing strategy when project stakeholders have little power or influence • Collaboration strategy when project stakeholders have fair power or influence and there is sufficient time to resolve the conflict. • Compromise strategy when project stakeholders have fair power or influence and there is less time to resolve the conflict. 3. Process-based conflict: • Competing strategy when the steps in the process are mandated. • Compromise strategy when the steps are general guidelines and not mandated. If DoD hires you as a consultant to perform the post-project analysis of LAMP-H, what recommendations would you make especially in regard to controlling this project in order to avoid termination? Post project analysis means identification of various reasons which led to failure of
Gina Blair and Daniel Trent cooperate and collaborate to achieve a common objective throughout their negotiation. A cooperative negotiation style is demonstrated as they combine their points of view regarding their clients concerns with outcomes to effectively solve the issues raised. The main focus of the negotiation is to reach an agreement rather than a continuous dispute. Accordingly, the conflicting objectives were resolved by compromises and solutions but forward by both Gina and Daniel. The negotiation style used between Gina and Daniel is described as principled negotiation where both parties jointly attack the problems arising to achieve a compromise.
The negotiators in these situations should mainly on the integrative bargaining. It means that negotiator should arrange a face to face meeting for both the parties by motivating them to practice integrative barging so that they can use the conflict strategy management to innovate positive solutions rather than dysfunctional conflicts. The negotiator should focus mainly on problem solving, compromising, smoothing and finding solutions. Motivating both the parties for a face-to-face meet is done so that, they can identify the problem and resolve it by an open discussion. Each team should give up something so that they can come to an agreement. The negotiator should use smoothing technique by reducing the conflicts while stressing common interests between both the teams. By compromising and smoothing both the parties should know about their common interests and goals and should create a shared goal. Once the negotiator make them realize that they need each other for achieving their goals, integrative positions solutions will be obtained instead of dysfunctional
Collaborating is another technique used to resolve conflict .Managers pair up with each other to achieve both of their goals in this style. This is how managers break free of the win-lose paradigm and seek the win –win. This can be effective for complex scenarios where managers need to find a novel
Disagreements are unavoidable in any business. A humble stage of disagreement can be helpful in creating enhanced thoughts and approaches, stimulating apprehension and resourcefulness, and motivating the appearance of long-suppressed tribulations. Conflict resolution approach must intend at keeping disagreement at a stage at which different thoughts and viewpoints are completely voiced but uncreative conflicts are discouraged. Encouragement of conflict situations is suitable if the project leader recognizes circumstances of 'group-think.' Group-think is a circumstance where disagreement hardly ever occurs because of high-minded group unity, which results in poor choices and insufficient production. Group-think conquers when there are a large number of members in a group that just agree with anything, with the outcome that there is no grim assessment of the circumstances and innovative thoughts are not recommended. Group members connect larger significance to status, stillness and calm in the group relatively than to procedural capability and capability. Members are unwilling to voice their impartial outlook in order to shun away from offending the
In team settings, individual team members generally handle conflict in five key ways as identified in an adaptation of the Thomas-Kilman Conflict Inventory (1976): Avoidance, Accommodation, Competition, Compromise, and Collaboration. All five conflict styles can be both beneficial and/or costly to individual and team success. It can also be argued that all five conflict styles may be useful to resolve conflicts under certain circumstances. Please review the five conflict styles listed below:
At this milestone of the project, I could have pushed the issue of the major change proposed by the Philippine Army, this new problem affected; project scope management, project time management, project time management, project human resources management, project risk management and project stakeholder management. However, the “Internal Customer” would have been upset and made life difficult on
Projects are used today as a way of achieving a variety of outcomes in local or international locations for new constructions, new product development, product improvement, process design, process improvement, utility installation, theory and technology development, and many more. Bringing a project to a successful conclusion requires the integration of numerous management functions like controlling, directing, team building, communication and others. It also requires cost and schedule management, technical and risk management, conflict and stakeholder 's management, and life cycle management.
Gray, C. F. & Larson, E. W. (2008). _Project Management: The Managerial Process_. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hills Companies, Inc.
It occurs in profit or non profit organizations, government sectors, dealing among nations and also in our personal situations such as salary package, house purchase, marriage, divorce and etc. The strategy to use can either be distributive or integrative depending on the situations and the outcomes that the party want out from the negotiation.
Each person has a characteristic personality. Such a style reflects our unique wants, needs, and values. In conflicts, there are specific global patterns that can be identified that are reflective of how individuals deal with such challenges. These global patterns consist of five approaches to conflict management: Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Avoiding, and Accommodating.
In this paper, we will take a look at two characteristics of the project leader. One central characteristic is the power of the project leader (e.g., Brown & Eisenhardt, 1995). By powerful leaders we mean those project leaders with significant decision-making responsibility, organization wide authority, and high hierarchical level (e.g., Brown & Eisenhardt, 1995). Those leaders are highly effective in obtaining resources such as more personnel and larger budgets
The Telstar scenario describes a conflict with multiple failings. First and foremost, the decision come to at the end of it resulted in the project creating a faulty product. Secondly it reduced the relationship between the Structures Manager (SM) and the Project Manager (PM). It appears that neither party tailored conflict management techniques to the conflict.
· Yield to principle but not to pressure: A collaborative negotiation quickly falls apart if the buying organization compromises on this guideline. Once the buying company yields to pressure from its sales opponents to focus solely on price, the positive atmosphere essential to collaborative negotiations quickly evaporates.
The first conflict type is functional conflict in which team members have different ideas and opinions for one issue and end up with the positive result to both parties. They brought up two different solutions and solve those issues together by face to face until acceptance and respecting for differences. Their aim is to explore and resolve the problems mutually and make it an opportunity for the company
Every project involves many different processes, tasks, and planning. Each project will involve some level of procurement risk associated with contracts. The procurement management process will need to be determined. In order to have a successful team the administrative and behavioral aspects will need to be addressed. Once these are addressed some team development strategies will need to be employed to increase the characteristics of an effective team. Once an effective team is gathered a communication strategy will need to be implemented. All of these piece must align to aid in the project management process.