Project Management

8. Managing Project Conflict

Week 8
Q
Why is learning about conflict management relevant?

A
To help develop and facilitate leadership, team building,
performance management, and conflict management skills in an IT
environment
Required reading:
Darling, J., & Walker, W. (2001).
Effective conflict management.
Leadership and Organization
Development Journal, 22 (5), 230-
242. Retrieved February 10, 2006
from:
http://faculty.business.utsa.edu/dwalz/Cl
asses/S2003PhD/Articles%5CMISQ%20Barki%
202001.pdf

Recommended reading:
Cadle & Yeates,
2004, Ch 23.
Nature of Conflict

Responding to Conflict

Handling Grievances

Emotional Stress
Nature of Conflict

Responding to Conflict

4
Handling Grievances

Emotional Stress
Conflict

Conflict is a form of relating or

interacting where we find ourselves
(either as individuals or groups) under
some sort of perceived threat to our
personal or collective goals.
These goals are usually to do with our
interpersonal wants. These perceived
threats may be either real or imagined
(Condliffe, 1991, p3).
Sources of Conflict
(Bisno)

Project Sources of Conflict

(Thamhain & Wilemon)
 Sources of Conflict
(Bisno)

Biosocial
Personality and interactional
Structural
Cultural and ideological
Convergence
Bisno’s Sources of Conflict
(Condliffe, 1991, p6)
 Sources of Conflict
(Bisno)

Biosocial
Personality and interactional
Structural
Cultural and ideological
Convergence
 Sources of Conflict
(Bisno)

Biosocial
Personality and interactional
Structural
Cultural and ideological
Convergence

Project Sources of Conflict

(Thamhain & Wilemon)

Project schedules
Project priorities
Workforce
(Nicholas, 2001, p519)
(Nicholas, 2001, p519)
Components of
Conflict
Components of Conflict

Values: ideas and feelings about right and wrong (difficult to resolve)
Components of Conflict

Interests: things that motivate eg. managers and workers have different
interests
Components of Conflict

Emotional: feelings that accompany human interactions eg. anger, fear,

reject, and loss
Components of Conflict

When you have to deal with conflict

tackle the emotional issues first
then address values and interests

Emotional: feelings that accompany human interactions eg. anger, fear, reject, and loss
Interests: things that motivate eg. managers and workers have different interests
Values: ideas and feelings about right and wrong (difficult to resolve)
Consequences of conflict
Good Consequences
of Conflict
increased creativity
It forces people to clarify their views
 It can produce
constructive social change
It gives people the
opportunity to test
their capacities
development of group and
organization cohesion
Bad Consequences of
Conflict
Violence
breakdown of relationships
polarization of views into static positions
A breakdown of
collaborative ventures
 destruction of
communication
Groupthink
Groupthink

Groupthink is a tendency for strong conformity pressures within

groups to lead to the breakdown of critical thinking and encourage
premature acceptance of questionable decisions
Lack of conflict is a sign of over conformity.
It is unhealthy when there is no conflict
 You need
diversity of
opinion
Consequences of conflict
Nature of Conflict

Responding to Conflict

3
Handling Grievances

Emotional Stress
Conflict Handling Styles
Avoiding
Compromise
Competition
Accommodation
Collaboration
Which conflict handling
style will you use?
Which conflict handling
style will you use?

Project Managers may have a preferred

style for managing conflict
Which conflict handling
style will you use?

Project Managers may have a preferred

style for managing conflict

You should use different styles depending

on the problem – and get there by using
your ability to read situation
 avoiding

compromise

competition

accommodation

collaboration
 Avoiding

Characteristics When to use

• ignoring conflicts and hoping
they’ll go away
• putting problems under
consideration or on hold
• use of secrecy to avoid
confrontation
• appeal to bureaucratic rules
• Trivial, small/unimportant
issue
• no perceived chance of
resolution
• To allow a cool down period
• To allow others to resolve the
situation
 Compromise

Characteristics When to use

• negotiation • goals are important, but not worth effort
• looking for deals and • opponents with equal power are committed
trade-offs to mutually exclusive goals
• finding satisfactory or • achieve temporary settlements to issues
acceptable solutions • arrive at solutions under time pressure
• back-up to collaboration or competition
 Competition

Characteristics When to use

• create win-lose • quick, decisive action is vital, very
situations important
• use of power plays • unpopular actions eg. cost cutting
• forcing submission • issues are vital to company welfare
• against people who take advantage of non-
competitive behavior
 Accommodation

Characteristics When to use

• giving way • find you are wrong
• submission and • issues more important to others than yourself
fulfillment • maintain cooperation
• build social credits for later on
• minimize loss
• harmony and stability are important
• allow team members to learn from their mistakes
 Collaboration

Characteristics When to use

• problem-solving carriage
• tackle differences
• sharing ideas and information
• seeing problems and conflicts as
challenges
• find an integrative solution when
both sets of concerns are
important
• objective is to learn
2 Methods for Resolving Conflict in a team
• Role Clarification Technique (RAT)
• Intergroup Conflict Resolution
Role Clarification Technique (RAT)
This is a systematic procedure which involves all team members
understanding the requirements of their of own and everyone
else's position, duties and expectations

You’ll need to clarify roles for team and individuals; for example
via questionnaires (or for project teams - RAM matrices!)
Intergroup Conflict Resolution

Each group should prepare list of what they would like the other
groups to start doing, stop doing, and continue to do.

This list narrows he scope of the dispute and makes it easier to work
on the core problems.
Nature of Conflict

Responding to Conflict

Handling Grievances

Emotional Stress 2
What is a Grievance?
A grievance is any behaviour or action of another member or
members of a team, which has or is likely to have an unreasonable
negative impact on the ability of a team member to undertake their
duties
Most grievances are never raised with management

Why?
Our complaints Lack of trust
are trivialized

No action
gets taken! They only take
defensive
action
What you should do?
Listen

Discuss

Plan
Nature of Conflict

Responding to Conflict

Handling Grievances

Emotional Stress 1
Stress
What is Stress?

A pattern of emotional states and physiological reactions occurring

in situations where individuals perceive threats to their important
goals that they feel unable to meet

(Greenberg & Baron, 1993, p257).

 Effects of Stress

 Physical illness
 Lack of sleep
 Reduction in task performance
 Poor quality decision making
Causes
Causes of
of Stress
Stress in
in Projects
Projects

Long hours
Tight schedules
Transient work force
High risks
Work overload
Role uncertainty
Social relations
A Stress Survey

How many of these for you

in the last year?
(Greenberg & Baron, 1993, p238)
Stress Management

1. Organizational Level

2. Individual Level
Stress Management at
the Organizational
Level
setting reasonable work plans
and schedules

delegating responsibility and

increasing independence

clarifying responsibilities,
authority, and performance
criteria

clarifying goals, procedures, and

decision criteria

giving consideration and

support in leadership
Stress Management
for the Individual

stress management program

relaxation training

diversions from work-related

problems
 Review
1. Conflict is the opposition of people or forces that develops into an
aggressive state or action.
2. Sources of IT project conflict includes; schedules, priorities and
workforce issues.
3. Conflict can be good and bad.
4. Conflict handling styles include; avoiding, compromise,
competition, accommodation, and collaboration.
5. Grievance handling strategies include; listen, discuss, and plan.
Not dealing with grievances can be harmful to projects.
6. Work environment improvements and reducing stress is essential
to a team’s health and the success of the project.
 References
Condliffe, P. (1991). Conflict management – A practical guide. Collingwood,
Vic.: RMIT.
Greenberg, J. & Baron, R. (1993). Behavior in organizations (4th ed.). Syd.,
NSW: Allyn and Bacon.
Nicholas, J. (2001). Project management for business technology – Principles
and practice (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
 Photo credits

Photos come care of Flickr, CC and generous

community members.
Most photo credits are in the notes section of the
page itself. Some are below.

Steve9091 Karthik kodama Helico James Gordo assbach orionoir bfick bootload Destinys Agent BryonRealey
_uncommon
Sudhir n
 BetterProjects.net

Title page pic care of Helico & CC @ Flickr