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CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

Conflicts are part of the human's nature.

A conflict-free project is an extremely rare phenomenon. Even if rules have been agreed and contracts concluded, conflicts can arise because the various project participants almost always have different expectations of the project. Most conflicts have a significant impact on the progress of the project. If they are not addressed and resolved immediately, the conflict resolution process can be lengthy and costly because conflicts affect project performance. The project manager must therefore be aware of the causes of conflicts, be able to recognise impending conflicts and know how to resolve them.

Some reasons for conflicts are as follows: - Project stakeholders argue for a long time over a particular technical issue. - Employees are not prepared to listen to each other. - Managers sell their employees' ideas to customers or management as their own. - Affinity or antipathy towards an opinion leads to taking sides.

Conflict avoidance

To prevent conflicts, you need to look behind the scenes instead of focussing on the obvious facts. Changes during the project life cycle (e.g. team composition, customer contact) lead to changes in the working and project environment. This can also lead to conflicts. But how do you avoid conflict?

By - practising stakeholder management, - Providing important information to the right target group, i.e. an efficient reporting system, - feedback is obtained, e.g. at the end of the meeting, workshop, etc., and project reviews are carried out. - project reviews are carried out.

Even if attempts are made to recognise latent conflicts through empathy, conflicts can still occur [30].

Types of conflict

Conflicts are basically characterised by the incompatibility of actions, motives or behaviour. Different project team members may have different expectations of the project, but conflicts can also arise due to the personality or personal behaviour of those involved in the project.

The causes of conflicts therefore lie either on - the objective level (= factual level), or - the psychosocial level (= emotional level).

There are a few points that the project manager should bear in mind when dealing with these two types:

  1. Psychosocial level
  2. Is the conflict open or is it a hidden conflict?
  3. Has a network of relationships been recorded?
  4. Have the right conflict partners been identified?
  5. Have the conflict partners been profiled?

  6. Have the conflict partners been defined in the organisation chart?

  7. Objective level

  8. Has the conflict been categorised in the conflict spiral?
  9. Has it been checked whether the project manager is the right conflict manager, depending on the type of project organisation?
  10. Has the 10-point plan for conflict management been followed [31]?
  11. Has qualified advice been sought (works council, company doctor, company psychologist, mediator, arbitrator, lawyer, line manager, steering committee, etc.)?
  12. Was the conflict addressed to the right person, forwarded or escalated?