Conflicts and projects go hand-in-hand. Sometimes, differences in values, attitudes, expectations, perceptions or personalities are just too significant—disagreement goes overboard. For such cases, mediation techniques provide a way out. These offer a framework for restoring collaboration across project teams and driving value.

1. Abstract
Conflict resolution is an essential aspect of a project
manager’s role. As a technical discipline, project
management has developed over the years an array
of tools to detect and prevent resource allocation
issues; it has not focused as much on exploring
standard procedures for addressing conflicts between
parties when they arise. This paper revisits mediation
models developed as frameworks for alternative
dispute resolution in the judicial realm. It explores
how these can be best adapted to the challenge of
consistent project management. Conceived as a
primer, it offers a set of maxims and advice for the
practising project manager. It further explores how
the role of the project manager in a networked,
collaborative environment can be redefined as that of
a project mediator to optimize the participatory
process and improve collaboration.
Introduction
Project managers plan, organize and manage limited
resources to ensure the successful completion of
specific goals and objectives. As a field of practice,
project management has developed many tools to
detect and prevent resource allocation issues.
Although project governance guidelines often define
a framework for handling conflicts in case of project
failure, little research has gone into establishing
standard procedures for proactively managing
conflict between parties during a project’s lifecycle.
This lack of guidance is all the more of a paradox that
by their very nature, projects are context to conflicts
which require regular if not constant negotiations
between the parties involved. Project managers and
project directors are often expected to have the
authority and experience to arbitrate disputes that
may arise within the course of the projects they lead.
Though arbitration may work in single-entity
organizations, it becomes a complicated model to
adopt when numerous entities, departments and
personalities are involved.
Figure 1 - mediation offers an alternative to arbitration.
In this context, the expanding role of mediation in the
judicial world can serve as a new model for project
managers. A facilitated negotiation, mediation is
increasingly used as an alternative to arbitration or
adjudication in legal contexts as diverse as divorce,
collective bargaining, small claims courts or
intellectual property lawsuits. The success of
mediation as an Alternative Dispute
Resolution (ADR) procedure is, to a great extent, a
corollary of the new approaches to negotiation
Negotiation
Two parties trying to solve an issue
more control
to the parties
less control
for the parties
shorter process longer process
Mediation
Two parties with one neutral
trying to solve an issue
Arbitration
Two parties with one empowered
evaluator to solve an issue
Adjudication
Two parties with one judge
to solve an issue
Resolving conflicts:
a primer on mediation for project managers
Casey BAUER, Neil COLLINS, Keith HALL, Nicolas HANS,
Masa OTA and Gill ROEDER

2. developed over the past decades. In defining
negotiation as an opportunity for value creation and
moving away from the traditional “you win, I lose”
positional bargaining model, organizations such as
the Program On Negotiation at Harvard Law School
have helped better define the role of mediation in
legal environments. This approach proposes that
mediators minimize evaluative behaviours to focus
on assisting parties to reach durable agreements.
Manage conflicts
to unleash untapped value
The cornerstone to such facilitative conflict
resolution is the recognition that dispute between
parties represents an opportunity for value creation,
paving the way to enduring commitments.
Discovering this potential hidden value in a project
environment requires that the proper participatory
process be set-up and maintained throughout a
project’s lifecycle. To ensure that things move
forward, project managers must create a comfortable
and productive atmosphere by detecting and
diagnosing tactical behaviours, commending
productive conduct, reframing negative or neutral
statements into positives. In case of a deadlock
situation, it may help to discuss with the parties the
concept that conflicts are opportunities.
Project participants all face their own constraints in
terms of resources and priorities. From a logistics and
financial standpoint, a project manager’s role is to
ensure that the potential bottlenecks resulting from
these constraints are minimized: the constraints of
time, cost and scope are often pictured as the three
corners of a project management triangle which need
to be adequately balanced. To instate a participatory
process that can unleash hidden value, project
managers need to preserve their neutrality while
ensuring that parties are not only sufficiently
informed of available options, but also empowered
enough to explore possible solutions. As
such, neutrality, informed consent and self-
determination constitute the three corners of
a participatory process triangle which is profoundly
different from the arbitration model often adopted by
project managers.
Figure 2 – By balancing the participatory process triangle,
project managers can unleash hidden value.
Balancing such a triangle requires that project
managers establish a transparent but flexible process
that favours constructive behaviour, to promote
active listening and help parties recognize their
ability to find a solution.
Establish a flexible process
that favours constructive behaviour
To ensure that project meetings are a genuinely
participatory process, project managers need to
privilege process. In establishing clear rules of
conduct upfront, and reinforcing these as necessary,
they can ensure that discussions and agreements
guarantee clear, efficient and effective
communication between the parties. With a flexible
process—separating conflicting parties through
private caucuses, for example,—project managers
can strive to improve communications to prevent
gridlock and keep exploring possible solutions with
each party.
neutrality
self-determinationinformed consent
value creation

3. Figure 3 – By focusing on process management, project
managers can preserve their neutrality.
Purpose, Product, People and Process which are often
referred to as the Four Ps of process
management. These constitute a useful check-list for
defining clear ground rules. Remind the purpose of
the day’s meeting, elicit agreement on the
expected product or output, verify that all
the parties who need to be involved are present and
propose a process or agenda for the meeting to
provide the core framework to a productive
environment.
Depending on the level of tension between the
parties, this kick-off process can be more or less
formal. Whereas a weekly update between parties
that regularly meet may need only a rapid summary,
a meeting specifically called to handle a crisis should
be given a more explicit procedural kick-off.
Whatever the context, preliminary preparation of all
parties is essential to ensure that none of the Ps comes
as a surprise to any parties present.
In focusing on the process, project managers claim
their neutrality upfront with respect to substance, and
proactively position themselves as mediators
between conflicting parties.
Promote active listening to help parties share
their interests
Once ground rules clearly established, project
managers need to help each party expose the
constraints they face, and to ensure that their interests
are heard and understood by all other participants. At
this point, active listening becomes all the more
essential that, the higher the tension between parties,
the less they feel heard themselves and the less they
will listen to each other.
To promote a participatory process, project managers
need to lead by example and practice the empathy
loop. By inquiring, listening and reframing
arguments put forward, they not only demonstrate an
understanding of the participant’s needs but also
ensure that other participants hear the issues at stake.
In doing so, project managers can help participants
explore their respective assumptions or “ladder of
inference”. Acknowledging the other party’s
conclusions, probing to understand the logic of the
interpretation that leads them to such findings, and
exploring the data and assumptions on which they
based their analyses.
Figure 4 – Use empathy and active listening to help
parties explore their respective ladders of inference.
Empower parties to recognize their ability
to find a solution
By proactively listening to each party, project
managers help them express not only their interests
but also expand their willingness to acknowledge the
other party’s position. In ensuring that parties are
assertive and advocate their needs, project mediators
empower them and help them recognize their own
ability to find a solution, creating a context in which
parties are willing to brainstorm to explore possible
options.

4. If parties resist sharing or listening, it often proves
useful to remind them of the benefits that interest-
sharing can bring. Listening paves the way to
generating options, helps identify opportunities for
cooperation that might otherwise be lost and paves
the way to reaching an agreement.
To facilitate brainstorming in low-trust or high-
tension circumstances, project managers should
consider the use of private caucuses with each
conflicting party. By temporarily separating parties
into different rooms and sending them to neutral
corners, project managers can better facilitate the
negotiation process. They can help each participant
explore possible options more freely, away from
conflicting parties. By moving from one room to
another, project managers can relay possible options
and provide time for each party to evaluate the
legitimacy of possible solutions.
Figure 5 – Private caucuses with each conflicting party
can help explore the circle of value.
By organizing such a mediation ballet, project
managers provide a neutral sounding board to each
party. As emissaries, they can buffer and attenuate
potential tensions, as they have the chance to
rephrase the opposing parties’ interests and options.
As facilitators, they ensure that participants fully
explore the circle of value whereby conflicting
parties can better understand their respective
interests, brainstorm for possible options and
evaluate the legitimacy of selected solutions.
Conclude by formalizing commitments
Several rounds and exchanges may be necessary to
help opposing parties find common ground and
define converging options. Once one or more viable
options are identified and evaluated as legitimate by
each party, the plenary session can resume. By
summarizing possible solutions and exposing them to
the parties, project managers explicitly inform all
parties of their potential obligations and
commitments. By ensuring the informed consent of
the parties, project managers facilitate a decision that
will be durable because it has been self-determined.
Time providing, project managers should feel free to
invite parties to further brainstorm for unexplored
options. Such joint brainstorming may not only
uncover possible new solutions but also restore or
reinforce a sense of collaboration that will prove
essential to the future evolution of the project.
As mediators and beholders of the process, project
managers need to conclude by formalizing in writing
the commitments made by the parties. Although
these commitments will already be summarized in
meeting minutes and often boil down to tasks on a
project plan, project managers should consider
drafting a more formal document when a conflict
between parties has been tense. Beyond the project
team, each participant will have to advocate and
eventually defend within their departments or
organizations the commitments they will have made.
A formal document mediated by the project manager
that accurately summarizes each party’s
commitments will play a pivotal role in that process
and help ensure the durability of the adopted solution.

5. In conclusion
Project managers need to handle increasingly
networked, multi-party environments. The use of
mediation techniques initially developed in the
judicial realm of Alternative Dispute Resolution can
help them improve collaboration and optimize the
participatory process. By letting go of the arbitration
role that is often expected from them and adopting a
mediator role, project managers can focus on process
and promote their neutrality with respect to
substance.
About this paper
The original version of this article was produced for
the Program On Negotiation. It was co-authored by
Casey Bauer, Neil Collings, Keith Hall, Masa Ota,
Gil Roeder and Nicolas Hans.