I recently cleared my PMP exam last month! Phew! A pretty good feeling that … and lots of good stuff to learn..

Now, one of the key elements of project management as I learnt (theoretically!) is to effectively manage conflicts within the team. Not that I have not been exposed to conflicts (actively or passively), but this was a situation wherein I really had to step in and resolve the conflict;

which otherwise could prove detrimental to the project I was leading.  Little did I realize that what I learnt in studying for PMP will come in handy so soon. I don’t know how many of you actively and consciously deal with such situations. Such active involvement in resolving conflicts was definitely a first for me, and it was nice learning experience.

Situation

I operate a multi-vendor team and recently brought a new vendor to join our team. With some folks moving out of the current team, the incumbents from one vendor were supposed to transition out to the team members from the new vendor. Not only was transition of duties / knowledge expected,  but also some amount of hand-holding during the ongoing work. Add another dimension to the multi-vendor setup – few of the vendors were direct competitors in the market in their industry. Members of the new team starting complaining to me of “perceptions” of high-handedness,  non-cooperation, rude behaviour, etc etc. Now initally, I kind of disregarded this as the initial “storming” phase of the team, but then I could see that the new members were getting or letting themselves get very affected. And though, the first rule of thumb is to let the conflict participants resolve the conflict themselves, I realised that it was time for Level 2 action.

So what’s important

The key to resolving conflict, as they say, is to confront the problem and identify and solve the root cause of the conflict. This is called the problem solving technique (the most advised technique to use)

So how did I approach the problem

a) First got over my nerves to tackle the situation. Mind you its never easy to solve a problem which involves human emotions:)

b) Second, I heard both sides of the story to make sure I had an accurate understanding of where each party was coming from

c) Thirdly, after I had understood all sides to the story, and  I was convinced that the situation was not that serious after all,

- I got the parties to the conflict into the same room,

- laid open the situation to them,

- described each party’s story to ensure that everyone had a common understanding of where each party stood

- got the parties to talk to each other and clear up the air of mis-understandings between them

Conclusion

As it turned out, mis-communication was the root cause of the problem.  Duh! such an easy solution, yeah! But the tougher part is to “confront” the situation; take it up by the scruff of its neck and deal with it. That’s what is tough about these things.

So what happened? Since the two parties were still not into frequent “talking” mode, there were lots of assumptions being made about each other and fleeting sentences here and there were construed to be commitments, which when not honored led to further misunderstanding. And the situation kept turning muddier, till I intervened . . .

I am not sure if I have solved the conflict entirely, but what I am sure of is that at least the mis-understandings have been addressed and that the team will work on ensuring that communication / information exchange is upto the mark . . . an integral element when working in multi-vendor teams/setup