Podcast episode 024: successful project management negotiation skills [28:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4512)

Show Commentary

As Zehren-Friedman Associates is quick to point out, history and literature offer many examples of persuasive but unprincipled characters - from the devil to traveling medicine men selling miracle cures to even modern day companies promising products and results that they can’t deliver.  Likewise, without principles to guide persuasion and negotiations, both the methods and the outcome of negotiations can go astray. Using principled persuasion and negotiation skills, the successful project manager recognizes and understands the legitimate needs of her counterparty, but is still able to pursue her own interests with energy and determination.  She knows that creative collaboration is a much more powerful tool than stubborn resistance, since many negotiations are best approached as problem-solving exercises rather than contests of strength and will.

Project Managers frequently need to negotiate with team members, resource managers, as well as other project stakeholders.  A project manager that is a successful negotiator will be able to achieve two goals during negotiations:

1. Get agreement between two or more parties

2. Build relationships in the process

During negotiations, project managers need to understand their own priorities as well as that of the counterparty in order to see if there are ways to meet each other’s needs.  As Joe points out during our interview, the negotiations that most project managers are involved in are not like the negotiation that takes place when you buy a car.  The people that project managers tend to negotiate with – resource managers, upper management, customers, team members, even bosses – these are the folks that you work with or you will see again in the future.

If ultimately you want to build relationships, the goal during negotiations should be to make “the pie” as big as possible for both parties.  This is what is called in negotiation-speak as “win-win”.

To be a successful negotiator, four steps need to be taken.

1.  Planning

This is the most important step in the negotiation process in order to prevent you from being caught by surprise.  What are your priorities?  What might be some alternatives that might be of value that you and your counterparty can exchange?  How are you going to “play the game?”  What are your strategies you plan on using if someone says “no” to your requests?

2.  Opening Ceremony

This step occurs when you are face-to-face with the counterparty and start the negotiation process with them.  This step helps to set the tone of the discussion.  Perhaps this could be as simple as starting with, “Hey, I need your help and I’m convinced we will be able to work something out together.”

3.  Discovery

In this step, each party creates a “shopping list” where each negotiator attempts to understand what the other party’s priorities look like.  This will give you and the other party an idea of whether there are things on each other’s shopping list that can be traded to help both parties come to a solution and “grow the pie”.

In creating the shopping list, ask the other party, “What things are important to you?” “Is there anything else that is important to you?” “Which is the highest priority to you; second highest, etc.?”  Keep probing to get a more detailed picture of what things are important to the other person.

Creative collaboration during the discovery phase helps to find solutions by removing our “blinders.”  Blinders could include doing things the same way that they have always been done or only following process or not looking beyond those things that we value.

4.  Agreement 

In this step, both parties agree to what the final solution looks like.  This could also include additional contingency planning such as, “What happens if the project falls behind and I need more of your resources to help it meet its original plan?”

Sources of Negotiation Power

Power comes in different forms in negotiation.  One source of power is the ability to grow the pie.  That is a powerful way of getting those things of value that you want.

If a resource manager has 5 different project managers asking for the same resource, that manager is most likely to work with the project manager that can provide the most benefit to her.  So, the project manager with a lot of other resource alternatives may not need to “agree to almost anything” with the resource manager in order to get resources.

For example, I have been in many situations where I needed to fill a resource need on a project with a scarce resource.  In one case I only had internal resources to select from.  I had no other choice but accept that resource at a very low allocation and with other stipulations from the resource manager in order to get them on my team at all.  In a similar situation, I needed a team resource, which was in demand, but the resource manager also knew that I had the ability to work with an outside contractor to fill the need.  That resource manager was much more willing to work with me to fill the need internally so that I would not go outside for a comparable resource.  The resource manager was willing to work with me because I had alternatives and could easily walk away from the negotiation and still have my needs met by an outside contractor.

Another source of power is “how you play the game.”  Personality and other negotiating tactics such as bluffing, stalling, and hundreds of other methods can be used in playing the game.  Some only want to “win” at any cost.  Some people play the game to win, and you need to go into a negotiation with this in mind.

Negotiation should always be considered a problem solving process between multiple parties.  Usually when this is kept in mind, negotiating goes a lot smoother for both parties and the benefits will become apparent.

Please feel free to leave us a comment or email us at show@pm411.org.  You can also reach us at our listener line at (206) 984-3665.

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