Problem Solvers

Janis is an award-winning journalist and editor who has covered many industries beyond project management, including health care, financial services, higher education and retail sales.

  ProjectsAtWork  

There's no such thing as a trouble-free project or team. So be ready with strategies to resolve conflicts.

Consider this saying among salespeople: Selling doesn't start until the customer says no. A similar maxim might apply to project managers. Project management doesn't start until there's a problem to manage. Thus, one measure of project managers is the way they handle objections, obstacles and obstinate people—their conflict-resolution skills. But what constitutes a conflict?

"Conflicts can be about a jillion things, from project requirements to personalities and everything in between," says Russ Barnes, Ph.D., PMP, an independent executive project manager in Dallas. "But conflict is a temporary thing. One way or another, you can get beyond it. It's a matter of working through the process and seeing past the situation."

Improve your ability to handle conflicts head on and with a level head. Here's how:

Separate Issues From Individuals

"There is a basis of conflict that is often completely unrecognized. People think they are arguing over content, but they aren't," says Jefferson Welch, an executive advisor at The Center for Executive Options, Pasadena, Calif. "Personality differences are the cause."

So the first order of business should be sorting the facts of the conflict from the personalities engaged in it, Welch says. Doing that requires learning …

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