Navigating Conflict

Kenneth has 14 years of healthcare experience in government and private industry. Over eight years of experience managing healthcare IT projects, operations, contracts, and personnel. His work experience includes project management, contracts and procurements, data analysis, claims adjudication, business writing, and business process modeling. Kenneth was certified in 2006 as a Project Management Professional.

  Communications Management   Risk Management  

A project in today’s world demands that more than one person (and sometimes hundreds of people) must work together to accomplish the scope and goal of the project. If only one person is working on a project, then it is nothing more than a “to do” list--not a project. After all, what need is there for risk management, human resource management or schedule management when it is only one person working on a task? Working with teams is what enables large-scale projects to accomplish many wondrous things. Unfortunately, wherever two or more people are working together on a project or task, there is going to be conflict.

Conflicts and struggles between resources have the potential to negatively affect the project. They can destroy forward momentum, ruin morale and cause resources to leave the project. In addition, conflicts often spill over and impact people not directly involved in the situation. In certain circumstances, the conflict can throw the entire project completely off schedule. Often, the project manager is called upon to be the referee or the problem solver. That can be difficult to handle when stress is high and emotions are involved, especially if the project manager is invested or involved in the conflict. Since conflicts are a part of life on projects, though, the project manager should be ready to handle them without interrupting the entire …

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