Application of the Principled Negotiation Process

Application of the Principled Negotiation Process
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Organization Identification and the Issue
Planning activities are executed to ensure the organization develops resource requirements for activities and then achieves such needs by leveraging resources via firing, subcontracting, and hiring. Scheduling the allocation of existing resources to projects determines the initiation and completion times of different activities. Interrelationships between individuals and projects can result in conflicts. In this context, the project manager's prominent role is in integrating and coordinating project activities (Ibraheem, 2018). For this analysis, the company to be evaluated will generally be termed "the organization." The functional manager is responsible for defining the project tasks, who will perform the activities and the technical criteria of the tasks. Moreover, the functional manager is responsible for offering qualified and sufficient resources to execute project activities as well as achieve the objectives within the resources and project constraints. A lack of effective scope statements and good up-front planning will likely result in resource-associated issues and problems. For example, project managers are mandated to collaborate with other managers to ensure the successful completion of the project. In contrast, functional managers have different priorities, objectives, and goals than project managers, which can result in conflicts when getting the job completed (Project Management Institute, 2018). This paper discusses applying a principled negotiation approach for a hypothetical business organization based on applying the four elements, defining the respective parties' interests, reaching a shared solution, and delineating a practical BATNA.
Application of the Four Elements of Principled Negotiation
The four elements of principled negotiations used to address this conflict include (a) separating the managers from the problem, (b) focusing on interests instead of their positions within the organization, (c) generating different alternatives to settle the misunderstanding, and (d) emphasizing that the agreement be anchored on objective criteria (Burack & Uretsky, 2018). Regarding separating the project managers and the functional managers from the resources’ allocation issue, both parties needed to understand the other's perspective. The parties tried to put themselves in the other's place. In this vein, each party tried to propose the appropriate resource allocation approach amid the uncertainties. In addition, both parties recognized and allowed each other to express their frustrations with the disagreement concerning the allocation of resources (Fisher et al., 2011).
In order to reach a reasonable agreement, the project and functional managers emphasized the factors that influenced them to take different stances concerning resource allocation. As a project manager, it is necessary to identify resources that correspond to the project's needs and allocate them effectively. This interest derives from the fact that the project cannot be started without resources and, thus, the need to contract services from outside vendors. On the other hand, the functional manager's interest emanates from the need to prevent outsourcing of work or resources, which could result in the underutilization of organizational capacity (Fisher et al., 2011). In this vein, both parties explained and persuaded each other to embrace their interests while remaining open to divergent positions and proposals (Hak & Sanders, 2018).
In the third phase of principled negotiation, both parties created an informal atmosphere and brainstormed potential solutions to the resource allocation problem. Through such discussions, the parties created partial solutions to the resource allocation issue based on shared interests while avoiding the win-lose trap (Hak & Sanders, 2018). Since each party had unique interests, it is necessary to seek options where such differences could become complementary or even compatible. Regarding objective criteria, the project and functional managers ensure their decisions are anchored on reasonable g...