Negotiations - dominance or deference

An article on Negotiations by Scott Wiltermuth on HBR,  introduces why dominance and deference is critical to create a win-win situation in negotiations. Dominance can be matched with dominance derailing the negotiation leaving each party bruised. On other hand, meeting deference with deference may not reliably lead negotiators to discover the tradeoffs that create “win-win” agreements.  A very interesting read.

Importance of R.A.I.D. Log

 

Every project or a program in its life cycle will experience series of Risks, project team will have to make certain Assumptions, act on Issues and make critical decisions to remove Dependencies. It is very critical for the project manager to track these events and articulate it back to project stake-holders. Also at the end of the project it will be critical to review the RAID log, to document true lessons learnt.

Let’s understand each of these terms in context of a project.

• Risks can be defined as a potential of losing something of value as a result of an action / inaction, foreseen / unforeseen. As a project or a portfolio manager you have to help your team identify risk freely, help evaluate severity and put in place plans to mitigate the risk.

• Assumptions: In any project due to time and resource constraints project teams have to make certain assumptions to keep moving forward. If these assumptions at later date are proved to be wrong, it will require changes which may impact project cost and timeline. It is important to track these assumptions and keep stakeholders aware of critical assumptions being made.

• Issues: an event with a potential to disrupt desired outcome. Issues can be related to business processes, current designs, product limitations, or resources. It will require an action from the team to resolve the issues facing the project. Addressing the issues at hand will require project team to make certain design or business process decisions, assume risk or make assumptions. Issues and resolutions need to be tracked as it has impact on the outcome of the project.

• Dependencies: The direct or indirect reliance of one Process or Activity upon another which is currently impacting or slowing down project progress. It is critical to track dependencies and bring it to the attention of right stakeholders so a decision can be made and dependency removed.

Tracking RAID

Depending on the sophistication of a project methodology, several tools may be available for a project manager to track RIAD. On many of my projects I have used a simple Excel spreadsheet or a SharePoint List to help me in my day to day role.