The mediation approach for project managers

The mediation approach avoids two types of costs that could impact the project:

• the financial cost of missed objectives or poor-quality deliverables. Indeed, any rework required can be very costly, and could jeopardize the project's profitability.

• the psychological cost: ongoing conflicts will eventually affect the equilibrium of the people concerned.

The stress resulting from conflict can cause psychological problems. In extreme cases, these can be similar to those experienced by victims of trauma due to violent events.

The psychological cost is more difficult to measure than the financial one, but the result is generally lower performance, not to mention the damage suffered by the people concerned.

The advantage of the mediation approach for the project manager is therefore to prevent conflicts from degenerating into confrontations detrimental to individuals and to the progress of the project. Generally speaking, successful mediation saves a considerable amount of time, as conflict often diverts team members from their priority tasks. The result is a general drop in productivity.

The mediation approach enables the project manager to ensure that :

• The problem between two stakeholders cannot be generalized to the whole project.

• The people involved have a chance to put an end to the conflict.

• Project objectives will have little or no impact on the conflict.