Negotiation Models for Managing Projects: a Review

Negotiation is a notion that is becoming more and more prevalent in our societies. Negotiation can be met at a personal, business or even international level. Although the international literature over negotiation is unlimited, the negotiation concept has not been studied very systematically under the scope of project management. In the context of projects, negotiation is a method to resolve conflicts of project stakeholders. Usually, project stakeholders have controversial interests, requirements, goal, needs and expectations and so conflicts are raised. Since conflicts are inevitable during the life-cycle of a project, therefore there is a need to apply techniques in order to manage and resolve conflicts appropriately. The most preferred technique for resolving project stakeholder’ conflicts is negotiation. Most times the involved parties in a negotiation situation behave intuitively. However, experts in negotiation underline that it is critical for parties to understand the process of negotiation and act systematically in order to craft better agreements. Therefore, this paper analyses the existing negotiation models that could apply in the context of projects and offers systematically approach in project negotiations. Furthermore, examines the determinants that every model uses and highlight their common determinants. Discussion haggling over the hypothesis of a common model of managing negotiations in the context of projects.