CHECKLIST CONFLICT ANALYSIS

How do you conduct conflict resolution talks?

This checklist helps you prepare for conflict resolution meetings to cover all aspects of the conflict.

Matter in dispute

• To what extent do the parties know the issues of the other side?
• How are they, in the experience of the parties, interconnected?
• How strongly are the parties focused on the topics?
• Do the matters in dispute relate more to the matter at hand or to the personal level?

Conflict progress

• How did the conflict arise?
• How did the conflict develop?
• How is the conflict maintained?
• What do the conflict parties experience as critical moments in the course of the conflict?

Conflict parties

• Who is involved in the conflict? (individuals, groups)
• Who are the key figures of the conflict parties?
• What is the relationship between the representatives and their own backgrounds?
• Are the parties clearly delineated from each other?
• What roles are there within the conflict parties?

Positions and relationships

• What formal and informal positions do the individual parties take?
• What sanctions do the parties use to achieve the behaviour that meets their expectations?
• What has each party done to break out of this pressure of expectation?
• Can behaviour patterns be observed at meetings between the parties which do not occur when dealing with other persons or groups?

The parties’ attitude to the conflict

• How do the parties perceive their overall situation?
• Do the parties generally regard conflicts as undesirable and harmful or as positive, as an impulse for social change?
• How do the parties to the conflict assess the hoped-for results and the commitment required to achieve them?
• What attitudes do the parties have to the previous attempts at conflict resolution or to the existing conflict regulators?

The organization as conflict potential

• Is the core task of the organisation clear?
• Are there guiding principles, strategies and programmes with which the general goals and values can be concretised?
• To what extent are corporate policy and strategy accepted?
• Are the different organizational units clear for the employees?
• What is the meaning of power, status, prestige, career?
• What is characteristic of the working atmosphere?
• How does the organization take into account the development interests of its employees?
• Which mutual or one-sided dependencies result from the tasks and distribution of competences?
• How do people accept that?
• How are the processes planned and controlled?
• What dependencies result from this?
• How do people feel about it?
• Where do the physical means require a separation, where it should not be for operational reasons?

Attempts at conflict regulation that have already been undertaken

• Why are/have the existing conflict regulators not been used?
• What are the benefits of the conflict for the parties?
• What do they expect from a continuation of the confrontation?
• What do they think they’ll lose if they communicate with the enemy?
• What kind of mission are you ready for?
• Are they determined to accept psychological tensions in order to arrive at a fundamental clarification of the situation?
• What attitudes do the parties have to the previous attempts at conflict resolution or to the existing conflict regulators?
• What have the parties themselves already done to work constructively on the conflict?
• How have these efforts at conflict resolution affected the further course of the conflict?
• Do the parties to the conflict regard the conflict as solvable, or have they lost all hope?
• Do they actively or passively stand by their conflict?

Source: Glasl, Konfliktmanagement, Verlag Freies Geistesleben, 9. AL. 2009, further developed by Coverdale Austria