Conflict Resolution Strategies ⚔️

A four-step framework to resolve conflicts

As an Engineering Manager, there's one thing you want to avoid at all costs: unresolved conflicts.

I learned that the hard way.

Early in my career, I believed that conflicts should be resolved independently by the individuals involved. This approach led to losing great team members and putting entire projects at risk.

Those experiences taught me the importance of conflict resolution, prompting me to develop these essential skills actively.

So, in today’s newsletter, this is what we are going to cover:

1. ❓ What is conflict — and why does it arise in engineering teams.

2. 🔍 How to recognize — the conflict in its early stages, to help timely resolution.

3. 🔬 How to identify — involved parties and root causes.

4. 🤝 How to solve — the conflict by choosing the appropriate resolution style.

5. 🔭 How to monitor — the situation to avoid relapses.

6. 💡 Final tips — a final list of simple ideas coming from my experience.

Let’s dive in!

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❓What is conflict?

Conflicts in professional settings are about situations where team members have differing opinions, goals, or approaches regarding work or communication.

This is just normal. Like in any group setting, these conflicts arise from the interplay of different personalities, skills, and roles.

Now, from my observation, conflicts in engineering teams usually arise from the big five reasons:

1. 🛠️ Technical disagreements — probably the most frequent. This is when team members have different views on solutions, practices, or implementation of technologies.

2. 📊 Resource allocation — disagreements over allocating limited resources like time, budget, or people.

3. 🔗 Interdependence — engineering projects require collaboration among various specialists. The nature of collaboration means that decisions and actions by one individual or group can significantly affect the outcomes of others, sometimes leading to conflicts.

4. 🗣️ Communication — poor communication can lead to misunderstanding and conflicts, especially in large or geo-distributed teams.

5. 🤝 Personal style and values — differences in work style, personal values, or professional ethics can lead to conflicts. For example, a conflict might arise between team members who value rapid innovation vs those who prioritize thorough, risk-averse approaches to problem-solving.

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🩺 How to deal with conflicts

Over the years, I have met many conflicts. Initially, I approached them with a bit of improvisation, but eventually, I developed a structured framework that has successfully helped me manage them.

This framework is made up of four steps:

1. 🔍 Recognize — the conflict.

2. 🔬 Identify — involved parties, root cause, and conflict resolution styles.

3. 🧯 Solve — the conflict.

4. 🔭 Monitor — and follow-up.

Let's go through each of these steps.

1) Recognize the conflict 🔍

The main challenge of recognizing a conflict is to do so in its early stages, so that it’s easier to put out the fire.

These are some common signs that a conflict could be around the corner: