All of us have, at one time or another, been involved in conflicts. These conflicts may involve not only individuals, but families, groups, or even nations. If conflicts are not managed or dealt with, they could escalate out of control causing a great deal of unexpected damage. Same is true for conflicts in project management, If they are not managed properly, they can be a huge barrier towards successful completion and delivery of the project.

There are hundreds of reasons for conflicts in project management that can stop a promising project in its tracks. Some of those reasons are mentioned in http:// https://www.orchestra-ppm.com/en/2017/11/14/5-causes-of-conflict-in-project-management/

and https://esub.com/5-types-of-conflict-in-project-management/

Group differences

Can happen when two different groups of workers don’t work efficiently due to their differences. Individuals that can’t be team players and get along with their team members make work a lot harder than it needs to be.
Individuals with group differences will slow down the flow of the project. Whether there are communication problems or a difference in personality, team members have to overcome their differences for the benefit of the project. Individuals that get along, work as a team, and set aside their differences will always finish a project faster and more efficiently than those who don’t.

Lack of communication

project management is all about communication and information to get the job done. Therefore, a lack of communication will do the most damage to a project, it can delay it by a lot of time and will increase the costs as a result. Hence, communication between team members is important. It gives the project manager the ability to oversee how the project is developing and also gives him/her insight into some of the problems happening onsite. Along with that, the project manager should communicate with each individual what needs to be done, when it needs to be done, and how he/she should go about completing it to avoid any misunderstanding, which can lead to the failure of the project.

Lack of trust and respect between team members

Besides communication, project management is also about the collaboration between team members to get things done. And, without trust and respect between team members, it is a useless attempt to collaborate together. A lack of collaboration will result in the failure of the completion and delivery of the project.

Poor leadership

Poor leadership can happen when the project manager is not performing at an optimal level and is slowing down the progress of the project. When there is poor leadership, problems such as time constraints, unclear instructions, and confusion about individual roles occur. These problems slow down the pace of the project and increase the overall costs.

Conflict disagreements

When there are conflicts on the site, people should work together to come up with possible solutions. Working together usually solves the initial conflict, but if there are differing opinions on the solution another conflict can be born. This conflict is the disagreement on what to do about the initial problem. conflict disagreements don’t happen too often, but when they do they can delay a project for a decent amount of time.

Those are some of the many conflicts that can happen between team members in any teamwork. A great project manager can resolve any conflict and bring out the best of his team to ensure successful project completion and delivery.

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1 Comment

Shaan Badlu · November 11, 2019 at 4:00 am

Awesome post Liza. I’ve definitely seen some of these conflict causes during my time at my internship. Without the use of communication, your project can be a complete mess and I believe it’s one of the key skills that needs to be learend if one is to work on a team project. It’s also probably one of the biggest conflict causes I’ve noticed when working on projects. Teams somtimes cannot let go of their ego and feel that they are always right and feel they should be a leader. Because of this, it’s evident they lack leadership skills that can lead to a project disaster which was noted in your post that it can slow down the project. Hopefully other people can see the need to prevent some of these conflicts before it becomes too late and they’re already deep into the project.

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