Risk of Disputes. My Own Research and Failures

In our project, we are using the concept of Project Mediation. The underlying principle of Project Mediation is that the project participants (meaning the main parties to the construction contract as well as key consultants and sub-contractors) contract from the outset to use mediation as a primary means of dispute resolution to manage the risk of disputes during the delivery of the project.

I happened to attend a project mediation meeting which benefitted my knowledge and understanding of contract law. Attendees were members of the consultant and the contractor teams and one project mediator from both sides.

The mediators were impartial consisting of one legal expert and one commercial expert, both with mediation training. Both teams were subject to the agreement to comply with the mediation procedure throughout the project. This, therefore, crosses contractual boundaries and allows coordination and collaboration, ensuring that parties relevant to a particular dispute may be easily brought into the project mediation process without each party having to be approached separately and asked to consider joining an ad hoc multi-party mediation (which approach could be refused).

Key to the process was a workshop or series of workshops at the commencement of the project, between all parties to the project, to explain the role of the mediators and also to familiarize the parties and the mediators with the aims of the project and the project parties and the personalities involved.

The project mediators visited the project regularly to have a working knowledge of the project and the individuals working on the project.

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This knowledge enabled them to have a chance at resolving differences before they escalate. This enabled them to build up their knowledge of the project as it progresses and they were able to use that knowledge to facilitate the mediation of disputes more effectively.

The project mediators’ role was deliberately kept flexible. This enabled the parties to approach the mediators should they believe that issues have arisen that require some form of discussion, and this can be done on a confidential basis without telling any of the other parties. The aim is to provide an immediate confidential forum for the parties to air grievances and concerns which could, if left, turn into disputes.

So I learned that Project Mediation, therefore, aims to fuse team building, dispute avoidance, and dispute resolution in one procedure

In my last job, I was working as a Project Coordinator for a media company, and I succeeded in building a strong relationship with a major client.

After joining the employer, I contacted the client to introduce myself and start the relationship-building process. However, my client advised that he was not happy with the schedule of the progress and the predecessor failed to deliver what he promised. I knew that this would be a major problem, and I wanted to successfully persuade the client to review the situation.

I scheduled a meeting with the client, highlighted my background and skills, and aimed to build a good rapport through building trust. I agreed on some shared objectives and used my negotiating skills to develop a new schedule. I admitted our faults at the start and moved the conversation forwards. Back in the office, I scheduled a meeting with the team members and skilled workers, and gained more insight into the delayed schedule, and tried to think of new ways to improve our delivery. I came up with an idea of a working group to address areas of concern.

The next meeting with the client went well, and he agreed to our plans and extend our contract by three months. During the association, I continued to strive hard and build a relationship with the client every week and contacted them on a weekly basis with updates.

After three months, the client was so pleased with the performance and how we had turned the relationship around that he extended our contract for a new project.

When addressing the issue of payment and rewards at my site, our department generated a preliminary report. Due to economic instability, the annual pay rise was frozen and some other benefits were reduced. Neither the department consulted the employees when drafting this report.

To ensure that the payment packages were still competitive, and costs were minimized, I wanted to ensure that the payment strategy was acceptable to all involved.

Due to the economic difficulties facing the organization, I held a meeting between management, trade unions, and, representatives of different departments to address the pay. I prepared a list of conflicting interests of each of these. Myself and my manager acted as mediators in the process, and I helped facilitate the meeting to reach a common agreement.

Viewpoints of all were considered and I was able to successfully facilitate a joint agreement. Even though the management was not in a position to clear the dues I managed to facilitate compromise. This prevented improper action and allowed our organization to save money. Everyone praised my efforts, thanking me for my impartial point of view. Even with the cuts in pay and rewards, we have not lost any staff, and the support from the union helped us during this difficult time. Moreover, we managed to adapt our rewards policy, looking for more input from external stakeholders.

As a consultant I will receive vast information daily from the contractor team as well as the client team. I need to identify, collect, and organize data for analysis and decision-making.

While working on the current project I was assigned the task of managing data related to offsite material and where the data was not properly contained and this information was to be passed on to the client. I started with the information available at the site and pursue leads for additional sources of information. I screened out the irrelevant and vague information kept the high-quality organize accurate data and documented the souclient’srganized the information according to the client needs.

I made notes of the delivery receipts and scanned then them with their respective numbers and collected and stored them in a proper file that can be shared across the offices This helped in reducing the risk associated with improper documentation and resulting in, saving time and cost.

Within my present role I was asked to collect information regarding the drawings and share this information with my team members. Pulling information from the drawings was a tedious task and I analyzed that I need to start with a plan of collecting information from the designer. There was no structured method for this and the designer was sending soft copies inon a cd. I had a meeting with the designers and demonstrated a storage solution where the drawings can be shared across the offices. we agreed to collate the information based on the zones of the project and each zone will be assigned a number so that it can be easily accessible further these zones were classified into types the drawings and segregated them into structural architectural and MEP drawings. This brought a solution to access the data related to drawings and we succeeded in making data available to each team member.

In my current position, we had a 6 months months performance review. I submitted the outcome in a format and was expecting a really good outcome. I had worked hard throughout the year and felt that I had met all of my targets. Nonetheless, when I went into the meeting, my performance review rating was lower than I expected, and I was really disappointed. I ponder over the situation and was not in the right frame of mind to discuss it in my initial review. I planned to have an additional meeting with my manager after I had time to think about the previous 6 months. I was able to reflect on some of the things that he had brought up in the meeting. I met with him again, established a plan of action for areas to improve, and set some specific targets to be met on a monthly basis. Every month challenged me to meet these goals and constantly examined my performance. To continue my progress, I asked for regular feedback and spent time reflecting on this in my own time. After six months, I had another review meetin and was really pleased to see that my rating was much higher. My manager was pleased with the way that I had buckled down and Netmeetin my targets, and how I had exceeded them all. He suggested that it was just a minor set-back in my performance, and made a recommendation for me to take a line management course so that I could progress in my career.