Conflict and impediment resolution - Managing conflict

Learning Outcomes

After reading this article, you will be able to identify common sources of project conflict, select and apply effective conflict resolution strategies, and recognize the project manager’s responsibilities for addressing impediments and team blockers. You will know how to analyze conflict scenarios, intervene appropriately, and maintain a positive team environment, including in agile settings.

PMP Syllabus

For PMP, you must be confident in managing conflict and team impediments. For revision, focus on the following points:

• Understand typical causes of project and team conflict (e.g., schedules, resources, priorities).
• Recognize the stages of conflict and the escalation process.
• Know and distinguish between resolution strategies: collaborating, compromising, forcing, smoothing, and withdrawing.
• Analyze the project manager’s role in diagnosing, addressing, and resolving conflict.
• Identify impediments and blockers, and outline the project leader’s duty to prioritize and remove them.
• Encourage psychological safety, ground rules, and team agreements to reduce conflict.

Test Your Knowledge

Attempt these questions before reading this article. If you find some difficult or cannot remember the answers, remember to look more closely at that area during your revision.

1. Which project factor most often causes conflict among team members?
   1. Personality differences
   2. Schedules and priorities
   3. Physical workspace
   4. Customer requirements
2. When must a project manager use a forcing/directing style to resolve conflict?
   1. When a quick legal or safety-critical decision is needed
   2. When team morale is low
   3. When consensus cannot be reached on a minor issue
   4. When a project sponsor is unavailable
3. In an agile environment, who is responsible for removing blockers and impediments to team progress?
   1. Product owner
   2. Project manager, scrum coach, or servant leader
   3. Sponsor
   4. Team members only

Introduction

Conflict and team blockers are a normal part of project delivery—especially when teams tackle deadlines, compete for resources, or encounter opposing priorities. Managing conflict and rapidly resolving impediments are critical skills for every project manager and servant leader. Your ability to select the right strategies and support a constructive team culture is directly tested on the PMP exam.

Sources of Conflict in Projects

Most conflict on projects arises not from personalities but from disagreements around:

• Schedules, milestones, and task order
• Allocation of scarce resources
• Competing project priorities
• Technical decisions or approaches
• Differences in procedures or processes
• Only rarely: personalities and interpersonal style

Key Term: Conflict
A situation where differences in objectives, actions, opinions, or resources lead to disagreement affecting team performance or relationships.

Stages of Conflict and Escalation

Conflict can develop at any stage but is most frequent during project planning, change periods, and when roles or responsibilities are not well defined. When simple disagreements are left unresolved, they can escalate through direct confrontation, stakeholder complaints, or even project delays.

Conflict Resolution Approaches

Project leaders and teams use several strategies for efficient conflict resolution. The PMP exam expects you to match the approach to the situation:

Key Term: Conflict Resolution Approach
The method selected by a project leader or group to resolve differences and restore team alignment toward project objectives.

• Collaborating (Problem Solving): Both sides openly discuss and resolve issues, aiming for a win‑win outcome by addressing root causes. This is preferred when time allows.
• Compromising (Reconciling): Each side gives up some demands. Results in a solution everyone can accept but may not be ideal for all parties; often a short‑term fix.
• Withdrawing (Avoiding): One or both parties step back or postpone the issue. Useful when the conflict is low‑priority or more information is needed. Chronic avoidance lets problems grow.
• Smoothing (Accommodating): Differences are downplayed to maintain peace, but core issues remain. This is a short‑term peace strategy.
• Forcing (Directing): One party imposes a solution using authority. Essential for urgent legal, compliance, or safety matters, but may damage relationships.

Key Term: Emotional Intelligence
The ability to recognize, assess, and manage one’s own emotions and those of others, to guide thought and action toward effective team interactions.

Key Term: Psychological Safety
A team climate where individuals can raise concerns, propose ideas, or admit mistakes without fear of ridicule or retaliation.

Exam Warning

The PMP exam commonly presents scenarios where “collaborating” or “problem solving” is the best answer unless the issue is urgent or safety/legal‑critical. Always consider urgency, risk, and impact before choosing a strategy.

The Project Manager’s Responsibilities

Project managers are expected to:

• Accurately diagnose the source of conflict—separating facts from assumptions, and issues from personalities.
• Encourage direct, fact‑based communication between those involved.
• Step in when conflict affects team performance, deadlines, or the project climate.
• Use emotional intelligence to listen actively, remain non‑defensive, and de‑escalate tension.
• Escalate the issue only if normal team‑level resolution fails or if blockers threaten major deliverables.

Team leaders should define clear ground rules and agreements to minimize avoidable conflicts.

Key Term: Impediment
Any unresolved issue, external dependency, or condition that directly blocks a team’s work or threatens project delivery.

Key Term: Servant Leadership
A leadership model where the project lead focuses on serving the team by removing obstacles, supporting growth, and creating conditions for self‑organization.

Impediments, Obstacles, and Blockers

Impediments are anything that slows or halts project progress. These might include:

• Waiting for approvals or information
• Resource shortages or technical failures
• Skill gaps or unavailable training
• Bureaucracy or slow‑moving processes
• Decision bottlenecks outside the team’s control

Agile teams raise blockers during daily standups. In both agile and predictive settings, the project manager (or scrum coach/servant leader) is expected to track, prioritize, and resolve or escalate impediments.

Blocker Removal in Agile Environments

Agile or hybrid teams rely on daily standups to surface blockers. The servant leader or scrum coach acts as a “diversion shield”—shielding the team from distractions and resolving issues the team cannot address internally. Unresolved critical blockers are quickly escalated to sponsors or functional managers.

Building a Positive Team Culture

Conflict is reduced in teams that value psychological safety, transparency, and trust. Keys include:

• Defining ground rules for communication, meetings, and decision‑making.
• Agreeing on how disagreements are raised and resolved.
• Creating space where team members can admit mistakes, raise problems, and ask for help without blame.

Key Term: Ground Rules
Agreed behaviors and norms established by the team to guide conduct, communication, and conflict management throughout the project.

Prioritizing and Removing Impediments

Not all blockers have equal impact. The project manager or servant leader should:

1. Determine which impediments are most critical to delivery.
2. Remove (or escalate) blockers in priority order, acting quickly on those affecting high‑risk tasks or critical paths.
3. Continually reassess the team environment for new or recurring obstacles.

Worked Example 1.1

A senior tester disagrees with a developer over a feature's design. The team is split and deadlines are at risk. What should the project manager do?

Answer: Bring both parties and relevant team members together, clarify the facts, listen to each side, and facilitate a collaborating session to find a solution that meets both technical standards and schedule needs, documenting any agreed change.

Worked Example 1.2

Three team members report at the morning standup that unresolved IT permissions are blocking progress. This has been raised for two days with no progress. What does the scrum coach do next?

Answer: Escalate the blocker immediately to the IT owner or sponsor and update relevant stakeholders on the expected resolution time. Adjust the sprint focus or timeline as needed until the access is restored.

Revision Tip

When reviewing a scenario, always ask: “What is causing the conflict? Is it schedules, resources, priorities, or something else?” Address facts before personalities. For blockers, identify which are critical and act quickly—delays can disrupt team output and morale.

Key Point Checklist

This article has covered the following key knowledge points:

• Conflict is most commonly rooted in schedules, priorities, or resource allocation—not personality.
• The preferred resolution strategy is collaborating/problem solving, unless urgency, risk, or authority dictates otherwise.
• Project leaders must assess, intervene appropriately, and model emotional intelligence in conflict situations.
• Impediments should be logged, prioritized, and removed rapidly by the project manager, servant leader, or scrum coach.
• Team ground rules and psychological safety arrangements help prevent or de‑escalate conflicts.
• Agile and hybrid teams raise blockers in daily standups; servant leaders act as diversion shields.

Key Terms and Concepts

• Conflict
• Conflict Resolution Approach
• Emotional Intelligence
• Psychological Safety
• Impediment
• Servant Leadership
• Ground Rules