PMI-ACP Tools and Techniques: Soft Skills Negotiation

[PMI-ACP® Exam Study Notes] Agile Soft Skills Negotiation is one of the ten Tools and Techniques for the PMI-ACP® exam. The “Tools and Techniques” accounts for a total of 50% of all the questions to be found on the exam paper. According to the PMI-ACP® exam content outline, Soft Skills Negotiation includes Emotional Intelligence, Collaboration, Adaptive Leadership, Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, Servant Leadership.

PMI-ACP® Exam Importance: around 3-6 questions (~5% of all questions)

PMI-ACP® Tools and Techniques: Soft Skills Negotiation

The soft stuff is the hard stuff

• Though Agile Manifesto emphases “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools”, the majority of the PMI-ACP® study notes focus on processes and tools. That’s because the processes and tools are easier to describe. Soft skills are actually very important for Agile project success.
• “People” is the single most important factor that affect the success or fail of a project.
• Agile negotiation is considered as a healthy process of give and take
• Soft skills are particularly important for Agile project owing to the emphasis of face-to-face communication and co-located teams
• these skills are intended to be used in Agile coaching
• Emotional Intelligence (EQ / EI)

Self	Others
Self-Management Self-Control Conscientiousness Adaptability Drive and motivation	Social Skills Influence Inspirational leadership Developing others Teamwork and collaboration	Regulate
Self-Awareness Self-Confidence Emotional self-awareness Accurate self-assessment	Social Awareness Empathy Organizational awareness Understanding the environment	Recognize

• • The table above describes aspects of emotional intelligence EI
  • EI is the ability / skill to identify, assess, monitor and control or influence the emotions / feelings of oneself and others

  • The leader’s mood and behaviors drive the mood and behaviors of everyone else

  • Don’t let emotions take over but let emotions work for you
• Collaboration
  • collaboration = working together through effective communication, making sure all members agree, resolve conflicts, create a win-win situation and move forward with a group consensus
  • Customer collaboration and team collaboration are important for Agile projects
• Negotiation
  • “collaboration over contract negotiation”
  • communication with two or more parties to reach an agreement / resolve conflicts
  • Negotiation strategies
    • Distributive negotiation: adopt extreme positions initially and work to reach a deal through tactics on the assumption that value is limited
    • Integrative negotiation: work together to achieve something by creating more values for a win-win solution
• Conflict Resolution
  • conflict is inevitable and is good for project success when controlled
  • Stages of Conflict – try not to escalate the conflict stage
    1. Problem to solve
    2. Disagreement – with self-protection
    3. Contest – taking sides (you-vs-me)
    4. Crusade – over-generalization in judgement
    5. World War – unresolvable
  • focusing on turning conflicts into a win-win situation, often need to make use of emotional intelligence and active listening
  • conflict resolution:
    • [x] Accommodation – identify points of agreements and play down disagreement
    • [x] Avoidance – ignore the conflict
    • [x] Compromise – both sides to give up something, a lose-lose situation
    • [x] Forcing – force one side to accept something, a win-lose situation
    • Confronting – open dialogue leading to problem resolution, a win-win situation
    • Collaboration – work together for mutually consented solution
• Adaptive Leadership / Situational Leadership
  • the leader adapts how he/she leads based on the specific environment / situation in order to be most effectively, e.g.
    • the maturity stage of the team: forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning, the leader would move from high directive, low supportive (forming), then low directive, high supportive (norming) and finally low directive, low supportive (performing)
  • focusing on value-added activities instead of blindly following processes
  • openness and transparency are highly valued to facilitate communication amidst changes
• Servant Leadership
  • traditional leadership / management: command-and-control (Theory X – workers are lazy and need to be monitored closely)
  • servant leadership: leading by serving and makes sure needs of other team members are met [servant first, leader second] (Theory Y – team members are self-motivated) as development team is the one to accomplish the tasks and deliver values
  • an Agile servant leader needs to:
    • protect the team from outside distractions / interruptions
    • remove impediments to the team’s performance
    • communicate and re-communicate project vision – maintain a common vision to drive the team to perform
    • carry food and water – i.e. provide all the resources for the team to perform, including motivate the team, provide trainings

Summary: Soft Skills Negotiation

This PMI-ACP® Exam Study notes touches upon one of the many tools and techniques of the PMI-ACP® exam syllabus – Agile Soft Skills Negotiation. Soft Skills Negotiation includes Emotional Intelligence, Collaboration, Adaptive Leadership, Negotiation, Conflict Resolution, Servant Leadership.