Project Pandemonium: How to Resolve Conflict and Still Deliver on Time

Some projects are like sprints, while others are more like marathons! I’m currently at a critical point in a six-month project, getting ready to go live. Throughout the project, we’ve faced various conflicts to resolve—contractual, legal, technical, and compliance issues, along with complexity due to multiple independent vendors. People have joined and left the project, and we’re a small team working across many time zones and cultures. Despite these challenges, we’ve managed to overcome them as a team.

We’ve encountered disagreements, misunderstandings, ambiguity, time and budget pressures, mental strain, technical hurdles, feeling overwhelmed by problems, and anxiety about meetings. Managing work-life balance has been a challenge, as well as figuring out how to unwind at the end of the day when the problems are still on our minds and adrenaline is still high.

It would have been easy to give up, but we didn’t. While the result isn’t perfect, it serves as a launchpad for the next stage of the program. Over the weekend, I took some time to reflect on the journey so far and the road ahead. I’m incredibly grateful for my colleagues, their patience, and their forgiveness of my many faults. I’m also thankful for the opportunity to work for a great company with a strong leadership team that is both pragmatic and asks the right questions while challenging us appropriately.

These are my reflections on resolving conflict and delivering projects across different cultures and personalities:

1. Understanding diverse viewpoints by active listening

I get that everyone sees things differently – what’s important to me might not be to someone else. It sounds simple, but it’s a big deal because everyone brings their own perspective. As a project manager, I’m all about getting stuff done on time. But for a customer, it’s just about having a smooth shopping experience, not the technical stuff. And for a visionary leader, it’s about making big dreams happen through the team.

In my job, I’m pushing for this one important feature to sell more coffee, but there are a bunch of other things that need sorting first. How do I juggle it all and still hit our deadlines? I’ve learned it’s about really understanding where others are coming from and making a solid case for why my thing matters. It’s about listening actively, not just talking.

When there’s conflict, it’s usually because people are talking past each other instead of really listening. But conflict isn’t always a bad thing – it often points to stuff we need to sort out. Every project has its problems, and I’m learning to face them head-on for better results. Even if I mess up and annoy my coworkers, I’m trying to be a better listener and communicator by putting myself in their shoes.

2. Embracing imperfections with kindness

We need to accept people as they are even with their weaknesses. We need to recognise our own strengths but more importantly our weaknesses. Everyone has blind spots and by their very nature, we don’t appreciate our foibles until someone points them out to us 🙂

This is another source of conflict in project delivery. We may see a colleague who is not performing well because of something going on outside of work. We may need to have that uncomfortable conversation with them and find out what is the problem. The natural reaction is to just be nice and overlook the problem but we need to be courageous. We need to be kind rather than nice and appropriately address the issue.

We may expect people to do things according to our standards but we have to recognise that everyone is on their own journey of learning and discovery. Our duty is to maintain the highest standard ethically and practically and lead by example to change the project for the better.

3. Dealing with unexpected consequences with agility

The combination of different local requirements (culture, language or locailisations), technology constraints, regulatory requirements creates conflict. This needs to be resolved in creative way which is often unique to the country. This requires creative thinking and agile solutions. We need everyone thinking in a constructive way to find a solution to the problem.

Sometimes things go wrong plain and simple. we mess up or others mess up, we forget to do something that needs to be done. We need to be humble and admit when we are wrong and learn from our mistakes. As well as being gracious with others when they make mistakes.

Then there are just unintended consequences that no-one forsaw from the beginning that we need to accommodate. It’s no one’s fault but we all need to make compromises to find a solution that allows the project to succeed.

Setting the right expectations

It’s hard to set the right expectations in a complex project environment with different dependencies. What is the impact of one change on another? We can use our experience and certain good principles to anticipate the problems that will come. From the mistakes of the past and knowing the capability of our teams we can make an educated guess of what needs to be done to get the best results.

But preparation is only the start, we then need to communicate that effectively to the stakeholders. Some timelines are outside of our control but we are the visible person who has to give account for the problems before us.

We need to communicate regularly what has changed and any changes in the schedule with a clear guidance on why things have changed. But also importantly take everyone on the journey so everyone feels empowered and owning the delivery. People understand if they are part of the process but can get upset when changes are not communicated effectively.

Delivering on time may not be the original time that was communicated at the start of the project, but when everyone understands how we got to where we are the conflict is resolved.

The onward journey.

So what does that mean for the onward journey? A project is just a stepping stone to a larger portfolio of projects, a business goal, a profitable customer experience. But it is a journey we can all take together, bearing with each others strengths and weaknesses so that in the end we become better more fulfilled people who have done the best with what we have. Hopefully, we have made the world a better place than how we found it, if we each do that every day then there is hope for a better tomorrow.

Further reading: “The Good Fight” – Liane Davey